# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/101 "2011-03-16T18:38:50Z")
…these threads infuriate and amuse me far too much. I actually like the Alien-Mecha ending of AI much more than the bottom of the sea ending…but you ahve to turn it off right after they say “From him we will lean about humanity.” THAT’S such a EFFED up idea. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/102 "2011-03-16T19:40:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > 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. > > 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. With Monty Python/Grail, the absurdist, 4th-wall ending arguably has an even more subversive kick to it because of the founding-national-myth-like source material. I bet some English viewers were thinking throughout, “how did they dare do this?” even as they were laughing. And I liked the downer ending to _The Mist_, too. The French slasher flick _Haut Tension_ (High Tension) was satisfyingly gritty until the incredibly dishonest “twist” ending – about which, Roger Ebert wrote [paraphrasing here], “it had a plot hole so huge you could drive a truck through it – which they did, literally”. The DVD extra features made clear that the asinine filmmakers couldn’t have been more smugly pleased with their story, BTW, including its ridiculous plotting. I couldn’t tell if they were being blithely dishonest about their film’s flaws or if they were truly that clueless. ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/103 "2011-03-16T20:08:58Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > 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. I’ll confess to seeing that as being almost the point. The universe gives a man who praises the idea of never forming bonds (the entire backpack deal) exactly what he’s been asking for: Freedom to roam, but not to settle down. I _liked_ the Flying Dutchman ending. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/104 "2011-03-16T20:24:03Z")
I like the movie _My Cousin Vinnie_ a lot, but I thought the ending was way too deus ex machina: they just happen to find the car that Mona Lisa described, it happens to have the murder weapon and two guys who look like the defendants, etc… On the commentary the director said he wasn’t happy with it either and didn’t want to include it, but the powers-that-be wanted a permanently closed case because even if you proved the innocent of “the two utes” it felt there was no resolution if the real killers weren’t caught. I thought _Godfather 3_’s ending with Michael falling over, presumably dead but maybe just sleepy, was unintentionally funny. Apparently so did Chris Elliot who did a send up of it on his show at the time, _Get a Life_. ---
**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 16, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/105 "2011-03-16T20:46:55Z")
> [@Spiny\_Norman](#): > > I’ll confess to seeing that as being almost the point. The universe gives a man who praises the idea of never forming bonds (the entire backpack deal) exactly what he’s been asking for: Freedom to roam, but not to settle down. I _liked_ the Flying Dutchman ending. No it gave him the idea in his head that he was wrong, life isn’t about being alone and completely independent because he was falling in love with the other female traveler…just to have it brutally taken away from him, make him realize that you should cast off everyone you have ever known and be by yourself and give everyone in the audience a big “fuck you”. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/106 "2011-03-16T21:07:50Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > The French slasher flick _Haut Tension_ (High Tension) was satisfyingly gritty until the incredibly dishonest “twist” ending – about which, Roger Ebert wrote [paraphrasing here], “it had a plot hole so huge you could drive a truck through it – which they did, literally”. The DVD extra features made clear that the asinine filmmakers couldn’t have been more smugly pleased with their story, BTW, including its ridiculous plotting. I couldn’t tell if they were being blithely dishonest about their film’s flaws or if they were truly that clueless. It was way fun if you overlook the implausibility. To the extent that they could sell it, I think they did. I always wondered about the sickening scene at beginning with the trucker in the field… I guess that was just part of her fantasy… ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/107 "2011-03-16T21:26:31Z")
_The Truman Show_, because a) Christof straight tries to murder Truman on TV, which was a big WTF?; and 2) the effect of the real world on Truman would have been a vital continuation. It ended too soon. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/108 "2011-03-16T21:48:37Z")
The movies with a badly thought final twist reeeeally infuriate me. You know, the ones that, if you back trace the plot, mean that the twist is impossible. Two prime examples of that: **Machstick Men**. Sure, a nice enough movie up until the end, but for it to make sense, Sam Rockwell had to be some sort of God able to determine every single move Cage was supposed to make. Had Nic Cage just decided to contact the mother of his alleged daughter by himself, the whole plan would have been shot to hell. In fact, I spent the whole movie thinking _“well, its a movie about con men, so the whole thing has to be a big con… but no, none of this could be possible planned beforehand”_ I had a similar problem with **"Angels and Demons**" since [SPOILER]Come on! Seriously? Ewan MacGregor planned all that with absurdly accurate timing? Had Tom Hanks just taken a minute to tie up his shoe or something and Ewan would have just been vaporized with the rest of the Vatican! It could have made some sense if Ayelet Zurer had been working with him, and lied about the timing or started the bomb herself or whatever, but since that didn’t turned out to be the case, the only possibility is that Ewan actually had God on his side. Well done, Tom, you went against the creator’s wishes. Enjoy your eternity in Hell.[/SPOILER] ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/109 "2011-03-16T22:24:38Z")
Gangster Octopus: > [@](#): > > 1. the effect of the real world on Truman would have been a vital continuation. It ended too soon. But isn’t that sort of the meta-point of the ending? Truman gets to live his life no longer an object of other people’s entertainment - including us. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/110 "2011-03-17T01:20:21Z")
I don’t like the ending to Matrix Reloaded because of the way Matrix Revolutions started. At the end of Reloaded, Neo finds out he can control squiddies in the “real world.” This set up a huge final movie where we find out that the “real world,” as we know it, is actually just another part of the matrix, which also explains how the smith program was able to take over the personality and mind of a “human.” All the clues fit together so perfectly, we all assumed that the final movie would be a series of major revelations. However, at the beginning of Revolutions, Neo gets stuck in the Subway of Boredom for half an hour while all sorts of random crap happens in both worlds. Then they go visit the french guy again, which didn’t really make sense since he didn’t help them the first time. It became clearer and clearer that they had written themselves into a hole and were scrambling furiously to figure out a satisfying ending to it on the fly. Therefore, I nominate Reloaded as having a terrible ending, because it was not only misleading, but promised a much better finale than Revolutions gave. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/111 "2011-03-17T15:07:29Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > That’s more a problem with Time Travel stories, though, isn’t it? There’s only a few ways to end a time travel story without breaking logic in half, and once you’ve seen them all, they get kind of predictable. I know I wouldn’t go into a time travel story expecting to be surprised anymore. Yeah, but since that particular type of ending is such the cliche, the “surprise” could have been that he actually prevented the plague. They still could have done the thing about his childhood visions were of himself, to “surprise” those viewers who were new to time travel. But then having him actually change the future by stopping the bad guy would “surprise” the rest. I guess part of why the ending so terribly disappointed me was my expectations. I didn’t see it until years after it came out, and I’d always heard how great a movie it was. So then, seeing the totally expected, trite, pat, stupid, cliched ending was a huge let down. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/112 "2011-03-17T15:15:18Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > But isn’t that sort of the meta-point of the ending? Truman gets to live his life no longer an object of other people’s entertainment - including us. Except that he’d be a media sensation ever afterward, and could only ever have a life of his own by becoming a recluse. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/113 "2011-03-17T15:18:38Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I like the movie _My Cousin Vinnie_ a lot, but I thought the ending was way too deus ex machina: they just happen to find the car that Mona Lisa described, it happens to have the murder weapon and two guys who look like the defendants, etc.. On the commentary the director said he wasn’t happy with it either and didn’t want to include it, but the powers-that-be wanted a permanently closed case because even if you proved the innocent of “the two utes” it felt there was no resolution if the real killers weren’t caught.. Yeah, I also think that having them find the other car and other guys made vinnie’s brilliant defense kinda pointless. I mean, ultimately all the stuff he did about tearing holes in every witness’s alibi, and even noticing the tire tracks in the picture (well, ok, except for causing him to ask the sheriff to look for the other car), didn’t matter. Just finding a matching car and matching guys (with the right kind of gun, no less) would have caused the jury to acquit. And the silly thing is that they could have had it both ways. They could have had the trial end with Lisa’s testimony (or I guess with the prosecution’s expert being forced to agree that Lisa was right), then show the jury acquitting, and then just before Vinnie and Lisa leave, the sheriff (acting on his own initiative, not because Vinnie asked him to) says that they found the other car and guys with the gun. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/114 "2011-03-17T16:08:41Z")
Akira: I can handle totally incomprehensible metaphysical endings if the movies themselves are sort of meta-physical (2001, Donnie Darko), but Akira was a plot driven action movie leading to the hopeful final discovery of the mystry of the title title character. When they find him it instantly devolves into a confusing mishmash of weird visuals and cryptic sayings that lead nowhere. Wizards (1977): It’s been over 20 years since I saw this, but I remember being very disappointed by the ending. I might have a better opinion if I saw it again. The whole movie is a battle between magic (good) and technology (bad). At the end the good wizard pulls out a gun and kills the bad wizard/technician. totally dismissing all the duality that went before. ---
**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 17, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/115 "2011-03-17T16:31:42Z")
The ending of “My Fair Lady” always bugged me. Eliza would Not be fetching the Professor’s slippers. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/116 "2011-03-17T17:10:18Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I agree, I was vehemently disliking much of **Blair Witch** until that scene, which was really effective for me. Prior to that I was loathing the characters fairly deeply and merely annoyed with them. I also though _Blair Witch_ was “meh”, but I like the last scene. When we were told early on that little kids stood in the corner pretty much waiting to be slaughtered, that seemed totally reasonable to me. A little kid will obey and do what the scary man says, hoping that good little boys aren’t punished. But an adult? No way. That’s what made the scene work for me. I tells ya, if I was 20 and some evil, scary dude had me in a basement and told me to stand in the corner and I knew I was going to die — no way would I just stand there. I’d go down kicking punching, biting and clawing. So if that 20-year-old guy was scared so bad that he _was_ obediently standing in the corner like a good little boy, how f\*\*king scary was that evil??? :eek: You can’t actually film it. It’s like turning on the light so you can see if there’s a monster in the closet. It’s only really scary if you don’t know for sure if there is or is not a monster. And if you _know_ there’s _something_ in the closet, it’s also scarier if you aren’t sure if the monster is an ordinary alligator or a supernatural zombie-dragon. If it’s a beyond your comprehension and/or can’t be defined, it’s way scarier. ---
**Author:** ![markm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@markm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markm)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/117 "2011-03-17T17:42:18Z")
I also didn’t care for the ending of The Mist. I think had they not had the military come through immediately afterward, making his actions a big tragic ‘oopsie’, it would have been better. Yeah, I know what they were going for with that, but I just didn’t care for it. Either leave his fate ambiguous with the others dead, or have the military come through to find all of them dead. Had there not been so much agonizing over “5 of us, only 4 bullets” or however it was, it might not have been so bad. But the way they did it just didn’t work for me. Another terrible ending (granted it was a terrible movie): The Game. It was so atrocious I’m not going to defend my accusations. If you haven’t seen the movie, congratulations. If you have, I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/118 "2011-03-17T17:49:41Z")
[The Quiet Earth (1984)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/) And don’t think you’re going to get any answers from the \*scarce-as-hen’s-teeth book that it was based on. As one reviewer put it, they took a few set pieces from the book and just did their own script. \*A copy of which I own:cool: ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/119 "2011-03-17T18:08:50Z")
- [Suspicion](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034248/)\* Plain spinster (or Hollywood’s idea of one, anyway) Joan Fontaine ignores all family advice and marries handsome cad Cary Grant. Then he starts lying to her and spending all her money. Then she starts finding a trail of evidence that he’s planning to kill her for her life insurance money but she’s too ashamed to raise her concerns. The studio imposed ending… …that it’s all just a big misunderstanding on her part and instead he was going to kill himself out of guilt for getting her into debt was utterly unconvincing. Retrospectively gives the film a bit of a ‘Well, so what, then?’ quality. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/120 "2011-03-17T18:21:18Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > I also though _Blair Witch_ was “meh”, but I like the last scene. When we were told early on that little kids stood in the corner pretty much waiting to be slaughtered, that seemed totally reasonable to me. A little kid will obey and do what the scary man says, hoping that good little boys aren’t punished. But an adult? No way. > > That’s what made the scene work for me. I tells ya, if I was 20 and some evil, scary dude had me in a basement and told me to stand in the corner and I knew I was going to die — no way would I just stand there. I’d go down kicking punching, biting and clawing. So if that 20-year-old guy was scared so bad that he _was_ obediently standing in the corner like a good little boy, how f\*\*king scary was that evil??? :eek: > > You can’t actually film it. It’s like turning on the light so you can see if there’s a monster in the closet. It’s only really scary if you don’t know for sure if there is or is not a monster. And if you _know_ there’s _something_ in the closet, it’s also scarier if you aren’t sure if the monster is an ordinary alligator or a supernatural zombie-dragon. > > If it’s a beyond your comprehension and/or can’t be defined, it’s way scarier. I liked the ending too, but had a different take on it. To me, one of the running threads through BWP was how infantalized these college kids were. The scene where one of the characters keeps chanting “No one’s going to help you!” drove that home for me. These kids aren’t prepared to function as adults. They’ve lived their whole lives being bailed out whenever there was a problem, and now there’s no one and they don’t have a clue what to do. When we see the last guy standing with his face pointed towards the wall, that’s the final nail. These kids, and by extension their generation, aren’t prepared to survive in the scary woods of the world. They’re screwed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=7)