Worst film endings

[3 Colours Red]

Worst film endings

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: But the film doesn't make out that Stalinism has "won out", it makes out that the only way to replace the (Stalinist) regime of the pigs is with a (yet further) popular revolution, which is meant to be desperate and hopeless but in the film somehow comes across as uplifting.

I never claimed that the film says that - or indeed the book - but just think how paranoid (and borderline delusional) the CIA were during the dark days of McCarthyism. The thought must have at least crossed their minds that any vague idea of Communism not being an entirely bad thing was hardly something they wanted to be promoted.

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Maybe it was what was going on in North Korea and China at the time that the American film-makers were scared of portraying as a positive thing?

That's a possibility but I thought the allegory in the book was pretty obvious as to which particular branch of Communism Orwell was most concerned about.

[G-Man]

Worst film endings

tee rex wrote: Not the "worst", but Hitchcock doesn't exactly resolve The Birds. The humans just leave the stage.

That's sort of the point, isn't it. Hitchcock's films were mostly psychological thrillers, but The Birds was a horror movie. And the inconclusive ending perpetuates the horror: the birds are still there, nobody is safe. I think it's a brilliant ending.

[Squarewheelbike]

Worst film endings

Little Shop of Horrors, another happy ending load of bollocks!

[Borracho]

Worst film endings

Tony C wrote:

No Country For Old Men trumps all. The ending is simply appalling.

Agreed, but still not enough to spoil the whole thing.

It's great. But how much better it would have been if they'd just ended with the car on the street.

[Outside Agent]

Worst film endings

Basic Instinct.

There's an ice-pick under the bed. That'll get people thinking. Crap.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Worst film endings

Mel Brooks' History of the world part I.
I was about ten when I watched it, laughed like crazy, then the ending with a promise of a sequel soon to follow with some sequences from it, a sequel which never came.

The bastard!

[kokamoa]

Worst film endings

Ginger Yellow wrote: AI

I remember a friend of mine seeing this before I was going to see it and telling me that the first 90 minutes were great but that it totally fell apart in the last 15, a fact he emphasised by attempting to show just how poor the shift in tone was by doing a politically incorrect impression of a mental disability.

I went to see the film, and at the point where I thought the film was ending, couldn't believe how badly wrong my friend had got it...until the final, ghastly 15 minutes played out and I found myself I imitating my friend in disgust.

[Ginger Yellow]

Worst film endings

Yeah, I'm not particularly enamoured of the rest of the film either, but the ending is just horrendous.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Worst film endings

What's that Nicolas Cage film? Knowing? The one that has him running around trying to solve a mystery that involves his son being able to predict disasters ... and ends up with son, and girlfriend, and a rabbit being abducted by aliens? That falls into the category of "quite enjoyable and fun but turns into a car crash of pretentiousness".

[Pablo Maqueda]

Worst film endings

No Country For Old Men's ending is great. I like open-ended endings.

I hate 'poetic justice' endings, so that's most mainstream films. Like there's some Space Jesus watching over everything and carefully keeping score. Fair boils my pee.

Any film where the primary antagonist falls to his death from a great height (with one honorable exception for the 1987 Robocop).

[Mumpo]

Worst film endings

The third Lord Of The Rings film, for replacing The Scouring Of The Shire with (at least) half an hour of schmaltzy farewells.

[Borracho]

Worst film endings

Pablo Maqueda is a god wrote: No Country For Old Men's ending is great. I like open-ended endings.

**** SPOILER ******

Well, Bardem climbing bloodied out of his car and staggering down the road in pursuit of his quarry would have been a fairly open-ended ending. It would also surely have been a much, much better ending than Tommy Lee Jones sitting at a table crapping on about a dream he once had about his father.

[Haddock]

Worst film endings

**** SPOILER ******
**** SPOILER ******
**** SPOILER ******
Yes, the Coens apparently favoured a cut with a final shot which moved out from TLJ sitting at the the table to reveal a window in the background and Bardem approaching.
Studio/financier pressure regarding it being too bleak led to them making a point with the one that went on release

[Guy Profumo]

Worst film endings

tee rex wrote: Not the "worst", but Hitchcock doesn't exactly resolve The Birds. The humans just leave the stage.

Whereas in the book they are facing extinction?

[VTTBoscombe]

Worst film endings

"The Golden Compass" - the best part of the first book was the dark ending, which set the stall out for the other two books.
If that was the way it was going, with that "nice" ending, I'm glad they didn't make the follow up films.

[Fussbudget]

Worst film endings

Breaking the Waves. Awful.

[Patrick Thistle]

Worst film endings

Oh and Prometheus.

The whole film is apalling but the [spoiler] decision to chuck in a xenomorph showed even the film-makers thought it was dreadful

(Highlight to read)

[Jah Womble]

Worst film endings

Burn After Reading - it didn't so much reach a crescendo as fizzle out like a dying lightbulb.

[Benjm]

Worst film endings

kokamoa wrote:

AI

I remember a friend of mine seeing this before I was going to see it and telling me that the first 90 minutes were great but that it totally fell apart in the last 15, a fact he emphasised by attempting to show just how poor the shift in tone was by doing a politically incorrect impression of a mental disability.

I went to see the film, and at the point where I thought the film was ending, couldn't believe how badly wrong my friend had got it...until the final, ghastly 15 minutes played out and I found myself I imitating my friend in disgust.

Spielberg did a similar thing with Minority Report: it reaches a natural, but bleak, end when Cruise and the Precog are captured and she is plugged back into the system. The last 20 minutes used to contrive a positive ending dissipate all the impact that the film has managed to build up.

Cruise and the Precog has the makings of a '70s style, odd couple detective drama, should his career ever need a real emergency parachute.

[jameswba]

Worst film endings

The Spielberg film that springs to my mind for its abysmal ending is Saving Private Ryan. After a brutally magnificent opening, it presented an interesting moral dilemma, then tried to tell you exactly which side of that dilemma you should be on. With layers of sweet Spielberg sentimentality coated on top for extra sickliness.

Breaking the Waves is an interesting offering. I thought it was an excellent film overall, but I've totally forgotten how it ended. It might get my prize for 'best ever use of a Leonard Cohen song in cinema' though.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Worst film endings

Benjm wrote: Cruise and the Precog has the makings of a '70s style, odd couple detective drama, should his career ever need a real emergency parachute.

There's a Minority Report TV series on the way. You never know.

[Come along, Min]

Worst film endings

jameswba wrote: Breaking the Waves is an interesting offering. I thought it was an excellent film overall, but I've totally forgotten how it ended. It might get my prize for 'best ever use of a Leonard Cohen song in cinema' though.

Aint seen it, McCabe and Mrs Miller would be my nomination.