Films with the worst endings

[springisnotspringing]

Just watched Leave the World Behind. When it ended I was like, what?! Is that it? It was like it ended halfway through, but no, that really was the end!

Anyone else disappointed with any other film ending where you were like, eh?

Everyone raves about Remember Me, but I think they could write that same ending into most non-fantasy films that could be set around that time.

The Station Master. I paused it to get something to eat, sat down to continue watching and the credits came up. Over before it’d begun.

This is the worst ending of any film -

%3D

My sister’s keeper. The book ending was so much better

Gone Girl where the husband is forced to remain with his psycho murderer wife even though they obviously detest each other and a poor new baby is going to be brought into this incredibly toxic situation. The husband is no angel but my God he over pays for it. They are left locked in this abysmal relationship with no hope.

From what I remember it is pretty faithfull to the book which I didn't much like either!

Also Remains of the Day where Anthony Hopkin's character, the very buttoned up butler, doesn't tell Emma Thompson's character, the ex housekeeper, that he has been in love with her for years and leaves and she hints she is going to go back to her horrible husband. One of the saddest films I have watched.

Edward Scissorhands. Why? Why?

What the fuck was that breathless thing?!

Boxing Helena iirc

"How it Ends" is even worse. Same theme as Leave the World Behind but it doesn't end. It just stops. Abruptly. Leaving with you with not a clue about How it Ends.

It was heartbreaking but a lovely film, they were both amazing.

I agree, I was upset for hours after watching this film.

The Hollywood version of The Vanishing. Nowhere near as good as the original.

Not the worst, but Smile from last year (or maybe the year before?)

It was nicely creepy and suspenseful with a few good jump scares and relatively restrained special effects and then lo and behold, fifteen minutes from the end the whole thing turned out to all be because of a monster and the monster was a bit shit.

I think making a film from Leave the World Behind was a mistake as people thought it was going to be a dystopian thriller but the book is quite literary and it’s predominantly about the power dynamics between the various characters and how the facades slip in the face of this disaster. The book also ends fairly ambiguously but it’s more obvious what is going to happen IYSWIM. The Friends obsession was only in the film.

The Sound Of Music. How are they going to survive after fleeing to the mountains with the Nazis after them?

They did survive though? That was the point of the ending.

I think they were fleeing over the border? It's been a while since I saw it. My take on the ending was hopeful as they got escaped from German occupation.

They also survived in reality. Much of the film is only loosely based on their real story but they ended up living in America.

The Golden Compass. Adapted like 7/8ths of Northern Lights then stopped before the fairly crucial ending

AI. It was like 10 minutes of a completely different film tacked on at the end.

Sure, but that's how the novel it was adapting ends. Or are you suggesting (and it's not without appeal!) that the buttoned-up Stevens, who let his father die without him because he thinks that butlering for his employer's Nazi appeasement conference downstairs is more important, and appears to have no idea for much of the novel that he's in love with Miss Kenton) grabs her, kisses her and says 'Come away with me!'

In the movie they walk over the border to Switzerland which was neutral in the war (hence no Nazi chase) - that is reasonably credible in summer- it's not particularly treacherous. In real life they went to Italy on the train because Captain Von traps qualified as an Italian citizen by virtue of being Croatian or something.

Enemy.

Really good story that ends without any satisfaction. Something about a giant spider.

I could possibly have gone with that @NewWater! 😄I haven't read the book. I thought, having watched an entire film about a man making mistake after mistake and throwing away chances at happiness and appearing to realise both that and the blinkered and buttoned up way he had lived his life (I thought), that he might at last at least just tell her his feelings. After most of his life as basically a 'nobody'/servant, serving others, and her's in a crappy marriage, I would have found it a nice ending for them to have found some sort of gentle companionship together - romantic or friendship - or at the very least an understanding of each other's feelings. But no, he went back to the stately home and she probably went back to her awful husband.

He doesn't think that butlering for a Nazi is the most important thing, he thinks being the perfect butler is and part of that is having neutral opinions on his employers whatever they got up to. I thought that was the whole point? Any grey area he would go along with. I'm sure there was a lot of turning a blind eye and putting yourself second 'below stairs' back in the day.

Don't remember the bit where his dad dies alone, but ties in with being a servant and putting your employer first in all things. In the same way I assumed he had always loved her but bottled those feelings up to work. My memories are pretty hazy as haven't watched it for years (probably not since 1993) and it was a film I wasn't going to watch twice! Obviously that ending, one of my worst film ones, has stayed with me a long time.

AI

Totally agree with Leave The World Behind op.

All the way through I was waiting for it to 'kick in' and it just didn't- then it ended! Plus the jarring 1980's-esque twilight zone music I found REALLY off-putting.

The trailer was so good too. Bah, annoying.