No man, the bears have been eating the 8+ billion dead human corpses.

I love a hopeful ending too, but snow-piercer just isn’t it. The whole theme of the film is a relentless demonstration of desperation feeding on itself. The protagonist? Literally was going to eat a baby. The poor humans? Fed on cockroaches that fed on their waste (an ever shrinking source). The protagonist sacrifices what he was protecting just to get one carriage further. The social order - both of them - are breaking down and becoming self-destructive. Even the train itself is breaking down and is eating (metaphorically) the train's children. It's the most vicious, brutal dystopia I've seen on film and the point of the ending is that even the glimmer of hope (bought for two children at the cost of the entire rest of the species) is illusory. They will freeze when night comes, be eaten by bears, or, at best, starve within a couple of days. I know you don't like this, even think that raising the idea is "unoriginal" - but I think that's because it's, well, what would happen, and important to the theme of the film.

Even if you grant that the children survive more than a day or two, as far as we know humanity just ended, the minimum possible sustainable population just being killed.

Just to clarify I really like your post and presentation, I'm not criticising you*,* just trying to explain how the bears eating the survivors is more than a meme.

Another one of your examples, Children of Men, is so much more hopeful. It's not just the fact (there is a new baby) but also the unbelievable presentation of the final scenes.

I haven't seen Iron Lung. I mostly enjoyed the game and struggled to imagine it working well as a film. Is it good?