Stupidest Movie Endings?

[Two Many Cats]

Well okay, I don't think any movie can really top Monster a Go Go where the mutated astronaut gets chased down a sewer and disappears. A telegram then says the astronaut was rescued in the ocean completely normal. The end.

But I just watched Travels with My Aunt. Contrived story of a straight laced guy traveling all over Europe with his aunt trying to raise money for his aunt's lover's kidnapping ransom. At the end, after endless bickering over who's lifestyle is better, the straight laced nephew flips a coin in the air to decide whether they should live his aunt's way or his way. The frame freezes on the coin, so you never find out. Dumb.

Or how about the more famous Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie.

Any others? You can use spoiler tags if you want to. I just thought these examples were too old, too obscure, too famous for anyone to care.

[It's Not Rocket Surgery!]

Two Lane Blacktop has an odd ending for an odd film.

SPOILER:

In the middle of a drag race, it appears as if the film gets stuck in the projector and the film stock catches fire.

[campp]

The Fifth Element was a nice looking film, but crapped out horribly at the end.

[gaffa]

The end of the theatrical release of The Abyss was pretty damn stupid. Which was a shame, because the rest of the film was good. The Special Edition ending was a lot better.

[Dr_Doom]

Knowing, with Nicholas Cage was going along quite well, until late in the film, when Mrs_Doom reacted to a scene by blurting out

SPOILER:

"Oh great, it's a fucking alien spaceship!"

Also, Hollow Man, with Elisabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon was pretty enjoyable, right up until

SPOILER:

Shue's character picks up a huge machinegun and says, a la Rambo, "We're gonna take him down."

[That Don Guy]

Originally Posted by Two Many Cats

Or how about the more famous Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie.

Close - they just ran out of money. There were going to be reasonably elaborate closing credits, presumably by Terry Gilliam, but the lack of money resulted in the "black screen and organ music for two minutes" ending.

[CalMeacham]

I'm still annoyed by the end of Blazing Saddles, myself.

But the biggest mess-of-an-ending, how-the-hell-do-we-finish-this-film has to be the 1960s version of Casino Royale. It's noisier and mmessier than Blazing Saddles. George Raft flipping a coin? The Frankenstein monster? Woody Allen with atomic burps?

[Pine Fresh Scent]

Some people had issues with the ending* of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. I think the ending's fine; however, the ending for Anderson's Magnolia only confirmed that "yep, I have just wasted three hours waiting for this thing to pay off." Ugh.

*spoof ending in this link.

[cjepson]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

I'm still annoyed by the end of Blazing Saddles, myself.

But the biggest mess-of-an-ending, how-the-hell-do-we-finish-this-film has to be the 1960s version of Casino Royale. It's noisier and mmessier than Blazing Saddles. George Raft flipping a coin? The Frankenstein monster? Woody Allen with atomic burps?

Yeah, I would put Blazing Saddles high on the list.

Regarding Casino Royale... seems like a lot of 60s comedies had moronic endings. Like Around the World in 80 Days (Robert Morley or whoever looking into the camera and saying "This is the end").

[Diceman]

Originally Posted by Two Many Cats

Or how about the more famous Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie.

I'll second this. I don't care how quintessentially British the humor is, or whatever other lame excuse you care to use. It's like they just got bored with the movie and said "Screw it! Let's wrap this thing up so we can go home."

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by Diceman

I'll second this. I don't care how quintessentially British the humor is, or whatever other lame excuse you care to use. It's like they just got bored with the movie and said "Screw it! Let's wrap this thing up so we can go home."

So you haven't actually seen the movie, have you? Because if you had, you would have noticed that the ending was set up by several scenes all throughout (the professor being killed by the knight, the police investigating their murder). There were additional scenes not shot that would have further continued that line, too, so the entire thing was planned from the beginning (something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention). If the ending was dictated by running out of money, how was it they had enough money to shoot all those extra scenes?

The ending is one of the funniest in film.

[lisiate]

The Mainland China ending of Infernal Affairs (the movie remade in the US as The Departed) has to be up there. In the original ending the triad mole in the police force gets away clean. This couldn't be shown under the Mainland Chinese equivalent of the Hayes Code, which prohibited films ending with criminals unpunished, so an extremely unconvincing scene was grafted on to the end where the mole meekly surrenders to hordes of uniformed police when he steps out of the elevator.

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by That Don Guy

Close - they just ran out of money. There were going to be reasonably elaborate closing credits, presumably by Terry Gilliam, but the lack of money resulted in the "black screen and organ music for two minutes" ending.

Monty Python weren't really known for their endings, anyway. Of the sketches in the TV series, I can only think of a few that really had any sort of a finish to them. Their humor was in the buildup, and not the punchline. Of course, Life of Brian had one of the best endings, ever.


I'll add Le Salaire de la Peur (Wages of Fear in the U.S.). Four men with nothing to live for are offered a fortune to deliver unstable explosives over dangerous roads to an oil well fire. Only one completes the trip. Finally safe, he is driving back to collect his reward, happily swerving back and forth on a mountain road, when he goes through the guardrail and is killed. I know someone will say how existential and French it was, "doo not to tempt zee fates, yes?", but it just came out of nowhere. I prefer the American remake, Sorcerer. The ending is equally bleak, but it is the character's past catching up with him, not just a deus ex michelin.

[NDP]

The OP mentions the film adaptation of Travels With My Aunt which is based on a novel by Graham Greene. I've read a lot of Graham Greene but I somehow missed "Travels With My Aunt" so I don't know if the film's ending is the same as the book's. Perhaps another Doper can fill us in.

Originally Posted by Robot Arm

I'll add Le Salaire de la Peur (Wages of Fear in the U.S.). Four men with nothing to live for are offered a fortune to deliver unstable explosives over dangerous roads to an oil well fire. Only one completes the trip. Finally safe, he is driving back to collect his reward, happily swerving back and forth on a mountain road, when he goes through the guardrail and is killed. I know someone will say how existential and French it was, "doo not to tempt zee fates, yes?", but it just came out of nowhere. I prefer the American remake, Sorcerer. The ending is equally bleak, but it is the character's past catching up with him, not just a deus ex michelin.

Don't forget that we also see the girlfriend of the driver suddenly drop dead while she's dancing in the cafe. I realize they were going for a downer ending but, viewing it from today's perspective, so much random tragedy is piled on that it seems like a parody.

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by NDP

Don't forget that we also see the girlfriend of the driver suddenly drop dead while she's dancing in the cafe. I realize they were going for a downer ending but, viewing it from today's perspective, so much random tragedy is piled on that it seems like a parody.

Yeah, I found the scene on youtube to refresh my memory before writing my post. (I couldn't remember if it was a rock slide or a tire blowout that forced Mario off the road. Neither one, actually; he was just being an idiot.) It's not absolutely clear she's dead; may have just fainted for some reason. However, she's rather too well-dressed and made-up, consider the location and circumstances. The remake made the town so much more bleak and depressing; where you'd wind up if you really had to disappear.

[Hottius Maximus]

After watching "Burn After Reading" I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless!

I agree about "Magnolia" and I'll add that neither the beginning nor the ending made any sense and had NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie. The in-between parts were good though.


"No Country For Old Men" yeah that made no sense to me either.

And i forget the title here, but the David Lynch film with Robert Blake; I think it was called "Lost Highway" but I'm sure somebody here will correct me if I'm wrong.

[Labtrash]

The Mist.

Fucking Hollywood.

[TreacherousCretin]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

So you haven't actually seen the movie, have you? Because if you had, you would have noticed that the ending was set up by several scenes all throughout (the professor being killed by the knight, the police investigating their murder). There were additional scenes not shot that would have further continued that line, too, so the entire thing was planned from the beginning (something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention). If the ending was dictated by running out of money, how was it they had enough money to shoot all those extra scenes?

The ending is one of the funniest in film.

Couldn't agree more.

.

[Ibn Warraq]

Originally Posted by Labtrash

The Mist.

Fucking Hollywood.

Really?

I thought that ending was great.

For that matter, so did Stephen King who IIRC, said he wished he'd thought of it first.

[Wesley Clark]

The mist had a great ending. Well, not 'great' but a very memorable one.

The movie Vanishing on 7th Street had a good plot and ending to me, but a lot of people didn't like it because it left things unresolved. To me that was a big part of the appeal.

On an unrelated note, Ink had one of the best endings I've seen.

[tellyworth]

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

And i forget the title here, but the David Lynch film with Robert Blake; I think it was called "Lost Highway" but I'm sure somebody here will correct me if I'm wrong.

Lost Highway, yes. It doesn't have an ending. It loops.

[Greekfreak]

"Sliver" wins, hands down.

Voyeur runs a building, there's a murderer we're not quite sure is him, Sharon finds out about his CCTV fetish, points a remote control to the camera (his perspective) and says "Get a life". Roll credits.

I was never more embarrassed for a director. The soundtrack was wicked, though.

Later on, Joe Esterhas the screenwriter explained that the original ending was she finds out the voyeur is the killer but she doesn't care, she loves him anyway. Sharon Stone apparently added the "Get a life" line.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

So you haven't actually seen the movie, have you? Because if you had, you would have noticed that the ending was set up by several scenes all throughout (the professor being killed by the knight, the police investigating their murder). There were additional scenes not shot that would have further continued that line, too, so the entire thing was planned from the beginning (something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention). If the ending was dictated by running out of money, how was it they had enough money to shoot all those extra scenes?

This is a really devastating argument. Because as we all know, there no physical way for footage shot later to be inserted at an earlier point in the film. Someday, perhaps, the technology might exist to allow us to shoot a film out of order, and then assemble it so that scenes shot late in the production might show up early in the film. Of course, most people dismiss that as a pipe dream, but with sufficient technological progress, who knows what we might achieve?

The ending is one of the funniest in film.

Not seem many films, have you?

[DMark]

The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie - actually quite a beautiful film, and up to the ending, entertaining enough.

But seriously, what a stupid, bogus, bullshit, unbelievable ending!
The audience at the screening I was at groaned out loud at how lame it was - some even laughing at the ridiculousness.

When I heard that this was a re-make of a French film, and that the reviewers of the original French film all hated that dumbass ending, I thought, "And they decided to re-make this film and keep the same exact ending people loathed the first time around?!"

[Uncle Jocko]

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

After watching "Burn After Reading" I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless!

Yeah, but JK Simmons' scene at the end almost made it all worthwhile.

JK Simmons is awesome.

[MPB in Salt Lake]

In a thread like this, I think a big part of the criteria depends on whether the movie is more or less realistic or not, which is why a movie like Holy Grail should get a pass, (clearly Monty Python wasn't going for an accurate historical drama) when films like The Pelican Brief (featuring one of the most eye-rolling endings I can ever remember) should not.
---------------------------------------------
I recently saw a thriller called The Lookout, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt that was actually quite good, right all the way up until the laughably, insultingly ridiculous ending had me looking for something to throw thru the TV screen.

JGL played a rich kid who suffered a traumatic brain injury due to a car accident. He gets a job as a janitor in a small town bank, but he is bitter that he can't rise above his menial position. He is befriended by a group of criminals who persuade him to help them rob his bank, which he reluctantly agrees to participate in. Of course the robbery goes bad, several people are killed (including a cop) but apparently when all is said and done, he is let off scot free to continue his life, instead of being locked up for the rest of his life on accessory to murder charges....

I have obviously glossed over a ton of stuff, but overall it was a pretty tight little movie up until the VERY end, at which point it made me feel like I had been roundly told to "Fuck Off, Sucker!" by the entire cast & crew.

[hogarth]

Requiem For A Dream was a dark and depressing drama until the last 10 minutes or so when it went so over the top with its punishment of the main characters that it morphed into a Ren & Stimpy cartoon.

[Latimera]

Originally Posted by TreacherousCretin

Couldn't agree more.

.

Regarding Monty Python and the Holy Grail: I saw the movie in the theatre when it first came out, along with a bunch of other rabid Monty Python fans. The ending was pretty much what we expected and completely fit with the kind of endings to their skits on the TV series. We all loved it.

I can see that if you didn't grow up watching the series, and weren't used to their particular form of editing, the ending might have been annoying.

But it made sense in a Monte Python kind of way. And back then I didn't hear anyone complain about the movie ending. It was Monty Python after all!

[John DiFool]

Should I drop in the Planet of the Apes remake here?

[Zebra]

Lost in Translation. Of course it had a crappy beginning and middle as well.



Monty Python couldn't have ended any other way. What, did you want a huge battle scene and then they actually find the Holy Grail? The Holy Grail doesn't exist! It never existed. The quest to find something that doesn't exist is going to be unfulfilled. (unless you're Indiana Jones and even he didn't get to keep it.)

[Quimby]

The recent alien invasion movie Skyline. I don't have to spoiler anything because it has no ending. The movie just stops. And yes, I am still bitter about that $8.50 I spent on that turd.

[CalMeacham]

How about that low-budget 1965 Bad Science Fiction Film Monster a Go-Go -- a film so bad that even Herschell Gordon Lewis ( Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs) didn't want his name on it.


After the Authorities spend the entire movie tracking down the astronaur-turned-monster, they suddenly turn a corner and the Narrator says...

As if a switch had been turned, as if an eye had been blinked, as if some phantom force in the universe had made a move eons beyond our comprehension, suddenly, there was no trail! There was no giant, no monster, no thing called "Douglas" to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness! With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size, some eight thousand miles away in a lifeboat, with no memory of where he has been, or how he was separated from his capsule! Then who, or what, has landed here? Is it here yet? Or has the cosmic switch been pulled? Case in point: The line between science fiction and science fact is microscopically thin! You have witnessed the line being shaved even thinner! But is the menace with us? Or is the monster gone?

Yeah. Right. You couldn't figure out how to end it, so we fall back on the Ambiguous Non-Ending.

This was an MST3K favorite.

[Loach]

Originally Posted by Latimera

Regarding Monty Python and the Holy Grail: I saw the movie in the theatre when it first came out, along with a bunch of other rabid Monty Python fans. The ending was pretty much what we expected and completely fit with the kind of endings to their skits on the TV series. We all loved it.

I can see that if you didn't grow up watching the series, and weren't used to their particular form of editing, the ending might have been annoying.

But it made sense in a Monte Python kind of way. And back then I didn't hear anyone complain about the movie ending. It was Monty Python after all!

The ending wasn't funny the second time I saw if but I loved it the first time.

[Pine Fresh Scent]

Originally Posted by Ibn Warraq

The Mist.

Fucking Hollywood.

Really?

I thought that ending was great.

For that matter, so did Stephen King who IIRC, said he wished he'd thought of it first.

I prefer the novella's end and found this re-edited ending for the movie that matches it. When I think about the film, this is the ending I play in my mind.

Hottius Maximus, I was also "left hanging" by the ending for No Country until someone explained that Tommy Lee Jones' character is the protagonist, not Chigurh or Llewelyn, making the story about Sheriff Bell's decision to engage in the ultra-violent contemporary world, or to retire and live in the past for the rest of his days. In that light, his dream story about his father makes an appropriate ending (as does his narrative story at the beginning), but it sure wasn't what I was expecting based on the cat and mouse between Moss and Chigurh.

[TriPolar]

Nobody's going to mention 2001: A Space Odyssey?

[cynyc]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Nobody's going to mention 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Yeah WTF was THAT?

I was going to add "Raising Arizona."

[cynyc]

Originally Posted by John DiFool

Should I drop in the Planet of the Apes remake here?

They REMADE a perfect flick?

[TriPolar]

Zabriskie Point. The less said about this film, the better.

[thelurkinghorror]

To avoid a bunch of quotes, my responses are to the above:

Hollow Man: Shue was annoying in that because she exercised the stupid horror movie trope "let's whack the bad guy once and then run away without checking his breathing."

Burn After Reading was such a great inspiration to me that I know nothing about the plot other then that one scene. And I think I remember the main characters being colossally stupid.

Requiem for a Dream: if you're planning on watching this movie, this link summarizes everything you need to know about the plot (absolutely no spoilers in video).

Now:

Scream 4. The very beginning part was decently funny, with the cameos and such. But the ending, even knowing that the other films weren't terribly believable:

SPOILER:

Old main character Neve Campbell comes into town. She meets up with old characters, as well as Emma Roberts, her teenage cousin or something. It turns out that she is the killer with her secret boyfriend. She is ruthless enough to kill him because she's been using him. The motivation that makes two teenagers who seemed well adjusted before mass murder? They wanted to be famous as the only survivors. Serial killers out of the woodwork. Cabot Cove, ME, you have a rival.

[VarlosZ]

Disagree about Magnolia -- very cathartic. I may or may not have giggled in joy during the sequence.

Also disagree on Blazing Saddles -- very fun, clever!


I do agree about Holy Grail. I've heard plenty of different explanation for the ending, including that they ran out of money, that it was always thus in the script, and that the idea to end it the way they did was accepted (for the original script) because they didn't have enough money to film a proper battle scene (i.e., both are true).

In any event, it leaves me cold. At best I might smile to myself and think, "Heh, that's cute."

[Bryan Ekers]

Ransom. Coulda been a taut-nerve kidnapping drama with a darkly amusing twist ending. Instead we got something out the Hayes code playbook where bad guys have to pay for their crimes.

Body Double. Completely stupid, but the ending stands out by relying on a dog pushing his way through what must be the fragile car window in history.

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

After watching "Burn After Reading" I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless!

You aren't very familiar with the Coen brothers, are you? I thought it was amazing.

[thelurkinghorror]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Ransom. Coulda been a taut-nerve kidnapping drama with a darkly amusing twist ending. Instead we got something out the Hayes code playbook where bad guys have to pay for their crimes.

It's at least partially based on a 1963 Kurosawa movie with a different story but similar ending. Otherwise, I know what you mean but I don't think that makes it cliched if one specific movie decides to end that way. Also, Mel Gibson needs to go crazy and kill people in his movies, and he didn't fulfill that quota yet.

Though I do hate the "I can't kill the bad guy, but it's ok when he falls off a cliff accidentally" moral meme.

[don't ask]

Originally Posted by MPB in Salt Lake

I recently saw a thriller called The Lookout, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt that was actually quite good, right all the way up until the laughably, insultingly ridiculous ending had me looking for something to throw thru the TV screen.

JGL played a rich kid who suffered a traumatic brain injury due to a car accident. He gets a job as a janitor in a small town bank, but he is bitter that he can't rise above his menial position. He is befriended by a group of criminals who persuade him to help them rob his bank, which he reluctantly agrees to participate in. Of course the robbery goes bad, several people are killed (including a cop) but apparently when all is said and done, he is let off scot free to continue his life, instead of being locked up for the rest of his life on accessory to murder charges....

I have obviously glossed over a ton of stuff, but overall it was a pretty tight little movie up until the VERY end, at which point it made me feel like I had been roundly told to "Fuck Off, Sucker!" by the entire cast & crew.

Oh I don't know -

SPOILER:

rich kid, brain damage, saved Lewis's life, forced at gunpoint to participate (all on video).

I can see a prosecutor thinking, "why bother." Great little lesser known movie too.

I hated Extremeties a pretty good setup that turns to shit. Farrah Fawcett plays (very well) a woman who is almost raped in her own home. She manages to capture and imprison the rapist who tells her that he has set things up so that he will be able to convince the cops that she is a nut not a victim. He will be set free and will get her. She believes him and thinks she should kill him and bury him in the yard. Her housemates return and they argue to and fro about this moral dilemma - if they call the police he will get off, to be safe she must kill him. So with no warning at all

SPOILER:

he confesses to being a serial killer so that if they call the police he'll be jailed for life

The end.

As for Python they had already used the police device in episode 29 The Money Programme which features The Argument Sketch . The entire history of the Holy Grail script is available online without much effort. The original rejected script was called Monty Python's Second Film. The shooting script for the movie, with annotated differences, is also available. It indicates that the ending is entirely as written.

[drewtwo99]

I didn't really *get* the ending to no country for old men, but I won't say I didn't like it. It was definitely memorable. If somebody wants to give me a spoilered explanation, that'd be cool. What was the speech at the end all about?

I pretty much think that the ending to all these movies that have been mentioned so far have been good.

I enjoyed Synecdoche, New York, for a while... but the movie petered off into blah by the end. The very very end of it was kind of cool I guess. Confusing movie overall.

Didn't care to much for the end of Glorious Basterds but it wasn't the worst I suppose.

[Alka Seltzer]

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

After watching "Burn After Reading" I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless!

The ending was by far the best part of that film.

CIA Superior: What did we learn, Palmer?
CIA Officer: I don't know, sir.
CIA Superior: I don't fuckin' know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir.
CIA Superior: I'm fucked if I know what we did.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir, it's, uh, hard to say
CIA Superior: Jesus Fucking Christ.

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

"No Country For Old Men" yeah that made no sense to me either.

Consider the title, and that the sheriff has just retired.

[Ashley Pomeroy]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

How about that low-budget 1965 Bad Science Fiction Film Monster a Go-Go -- a film so bad that even Herschell Gordon Lewis ( Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs) didn't want his name on it.

Yeah, or how about Travels With My Aunt? That one always bugged me.

But not as much as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm surprised no-one's mentioned that yet. Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie.

On a more serious note, Two-Lane Blacktop. It fits the film, but still. There's a canon of 70s New Hollywood films with abrupt and/or silly downer endings from that period - Electra Glide in Blue, Easy Rider, Phase IV. Vanishing Point. THX 1138. Yes, you were trying to make us leave the cinema filled with an ineffable feeling of loss. It worked when Vittorio De Sica did it. But you, quasi-indie mainstream New Hollywood of the early 1970s, you were not quite Vittorio De Sica. But you tried, I'll grant you that.

[Bakhesh]

Originally Posted by John DiFool

Should I drop in the Planet of the Apes remake here?

yeah, that's what I came here to add. It annoyed me so much, I don't think I've seen another Tim Burton movie since

[msmith537]

Originally Posted by Hottius Maximus

After watching "Burn After Reading" I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless!

Well...They will just have to learn their lesson and not do...whatever it was they did.



How about the ending of Wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage? AHHHH!! THE BEES!!!

[JKilez]

Originally Posted by Ashley Pomeroy

But not as much as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm surprised no-one's mentioned that yet. Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie.

I heard that they were setting it up for a sequel. They had a script all set for Monty Python's Second Holy Grail Film, but it was rejected.