# Movies with the worst endings **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 13, 2011, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512 "2011-03-13T07:40:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/61 "2011-03-14T15:26:48Z")
Eddie and the Cruisers. Which is weird because I always thought it was a great premise, and I can’t tell you how the movie SHOULD have ended, other than to say “Not that.” ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/62 "2011-03-14T15:31:35Z")
[The Forgotten](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356618/). OMFG, I can’t believe I paid money to see the steaming POS. It was all well and good right up to the end, then Aliens did it! I can’t even look at Julianne Moore without thinking of her involvement with this crap. BTW, I win the thread. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/63 "2011-03-14T16:23:28Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The [Agony Booth recap](http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Casino_Royale_1967.aspx?Page=13) of Casino Royale (1967) sums up the worst part of a bad ending: Oh, come ON! The 1967 _Casino Royale_ is the best Bond film ever made! And the ending of it, by freeing me of any need to ever watch another Bond flick ('cos of continuity, don’tcha know) was one of the best things about it! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/64 "2011-03-14T16:27:28Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > Eddie and the Cruisers. > > Which is weird because I always thought it was a great premise, and I can’t tell you how the movie SHOULD have ended, other than to say “Not that.” How DID it end? Was that bearded guy smiling at the TV in the TV store window actually Eddie? And if it wasn’t, how did they justify making _Eddie and the Cruisers II_? I didn’t see _Eddie and the Cruisers II_, btw, but don’t let that stop you from spoiling it for me. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/65 "2011-03-14T16:59:53Z")
_Wild Things_, _Employee of the Month_ (not the Simpson one) and any other film that relies on the “Here’s all the missing scenes you needed to actually know what was going on. Aren’t we ever-so-clever?” schtick in lieu of actually misdirecting the viewer via cleverness during the film and not just via missing information. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/66 "2011-03-14T19:07:09Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > I won’t quibble with you, as I see both as heroes, with Frodo the main hero, but that’s from my book perspective. We’ll agree to disagree. Anyway, my comment about the movie ending still stands - many poor choices by Jackson. I don’t see that at all. I can see some scenes you might quibble with—the CGI on the army of the dead, the “cute” scenes with Legolas and Gimli—but the ending was very faithful to the book. They cut out the Scouring of the Shire but they pretty much HAD to. It would not have worked at all on film. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/67 "2011-03-14T19:15:10Z")
Rikwriter - you’ve got a point about 'Return of the King" - The Scouring was such a vital part of the book, it was a shock for me to see them return to find the Shire untouched. but yeah, unworkable in the film. while there are things I don’t like about the ending [I don’t think the Grey Havens was handled well, or the reintroduction of Arwen, or a number of things] it’s certainly not on my list of ‘worst endings ever’, and indeed doesn’t fit the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/68 "2011-03-14T19:15:56Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > My contribution is Blair’s Witch Project. I liked the movie up until the ending. Then it stopped being scary. Wow. Funny how people can have such different opinions. I thought the ending of Blair Witch was really effective. Especially with that one guy standing facing the wall like the children we had heard about earlier in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/69 "2011-03-14T20:29:42Z")
How about the Tim Burton **Planet Of The Apes**? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/70 "2011-03-14T20:36:28Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > How about the Tim Burton **Planet Of The Apes**? Similar ending to STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. Apes have evolved to where they can speak and dress and build cities and philosophize and the like but haven’t figured out how to scrape rust away from a sign, much like the sentient alien technology that can reproduce the universe but can’t read the OYA in V’GER. Of course as iconic as it is I always had a problem with the ending of the original. “Oh my God, this is Earth!” No shit Moses: the fact the atmosphere was identical, humans looked exactly the same and the apes were speaking English weren’t clues? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/71 "2011-03-14T20:53:26Z")
> [@Glory](#): > > I actually love the ending of the Last American Virgin. It had been a fairly typical teen sex romp, the ending really elevated it, made it real. In real life, the girl usually ends up with the good looking asshole, not the heart-of-gold guy. Exactly. I saw it in the theater because I was stuck in a suburb with no escape and it was the only half-way decent thing showing at the theater near me. The “generic teen sex comedy” part was awful, then it was as if the first assistant director hit the director over the head with a light stand, took control of the film and made it a completely different film. I was the guy who got shit on by girls on a regular basis, and walked out of there saying “Yes! That is exactly what would happen!” I’d put it in the category of “Awful Movies with Great Endings”. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/72 "2011-03-14T20:58:58Z")
Woody Allen’s **Sleeper**. It just ended in the middle of a scene. When I saw it I thought the projectionists had forgotten to put the last reel on. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/73 "2011-03-14T20:59:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > At the risk of being called a Blasphemer, I hate endings that look as if they simply couldn’t figure out how to end the damned movie, and this includes some favorites: > > Casino Royale (the awful 1960s version) But no part of the 60s Casino Royale makes any damn sense; I don’t see how the ending is worse than the middle (at the beginning, there haven’t been enough rails put down for them to have definitively gone off of them). ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/74 "2011-03-14T21:04:49Z")
On _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_: wasn’t the ending utterly in keeping with the entire Python ethos? As I understand it, one of the things that made Python great was their willness to dispense with traditional plot structure. They would let situations escalate to utter chaotic nonsense, and then bail out with no attempt to reconcile the situation. Think of your favorite Python bits–most of them (in their original iterations, at least) didn’t have “satisfactory” endings. When things started to drag, they’d jump cut to another sketch, or Chapman would do his Montgomery impression and denounce the whole business as irredeemably silly. Always keeping the audience off-balance, and not being afraid to leave them there even at the end, may well be Python’s defining characteristic. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/75 "2011-03-14T21:09:40Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > How DID it end? Was that bearded guy smiling at the TV in the TV store window actually Eddie? > > And if it wasn’t, how did they justify making _Eddie and the Cruisers II_? > > I didn’t see _Eddie and the Cruisers II_, btw, but don’t let that stop you from spoiling it for me. Yeah. I refuse to block out spoilers for a movie that’s been out 20+ years, so here goes… Right. So, the guy smiling at the end is Eddie. Which is really unclear because they don’t do a good job of explaining that. And supposedly him smiling is his own sense that with this crappy little documentary film, his oh-so-revolutionary forward thinking music (which is, to say, sounding like Bruce Springsteen but doing it back in the 60s) is finally understood. Eddie & The Cruisers 2 starts with him… having done… roughly nothing. He’s up in Canada or something working construction under an alias. But he starts a band with some punk kid… umm… just because… and people keep saying to him “You kinda remind me of Eddie Wilson.” Then at the end onstage he admits he is. But yeah, for the 1st one… the whole thing with Joe Pantoliano and the secret of the stuff left at the dump and such… it just reeeeelly went off the tracks, I think. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/76 "2011-03-14T21:11:59Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > I don’t see that at all. I can see some scenes you might quibble with—the CGI on the army of the dead, the “cute” scenes with Legolas and Gimli—but the ending was very faithful to the book. They cut out the Scouring of the Shire but they pretty much HAD to. It would not have worked at all on film. Crankypants romantic me is sad they cut all the Faramir and Eowyn stuff out. Anyway, my addition is **True Grit**. I know, the story was done, but I wasn’t done with the characters yet. It felt so abrupt. I understand the point of it artistically, but it didn’t satisfy me. My opinion only, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/77 "2011-03-14T21:29:03Z")
Up in the Air OMG who do you have to sleep with to get an Oscar movie with a happy ending? Everything seems to be ok with George Cloony’s character then the writer decides…oh let’s just make everything horrible for no good reason. I hate that movie now because it ends on a bad note solely for the purpose of having a movie end in a bad note. Absolutely horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/78 "2011-03-14T23:13:21Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > On _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_: wasn’t the ending utterly in keeping with the entire Python ethos? As I understand it, one of the things that made Python great was their willness to dispense with traditional plot structure. They would let situations escalate to utter chaotic nonsense, and then bail out with no attempt to reconcile the situation. Think of your favorite Python bits–most of them (in their original iterations, at least) didn’t have “satisfactory” endings. When things started to drag, they’d jump cut to another sketch, or Chapman would do his Montgomery impression and denounce the whole business as irredeemably silly. Always keeping the audience off-balance, and not being afraid to leave them there even at the end, may well be Python’s defining characteristic. I think that was clearly the intention, but I don’t think it worked when divorced from the pure stream-of-consciousness style of the TV show. The ending of _Holy Grail_ made sense when viewed as a product of the ethos of Monty Python’s brand of humor, but also demonstrates the limitations of that ethos. In a linear narrative movie following the same cast of characters, the audience becomes invested in the plot in a way that doesn’t really happen in a sketch comedy format where 90% of the time, the characters don’t even have names, let alone recognizable goals or desires. You can see a similar thing happening in the episode of the TV show where the entire show is about a guy on a bike tour of Cornwall ends up accompanying an amnesiac who thinks he’s Leon Trotsky to Moscow. It’s only a half hour episode, so the effect isn’t as strong, but there’s still a bit of a let down that the narrative doesn’t really go anywhere. > [@EvilTOJ](#): > > The Mist’s ending was just ludicrous. (spoiling it, because seriously, fuck that movie). Some protagonists decide to drive off into the mist to see what they can find and escape the grocery store, and when they run out of gas they decide to just end it all via head shots? THEN the mist clears, the army saves the day, WTF?? I much preferred the book ending which was ambiguous. They were writing their story in an abandoned hotel registry book, spending the night and not knowing if they’d find the end to the mist. I fucking _loved_ the ending to _The Mist_. Ballsiest ending to a movie I’ve ever seen, and fit perfectly with the mood of the film. And while I don’t usually like to play this card in these sorts of conversations, Stephen King agrees with me, having stated that he wishes he had thought to the short story the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/79 "2011-03-14T23:16:04Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > The Mist’s ending was just ludicrous. (spoiling it, because seriously, fuck that movie). Some protagonists decide to drive off into the mist to see what they can find and escape the grocery store, and when they run out of gas they decide to just end it all via head shots? THEN the mist clears, the army saves the day, WTF?? I much preferred the book ending which was ambiguous. They were writing their story in an abandoned hotel registry book, spending the night and not knowing if they’d find the end to the mist. I also came in to mention this one. Awesome short story with a really appropriate ending. The movie ending felt like a gigantic middle finger to the audience, especially with the minor “mom” character riding in the truck at the end. Up until that point I really thought they had made a great adaptation. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/80 "2011-03-15T01:40:54Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Wow. Funny how people can have such different opinions. I thought the ending of Blair Witch was really effective. Especially with that one guy standing facing the wall like the children we had heard about earlier in the movie. Somehow, it was a let down. I got it that the guy was facing the wall like the children. But it wasn’t creepy. All the previous half hour was extremely more scary/suspenseful to me than that ending. Also, the camera was kept on. It should’ve captured the moment were the guy on the corner was murdered too, no? But that wasn’t shown, or at least an indication of the guy being taken away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=5)