It needs to be said that a film that ends with a great final shot does not necessarily deliver a big twist or surprise (Planet of the Apes) or provide a satisfying, soothing feeling of emotional closure (i.e., Wes Anderson‘s Rushmore).
Truly great endings, rather, are ones that hold and fascinate because of an unexpected (and yet perfectly on-target) feeling of irony. Anything with a certain focus or visual strategy that takes you a little bit by surprise. Content, of course, but primarily style, panache, decisiveness.
The very last shot of The Godfather (i.e., the door closing upon Diane Keaton as she contemplates her future with Al Pacino) is one of the greatest of all time.
Keir Dullea‘s star child gazing down at the earth at the close of 2001: A Space Odyssey, for sure.** The closing shot of Carol Reed‘s The Third Man is a deservedly admired classic. The final image in North by Northwest (i.e., Cary Grant‘s penis train roaring into Eva Marie Saint‘s vagina tunnel) is brilliant. In Kubrick’s The Killing, that shot of the cops approaching a distraught Sterling Hayden as they emerge from an airline terminal is a knockout.
The last shot of Brokeback Mountain (“Jack, I swear”) is excellent. Ditto Fight Club (i.e., collapsing buildings), Cabaret (i.e., a Nazi armband spotted in the crowd), and that lingering closeup of Timothee Chalamet at the end of Call Me By Your Name. The final shot of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blow-Up (David Hemmings vaporizes) is a keeper; ditto the bravura ending of The Passenger.
Which others?
** The exploding nuclear weapons at the end of Dr. Strangelove don’t count because they’re a montage, not a single shot.