Shawshank Redemption

In my opinion, V for Vendetta. What Evie Hammond was put through was inexcusable, but I feel like it was worth it in the end.

In a way, I think: Little Miss Sunshine.

A movie wherein everything, everything goes horribly wrong, and yet in the end you're left feeling absurdly good.

Dredd (2012) would be somewhere at the top of my list. I don't think there are too many movies nowadays that have such a classic "mission accomplished"-style ending.

The Big Lebowski.. The dude just wanted his rug back.

Vanilla Sky! It’s a mind bending movie about a lucky man’s life that many of us could only dream of. That life quickly turns into a waking nightmare when the man’s jealous lover takes her own life with him inside the moving car. His nightmare of a life then melds into an actual dream. That dream then slowly transforms into a nightmare. All the while the main character doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t.

This all leads to an absolutely spectacular cathartic release for the main character when he finally understands what’s happened to him in the last 10 minutes of the film.

Did I mention it was mind bending? One of my favorite movies by far.

Shawshank Redemption.

Fight Club

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Frodo in LOTR

My Cousin Vinny

Terry Gilliam's Brazil always does it for me. Depends heavily on which version you watch though, they're polarizing enough that you can play emotional Russian roulette with both versions.

Waking Life

Bladerunner 2049

Cast Away

In big budget movies, protagonists facing unambiguous conflict and getting a clear, concise victory peaked in the 80s and early 90s. A lot of the other movies mentioned in this topic (V for Vendetta, Dredd 2012) have serious throwback vibes. Smaller movies usually have murkier conflict.

For a given value of, “through the ringer,” Karate Kid is my answer. It’s extremely easy to empathize with both Daniel and Mr Miyagi. I appreciate some movies that absolutely destroy the protagonist, but their larger than life troubles are more difficult to empathize with earnestly. Aliens fits well, too, the oppression of a faceless corporation may be heavier now than it was even on release. The Top Gun movies fit pretty well as long as you watched the original a long time ago.

Michael Clayton

Grave of the Fireflies...but make sure to watch My Neighbor Totoro right after as intended

Seven or Man on Fire. Not what you'd call happy endings, but the movies would be ruined any other way.

Except for in Seven, if it ended in a blast of colored smoke for a gender reveal gift box. That could have been very touching. /s

Training Day, a movie about a rookie cop who gets paired with a corrupt senior on his first day who manipulates him from the beginning. ''I should have been a fireman"

Gattaca. I am not sure if you can call it an absolute ringer, but it does feel all the hard work pays off in the end.

I always found The Life Aquatic to be very cathartic.

Kung Fu Panda 2. A funny panda movie about dealing with buried trauma.

Wristcutters

The main characters go to a hell/purgatory specifically for people who've committed suicide, where no one can smile. It's not a very action-y movie, but it's one of my favorites. Also, it has Shannyn Sossamon from A Knight's Tale, so that's a plus

Definitely not Das Boot

Uncut Gems

No joke. “Sing” It’s this silly kids cover song movie, but it ends up having a wonderful consistent optimism and a brilliant payoff. It’s not an improbable massive “pulled it off” win, it’s surviving through failure and loving the act of making art so much that you keep doing it anyway. It’s joyful and a masterclass in writing a classic story arc without torturing your characters and your audience to get there.

Green Room

The original Robocop movie is an all-time favourite of mine, as far as violent revenge movies go.

It's a great blend with gratuitous violence - not to mention the story that puts the protagonist through the absolute ringer for it to all pay off in the end.

I only saw it once a long time ago so I may remember it wrong, but "It's a Wonderful Life"? I recall being surprised because as a non American I'd heard so much about it as a Christmas movie and expected that genre but when I watched it, it was incredibly depressing and I never watched it again.

Nimona