We’ve all been there, right? You settle in, maybe with a huge bowl of microwave popcorn, ready to dive headfirst into a new cinematic adventure or revisit an old favorite. You’re completely invested, emotionally tuned in, and excitedly anticipating how the story will wrap up. Then, suddenly, the credits start to roll, and you’re left staring at the screen, jaw dropped, wondering if you just watched a completely different movie than the one you thought you were experiencing.
It’s an enormous misstep, a tragic miscalculation, when even the most awesome movie betrays you with an awful, utterly infuriating ending. That feeling of disappointment can be so profound that it ruins the entire film for you, making you angry just hearing its title. Today, we’re taking a deep dive into some of the most popular films that, despite their incredible premises or beloved characters, committed the cardinal sin of completely whiffing their grand finales.
From cheap narrative cop-outs to bewildering plot twists and resolutions that make absolutely no sense, these movies prove that even Hollywood’s biggest productions can stumble right at the finish line. Get ready to relive some collective cinematic trauma as we count down 6 popular films that delivered truly terrible endings, proving that sometimes, even after being fully sucked in, your optimism can prove to be a massive mistake. Let’s get into it!
1. **Superman (1978)**Richard Donner’s 1978 “Superman” is, without a doubt, a landmark superhero film. It cemented the Man of Steel as the preeminent superhero for the global masses and laid down a blueprint that countless caped crusader flicks still build from today. With an all-star cast including Marlon Brando, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, and Jackie Cooper, alongside Christopher Reeves’ defining turn as the title character, what could possibly go wrong?
Sadly, “Superman: The Movie” is let down by a terrible ending that makes all of the preceding drama feel pointless. After Lois Lane gets tragically killed in an earthquake, our hero, Supes, decides to turn back time. How does he do this, you ask? By flying around the Earth at warped speed. Yes, you read that right—warped speed.
This ridiculous time travel concept allows him to save Lois, stop Lex Luthor’s missile attack, and imprison the bad guys, all in one fell swoop. Afterward, our hero takes to the skies, knowing the villains have been defeated and his crush is alive and well. This is a cop-out conclusion of epic proportions, unveiling a power that utterly removes all the stakes from the story.
If Superman can simply rewrite history whenever things get tough, what’s the point of giving him hurdles to overcome? How are we, as an audience, supposed to buy into the perilous situations he finds himself in when we know he has this ultimate trick up his sleeve? Killing off major characters only to cheapen the emotional impact with a cozy resurrection afterward is a disservice to the narrative. “Superman: The Movie” is a good flick, but this all-too-convenient ending stops it from ever becoming a truly great one.
2. **The Wizard of Oz (1939)**It’s been almost a century since “The Wizard of Oz” transformed Judy Garland into a legend, and the musical holds a sacred place in many hearts. It’s a foundational piece of cinema that beautifully blends the magical and the mundane, the technicolor and the monochrome. However, enough time has passed that we can finally rag on it a little, right? Without the pitchforks, ideally.
“The Wizard of Oz” features what might just be the most famous instance of cinema’s most loathsome narrative device: the “it was all just a dream” trope. While Oz isn’t real in our world, the fact that it’s also not real within the fictional world of Victor Fleming’s classic film kind of ruins the whole vibe. This dream trope recontextualizes everything that came before as utterly meaningless.
Dreams don’t matter, not narratively. They wedge another degree of separation between the story and its audience, who already suspended their disbelief to engage with a work of fiction. Only to find out that the fiction is even fictional within the fiction itself? Talk about a double whammy! It’s frustrating because it makes Dorothy’s incredible journey, her growth, and the lessons she learns feel hollow.
What’s more, this dream trope actively ruins L. Frank Baum’s original story. In Baum’s novel, Oz isn’t just a dream; it’s a literal place Dorothy visits, and her experiences there truly happen to her. These real adventures even lead to a whole fantasy universe of sequels that Hollywood still hasn’t fully tapped into. But no, Fleming’s adaptation essentially delegitimizes Dorothy’s entire arc by saying, “Just kidding! The truth was inside you all along, Dorothy. Also? You probably have a concussion.” It’s a classic that could have been even more impactful.
3. **Grease (1978)**Whether you love it or hate it, 1978’s “Grease” is a musical phenomenon. However, even its biggest fans often scratch their heads at the ending, which manages to wrap up its plotlines in a confusing burst of magical realism, shrugs, and pure teenage hormones. This finale actively ruins the imperfect but undeniably fun-filled ride that preceded it, leaving audiences with more questions than answers.
Miles of ink have been spilled on the movie’s unfortunate double-makeover ending. We see Sandy squirm into leather pants and puff a cigarette, embracing her destiny to become a Pink Lady – but crucially, on the last day of senior year, making her entire decision a thoroughly moot point. Meanwhile, Danny plans on going full prep for her, suggesting an unnecessary quid pro quo. The problematic nature of this speaks for itself, as neither should have been required to change a thing about themselves to find real (teenage) love.
But “Grease” carves its own pathway out, ethics be damned. As if that weren’t enough, the movie’s climax randomly abandons its single mother plotline with Betty Rizzo. After devoting a significant chunk of its last third to building a careful arc for her possible pregnancy, it’s discovered she suffered a false alarm, and the whole serious subplot is settled with an abrupt shrug of the shoulders. She then gets back together with the thoroughly unsympathetic Kenickie, whom she’d previously lied to about the possible pregnancy, which adds another layer of weirdness.
Finally, and perhaps most infamously, after the T-Birds and Pink Ladies have vowed to always be together, Danny and Sandy climb into Greased Lightning, and the car inexplicably takes off into the afternoon sky. Yes, “Grease” has other flights of fancy, like the “Beauty School Dropout” musical number, but those are clearly meant as fantasy sequences. The flying car, however, is presented as a literal event, so much so that Travolta and Newton-John have spent decades arguing with fan theories suggesting Sandy is dead the entire movie. It’s an ending that just leaves you saying, “Huh?”
4. **Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)**”The Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” are cinematic classics that cover a specific and captivating beat. Twice over, they tell the story of an evil AI superintelligence declaring war on humans, with the fate of mankind depending on one person, leading to brutal action as both humans and machines send their champions into the past. In the end, the survivors face a future that is at least slightly more hopeful, thanks to their actions.
This spark of hope—the idea that the dark future may somehow be avoided—is the franchise’s entire beating heart, especially in “Terminator 2,” where characters risk everything to avert the apocalypse. And then “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” pulls the rug out from under the first two movies, confirming that humanity is absolutely destined to get wrecked, thank you very much. It’s a massive slap in the face to everything the previous films fought for.
To make it even more painful, “Terminator 3” carefully covers familiar terrain right up until its devastating conclusion. The final showdown between T-850 and T-X leaves John Connor and Kate Brewster stuck inside a nuclear shelter as Skynet eradicates mankind. This essentially locks John into his predetermined “humanity’s last champion” role, as he starts answering the panicked contact attempts that flood in.
By confirming that the apocalypse and John’s role in it were predestined, “Terminator 3” renders the first two movies pointless and utterly destroys the spark of hope they hinged on. Evidently, the protagonists of “The Terminator” and “Terminator 2” could have just sipped lemonade on a porch and watched as the machines sent to kill them kept malfunctioning. What happened to “Terminator” movies after that? One underwhelming entry after another, proving that sometimes, you really can ruin a good thing.
5. **The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)**Let’s be real, the “Twilight” franchise has its fair share of eyebrow-raising moments, but it’s a truth universally acknowledged that the ending of its final movie, “Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” is perhaps the dumbest thing contained within the entire series. It’s so infuriatingly bad that it almost overshadows all the sparkly vampires and brooding teenagers that came before it.
In a nutshell, after Bella Swan and Edward Cullen unwittingly produce a half-vampire, half-human baby, the entire Cullen family realizes they’ll be targeted by the ultra-powerful Volturi vampire council. They assemble an army of allies, undergo training, and when the Volturi finally arrive in the Pacific Northwest to genocide the Cullens and their cohorts, an enormous battle kicks off. And frankly, it’s incredible.
The patriarch of the Cullen family, Carlisle, is swiftly and brutally murdered, as is his surrogate son Jasper Hale. Several werewolves—who, it should be said, range from teenagers to young adults—are killed in action, and even a few of the Volturi fall, including their leader Aro. It is, without any shadow of a doubt, the most metal, intense, and satisfying moment in the history of “Twilight.” You’re on the edge of your seat, utterly gripped.
Except, here’s the kicker: it’s not real. It’s a lie. The whole thing is merely a vision of what *could* happen, courtesy of magical vampire Alice Cullen, who can supposedly see potential outcomes of decisions or something equally silly and nebulous. None of that actually happens; everybody is fine. What really happens is that the good vampires and bad vampires talk about their feelings and how the baby isn’t a threat, and then everybody just goes home. Everybody then lives happily ever after. It’s infuriating, and it sucks (pun intended) because it completely pulls the rug out from under the audience after building up to such an epic confrontation.
6. **The Devil Inside (2012)**Hollywood always loves to jump on new technologies, whether it’s celebrating technicolor, embracing talkies, or transitioning to digital. Movies often promote new trends, but in the case of “The Devil Inside,” the 2012 horror film made a spectacularly bad choice to embrace technology in the most distracting way possible – a choice that only gets worse with age, like a milk carton left in the sun.
“The Devil Inside” concerns Isabella Rossi, daughter of a woman accused of murdering three people during an exorcism. Years later, Isabella seeks out her mother in the asylum where she has been incarcerated, presumably processed by multiple demons, all while filming a documentary. The film builds to Isabella’s own possible possession and the likely death of her filmmaking compatriots… and then it ends with a title card telling audiences to go to www.TheRossiFiles.com. Seriously.
This was dumb enough when the movie came out in 2012. Think about it: smartphones were in their infancy, and browsing the web from your phone was a nascent technology. That meant audiences would have to go all the way home to look up the film’s website, which offered no additional information about Isabella’s fate at all. It just had clips from the movie (which no longer work after the sunsetting of Adobe Flash), general information about exorcisms, and a chat forum that allowed audience members to troll each other about their belief in exorcisms. Critics, unsurprisingly, torched “The Devil Inside,” despite its strong January opening.
In the 2020s, this ending is even worse. Why? Because that website stopped functioning in 2013, making the entire premise of the ending completely moot. Today, you can only view it (if you want to, for some reason) via the Wayback Machine. It’s an ending that not only offered no resolution but also tied itself to an ephemeral piece of technology that quickly became obsolete, leaving a broken promise instead of a terrifying conclusion. Talk about a devilishly bad decision!
