Top 10 Abrupt Movie Endings That Just

To be fair, author H.G. Wells is partly to blame for this ending. These alien invaders seem to be invincible, impervious to every weapon the military throws at them. But just when it looks like there’s no hope for humanity, the aliens start dropping dead for no apparent reason. It turns out that they have no immunity to Earth’s bacteria, and they were doomed from the moment they arrived. Morgan Freeman explains everything in his closing narration, which comes straight out of Wells’ novel. Of course, the source material doesn’t include an obnoxious teenage son who survives a deadly battle and magically shows up safe at his grandparents’ house. That inexplicable detail is on Spielberg and the writers.

If you’re afraid of spiders, you might want to close your eyes for this one. In this psychological thriller, a professor named Adam discovers a man who looks identical to him. What follows is a twisted tale of obsession, deceit, and … tarantulas. By the end, Adam’s double is dead, and Adam seems to have taken over his life. As he follows his wife Helen into the bedroom to talk about going out, he instead finds a giant spider. Adam looks more annoyed than frightened and – fade to black. What happened to Helen? What do all the spiders have to do with anything? Your guess is as good as ours.

Although it’s not the first found footage horror movie, it’s certainly an icon of the genre. In search of the legendary Blair Witch, three film students travel to a small New England town to shoot a documentary. There they interview the locals, who tell them stories of missing kids and the reclusive hermit in the local woods. While the trio camp out in those same woods, bizarre things begin to happen. All the while, the audience is left to wonder, is there really someone out there terrorizing them, or is it all in their heads? The answer comes in a chilling split-second shot at the very end, just before the camera falls to the ground.

Daniel Plainview is a merciless man, and he’s had it out for Eli Sunday ever since Eli humiliated him during a baptism. Although Daniel is a wealthy oil man by the end, he’s completely alone, having driven away his adopted son, and he’s become an alcoholic. When Eli shows up hoping to sell some property rights, Daniel turns on him. We’ve seen Daniel kill before, but this brutality seems to come out of nowhere. When his butler appears to see what’s causing the noise, Daniel has just two words for him. The lighthearted score then hits at just the right moment to make the scene both jarring and comedic.

This spy thriller is a study in suspense from the master himself. A case of mistaken identity sends ad executive Roger Thornhill fleeing assassins from New York to Chicago to South Dakota. Along the way, he meets Eve Kendall, who is secretly working for the government. The pursuit leads to the top of Mount Rushmore, where a would-be killer confronts the pair on the mountain. The tension has been ratcheting up throughout the film, seemingly building to this very moment. But we don’t get to see the resolution. The film suddenly cuts from Eve dangling by her fingertips to a train car, where she and Roger appear to be on their honeymoon. It’s a strange way to wrap up a nearly perfect movie.

This one is definitely a cliffhanger. You know the story: a plan comes together, the crew pulls off the perfect crime, and they make a quick escape with their prize. But this group starts the celebration a little too early. As their bus full of gold careens through the Alps, the driver makes a wrong move, and the whole party nearly goes off a cliff. Despite the danger, Croker isn’t about to let all that gold get away. Does he manage to save it? We’ll never know. It might be an abrupt ending, but it also perfectly fits the comedic tone of this classic British heist.

Sometimes it makes sense for found footage movies to end suddenly, especially if something catastrophic happens to the cameraman. But this one just feels lazy, and the critics tore it to pieces. At the conclusion of this fairly generic exorcism film, a priest and the filmmaker are driving the demon-possessed Isabella to get help. Along the way, the driver gets possessed too, and almost immediately crashes the car. The screen then cuts to black, and text appears inviting the viewers to visit a website to learn more about the case. Even more absurd is the fact that the website became defunct just over a year after the movie came out.

Christopher Nolan is known for his mind-bending storylines that keep you guessing long after the movie ends. “Inception” is so twisty, even the characters don’t always know what’s real and what’s not. To maintain his grip on reality, Dom carries a top that will only fall if he’s not in a dream. The team pulls off their heist, and Dom gets to return to the U.S. to see his children – or does he? When he arrives home in the final scene, he spins the top, but immediately gets distracted by the sight of his kids. The scene cuts before we see the top fall, leaving us to wonder whether everything we just watched was a dream within a dream.

Ruthless hitman Anton Chigurh seems unstoppable, so it’s not too surprising when he walks away from a shocking car accident. The final shot of him limping into the distance feels like a customary place to end the movie – except it’s not the end. Instead, the film jumps back to now-retired Sheriff Ed Tom’s kitchen, where he tells his wife about a pair of dreams he’d had about his father. The scene feels unconnected to anything else that’s happened, and when it finally cuts to the credits, the audience is left to figure out its significance on their own. This isn’t the only Coen film with an unconventional ending. “Burn After Reading” wraps up with a hilarious bit of exposition between two bewildered CIA agents.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

“American Graffiti” (1973)
This Night of Teenage Revelry Culminates in a Jarring Epilogue

“Birdemic: Shock and Terror” (2010)
The Birds Stop Attacking Out of Nowhere…Just Like in the Hitchcock Classic That Inspired It

“Death Proof” (2007)
It’s Corny & Violent but So Satisfying

“An American Werewolf in London” (1981)
Although It’s a Downer, This Gory Masterpiece Couldn’t Have Ended Any Other Way

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017)
The Characters Seem to Be at Peace Even Though There’s No Resolution

This movie is full of iconic lines, fourth wall breaks, and men riding imaginary horses. So viewers shouldn’t be surprised that the ending is also completely off the wall. As Arthur and his knights get ready to do battle against the Frenchmen in the Castle Aarrgh, the police suddenly show up and stop everything. Of course, this isn’t the cops’ first appearance in the film. They’ve been investigating the murder of a famous historian and have been hot on the knights’ trail ever since. When they pile out of a cruiser with the historian’s wife in tow, it’s actually a brilliant payoff to a carefully constructed running joke.

Which movie ending made you say, “Wait, that’s it?” Be sure to let us know in the comments below.