We have all seen a movie where the ending left us unsatisfied and inexplicably unclimactic. We have all watched a film where the ending made us mutter, “Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?” all under our breath. One forum member asked a popular online community, “What movie had you frustrated with an ending that felt poorly done?” Here is what the internet forum members had to say.
1. Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Alice (Florence Pugh) is a stay-at-home wife in the town of Victory, California, a desert company town. Alice enjoys her lifestyle and the amenities she is afforded due to her husband, Jack (Harry Styles)’s occupation. But Jack’s wife has no idea what he does for a living; she just knows it’s super secret.
Soon the veil begins to fall, and the secrecy of Jack’s company and the project they are working on is brought to light. The climax begins with Alice’s realization of the fact they are in a simulation, and it ends with Alice running for her real and simulated life, but then it just pretty much ends there.
2. The Final Countdown (1980)
In 1980, the Pacific aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz, leaves Pearl Harbor Naval Station for a routine training exercise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Unknown to the crew, the Nimitz passes through a time warp where they ended up in 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Commander of this time-displaced aircraft carrier encounters the Imperial Japanese Naval ship that is prepared to launch the infamous attack. The Commander of the Nimitz decides to launch a massive attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier, but right as he does, they are transported back to current times, and everything seems unaffected despite a massive disruption in the past timeline.
3. Skyline (2010)
Skyline is yet another film about aliens descending upon the Earth and wreaking havoc on humans. There is a couple, Jarrod and Elaine, who are in town visiting a friend for a birthday party. During the party, the viewers are made aware that Elaine is expecting.
The next day, blue lights descend from above, hypnotizing, immobilizing, and abducting anyone who makes eye contact with this eerie fluorescent light show. Eventually, the expecting couple gets abducted themselves and witnesses the horrors of what the aliens are doing to those they have collected.
Jarrod’s brain is placed into an alien body, but he retains control of the body, and the credits proceed to roll as they give you an almost blooper-like roll of still photos of what should be the final scenes of the flick.
4. Now You See Me (2013)
Many viewers note the film is tolerable even though the majority of the movie is just cheesy magic tricks. But the final reveal of the Mastermind and their identity is where the fans lose it.
The entire length of the feature, there are no hints or easter egg drops that would even slightly hint at the identity of the Mastermind, but nonetheless, BOOM, they just drop their identity at the end of the motion picture, and it’s just blah!
5. The Devil Inside (2012)
This found footage supernatural horror feature follows a girl, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), who is making a documentary about exorcisms. This leads her to dig a little deeper into the unknown past of her mother, who has been locked away since 1989. Isabella finds out from her father that her mother murdered three clergy members during an attempted exorcism.
Since then, Isabella’s mother has been held in a Catholic psychiatric hospital in Rome. Soon after arriving in Rome, Isabella, along with others around her, finds themselves under demonic attack. The film ends with a car crash and a title card that directs the viewer to the internet for more information. Like, what?
6. Glass (2019)
Many M. Night Shyamalan fans spoke about how disappointed they were with the finale of the Unbreakable trilogy. There was so much anticipation built up with the first two installments. The first film brought us David Dunn (Willis) and Elijah Price (Jackson), and it showed viewers truly how powerful they both were.
The second film, Split, introduced us to Kevin and the other 23 personalities that inhabited his mind. So when the demise of Willis’ character is brought about in a puddle, that is when the film went downhill. I mean, honestly, they built up the premise of this great protagonist just to end him in a pothole full of water.
7. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
Even moviegoers who hadn’t read the books spoke about how disappointed with the ending they were. I personally have not read the books either, but I will say that a cliffhanger drives me insane, and not in a good way.
The film climaxes with Smaug being bathed in molten gold and somehow still able to escape; I mean, molten gold, you know, boiling, bubbling gold? How they managed to come up with that outcome, I will never know.
8. No Country for Old Men (2007)
After the edge-of-your-seat cat-and-mouse chase that was the on-screen depiction of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name, even seasoned Coen fans would state the ending was quite anticlimactic.
Despite the fact that the Coen brothers often shoot for that feeling, many viewers agreed that the offscreen deaths of Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) and his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), were a bit unfair to the viewers and everything they invested in watching the movie.
9. The Beach (2000)
One cinephile exclaimed, “THE BEACH! It was visually stunning and had a trippy existential narrative that felt like it was building to something then, just meh. I know production ran into a bunch of issues which played a part in how it ended.” This film viewer didn’t seem happy with the ending of the flick, especially in comparison with the book.
10. Next (2007)
Another film fan stated it’s an “Old Nicolas Cage movie where he can see a few minutes into the future. Kind of a fun/cool concept, but the final act goes crazy, and everyone dies (a nuclear bomb goes off in Los Angeles). Then it turns out his power increased, and he was seeing like way into the future, and none of it happened. That was such a cop-out. They could literally do anything if none of it counts. I was so mad.”
11. Baby Driver (2017)
“I wish Baby Driver had just allowed Baby to escape at the end. I know it would’ve been unrealistic, but I mean, who was watching that film for realism? I just wanted a flashy, stylized heist film, and the ‘arrested for five years and then released because he was a good boy’ ending just felt lame and anticlimactic,” one movie fan articulates.
12. How it Ends (2018)
“This movie made me completely change my mind on the whole ‘let the audience decide what happened’ type of ending. Now I’m like, ‘NOPE, you’re just lazy.’ with these types of endings.” Another filmaholic describes it as “Just a dumb and lazy cop-out because you couldn’t figure out a creative way to wrap it up. That strategy angers me to no end (no pun intended) after this movie.”
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Source: Reddit.