What Film Has the Worst Ending?

Over the past two days, I've seen two horror films that I enjoyed a lot up until their endings, and now I can't stop thinking about what the worst ending to a film I've seen is.

The first I watched, Lights Out, has an offensive ending that says some truly odd things about how to deal with depression and psychosis, but doesn't really outright ruin the early parts of the film.

The second film on the other hand, which I just finished watching, is High Tension (aka Haute Tension, aka Switchblade Romance). I was enjoying it so damn much for 2/3 of it. But god fucking dammit that last bit, where the "twist" is introduced, may be the worst ending to a film I've ever seen. It's not even a twist; it's simply manipulating and tricking your audience. It truly doesn't make sense, and unlike Lights Out, actually ruins much of the enjoyment of the film for me.

I really cannot think of another film with as bad an ending.

So, does anyone have an ending they think stacks up to the shitshow that is the ending to High Tension?

What about The Village? Signs? I really like The Conjuring films but they lose all tension in the tail end.

I remember High Tension being pretty well done, wouldn't mind seeing that gain. Do also want to check out Lights Out.

what about that movie that ended with an url "the devil inside"

Kickass was never going to be a masterpiece anyway, but the ending was absolutely fucking horrendous. One of those moments where I'm physically shaking my head at the screen wondering how this stillborn thought managed to make it from writer to director to producer and then through quality assurance without ever being aborted.

AI Artificial Intelligence fuck you its just Pinocchio with aliens fuck this.

Hmm, interesting question. Most movies build up to an ending, but there are definitely some that betray all of that building right at the very end. Signs is definitely up there in terms of implausibility. Sunshine went from interesting cerebral sci-fi to a monster movie waaaaay too quick to be moving.

I think Source Code should've ended on the kiss, but I still like that movie a lot regardless.

Oh man. Movies with terrible endings. My brain usually tries to whipe those from my memory. Well I hated the 3rd act for this is the end because it got really far from what I enjoyed the first parts of the film which is Seth rogan and franco fucking around in an apocalyptic world.

I also haaaaated that singing ending bullshit In 40 year old virgin. 95% of that movie is great dumb comedy that was huge for when I was teenager but then they sing age of Aquarius and I was like are you fucking joking.

I wish the grey would have shown the fight between Liam and that wolf.

Ohhhhh. And I hated the ending of the last Harry Potter movie. Never read the books so this is just from the cinematic universe. But man. Having that huuuuge fight and barely any of the good guys die felt too Disney for me. And then when Voldemort gets hit he just turns to ash. I was really expecting Harry to sacrifice himself to kill him and Voldemort. Or atleast have Voldemort explode in a ball of fire! Sigh.

Not the worst ending, but looking back it, the Scott Pilgrim movie would have been way better if it had ended with Scott deciding to go single until he knew what it was he wanted in a relationship.

Would have been a great ending because it wouldn't have jarred with the whole "I'm doing this for me" scene the film presents a few minutes earlier, and also reject the magic-pixie-girl stereotype, with Scott realising that he really doesn't know Ramona at all, and that he was making assumptions because of her appearance. I think I'm looking too much into this.

Nolan should have killed Batman in The Dark Knight Returns. As in, kill kill, Bruce Wayne is dead. Would have actually made the trilogy as a whole be a sobering tale on the price of heroism.

The theatrical cut of the Dawn of the Dead remake is fucking horrendous. So, spoilers, they escape the mall, make it to the local docks, commandeer a boat, but the male lead gets bitten in the process, so the movie ends with everyone but him leaving on the boat, the female lead looks back at the dock as they sail away, then you hear a gunshot in the distance as the male lead shoots himself, knowing he is done for, and I think the final shot of the movie is looking at the female lead's face as the gunshot happens and then a cut to black. It's poignant, it works, it's a fine ending.

APPARENTLY, preview test audiences didn't think this ending was final enough because they're complete idiots, so they went back and shot some more footage. The extended ending (which only showed in a reduced size sidebar beside the credits, and I think purposely avoided showing much of the main cast or having clear audio because it may not have even been filmed with the actual cast for all I know and was a super duper second unit afterthought) is just some lame camcorder footage on board the boat because the boat happened to contain a camcorder and suddenly they pretended this was a found-footage film, they bicker a bit, they run short on food and drink, then they land on a nearby island hoping it is not zombie infested, but then it is zombie-infested so someone drops the camcorder and everybody flees from the camcorder and runs into the woods and that's it and it's unclear if they survive or not. That's even less closure, ruins the great moment the movie normally ends on, and the whole sequence was of a poor quality.

It's so bad.

I usually have trouble remembering bad endings. I put more effort into keeping track of the good ones.

Modern Love by Albert Brooks has a bad ending. Really weakened by the use of its expository text crawl.

I'll probably think of some more and post again later.

It's not just the movie, the last Harry Potter book is pretty bad as well for the same reasons. Like, fine, the stakes got raised so much that they don't go to school in this final 7th book/movie, but the actual adventure they go on to defeat Voldemort was kinda lackluster, and just felt like Rowling had a huge boner for The Fellowship of the Ring. And yeah, the climax is pretty meh; fwiw, they do off a bunch of good guy characters at various points in the final book and most of those deaths happen in the movie as well, but it's all like, some of Ron's siblings and some randos that were only introduced in like the 5th-book-and-onwards like Tonks that you don't have very much time to get attached to.

Honestly I think it's kind of bullshit that their actual 7th and final year of school is just implied to happen off camera. The whole fucking structure of your series is that each book corresponds to a year at Hogwarts. I mean, fucking come on.

@adequatelyprepared: I don't know, I kinda love that there's a cinematic version of Bruce Wayne out there that can finally move on and live his life the way Alfred always had intended.

The Devil Inside

the entire theatre groaned when it just... ended

The Matrix Revolutions.

I'll defend Reloaded's "to be concluded" because it made me laugh and I enjoyed the movie up until that point despite how stupid it was.

Also every Marvel film because they never end.

@haruko: You may know it, but those weren't aliens in the end, but yeah, they looked somewhat like the typical grey alien.

Probably Gone Girl, now that I think about it. The woman got away with it all, Ben Affleck's character stupidly got back with her, and a part where its Ben Affleck's character sitting in a restaurant with two (three?) others, almost felt like it was going for some light comedy, where the characters were totally fine with it all, laughing about it.

Heh, I literally *just* finished rewatching This Is The End and came here to say the exact opposite as an example of a great ending. (I'll never not laugh my head off at The Backstreet Boys being the characters' ultimate reward. ) While the best gags definitely come in the first half of that movie, I think it sticks the landing pretty well.

Worst ending I can think of right here and now... hmm... gotta agree with Signs. Sweet Georgia Brown, that was bad. In fact, other than the admittedly amazing famous jump scare, that whole movie was pretty damn terrible in hindsight.

So I just watched The Grifters for the first time a few months ago, and apparently someone thought that "hey, why not a Greek tragedy ending!" was a good idea. Apparently the book ended in the exact same way, so at least the filmmakers aren't to blame for going out on their own. I really enjoy the con man sub-genre of crime films, and I really like John Cusack, so I thought this could be a movie I'd want to see.

Just how awful was the ending? The protagonist's--played by Cusack--mother had him at very young age, and there's some really creepy sexual tension between the two. In the end, she gets herself into a jam with the mob, and needs a lot of money to pay them back. He has the money, but refuses to give it to his mother. He wants her to give up the life of crime. He catches her trying to steal the money, which she's now placed into a briefcase that she's holding. She desperately offers her body to him for the money, and he gives in for a moment. They start to kiss, but he quickly becomes disgusted by her and himself, and rejects her advances. She, being both offended and angry, takes the briefcase and hits him in the arm.

Unfortunately, he's drinking from a glass when she hits him. The glass shatters and a large piece of it goes into his neck. The briefcase also opened when she hit him, and soon the money, herself, and him are covered in blood. She watches her son die, then scoops up the blood-soaked money, puts it back in the briefcase, and leaves.

Yeah. Not exactly what you want out of an ending when you were hoping for a movie in the same genre as The Sting.

The Grey - noooooooooo! The end was perfect - "once more into the fray". The film opens with Liam Neeson with a gun in his mouth - it was never going to have a happy ending. It's actually one of my favourite movie endings.

Deathly Hallow - you must've missed the part where Harry sacrificed himself to defeat Voldemort (technically to destroy the last horcrux), but I get what you're saying. The stakes should've been much higher in that final battle. Not sure the core target audience would've been okay with Harry actually dying though.

The Devil Inside was defiantly a miserable excuse for an ending. More recently Batman V. Superman's "Martha" nonsense coupled with the shoehorning of the death of Superman turned an otherwise mediocre superhero movie into a painfully awful experience.

I barley remember it but the ending of Pirates of the Caribbean III seemed like a huge anti-climax.

I think they spend the whole film assembling a fleet of allied ships for a big sea battle, and in the end it's just the single Hero Ship fighting the Evil Ship while the others just look on because there's suddenly a huge whirlpool or something. I'm not sure if the other ships see any action. It made the preceding ally gathering feel like a huge waste of time.

Im gonna need an explanation on this because the whole but is Haley Joel Robotson gets frozen with his teddy bear buddy and then after all the humans and everything else dies aliens robot things come down and clone his mom from a hair the teddy bear kept and he gets to be human for a day until he dies inexplicably. Like thats what I got from that great looking but god awful movie.

@haruko said:

I would second that, even if Stanley Kubrick approved it was just the worst execution over a thematic narrative. UNLESS, The film stopped to have Pinocchio was grilled over a deep firer like the original story. but yeah, I second your suggestion

I mean, yeah, The Devil Inside sounds like a bad ending, but holy fuck, how did so many of you see The Devil Inside in the first place? People really go to see those dime-a-dozen The Exorcist knockoffs?

@arjailer said:

Did he sacrifice himself though? The part where he didn't actually die and instead Voldemort's spell somehow instead killed the part of Voldemort's soul that was in Harry or something seemed like some real bullshit. Like when God is all like "I need you to kill your son Isaac" and then you're like "OK, God, I'll sacrifice him" and then God is like "Nah, I was just playin', I didn't think you'd actually do it, we cool, Isaac doesn't actually have to die." That level of bullshit.

@adequatelyprepared: I think the point the Scott Pilgrim movie was trying to make is that relationships only work as two individuals coming together but remaining independent.

As for Batman, we've had countless stories of Batman dying to save the day whereas the Dark Knight trilogy is the only one that tells the story where Bruce Wayne gets over the death of his parents. The character is almost 80 years old, it needs at least one story where it gets closure.

When thinking about bad endings the first thing that always comes to mind is Coen Brothers. They're good writers but their endings tend to fall flat for me. Inside Llewyn Davis and A Serious Man are two of the worst endings in movies I've seen. I know they tried to make a point about not giving closure to the watcher in a Woody Allen-ish style in both of them but it just felt empty in the wrong way.

Bridge to Terabithia

Wanted a.k.a. WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE LATELY??

I remember being baffled by the ending to A Serious Man when I saw it but I've come around on the Coen-Bros style of ending. When I saw Llewyn Daves a few months ago I loved it, ending and all

@bisonhero: I think the idea was that he went into that thinking he was going to die - isn't that the definition of sacrificing himself? He was prepared to die.

I agree that the fact that he survives it is a bit too "happy ending" but you have to take the books "teen" audience into account - the ending was never going to be too bleak.

After reading the book for The Firm I watched the movie, why they decided to change the ending from the book in the movie is beyond me. It's not like it wouldn't have translated well onto film, it just seems like they thought hey guys we need an ending and tossed away the book when they said it.

Terminator 3 was pretty bad too. I didn't like how they left it so open.

@effache said:

I thought the ending to True Grit was pretty poor. Not the epilogue, but the climax; girl falls into a hole, and is too incompetent to just roll over and climb back out, so a snake bites her, and that's the super arbitrary event that gives Rooster the opportunity to show he's a real hero or something. I guess I was underwhelmed by that whole movie despite everybody raving about it. Jeff Bridges was great and all, but the actual story his character was in didn't engage me.

@liquiddragon: I love the Conjuring films too but I have to agree with you about them losing some tension at the end. I thought the first one lost it all but the second one did a better job. I do like the sequel a good bit more than the first.

@haruko: Basically, (and no where here am I defending the ending, I'm just explaining) what happens is that Osment's character and Teddy are in the underwater vehicle for 2000 years. Now, humans are gone (I'm guessing they died out from something) replaced by humanity's creation, the creation being the alien-looking creatures, which is a silicon-based race; basically a super computer collective. An evolution of a computer, or robot. The collective of them download David's (Osment's characters) memory of his mom, and take a lock of hair to create a clone which can only last a day, which I assume is because of accelerated aging or something. I don't know if his character dies or not, it may seem like that through some of the writing if you take it as specific meaning, as well as the way it is presented, because if I remember correctly, it cuts to credits when he lies next to her, but it's possible that he doesn't die (they wouldn't have mentioned that he'll only get to experience it for one day if he was going to die, is how I see it), and he simply lies with his 'mom', cherishing the fact that he's finally being loved from the one he always loved. The A.I. gave him what he always wanted. Yes, it is similar to Pinocchio.

So, to sum it up. Those 'aliens' are advanced robots that humans created, that evolved over 2000 years, and Osment's character I don't feel actually 'inexplicably' died. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi, but A.I. isn't even close to a favorite of mine, but I don't really have many complaints, it's just that I didn't really enjoy it that much. That said, this is the first time, or maybe I'm just not remembering that people disliked the ending. I know there were people that didn't like the movie, and I found it strange, when there's nothing really wrong with it. That all said, I find the ending to be pretty clear on what it's saying; you just have to pay attention. The best thing I can say is that the voice actor that did Teddy, also does Wonkers in Dreamfall.

@dudeglove: hmmm, yes Sunshine's ending was a big letdown after the brilliant first 2/3 :-(

@dudeglove: While I think the monster move part of sunshine was completely unnecessary I think I'm actually one of the few people that didn't mind it. Don't get me wrong, I think it would have been a better film without it but as it stands I still think it's fantastic.

@darkvare: Came here to post this. I worked at a movie theater when that thing came out and boy were people furious about it. At the same time, it's kind of charitable to call it an ending since its whole problem was it wasn't an ending at all. Movie just cuts out and tells you if you want the rest to visit some dumb blog.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 might have one of the most insanely anti-climatic endings I've ever seen. I thought the movies all sucked and everything, but that freakin' final battle vision moment in the last movie is just mind-blowingly bad.

@atomicoldman said:

It reminds me of how the theatrical cut of Donnie Darko doesn't explain any of the really specific time travel mechanics of the film (the Artifact, the Manipulated Dead, all of these other really specific labels for the various people and objects in the film), though you can sort of piece it together yourself. At the time, the movie had a weird ARG sort of website that had a bunch of in-universe news articles and voice mail recordings and excerpts from the time travel book in the movie. I believe a whole bunch of that later got incorporated into some director's cut of the movie. I still dislike all the jargon it introduces and the way it casts everyone in a time travel paradox to be participants in a Greek tragedy feels really contrived. So even if a time travel loop started happening in central Mongolia, there would still be a Artifact, Manipulated Dead, etc.? I really hate that part of the fiction.

I really like the very ending of Sunshine (Cillian Murphy standing in the room as time slows down and the sun eats the ship), but you're right that the transition between the first half or two-thirds of that movie the monster movie stuff was too jarring. Which is unfortunate, because parts of that movie are amazing.

The Book of Eli. The whole twist that he was blind the entire time, ruined the entire movie for me.

Now You See Me. Mark Ruffalo is behind it all. "B-but how-" JUST DON'T THINK ABOUT IT. AT ALL. The twist alone was enough to drive any rational person up a wall, but then they shoehorn in this completely unnecessary romance as an extra "fuck you" to the audience. Like, the fact James Franco's character survived was not only the least infuriating thing about the ending, but it somehow was more believable than either of those other things.

@atastyslurpee: Huh...I never thought of it like that, I just assumed he could read Braille and the twist being that the book was written in Braille not that he was blind? Maybe that's stupid of me.

Funny Games has an atrocious ending, but you aren't supposed to like it. Actually, maybe it's a great ending. Shit.

A Serbian Film has an atrocious ending, but that entire movie is garbage and filth and never watch A Serbian Film, just don't.

The Village has an atrocious ending, but just hearing about it or reading about it isn't enough. You should experience it for yourself.

@rebel_scum: You think Terminator 3 was bad (it really was)? How about Terminator 5, where Schwarzenegger returns with liquid metal powers, for some reason...

Certainly not the worst ending, but the ending did leave me upset.

No Country For Old Men.

It's not that it's ending is bad. It HAS NO ENDING, for whatever reason, perhaps because 'It was like that in the book' the film has its climax cut out, not shown to us. The character we were following throughout the entire film, Josh Brolin is killed off in a scene that was never filmed. I was rooting for his character, he was fun, and smart and realistic. Dodging the personification of Death, throughout the whole movie, and then he just gets punked out by some random hitmen, and we're not allowed to see his final moments. It betrayed the character.

@redbullet685: I am absolutely with you on High Tension. I have never turned on a film so quickly as I did when that happened.

@adequatelyprepared: To be fair: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (the film) was made before Bryan Lee O'Malley had finished the series with Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour (the last book). In the book Ramona doesn't go back to Gideon, Scott just thinks she does. She goes back to The Sates to live with her dad and spend some time alone while her and Scott work out their own problems. She comes back to Toronto to help Scott fight Gideon, and (like Scott) almost ends up dead in the process. They go into Ramona's head through her Subspace Handbag and defeat her obsession with Gideon, basically, allowing Ramona and Scott to defeat Gideon together. The book ends with Scott and Ramona holding hands, and jumping through the Subspace Door in the park where they had their first date in order to "start again" in a world without the evil exes, allowing them to actually get to know one another.

Gideon's motivations are a little different. He starts the League of Evil Exes on a lark (through a drunken Craig's List rant after Ramona left him), and the actual reason he wants Ramona back is so he can put her in this giant cryostasis machine that he puts all his ex girlfriends in so that they'll never leave him.

There's no Nega-Scott fight while Scott's fighting Gideon, that happens earlier in the book and is what allows Scott to face himself and go get Ramona back.

The nature of The Glow is also different. In the film it was a device (like a literal microchip in the back of Ramona's head) that Gideon was using to control Ramona, whereas in the books Gideon was the inventor/discoverer of Subspace Highways, and hes using them to spy on Ramona and Scott and to influence Ramona's thoughts, feeding her obsession with him. "The Glow" is a light that's emitted from someone's head while their mind is being used as a Subspace Highway, and the only character you see that happen to while they're awake is Ramona.

I also didn't like the ending to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, for the record. Also not the title they should have chose. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life is much better.

I dislike the ending of the final Harry Potter film for different reasons than people have stated in this thread already. I love those books to death, and recognize their problems, but I felt like the film fucked up the final scenes of that series royally.