Best Closing Songs: 25 Final Tracks in Film That Made a Lasting Impression

Underworld's B-side remix with its restless pounding and joke lyrics of "babes and babes and babes and babes and babes" wasn't intended to be a hit, but it slammed up to #2 on the UK Singles Chart after scoring the end scene to Danny Boyle's 'Trainspotting,' which is really just the opening scene inside out. Junky protagonist Renton isn't ranting against "normal life" this time because that shady heroin deal money he ripped off his comparably less fortunate addict friends should fund his "normal life" quite cozily. Cue club track. Party.

Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha raps about government conspiracies to keep the people from righteous revolt while this '90s cult classic's hero Neo sends out a message of revolution to the artificial intelligence that enslaves humanity in the virtual reality of the Matrix. Talk about metaphor...

The surrealist psychological thriller ends with troubled, teen prophet Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) mastering wormhole transport and propelling himself into recent past to be at the site of a freak accident. The final montage/reveal is scored by Gary Jules's version of the Tears for Fears song, drawn out to maximum sadness.

'Wonder Boys' stars Michael Douglas as novelist, creative writing professor and marijuana hobbyist Grady Tripp, unsettled by pregnancy from an adulterous affair, complicated (read: gun-wielding) star students and, in one pivotal scene, hundreds of pages from the only copy of his new novel flying away in the wind. Of all the happy resolutions, Tripp clicking "Save" on his laptop is most climactic. There's a happy ending. "Things have changed."

Who cares if Quentin Tarantino's unsuccessful-heist-with-undercover cop classic "borrowed" intensely from 1987 Hong Kong action film 'City on Fire,' down to this tense, final Mexican standoff scene? You can't argue with genius. Bang! Bang! Bang! After gurgling with blood and guilt, Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) comes clean to Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) about being a cop and things get a little more red. Cue credits to the merry, Calypso stylings of 'Coconut' -- so wrong, yet so right.

This synth-heavy '80s anthem was written for the film that made it an international chart-topper. Steel welder/untrained-yet-phenomenal dancer Alex (Jennifer Beals) pirouettes and gyrates her heart out at the auditions to a prestigious conservatory, but leaves quickly. Who cares if she was accepted? She had a romantic freeze-frame to make!

Bowie's brooding ballad blasts in at the credits of Paul Schrader's cult flick starring Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell as rabid, incestuous werepanthers... It's a niche film, ok? Enter soundtrack fetishist Quentin Tarantino, who deemed the song's oomph as wasted in the credits and thought "Man, if I had that song, I'd build a 20-minute scene around it!" That he did for a definitive scene in 'Inglourious Basterds.' Cinematic stuff! To boot, Bowie's "putting out the fire with gasoline" lyrics are actually literally appropriate in this one, considering the next flaming sequence of events.

Only Radiohead's Thom Yorke could make the ending of 'Romeo and Juliet' even more depressing. More than just a monument to literalism, 'Exit Music' is also a chilling post-mortem middle finger to the parents and authority figures who stood between the star-crossed lovers. In addition to the film's closing credits, the song also accompanied countless bouts of emo poetry writing by a generation of misunderstood, mascara-stained teens.

The Boss wrings this one straight out of his heart -- the tune he wrote for Darren Aronofsky's 'The Wrestler' is a tear-jerker. In his comeback hit role, Mickey Rourke stars as an aging wrestling legend down on his luck, "a one-legged dog" and "a one trick pony." There are a few ups but, ultimately, there's just one very dramatic final down in the rink.

Aimee Man wrote this Grammy-nominated song for Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar-nominated mosaic epic set in the San Fernando Valley. Seems like one of his central, intertwined characters -- a lass unlucky with lovers and addictions -- gets "saved," despite being one of "the freaks/who suspect they could never love anyone." John C. Reilly -- the heavily religious White Knight in a police uniform -- is here to make it all better and get drowned out by the music.

Only really joyous occasions call for blasting anything the 'Hair' soundtrack. How about the resolution of decades of unnecessary sexual complexes with a very successful, 2-hour romp with the one you love? That calls for an 'Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In' medley! Take it, Steve Carell!

Al Green and Annie Lennox's version of the song "Put a 'Scrooged' was basically a modern take on 'A Christmas Carol,' just a whole lot wackier. How so? A heartless TV mogul Frank Cross played by Bill Murray is confronted by a David Johansen of the New York Dolls as the hell-trollish, taxi-driving Ghost of Christmas Past, for one thing. Cross has a change of heart alright, and after his emphatic speech, the whole cast sings 'Put a Little Love in Your Heart,' the film ends and the Al Green and Annie Lennox charting hit version kicks in in the credits. Enjoy it in their music video.

You can argue about what Bill Murray inaudibly whispered into Scarlett Johansson's ear. You can debate whether or not director Sofia Coppola's heroine -- alienated by her famous partner and emotionally stranded in Tokyo -- is really autobiographical projection of her past relationship with Spike Jonze. Or you can just enjoy Coppola's soundtracking skills that turn movie scenes into music videos.

Just in case you were wondering why Natalie Portman's strut to Damien Rice's 'The Blower's Daughter' isn't on the list, Mike Nichols directed 'Closer' too. Before that, there was 'The Graduate.' After dramatically crashing a wedding to bits, Dustin Hoffman's character rides the bus off into the horizon, rescued bride in tow. As the duo's euphora wears off and their beaming expressions slowly slump, Simon and Garfunkel's melancholy folk classic fills in the awkward silence.

Only a love story is written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry would reunite two exes after the last time around sent them volunteering for a targeted memory erasing procedure. Look at them running off into the snowy horizon together. "Change your heart." Pffft... Pass the tissues, please?

Wow, it's really tough to pick a Wes Anderson favorite. It was a very close tie with ' Everyone' by Van Morrison in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' for scoring family funeral goers into optimists, but 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' wins for Anderson's most triumphant slow-motion walk of all as world famous Oceanographer and documentarian Steve Zissou realizes that catching the "Jaguar shark" isn't the point - it's the adventure. The film award accolades are good too. Damn, Bowie's good for self-satisfied strutting!

So, you've just vented all your "troubles and doubts" and "everything inside and out." What better way to end John Hughes's classic '80s teen drama and celebrate your escape from being a detention hall with five high school stereotypes performing amateur therapy on each other? Cue the victory anthem of friendship!

Director Spike Lee specifically requested the jazz-influenced, East Coast hip-hop duo Gangstarr to contribute to the soundtrack of 'Mo' Better Blues,' a '90s classic starring Denzel Washington as playboy jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam, a fictional composite partially based on Chet Baker, who, like Bleek, suffered a mouth injury in a fight that put a damper on his spectacular career. The late MC Guru and DJ/producer DJ Premier delivered a perfect closing credits track that pays homage to jazz greats and features saxophonist Branford Marsalis. See it come together in the music video below.

Set in 1967 Minnesota, the same year that Jefferson Airplane released it's hippie hit, Coen brothers biblical-themed comedic drama is one mishap after another for protagonist professor Larry Gopnik. In the end, trouble befalls his very unfortunate heir as well while 'Somebody to Love' blasts diegetically from his son's compact music player and, as the final misfortune approaches as an ominous tornado, blasts in as a regular score.

Charlie Kaufman's meta-meta-textual saga 'Synecdoche, New York' winds down with Philip Seymour Hoffman's character stranded in the biggest stage in the world abandoned by its characters, a city with no people. After decades of orchestrating his grand experiment, all this "just a little person, one person in a sea" can hope for is that very last stage direction. Bummer... but how cinematic.

A long road trip is thwarted in Argentina, along with the passionate, torturous relationship of two lovers from Hong Kong in this gorgeous masterpiece by Wong Kar-wai. In the end of it all, the 1967 ditty's romantic idealism takes on a new note, covered by Danny Chung: Maybe the only way to be "happy together" is not to be.

As Martin Scorsese finishes up his take on the non-fiction New York City crime book of wiseguy-turned-mafia-informant Henry Hill, he ties up the story of each of the 'Goodfellas' into a nice little bow. Who got pinched, who got whacked and who entered the Witness Protection Program and got away with it all, at least for a little while. That last one's Hill himself. And more, much more than this, he did it hi-i-is wa-a-ay, with a conviction so obnoxious, Sid expresses it better than Frank.

Just in case you were wondering why you haven't seen the 'Clockwork Orange' thematic double hitter closing of Beethoven symphony and 'Singing in the Rain' here yet... For Stanley Kubrick, we went a little further back and a little bigger. BOOM goes the Doomsday Machine in the classic nuclear scare comedy 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.' Vera Lynn's WWI era song scoring the mushroom clouds. Epic dark satire.

Eleven years after the Pixies's 'Surfer Rosa' album, director David Fincher scored the climax to his film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk's cult lit hit with 'Where Is My Mind.' That embedded the 1988 track into the 'Fight Club' collective zeitgeist for years of fandom to come and catapulted the band into a newer, bigger wave of fame. Just how well the music fit Tyler Durden euphoric, anarchistic legacy surprised even the band.

"When I watched 'Fight Club,' I was shocked when it came on," Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago tells Spinner. "The whole movie was an electronic score by the Dust Brothers and the most violent scene, with the buildings crashing down, the first thing you hear is acoustic guitar. Are you kidding me? And then the slow ballad played as things were beautifully crumbling. Genius! That's a great placement of song." Glad we agree.