Top 10 Worst Movie Endings of the 2010s

We've known for some time that the “humans only use ten percent of their brains” thing is hogwash, but we’re willing to suspend our disbelief on this if it means ScarJo getting superpowers from increased brain function. But this action thriller from “The Fifth Element” director Luc Besson just keeps sillier and sillier, leading to a ridiculous climax in which Johansson's Lucy unlocks the full potential of her brain, travels back in time to meet an early proto-human and transforms into a USB key full of stars. We don’t care how much Morgan Freeman tries to explain the science behind that, we ain’t buying it.

We can’t fault Zac Snyder’s over-the-top action spectacle for being boring, but there are enough questionable story choices and lack of substance to give us plenty to complain about anyway. The film follows a young woman as she and several others try to escape an asylum, filtered through a fantasy lens that turns their escape efforts into massive set pieces. In the end, our hero fails to escape and gets a lobotomy from none other than Jon Hamm. After a film of larger than life battle sequences and epic fight scenes, it’s a pretty big letdown to see our protagonist brought so low so suddenly.

The very definition of a “Wait, what?” twist, the surprise ending in this magical heist movie reveals that every single event of the film was secretly orchestrated by Mark Ruffalo’s FBI agent Rhodes. Apparently the entire movie, including the incredible heists performed by a team of illusionists and magicians, was all a ridiculously elaborate revenge scheme against the safe company responsible for the death of his father. It could be forgiven if it made sense after a re-watch, but it just doesn't. Unfortunately, the sequel’s ending isn’t much to write home about either.

How a movie this silly managed to nab a lead as respected as Michael Fassbender is baffling. Based on a novel by acclaimed writer Jo Nesbø, the film follows a detective on the hunt for a serial killer themed after perhaps one of the least threatening things ever: the humble snowman. In the film’s climax, we finally learn that the killer is out to punish women who don’t live up to his twisted ideals, all thanks to his traumatic experience with his own mother. The film’s ending just throws one cliché after another at us, making it both boring and silly at the same time.

Colin Trevorrow’s disastrous return to indie filmmaking is pretty hard to watch even before its ending, wherein Naomi Watts struggles to go through with her dead son’s plan to kill the abusive father of one of his classmates. After going through the steps and seemingly setting herself on the path to murder, Watts realizes at the last possible second that maybe her eleven-year-old’s idea to kill someone, however evil they may be, isn’t the best way to deal with the situation at hand. Way to finally realize what we’d been screaming at the screen for the last hour or so, movie-film!

There are few clichés worse than the old “it was all a dream” ending, but the conclusion to this saga of sparkling vampires and shirtless werewolves finds a way to make the groan-worthy trope even worse. After a massive battle erupts between the heroes and villains, we pull back to reveal that the epic confrontation was actually all an illusion. After seeing the carnage the confrontation would bring about, the baddies decide it just isn’t worth it and just sorta walk off. This series was always pretty silly, but this takes that silliness too far even for us.

This movie starts off as a fairly straightforward character drama. The film ends with Robert Pattinson’s character looking out of an office window, the camera slowly pulling back to reveal that he’s actually standing in the World Trade Center on September the 11th. It comes completely out of nowhere, tacking a cheap and more than a little exploitative ending onto the film for shock value. Needless to say, audiences and critics weren’t happy, and the film was widely panned for its finale, and rightly so. This movie’s closing moments just felt cheap and lazy, throwing in the events of 9/11 for shock.

Watching this comedy trainwreck is hard enough without having to see poor Al Pacino embarrass himself in a Dunkin Donuts commercial. Adam Sandler stars as Jack, as well as his annoying sister Jill, who comes to visit. The film’s ending sees Pacino playing himself in a commercial masterminded by Jack. What it is, is an embarrassing spectacle that combines some truly bad rapping with a whole lot of over-the-top glitz and glamor, especially for a donut commercial, but it’s almost like watching a car crash in motion: you just can’t look away. We’re going to go ahead and call this one a low-point for all involved.

Someday, there may be a decent Fantastic Four movie, but that day hasn't come yet. 2015's attempted effort at bringing the venerable super-team to life, courtesy of “Chronicle” director Josh Trank, was plagued by reshoots and drama, and the final product wasn’t stellar. The ending feels particularly unsatisfying, with the team standing triumphant and trying to figure out what their team name should be. Reed seems to come up with an idea, but we cut to credits before he can say it. If you’re too embarrassed to say the name of your movie aloud, maybe you shouldn’t have made it in the first place.

What starts off as a fairly standard found footage demonic possession movie literally crashes and burns with its final scene, which reportedly had audiences screaming in anger. The film follows a woman attempting to save her possessed mother, who’s charged with multiple murders. After the principal cast all head off to consult an exorcism expert, it’s suddenly revealed that they’ve all become possessed as well, and the entities controlling them cause the car to crash. If the super-abrupt ending wasn’t enough, the film then encourages audiences to visit a website with more information about the entirely fictitious investigation shown in the film. Uh... pass?