# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/121 "2011-03-17T20:51:47Z")
Pretty much every thread that asks for examples of some variation on “movies” and “worst”, can be answered with some aspect of Boxing Helena. In this case: _it was all a dream_. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/122 "2011-03-18T00:59:28Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. I wasn’t expecting a filming of the evil. I was expecting something more, maybe… maybe if they had put the introductory “These people went missing” thing at the end, perhaps? Or maybe if I had heard something (after all, they heard the creepy sounds all the time before). Or maybe even a reaction from the guy when he hears his female companion getting whacked. Or maybe just something showing, for a brief time or off camera, what ends up happening to him… ie, he turning around and facing the evil, scared and shitting his pants… Just… after some very suspenseful sequences just before, this was a let down. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/123 "2011-03-18T01:05:07Z")
I just ran text searches on all three pages of this thread for _[Fear X](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289944/)_. Since no one has mentioned it yet, every previous answer to this thread is wrong. The movie didn’t end – it just stopped. ---
**Author:** ![zoog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7ea924/32.png) [@zoog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoog)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/124 "2011-03-18T01:36:55Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Pretty much every thread that asks for examples of some variation on “movies” and “worst”, can be answered with some aspect of Boxing Helena. In this case: _it was all a dream_. Indeed. I remember loudly exclaiming at the movie theater over the closing credits “Please somebody tell me that I just dreamed that I paid money to see this!”. And I got a little bit of applause… ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/125 "2011-03-18T16:49:44Z")
I just remembered I hated the ending to _An American Werewolf in London_. A tearful sad ending and then BAM Landis hits us with extremely loud “BOM BOPPA BOM BA-DANG-GEE-DANG-DANG” version of _Blue Moon_ when I was crying over the death of cutie hunk David Naughton the Werewolf. :mad: ---
**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 18, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/126 "2011-03-18T17:58:28Z")
[Special Report: Journey to Mars (1996)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116719/) just ends with a loss of transmission, with no clues as to why. Maybe they were hoping for a sequel. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/127 "2011-03-18T21:48:29Z")
_ **Snake Eyes** _. While most frequently remembered for it’s anti-Cobra ninja work, is also a pretty damn good action/thriller-lite, with noticeably good camerawork and Nick Cage at the height of his ‘I’m charming in the way my enthusiastic goofyness doesn’t quite cover my sharp edges’-osity. So, good movie, right up to the part where **AN ARMORED CAR SMASHES THROUGH A WALL, KILLING THE BAD GUYS.** Then the credits start. The cinematic equivalent of your partner having to cut ‘date night’ short due to a family medical emergency. After teasing you for 93 minutes. While a long, quirky build up is good, no one likes it when they’ve been lead to expect a climax, and get **an armored car smashing through a wall.** > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > 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. The traditional weakness of anime, unfortunately. Way too much has a great set up, better middle, and an end that either peters out, makes minimal sense, or is resolved in the last half of the last episode. (Or, in the case of _ **Rune Soldier** _, all three) Then Gainax made a fuck-you ending cool, and a lot of companies stopped even trying. Akira had that unique anime problem that the manga wasn’t done before the movie was made, so they had to make up last quarter of it. What they came up with wasn’t actually bad (Tetsuo and Akira ascend to a higher state of continuousness, I think) but was needlessly cryptic. And in circumstances like that, who actually did what is **kind of important.** > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > 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. _ **Wizards** _’ ending was the best part of the movie!\* The Hitler wizard considered himself some kind of mythic avatar, was planning a big, epic, Hollywood-style mystical showdown. The chubby good wizard, who considered himself a guy who happened to be able to do magic, refused to play along. Perfect, slightly deconstructionist ending to a not-taking-itself-too seriously fantasy story. Which might explain why it showed up again as the ending for one of the ‘dancing gods’ books, and the Harry Potter series. – - With the possible exception of the ‘They killed Fritz!’ monologue, beloved feature of tabletop RPG deaths for decades. Sadly, this has largely been replaced by Metal Gear Solid’s “Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAAAAKE!” but nothing lasts forever. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/128 "2011-03-19T02:48:03Z")
> [@Promethea](#): > > - > > [Suspicion](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034248/)\* > > … Agreed. Stupidest, most completely fucked-up ending ever. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/129 "2011-03-19T04:07:44Z")
Head-smack moment: Nobody mentioned [Signs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signs_%28film%29) yet? I find myself praying, whenever watching a new alien invasion movie, “not the Signs ending…not the Signs ending…not the Signs ending.” ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/130 "2011-03-28T01:48:45Z")
The Wizard of Oz should have ended with Dorothy clicking her heels, or just opening her eyes in bed, not knowing where she was; those would have allowed for a sequel 🙂 (can you imagine some of those great old movies not having a sequel if they were made in the 70’s or later?) The Sound of Music had the right idea…they could have had SOM2 begin with the family struggling high in the Alps or beginning their new life in Switzerland. Amazing it never happened. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/131 "2011-03-28T03:13:59Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > And the boy we’ll send to live 3on the farm where his dad’s mom is buried a half hour from where his dad grew up and under his real surname" thing they never really cared to expound upon the logic of anymore than explaining how Obi Wan couldn’t remember R2D2. I can only assume that the stress of the fall of the Republic (and “killing” his own Padawan) had got to Obi Wan by then and he did a lot of drugs in the period following Padme’s death. Lots and lots of drugs. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/132 "2011-05-19T08:25:27Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > The Lost Weekend ends with our hero who, after a hellish series of events because of his dipsomania, nonetheless seems to have hit bottom and is on the road to wellness. He has the support of his brother, the love of his girlfriend, and, offered a glass of booze, flicks his cigarette into it! No more of that! He rolls up his sleeves and sits down to his typewriter and write his book. Just like that! Maybe this ending was a bright spot in his life, where he turned his life around, but I doubt he wrote more than three pages before he was back to his old habits. Are you sure? That’s not the ending I remember. I remember him just looking out the window, resigned that he was a hopeless alcoholic, one of thousands, and he sure wasn’t writing anything. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/133 "2011-05-19T09:08:29Z")
The Pledge, with Jack Nicholson. good movie. I don’t need sunshine and butterflies at the end of every movie but a little moonlight and a moth doesn’t hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/134 "2011-05-19T09:40:20Z")
> [@Ura-Maru](#): > > _ **Snake Eyes** _. While most frequently remembered for it’s anti-Cobra ninja work, is also a pretty damn good action/thriller-lite, with noticeably good camerawork and Nick Cage at the height of his ‘I’m charming in the way my enthusiastic goofyness doesn’t quite cover my sharp edges’-osity. So, good movie, right up to the part where **AN ARMORED CAR SMASHES THROUGH A WALL, KILLING THE BAD GUYS.** Then the credits start. While I’m not arguing that the circumstances leading the armored car to crash through the wall weren’t deeply contrived, that wasn’t remotely the end in the version I saw. In fact, after Gary Sinise’s character kills himself, Santoro gets an award for his bravery but the press uncover his illegal dealings and he is fired, abandoned by his wife and his lover, loses the custody of his son and is arrested. Not very happy at all. There’s a vague promise that things could work out in the long run for Santoro but the immediate future is definitely unpleasant. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/135 "2011-05-19T11:38:46Z")
I realize this is an old thread, but I was very disappointed with the film “Mist” ending as well. IMO the novella ending had just the right balance of… [spoiler]…bleakness (with the Mist apparently extending over most of the eastern U.S.) and hope (with the protagonists picking up the snippet of a radio broadcast on their car radio)…[/spoiler] …to really get the imagination running. Whenever I remember that story I always end up speculating on whatever may have happened to everyone afterwards. Did they make it? Did they get eaten? (Did they end up eating each other?!). It really got me wondering, and to me, that was a great ending. One of the few really good ones that King’s ever written. Compared to that, the film ending seemed like such a lame attempt to hammer home an extra helping of unnecessary gritty bleakness. Look everyone! Bleak grit! Life is tough and then you die! Take that! > [@Miller](#): > > 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. I don’t like to play this card either, but Stephen King’s endings are usually quite lousy, and so I don’t really trust his judgment on the topic. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/137 "2011-05-19T13:12:09Z")
I suppose the ending for the 1970 film “Waterloo” which has the Duke of Wellington (Christopher Plummer) surveying the carnage and saying “next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won”. Well, yeah, war is hell as the saying goes but someone who saw the movie without knowing much about history wouldn’t know the battle ended 20 years of French aggression and with the Congress of Vienna set up a century of peace, progress and prosperity in Europe (until in 1914 when everyone decided to go mad because after Franz Ferdinand’s chauffeur made a wrong turn). Should we mention the ending for “Star Trek V” with Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing “Row Your Boat” was a very bad ending to a very bad film? ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/138 "2011-05-19T14:00:39Z")
I watched a lot of movies in the '80s, and the one that still sticks in my mind as the most disappointing ending was _[Shoot to Kill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_to_Kill_(1988_film))_ starring Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger. I really liked this film. It’s a tight, suspenseful chase thriller about FBI agent Poitier going after bad guy Berenger through a remote wilderness area. It all builds to the climactic confromtation which turns out to be… _an underwater gunfight_. The _fuck_?? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/139 "2011-05-19T14:25:52Z")
> [@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. Seriously? I loved it, my wife didn’t like it (she was expecting a comedy). I saw the whole thing coming from a mile away, including the marriage and the suicide. It all fit the story perfectly. The movie was about a guy who fires people for a living and he spends his life trying to market his philosophy of “Don’t get attached to anyone or anything and you’ll be happier”. What kind of happy ending did you expect? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/140 "2011-05-19T14:36:31Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > The ending of “My Fair Lady” always bugged me. Eliza would Not be fetching the Professor’s slippers. That’s right. The writers changed the original ending in the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw. In that play, Eliza spurns Professor Higgins, and goes off to marry nice guy Freddy and to run a flower shop. In the film, Freddy is just a pointless extra character who sings a nice song. No one has mentioned _2001 A Space Odyssey_. Unless you are under the influence of mind-altering substances (and I can confirm that many of the original audience were) the ending is just weird. It leaves you saying WTF, after watching a fantastic film to that point. BTW, if you have never seen this Kubrick film in a cinema, you won’t understand why people love it. It’s largely ineffective on the small screen. (For example, you will not get the point of the transition from the ape to the space station unless it’s in a dark theatre and a space ship appears in mid air). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512/141 "2011-05-19T14:43:51Z")
**Live and Let Die** I’m a big Bond film fan. This was Roger Moore’s first outing as Bond, and you’d think they’d go out of their way to make it good. The opening had promise, especially when I saw a credit for “shark scenes”. Oh, boy – it’ll be like _Thunderball_, which had a scene in a shark tank, and underwater fight scenes with sharks. But it wasn’t. There were a few good scenes and lines, but Bond generally seems incompetent and just generally lucky. There’s a ridiculous wristwatch with powerful magnets (which would more likely jerk Bond’s hand around, and maybe off.) But the ending was the worst. The “Shark scenes” could’ve been shot through the window of an aquarium, and probably were. And then Bond offs Yaphet Kotto as the villain by pushing a gas capsule into his mouth, making him blow up like a balloon and explode. It looked like a scene out of the Three Stooges. Really, really, really bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-with-the-worst-endings/574512.md?page=8)