There's nothing more satisfying than watching a good movie. For decades, movies have made us cry, laugh, and think more about our own feelings. Whether you're in the theaters or on the couch, they're a great way to escape from reality.
The most important part of a great movie is the ending. All of the storyline development the viewer witnesses throughout the movie needs to have a great pay off. Iconic movies such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Raiders of the Lost Ark have delivered astounding endings. Unfortunately, some producers refuse to do that and instead choose to confuse fans at the end. This can leave a bad taste in many moviegoers' mouths.
Here, movie buffs discuss some of the worst film endings they've ever seen. Some of these films listed are acclaimed features while others are lesser known titles. Either way, they didn't sit well with viewers. There are major spoilers at every turn in this piece, so you've been warned.
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#37 Aquaflop
Aquaman.
The movie itself was incredibly corny. Though the storyline moved chronologically enough, the inclusion of random flashbacks and dialogue here and there made it seem like the writers just haphazardly threw things together to make the story longer. My least favorite part was near the end during the war between the factions—how corny was it that Aquaman kisses Mera right in the middle of the chaos?
#36 Why Was She Stood Up?
Nocturnal Animals.
I get that it's part of the noir genre so a lot of things are meant to be artsy and connotative, but to end an already confusing film with an even more confusing ending is just sad. Why was she alone at the restaurant at the end? Was that just to symbolize a shift in power?
Maybe Tom Ford should have centered the movie on the teacher's story instead.
#35 The Last Buzzkill
The Last Jedi.
I was hyped for it after part one. At the break, I actually considered leaving, but I couldn't since I was the designated driver. By the end, I was just fed up.
In the very last scene, only 15 people survive out of thousands, and both sides lose their most powerful force wielder. What's up with that?! And don't get me started on the in-between bits — Leia and her miraculous flight, the forced relationship plot and the "good will survive" dialogue.
It killed my mood for Solo and the final part of the trilogy.
#34 Robots Need Love, Too
Nobody has mentioned A.I. yet. It was a good movie all the way through, but it should have ended with David (Haley Joel Osment) wishing to the Blue Fairy as the lights go out. It was the perfect metaphor for the human condition. Instead, the replacement director ended it with a bunch of future robots doing some weird hand motions that made no sense at all.
If you watch this movie, do yourself a favor. When you see the Blue Fairy and the lights fade out, shut the movie off because that's the real ending.
#33 Changing Things For The Worse
My Sister's Keeper. Having read the book about a complicated court case involving a science baby made to donate organs to her cancer sister, I was ready for a rollercoaster ride of a movie. What I got was a stupid cop-out that was only the same as the book in the name. This adaptation is actually an insult, and the reason why the end is so bad is that it makes it end like every other cancer movie instead of following the book.
#32 Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
The ending of Lucy made me laugh for sure. I've been genuinely entertained by bad movies, but Lucy was one of the few movies where I was acutely aware of how bad and nonsensical it was, despite going into it with optimism.
She just disintegrates for no reason, and when someone asks where she is, he gets a text from her saying "I am everywhere" or some nonsense like that.
#31 Turn Back Time
The Butterfly Effect.
The ending where he time travels to back to being a baby in his mother's womb (which breaks the butterfly effect's literal only rule for time traveling) and wraps his own umbilical cord around his own neck. It effectively ended everything, while also forming a paradox where he doesn't exist to be able to do what he did.
A fantastic alternative ending featured him traveling back to tell the girl he hates her (after saving her from her abusive parents), rendering him and her to grow up separately and live nice lives.
#30 Newhart, Much?
Black Butterfly.
The movie with Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Rhys Meyers about a serial killer. It's sort of a murder mystery film, and it's actually really good until the last two minutes. I would 100% recommend that movie to everyone, just turn it off at the very end of it.
The reason? The main protagonist wakes up from a dream at the very end as if none of it happened.
#29 Monsters Be Gone
The Mist. We're shown an improbable-to-survive apocalypse filled with giant monsters that are capable of killing people in dozens of shocking and unpredictable ways, and that's only the handful of creatures we see. The characters give up, and the main character shoots his fellow survivors, including his son. Seconds later, the mist clears, and the military shows up with patrolling tanks and trucks full of survivors.
We're shown Kaiju and Resident Evil monsters; then we're expected just to buy the story that some guys with guns made it all go away. It's just to add a shocking twist at the end of the film, and it makes no sense given the world we're shown.
#28 Time For Some Medication
The Village.
I don't think I've ever been more dissatisfied with the ending of a movie in my life. Nothing happens. The audience is shown what looks to be a colonial village in the forest. There's a love triangle among two guys and a girl. One guy dies after almost stabbing the other guy to death, and the girl has to get medicine for the wound. She ends up finding out that their village is a secluded area and they're actually living in an exhibit. She gets the medicine, comes back, and the movie ends. You're then left with minimal information about the world outside the village. You don't even know if the guy ends up living in the end. They could've elaborated on the outside world SO much more than just 15 minutes of the girl getting the medicine from a store. They could've given us information about what incentive the modern people had to keep an exhibit of other humans. They could've given the girl a reason why living in the modern world would be worse than in the village. But instead, they just use it for plot convenience.
The producers didn't spend enough time on world-building and character development and instead made a movie with a bland plot and an unsatisfactory ending.
#27 Friend Only To The Undertaker
WAR with Jet Li and Jason Statham. The whole thing was about avenging his partner, then posing as his partner. Statham gets killed, and Li drives off into the sunset. That whole movie was pretty incomprehensible.
#26 Nobody Wants You Happy, Bruce
Dark Knight Rises. Screw that ending, man. Batman is really alive. AND he just goes for the only woman to show him some attention, Selina Kyle. Also, a Robin we'll never, ever see. Come ONNNN.
Batman is never supposed to be happy. He's the tortured hero, the broken down vigilante who continues on for his city.
I have a lot of issues with the Christopher Nolan's take on the caped crusader.
#25 Bad Plan, Spartans
300. They have this great strategy of grouping together and covering themselves with their shields, like a turtle shell. They are invincible. Then, in the end, they abandon this strategy for no reason and all die. Lots to hate about this movie.
#24 Anime Is Real
The Death Note Netflix movie. The whole movie was terrible, but the ending was even worse. Light's plan was to write on the Death Note that Mia dies while the page with his name burns. He survives the fall from the Ferris wheel, then another person finds the Death Note and uses it to throw the police off. Almost all of that breaks the rules that the movie established at the beginning. Things have to be physically possible for the Death Note to make them happen, so how could he survive that fall? You can't make people do stuff that they do not know of, so how did Light know there was going to be a fire nearby for his page to fall in? If there weren't a fire, the page wouldn't have been able to burn, and he would've died!
Then, as the cherry on top, the movie ends with Ryuk laughing while saying: "Humans are so interesting." What a super random and abrupt way to end the movie. But I guess there was no good way to end that movie.
#23 Missing Some Pages
The Golden Compass. The movie ended about one chapter from the end of the book, but the omission of that chapter took the story from "OMG WHAT THE HECK" to "Yay, happy Disney ending." I was pretty much on board with the movie until then.
#22 Dream A Little Dream
The final Twilight movie (and the book). I remember reading the final book, and it was leading up to this showdown with the evil vampires. I’m thinking, “Okay, this might be pretty epic! Maybe we’ll see some people die!” Then, the bad guys finally show up and are like, “Your baby is dangerous, and we have to kill it.” The good guys are like, “Actually, the baby is harmless,” and the bad guys are like, “Oh okay, have a nice day,” and then they leave. The movie had to add a whole hypothetical dream sequence just to add some sort of action to that story.
#21 The Book Is So Much Better
Oh, oh! World War Z!
Now, unlike most people who were fans of the book, I didn't HATE the movie for not following the book at all. I mean, if anything, having read the book makes you understand why it would be a nightmare to implement it as a movie. It's an anthology-style story, and those are kind of hit-and-miss when translated to cinema.
So, I get what they were kind of trying to do with the movie. They made their own story within that setting, one that (if they had done it right) could've fit snugly into the book with all the other stories.
The problem is, they wanted their story to solve everything, so they went and did that bad ending where the end-all solution is to inject yourself with all the diseases to make yourself invisible to zombies.
In the book, the zombie problem was never really solved nor was a miracle cure found; the human race just found a way to manage the threat and live with it.
#20 You're My Butterfly, Sugar Baby
Mama...
Great movie, I loved almost every minute of it... Until the end. You have a deranged demon-mother desperate to keep the children she's been raising from being taken back to the real world. One daughter is old enough to understand this isn't right, and she wants to be with her family. She legit fears "Mama" while the younger sister wants to stay because Mama is all she knows. So the tradeoff? Little sister goes with Mama, and they fall off a cliff, bursting into butterflies. The older sister, her uncle and his first-I-don't-want-kids-but-now-I-love-these-girls girlfriend just kind of get up, brush off and head home.
#19 Cheerful End To The Apocalypse
28 Days Later. The bright, happy ending with the cabin and the characters being discovered by the plane was not a horrible ending in and of itself, but it becomes way worse when you watch the deleted ending.
The ending already has a pretty jarring tonal shift. What starts as a dark, gritty, zombie horror film ends with the main characters in a picturesque log cabin next to a lake in the sunshine. The final shot is them waving at a passing airplane, presumably being rescued. Not the worst ending of all time but weirdly feel-good and feels like it was tacked on at the end. It feels like a focus group ending.
The deleted ending has the main character being carried into the basement of an abandoned hospital, wounded. The two girls with him futilely try to save him, but he dies on a dirty table. They look at each other, walk through a double door, and fade to black. It’s a way more depressing ending, but it is way more tonally consistent.
#18 Head Over High Heels
Jurassic World.
Okay, so this Indominus Rex or whatever has to be MILES away from the coast, where the tourists are, but A T-REX IS RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF THE STORE CLUSTER.
Not only that, but he HAS A DOOR EXCLUSIVELY MADE FOR THE THING THAT LEADS RIGHT OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHOPPING DISTRICT.
And not. Just. That.
RUNNING IN HEELS.
Can outrun a T-Rex.
IN. HEELS.
When this guy ALMOST CAUGHT A JEEP.
I hate Jurassic World.
#17 No Limit, Soldier
Limitless. Everything just works out all hunky dory for Brad Cooper's character. Any message, theme, or moral of that movie was completely left to die by a plot decision that allowed the main character to be waaay better off than when he started. All because he figured out how to dose the limitless drug. He went through some stuff, and now he's a politician? I mean, what the heck. Haven't seen the movie since it was theaters so that I could be off on a few things, but I still remember the sheer anger I had from the opposite of a well-deserved payoff.
#16 It's Over 9,000
Broly's second coming. I'm fine with the three-person Kamehameha taking him down and all, but the way they won was so stupid thing. I mean, having Goku show up was fine. But what was with Trunks blocking three or four of Broly's shots that were going to push them back? He was playing with Trunks and Goten when they were all Super Saiyans earlier. Now that Trunks is too exhausted even to transform, Broly is strong enough to push back the whole Son family.
Trunks shot a tiny blast to get in Broly's way, and they won off that. It would've made much more sense if Trunks just shot a blast that distracted him or even shot the blasts from the side (which seems to be more effective than blocking directly given that even Tien managed to deflect a blast from Buu). Heck, even if Trunks didn't participate in that final struggle it would've been fine, but man that scene was terrible. Sorry for the rant.
#15 Your Signs Are Pointing To Nowhere
I will never let go of my hatred for the ending of Signs.
Humans go to the moon wearing decked-out spacesuits because we know going naked will kill them. God forbid,cccc we set up camp on Titan, Saturn's moon with an atmosphere entirely of liquid and gaseous methane, and start making our coffee with methane instead of water.
But these aliens with interstellar travel don't have the wherewithal to figure out that they're landing on a world with a 75% water surface, killing a species that's something like 80% water. This is a water world, even on the surface. And they don't wear space suits.
It's been years, and I'm still livid.
#14 Don't Dream It's Over
The ending of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang angered me.
I realize that a RATIONAL human being would have understood from the start that the weird part of the movie was just them imagining. But I did not realize that. That made me hate that movie. I don't care about your stupid dreams. I care about magical adventures that actually happen.
#13 The Face I Love
The ending of Baby Driver.
Great movie all around, but the complete 180 of Spacey's character made no sense. Plus, at the very end when Baby goes to jail, everyone is basically like "Yeah, he's responsible for the death of quite a few people, but he had the face of a good guy."
#12 You're An All-Star
Rat Race. One of the most hilarious movies, so perfect, and then they show up to a Smashmouth show and turn over the money? That's bad writing, and I've long since held the idea that the writers spent so much time writing the perfect comedy they couldn't figure out a hilarious ending. They were stuck and studio executives were getting annoyed, so they gave them an ultimatum to have a finished script on their table in the morning. It's like they just winged it at the end.
#11 Ice Cube Isn't Happy
The Cube 2: Hypercube.
The movie wasn't very good. There were many parts that just didn't make much sense. In the end, basically nothing the audience saw meant anything at all. And the last scene was dumb and never explained either.
It's such a shame this is what followed the first movie.
#10 Save The World, Get The Girl
Ready Player One. I loved that movie and everything about the world they set up, but I hated the way he ends up with the girl in the real world. I get that the whole premise was that most people were poorly adjusted to socializing in the real world, but man it was cringe.
They could've gotten rid of like, half the real world scenes and had a really good movie. Let's be real; the Oasis would be fun if it was real.
#9 Time To Split
The Book of Eli.
It's just about a blind dude taking out the trash in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He finds his sanctuary, completes his life-goal, all while helping a do-nothing Mila Kunis survive. He settles down to work on his Bible studies, and Mila Kunis just takes off into the wasteland with all his stuff as a hardened hero out of nowhere, after spending the whole movie moping about and trying not to choke on antifreeze.
#8 A College Student's Nightmare
Exam. I’m always down for a good psychological thriller, and Netflix recommended it. I’ve never felt so cheated by an ending.
Basically, the movie starts with a group of people getting locked in a room. Their captor tells them they have 90 minutes to complete “the exam” and they will be set free. “Are there any questions?” he asks, and then leaves the room.
The next 90 minutes are spent with these people trying all sorts of crazy schemes that they think might solve the exam. They only have a sheet of paper and there’s not much else in the room.
Just as time is almost out, with absolutely no progress made, one of them suddenly goes, “Wait... I have it... NO!”
And the door unlocks.
That’s right. The exam question was, “Are there any questions?”
What a waste of time.
#7 Don't Comply With CGI
The ending of Underworld Blood Wars was super stupid even for that franchise. Selene is effectively invincible now, and she quickly dispatches the supposedly powerful villain. Then, she waits for her terrible CGI daughter to meet her. The last frame of the movie is of the CGI daughter; I guess because the girl who played her no longer wanted to be in it I guess.
#6 Raised On Robbery
Hell or High Water. There's quite simply no way Chris Pine's character gets away with it. The most basic of investigations reveals that he had serious financial problems and that those problems went away right after the robberies. That leads to tracking his whereabouts and the revelation that he twice visited a casino. It shouldn't have taken so long to figure out what he was doing there, or discover that he passed through a roadblock not long after the last robbery. We're supposed to buy that the Rangers would just drop the investigation after one of their own was killed, despite strong evidence that there were two robbers? No way.
#5 A Glance Into Danger
The movie was called Next, and it starred Nicholas Cage. It was about this guy who could look two minutes into the future. The movie ends with a nuke exploding (which the main characters were trying to stop), and then Nicholas Cage wakes up AT ALMOST THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, which means everything we just saw was him looking into the future. And then the movie just ends. It made no sense and there was no conclusion or resolve to ANYTHING.
#4 Return To Pandora
Avatar. The marines should have won and killed the natives; then we would have had something to think about. This movie reeked of American guilty conscience and the urge to end it all well. There was a study once that if a movie is known to not have a happy ending, Americans won't visit it as much while in the box office. I guess this explains a lot about movie endings from American blockbusters.
#3 Just My Imagination
Tully. It was great and showed what stay-at-home parents go through on a day-to-day basis. In comes Tully to help her out so the mother can decompress. We then come to find out that the Tully was a younger version of herself all along. Come on... I mean, come on. At first, I was okay with it, and then during the dinner, I refused to accept the ending. They could have spun it a bit differently.
#2 Cold As Ice
Snowpiercer still makes me mad.
The whole movie was kind of infuriating, but the ending was not hopeful like the director thought he made it seem. "Like Adam and Eve," he said. Pffff!
No. The two survivors (clueless children with zero survival skills) would've quickly suffered hypothermia and frostbite in that endless snowy hellscape. Or they would've immediately been outrun and overpowered by that giant, hungry-looking polar bear that was conveniently there to welcome them to the end of their helpless little lives.
Not hopeful, not good. I'm still mad about it.
#1 One Angry Mother
Prometheus. The main character has an alien baby that is cut out of her. She is then stitched up then proceeds to run, jump, and fight for the next 30 minutes, ultimately escaping death. Once or twice she grunts in pain and holds her stomach, otherwise no issues.
