The 10 most insulting movie endings of all time
Regarding the most revered endings to movies, Psycho and The Godfather are the ones that spring to mind, with special mention going to the likes of The Graduate and Se7en. Since the early days of cinema, the finale of a film has been one of, if not the most crucial component of a story. ‘Will it be resolved?’, ‘Will it be left open for a sequel?’, ‘Or will it be a cliffhanger?; these are the sorts of questions on the mind of audiences when watching a film.
Given the importance of the ending to the overall experience of viewing a movie, finality has been the source of intense debate between kino aficionados. The question of whether a director has struck gold or undone the successes of the flick with the ending can be applied to almost every title.
However, for every iconic ending to a film, there are myriad terrible ones. Some titles even invert the original hopes of everyone who worked on them, with them now known not for the quality of the writing, acting or cinematography but just how bad the ending was.
Whilst there are many downright awful endings to films, a select few aren’t only so but are also insulting to the audience. For reasons ranging from the laughable to the egregious, this is a category with which no one in the industry wants to be associated, as they are indelible blights on their CVs. Nevertheless, many otherwise lauded directors and actors have been unlucky enough to find themselves on the list.
Take a look at our picks for the ten most insulting movie endings of all time below.
The 10 most insulting movie endings:
10. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)
For our money, the final movie in the Dark Knight trilogy got off awfully lightly for its insulting ending that forced us into believing the impossible. After Batman’s hard-fought battle with the brutish crime lord Bane, played by Tom Hardy, the film concludes with the caped crusader attaching a nuclear bomb to his flying batmobile, flying off into the sunset and inevitable oblivion, subsequently saving Gotham city.
But it’s not over until it’s over, and Nolan concludes the movie with a silly ending that shows Batman alive and well in a cafe in Florence, Italy. It makes very little sense and is a limp way to end a largely strong trilogy.
9. Now You See Me (Louis Leterrier, 2013)
The Louis Leterrier movie Now You See Me is notorious in the world of contemporary pop-culture cinema for its utter lack of sense, telling the story of a group of master magicians who pull off a stunning bank heist. With several decent performances from the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, the film is passable, aside from its insulting twist ending.
Turns out the FBI agent (Ruffalo), who has been trying to find evidence for the magician’s crimes, is actually in on their secret and never wanted to catch them in the act. In hindsight, it makes the whole film just seem completely pointless.
8. Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018)
In late 2018, when Netflix debuted the post-apocalyptic horror Bird Box, a brief phenomenon ensued. People flocked to the site to watch Sandra Bullock playing Malorie Hayes, a woman attempting to protect two young children from entities that cause people to kill themselves after looking at them. Although the film received mixed reviews from critics, it was a hit on the streaming service.
Brimming with laughable moments, such as Hayes and the children rowing the boat in river rapids whilst blindfolded, the ending was an affront to everyone’s intelligence, even to the actors. To conclude, Hayes tells the children that she is actually their mother, which everyone presumed anyway, with them ending up in an old school for the blind, and nothing from the broader plot resolved. Ultimately, it was a giant waste of time.
7. Savages (Oliver Stone, 2012)
There’s no doubt that the American filmmaker and Vietnam war veteran Oliver Stone is a magnificent director, having helmed some of the greatest political movies of all time, including Platoon, JFK and Wall Street. Still, we’re not here to pander to iconic Hollywood names, with Stone releasing the terrible crime flick Savages in 2012, a film that dazzled with stars like Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, John Travolta and Uma Thurman, but struggled with logic.
Telling the story of two drug dealers who get caught up with a Mexican cartel, the film ends with a truly insulting conclusion as the two protagonists and the love interest meet their demise in a fiery shootout. Psyche! It was all a dream.
6. Identity (James Mangold, 2003)
Identity is a 2003 neo-noir thriller starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina and Rebecca De Mornay. Very loosely based on the classic Agatha Christie whodunnit, And Then There Were None, it follows ten strangers in a creepy isolated hotel who are killed off, one by one, in mysterious circumstances.
As far as the story goes, there’s enough suspense to keep watchers somewhat intrigued, with the reverse chronology and parallel stories indicative of this, despite the trashy essence of the film. However, the ending is so bad and undoes any mitigating factors. In a convoluted conclusion, the anonymous assailant turns out to be a nine-year-old boy named Timmy, who is one of eleven personalities created by a serial killer with a dissociative identity disorder.
5. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Tom Shadyac, 1994)
Looking back at Hollywood comedy in the 1990s, unfortunately, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective wasn’t the only culprit of flagrant transphobic comedy, with such movies coming from a time which was far less tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community. In this Jim Carrey comedy from 1994, the celebrated actor plays an eccentric pet detective who goes on a wild goose chase to find the missing mascot of the Miami Dolphins.
To cut a long story short, the big bad guy turns out to be a trans woman, with Carrey’s detective revealing this to a crowd of people in a rather demeaning manner during the film’s conclusion. Whilst some of the other movies on this list might insult our intelligence, the conclusion to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is just outright offensive.
4. High Tension (Alexandre Aja, 2003)
Horror movies are rife with twist endings where the killer is revealed to be the ‘best friend’, ‘mother’, or ‘pizza delivery man’. Still, we don’t think we’ve ever heard of the killer being the protagonist themselves.
This is precisely what happened during the conclusion of Alexandre Aja’s silly slasher flick High Tension, a film that tells the story of two girls who find themselves victims to a brutal serial killer. Running away from the killer the for entire movie, the final twist that reveals the killer is actually the main character is so nonsensical that it defies basic logic.
We’ll let the great Roger Ebert’s words explain this one’s hilarity, with the American critic stating in 2003 that the twist is “not possible, given our current understanding of the laws of physics”.
3. Next (Lee Tamahori, 2007)
Starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore, Next is one of the worst films the former has made, and that’s saying something. Loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s 1954 short story, The Golden Man, it follows Cris Johnson, a Las Vegas magician who can see into the immediate future. He works with the FBI to stop terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb on US soil.
Towards the end of the movie, Cris manages to use his power to save his love interest, Liz, and stop the explosion from happening. However, he’s made a mistake, and the bomb detonates, wiping out Los Angeles. Although jarring, that would have been a better way to finish than what came after.
The movie then returns to the middle of the story, where Cris and Liz are lying in bed. This confirms that the previous 45 minutes have all been one of the protagonist’s premonitions. The final scene sees Cris go off with Julianne Moore’s FBI agent yet again to stop the nuclear threat, in what appears to be for real this time.
2. The Open House (Suzanne Coote, Matt Angel, 2018)
The Open House is another contender for the worst ending of all time, never mind the most insulting. The movie follows a mother who moves into her sister’s house with her son whilst it is up for sale. Things do not go to plan, however, and a supernatural force immediately seems to harass them.
It is no supernatural entity, though. It is revealed that the pair are being tormented by a serial killer, who eventually tricks the son into murdering his mother. Adding to the audience’s frustration, the killer then strangles the son to death in the forest.
If that wasn’t enough to make everyone irate, the film’s final scene shows the killer leaving his work in the house and moving to another one to repeat his terror. For nothing to be resolved, and the identity nor the motives of the killer not to be revealed, this ending was more than deserving of its place on the list.
1. The Devil Inside (William Brent Bell, 2012)
The 2012 horror The Devil Inside has long been the source of criticism, with this primarily focused on the ending. The film is shot in the style of a documentary, following a woman who becomes involved in the world of exorcisms as part of her quest to uncover what happened to her mother years prior when she murdered three people due to demonic possession.
The ending is deemed so insulting to audiences that it is regularly mentioned as the worst conclusion in cinema history. When it climaxes with some of the characters involved in a fatal car accident and the plot remains unresolved, the title sequence suddenly appears. It advises the viewer to visit a website to learn more about their investigation.
Whilst this cop-out rightly caused outrage at the time of release, with the film making over $100million against a budget of $1million, compounding this cheek, now, the website doesn’t even work.
