Ah, Movies…don’t you just hate it when they’re going great, and boom! the end rolls in and all you’re thinking is: what the fuck was that ending?
At that point, you beef with the script writers because you can swear that even you who’s not a professional writer, can come up with a more befitting ending for that movie. It might be that a character deserves a better ending, the ending was utterly confusing or it seemed like a lazy afterthought, or the ending of the movie just didn’t provide answers to the many questions the film asks—like, please Mrs. Scriptwriter, don’t leave us hanging, we need some closure.
Here’s a list of ten pretty great films that deserved better endings. Watch them with popcorn and lowered expectations, so you aren’t too disappointed with the final scenes.
Gladiator
Gladiator is a historical epic film guaranteed to keep you hooked to your screen from start to finish. It follows a beloved Roman general, Maximus Decimus Meridian (played by Russell Crowe) who seeks revenge against a corrupt emperor, Conmodus—who not only murders his father (Maximus’s superior) and seizes his throne but also kills Maximus’s entire family and pushes Maximus into slavery as he flees from execution.
This movie is renowned for its powerful performances, gripping storyline, and epic battle scenes. You will be swept by Maximus’s fall to slavery, and his rise to a gladiator, all the while patiently waiting until he gets his lick back, especially since Commodus is a very unlikeable character who glaringly does not deserve his ascent to the throne.
The final minutes of the film are very satisfying: Commodus and Maximus duel in front of the Roman crowd. While the wicked new Emperor can’t help but cheat his way to victory—he stabs Maximus in the lung before the battle begins—, Maximus is still able to defeat Commodus.
Sadly, over the most affecting Hans Zimmer score, Maximus succumbs to the injuries sustained in the duel and dies shortly after Commodus. He honestly didn’t deserve that ending, especially after what he had been through to get where he was.
If you want to fall in love with a character that is both dashing and full of integrity, only to get your heart broken by his unexpected demise, this is a must-watch!
I’m rating this a solid 20/21. It’s such a timeless classic, that I am forced to see reason for Maximus’s (unfortunate) death. If he didn’t die, he would definitely have gotten down with one elite woman who was interested in him, and that means he would have cheated on his (dead) wife. And no, I don’t care that his wife was long gone. It’s kinda romantic that he joined her.
Acrimony
Acrimony is a psychological thriller directed by Tyler Perry. The film centres on Melinda, a loyal and hardworking wife who supports her husband Robert through years of financial struggles and broken promises—she uses the inheritance her mom left for her, works two jobs as well, mortgages (and loses) her mother’s house all to support him, and in the process of catching him cheat, she gets into an accident that ruptures her ovaries, only for him to eventually get married to the woman he cheated on her with.
By the time Robert’s inventions finally begin to succeed, he and Melinda are divorced. Seeing him live the life he promised her, with another woman, after many years of pouring into him, leads Melinda into a dark path of anger, revenge, and obsession.
When Robert and his new wife leave on their honeymoon cruise, Melinda sneaks onto the boat, shoots Robert and attempts to shoot his wife. However, an injured Robert is able to prevent Melinda from causing more harm by throwing her into the ocean.
As a society, I know we are all tired of being asked who was wrong in Acrimony, Melinda (played by Taraji P. Henson) or her dusty-ass husband (Lyriq Bent)? However, we all know our girl Melinda deserved way better than dying in a cold vast ocean, basically killed by the same man that drove her crazy. Tyler Perry must pay for his crimes against Black women.
This movie gets a 16/21. Yes the drama was gripping, but at the cost of a black woman with a big heart? Maybe I should score even lower. If I was the writer of Acrimony’s script, Melinda would have left her dusty husband and gone on to win the lottery, and maybe leveled up with a man that worships the ground she walks on. While her dusty husband would never have achieved his dreams and spent the remaining or his life wishing he treated Melinda better.
Leave The World Behind
Leave the World Behind follows Amanda (played by Julia Roberts) and Clay Sandford (played by Ethan Hawke), who bring their children Rose and Archie on a beach getaway. Suddenly two strangers, a man and his daughter arrive at the beach house claiming that they are the owners and need to stay inside for the night to escape the mysterious chaos occurring in the city. The two families are then forced to exist — and survive — under the same roof as increasingly strange and apocalyptic events occur, including plane crashes, herds of deer filing into the backyard, and Archie’s teeth mysteriously falling out. To survive, the two families decide to find a bunker—on reaching this decision they soon realize that Rose is missing.
The movie ends with Rose finding the neighbour’s bunker and staying inside to watch the final season of “Friends” while her family frantically looks for her amidst the chaos.
This movie kept me at the edge of my seat trying to put together what was going on and how the family would survive the apocalypse, so that end was super irritating and underwhelming—like, Rose, the world is burning and your family is worried searching for you, and you’ve found the bunker that will sustain them for a while. Instead of you to run and tell them, you put on Friends?! Nah, I wanted to scream.
Rating this movie 14/21. It was slow-paced watch that had some boring parts, and that ending doesn’t help at all.
Salt Burn
In Salt Burn, Ollie (Barry Keoghan) is introduced as a lonely outcast at the prestigious Oxford University who befriends the larger-than-life Felix (Jacob Elordi) who is sympathetic to Oliver’s stories of his parents’ substance abuse and mental health issues. When Oliver becomes devastated over his father’s sudden death, Felix comforts him and invites him to spend the summer at his family’s country house, Saltburn.
Saltburn starts heading for its (wtf) climactic finale after the sudden death of Felix, from a supposed accidental overdose. Then his sister, Venetia, dies in a bathtub filled with her own blood. Years later, Felix’s dad dies and Ollie manipulates Felix’s sick mom, Elspeth, to make him heir to the Salt Burn estate. In a shocking twist, when Ollie manically unplugs Elspeth’s breathing machine, we find out that he’s responsible for the murder of Felix and his entire family.
This movie is a bizarre slow-paced psychological thriller, and the twist at the end? Well, let’s just say it felt very off.
Saltburn gets a 13/21 rating. I’m unsure if the movie was really good or if it’s just that Jacob Elordi is really hot.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
The story centres on Bella Swan, a teenage girl who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington, and falls in love with Edward Cullen, a mysterious and handsome vampire. Their romance is complicated by the challenges of their different worlds and the danger posed by other vampires.
It is a universal truth that there are so many dumb things within the Twilight Saga—seriously, watch it again as an adult—, but the last part of the franchise, Breaking Dawn, takes the cake. Let’s get into it: After Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) produce a half-vampire, half-human baby, the entire Cullen family realizes that they’ll be targeted by the ultra-powerful Volturi, their vampire council. So, they assemble an army of allies and start training, and when the Volturi arrive in the Pacific Northwest to genocide the Cullens and their allies, a massive battle commences. Watching this scene, if you’ve been religiously following the Twilight Saga, your heart may leap into your tongue. The final battle is mental —you watch as your favourite supernaturals who you’ve invested time and emotions in, are brutally murdered in minutes.
After raising our blood pressure with this scene, we find out that it’s a lie—the battle is a vision of what could happen courtesy of vampire Alice Cullen, who can see into the future. Alice who is privy to the possibility of the fight happening, advises her family to resolve the conflict amicably. So, the good vamps and bad vamps talk it out, and everyone goes home.
This brings me to ask the writers of Breaking Dawn: why waste my time like this? I literally spent over 2 hours watching these supernaturals prepare for a fight that you guys did not have the balls to see through. It sucks—pun intended.
Twilight: Breaking Dawn earns 16/21. This movie with all it’s supernatural incidents and angsty romance defined girlhood for a lot of teenagers. And even with that ending that rose our viewers blood pressure all for nothing, I’m sure many of us are content that Bella, Edward and The Cullens got a happy ending.
The Platform
The Platform is a gem, but the ending taints it a bit. Set in a dystopian future, the story takes place in a vertical prison where inmates are housed on multiple levels. Each day, a platform laden with food descends through the levels, providing ample sustenance for those at the top while leaving those below to fight for scraps. The system inevitably leads to conflict, as the residents at the top levels get to eat as much as they can, with each level only getting the leftovers from the previous ones.
This is an intense and thought-provoking must-watch, exploring themes of social inequality, human nature, and survival. The end however leaves much to be desired because it is left open to various interpretations. You know all those movies that are so interesting you eagerly anticipate its ending to get some closure, only for you to reach the end with none of your burning questions being answered? Yeah, The Platform is guilty of that. I get movies often do this to leave viewers thinking and pondering ‘what if,’ but you still need to give us SOMETHING to make a story feel complete.
The Platform earns a solid 19/21. It’s such a different and intriguing watch that will leave you wanting more. There’s a part 2 coming out so maybe it will have some answers for viewers who were left hanging in part 1.
Titanic
Titanic has a well-deserved legendary status. The story follows Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a poor artist, and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), a wealthy young woman, who meets and falls in love aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic.
Winning 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time, the movie has emotional depth, historical accuracy, and stunning visuals that captivates you all through its 3-hour run-time. However, there’s one thing about Titanic that deeply annoys its audience, the ending.
Instead of Jack and Rose trying harder to fit on the floating door, they give up after just one try. As a result, Jack freezes to death, and Rose almost dies too. It’s clear why this had to happen, but if the film wanted to kill Jack, they didn’t have to wait until the last minute and give him a death that was very much avoidable.
Titanic is top 10 romance movie of the decade, so it gets a generous score of 17.5/21. Maybe it would have been rated higher if Rose shifted for Jack on that floater.
Passengers
Passengers is a 2016 science fiction film set aboard the starship Avalon, transporting thousands of passengers in hibernation to a distant colony planet. When a malfunction awakens mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) 90 years too early, he faces the prospect of living out his life alone. Struggling with isolation, he eventually decides to do the morally bankrupt thing to awaken another passenger, writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence). He essentially dooms her to share his fate and of course, he does not tell her that he was responsible for her pod’s “malfunction,” and the two hit it off, though it’s only a matter of time before she learns for herself.
While this movie is popularly categorized as a romance, it ends up being quite terrible because it fails to address the elephant in the room—the moral implications of Jim Preston’s action and the questions it raises about consent. At the end of the movie, these two live happily ever after. How disturbing.
Passengers really had me bombastically side-eyeing the writers decision to give Jim and Aurora a happy ending. It felt like I was watching a typical Nollywood movie where a badly behaved man’s action impacts the life of a woman, and later on, all is forgiven because such man makes reparations only by marrying the woman. Plus it takes a lot to make a movie with only 2 characters exciting. Passengers didn’t deliver generously on that. 13.5/21.
Game of Thrones
I know it’s not a movie but is this list complete without this fantastic show that didn’t get a fitting ending?
Through seasons 1-7 of Game of Thrones, we watched the untimely demise of Ned Stark. We witnessed the atrocious red wedding, we watched as Daenerys Targaryen grew to be a formidable queen, we saw Cersei Lannister be the evilest woman on TV and we anticipated winter. We waited years and years, invested our emotions, cried, laughed, and nearly had heart attacks all to see who would sit on the iron throne.
By Season 8, the finale of Game of Thrones concluded with the Iron Throne destroyed, the old system of choosing kings and queens eradicated, Bran Stark elected as the new King of Westeros, and Sansa Stark ruled the North as an independent kingdom. Meanwhile, Daenerys is murdered by Jon Snow (the rightful heir of the Iron Throne) who is exiled beyond the Wall once more with the wildlings, and Arya Stark sailed west in search of new horizons.
This ending is engraved in history as one of the worst show endings of all time because too many people suffered and died for the ruler of Westeros to end up being Bran Stark. How disrespectful.
I’m giving Game of Thrones 20.5/21. It delivered excellently on plot, characters, costume, CGI, writing, etc. Greatest TV show of all time. The minus .5 is a lesson for all of us to properly finish what was started well.
Behind Her Eyes
Also a show, the story follows single mother Louise as she embarks on an affair with her boss, psychologist David, after meeting him at a bar. Simultaneously, she becomes friends with David’s wife, Adele, who has struggled with mental illness. Adele teaches Louise, who suffers from night terrors, how to “astral project” – send her consciousness to somewhere else (in this case a nicer dream).
Through a series of flashbacks, we see Adele in a mental institution with her gay friend Rob. But the plot twist is, that Adele is not actually Adele. Adele is Rob, who managed to switch bodies with Adele using astral projection and then take over her life – including her husband, David. He killed the real Adele, who was trapped in his old body, then posed as her and pretended Rob had died from a drug overdose. Rob, still disguised as Adele, now sees Louise threatening to take away everything he considers his, so he tricks Louise into astral projecting, but the second she has left her body, Rob is able to move in, leaving Louise to die in a fire as Adele (keep up).
Rob-as-Louise then marries David, and the series ends with them driving off discussing honeymoon ideas, with Louise’s poor son Adam in the back seat noticing that there is something wrong with his mom.
The ending of this series will certainly leave your mouth wide open, it will take weeks before you can close it up.
Behind Her Eyes ending was seriously fucked up. But it was so riveting, I binged it in one sitting. 19/21
