Is there a "Die-Hard"-like film, but with a downer ending?

That isn’t really what the violence and mayhem demographic likes to see. They like the plot and the explosions, and the gunshots and the killing, but almost all audiences want to see the good guys win (or at least survive).

It sounds like you’re looking for a genre where bad guys prevail and the hero dies. That sort of plot doesn’t make money for movie studios. I can’t think of a single one.

The Cassandra Crossing

I disagree @elbanditoroso. European cinema is full of movies like that, and a lot of them do really well. One example is Le Samourai (granted, the hero is a criminal himself, but the people who put him in the situation he is in never really get punished, while he is pushed to the point of thinking suicide is the only way out)

Chinatown?

Ragtime

Serpico

Resident Evil.

Bambi.

Lethal Weapon.

I agree with @Mimishu1995 , though I’m not sure what “Die-Hard-like” (or “downer ending” for that matter) means to @luigirovatti – just violent action films, or ones that try to be partly comedies too, or…?

As an Italian, I assume he is aware of at least some European crime/violence films with darker endings.

I can’t think of any film like Die Hard, a great bombastic action flick that has a downer ending. Maybe The Dirty Dozen? The Great Escape?

Those are war films though not one man ala John Mclane who took on a whole group of bad guys.

Dirty Harry

Having the hero die kinda precludes a sequel.

How about John Wick? That has sequels, one-vs-many violence, some humor, lots of surreal ridiculous excess (which Die Hard also has, especially in its sequels) and it seems to me it has gotten darker and darker with each sequel.