Brokeback Mountain (2005)

In Best Director-winning Ang Lee's landmark love story and favored 2005 Best Picture nominee:

• the poignant love story between two bi-sexual cowboys: Wyoming ranch-hand Ennis Del Mar (Best Actor-nominated Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Best Supporting Actor-nominated Jake Gyllenhaal), who fell in love in the summer of 1963
• their first meeting as an innocently exuberant skinny-dip into a pond
• their initial confusion about their attraction over a campfire
• at first, Ennis rebuffed Jack's daring attempt to kiss him and to mutually touch each other, but then returned sheepishly with his hat in hand and accepted their first kiss - before their first sexual experience (anal intercourse) together, an under-one-minute sexual encounter in a shared sleeping bag in a two-man tent
• Jack's awkward declaration of his true love for Ennis: ("The truth is... sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it...")
• Ennis' chilling story about the cruel murder of a suspected gay cowboy
• their eventually strained marriages after their summer together -- Ennis to fragile, waifish Alma (Best Supporting Actress-nominated Michelle Williams) with two daughters, and Jack to tomboyish rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway) with one son
• four years later in 1967, the two had a reunion in Wyoming; the two hugged each other tightly, as Ennis nervously looked around, then forcefully grabbed Jack and pushed him into a secluded spot by stairs where they kissed hungrily, while Ennis' wife Alma accidentally spied on their embracing passion from above and turned away

Secretive Passionate Reunion Kiss - Seen by Alma

• the two infrequently met for 'fishing' trips - but suspiciously never brought home any of their catch; at the end of one fishing trip, Ennis taunted Jack: "I'm goin' a tell you this one time, Jack f--kin' Twist, and I ain't foolin'. What I don't know - all them THINGS that I don't know, I'd get you KILLED if I come to know them! I ain't jokin'!"
• the sexually-frustrated Jack responded back with an ultimatum speech to Ennis: ("Well, try this one and I'll say it just once....Tell ya what. We coulda had a good life together! F--kin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that! That's ALL we got, boy! F--kin' ALL! So, I hope you know that. If you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times that we have been together in nearly 20 years, and you measure the short f--kin' leash you keep me on, then, you ask me 'bout Mexico! And you tell me you'll KILL me for needin' somethin' that I don't hardly NEVER get! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BAD IT GETS! And I'm not you, I can't make it on a couple of high-altitude f--ks once or twice a year! YOU ARE TOO MUCH FOR ME, ENNIS! You son of a whoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you!") and Ennis' sobbed response: ("Well, why don't you? Why don't you just let me be, huh? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this! I ain't got nothin', and I'm, I'm nowhere... Get the f--k off me!...Sorry I can't stand much anymore, Jack"); they struggled with each other and ended up hugging
• in 1975, Alma and Ennis divorced, and Alma took custody of the two daughters. Now that Ennis was free, Jack suggested that they retreat to a small ranch to live together, but Ennis rejected the idea of abandoning his family, and facing anger from locals for being "queer." Even so, they continued to meet a few times a year in Wyoming, where Jack would drive to meet up. By 1978, Jack's marriage had also deteriorated, but the two still could not agree to live together
• some time after Jack's death in 1980, the anguished Ennis learned of his passing. Lureen told him that Jack had died while changing a tire that exploded, although Ennis imagined it as a gay-bashing homophobic incident in a field. Jack's parents disagreed with their son's wishes to spread his ashes at Brokeback Mountain.
• Ennis visited Jack's parents at their home, and discovered blood-stained shirts in Jack's childhood bedroom closet. The shirts belonged to himself and ex-lover Jack from when they fought together years earlier on Brokeback Mountain in 1963. Ennis held the intertwined shirts (Jack's denim shirt was on the outside) to his face and breathed in their scent. When he left, he took the shirts with him.

Ennis' Discovery of Shirts in Jack's Bedroom Closet

• broke and lonely, Ennis lived in a trailer, where in 1983, he was visited by his 19-year-old daughter Alma Jr. (Kate Mara), who told him that she was engaged - she invited him to the wedding
• in the melodramatic ending, Ennis went to his trailer closet where he again saw their two old shirts (hanging in the back of his closet). The two shirts were both together on one hanger, intertwined but reversed - Jack's blood-stained denim shirt was now covered by Ennis's. He also saw a postcard of Brokeback Mountain tacked next to the shirts and straightened it - he tearfully and regretfully cried about their forbidden homosexual love affair: ("Jack, I swear...").

The Melodramatic Conclusion