Movies, like most other forms of storytelling, live and die by their endings. Expecting an audience to invest themselves in a narrative sees them expecting a memorable finale, as well as one that satisfyingly ties up its various loose ends. Genuinely perfect movie endings tend to become fairly iconic, or at least earn a lasting place within pop culture. That’s because finishing a story in a way that pleases the audience or keeps them thinking about a movie typically only creates discussion about the film after the credits roll. However, sometimes, this happens to be the case for all the wrong reasons.
Throughout the history of cinema, there have always been occasional movie endings that don’t make sense. The apparent need to establish mind-blowing twists or subvert the audience’s expectations has led many movies astray, contributing to conclusions that only serve to baffle viewers. Whether hopelessly complicated or just plain ridiculous, some movie endings will never make sense, no matter how many times we revisit them.
7) Tenet (2020)
It’s no secret that Christopher Nolan sometimes makes complicated movies, but 2020’s Tenet is considered a step too far by many. The movie’s mind-bending premise involves certain people and objects being temporally inverted, allowing them to move backwards through time instead of the more traditional forward direction. This all leads to an ending in which the unnamed protagonist is revealed as the founder of his own secret organization, rendering an already incredibly complex movie even more impossible to completely unpick.
6) Source Code (2011)
There are time-travel movies whose science actually makes sense, and then there’s Source Code. In fairness, the 2011 sci-fi thriller actually makes entertaining use of its time-loop premise for most of its runtime, but unfortunately, that all falls apart for its conclusion. In attempting to give its characters something resembling a happy ending, the movie breaks every rule it had previously established, finishing with a nonsensical instance of body-swapping that leaves Source Code‘s audience perplexed each and every time they revisit the film.
5) Now You See Me (2013)
In many ways, Now You See Me has a lot going for it. It boasts an incredible cast, a fun and visually promising heist premise, and an intriguing central mystery seemingly designed to keep the audience guessing. Its final scenes throw it all away, though, with the reveal that Mark Ruffalo’s FBI agent Rhodes, who had spent the movie investigating the group of magician thieves the Four Horsemen, was actually in on their scheme from the very start. It’s the sort of ending that renders every other aspect of the movie completely redundant and makes no sense whatsoever, even after carefully examining its story.
4) Lucy (2014)
2014’s Lucy makes use of the tired and inaccurate trope about the untapped potential of the human brain, but it manages to spin it into a solid action thriller nonetheless. Once it’s established that the experimental drug in Lucy’s system is effectively causing her to rapidly evolve due to her ability to access every part of her brain, the movie slowly begins its path to an ending that comes completely off the rails. The movie’s final scenes see Lucy disappear into the space-time continuum, exploring the distant past and becoming incorporeal, delivering one of the worst sci-fi twist endings that simply doesn’t quite make sense.
3) American Psycho (2000)
Considered by some to be a gory horror movie and by others as a mind-bending cinematic thriller, American Psycho continues to enjoy a healthy following more than two decades after its release. The movie’s protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is seemingly revealed in its final scenes as an unreliable narrator, depicting a man whose grip on reality has become decidedly lax. While it’s an effective tool to bring Bateman’s story to an end, it’s impossible to make any real sense of it. Though that’s sort of the point, it’s frustrating for those attempting to unpick the truth of the film’s story.
2) Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko is rightfully applauded as an exceptional piece of dramatic sci-fi storytelling. With a star-making turn from a young Jake Gyllenhaal, it is undeniably a great movie, and yet its ending is notoriously abrupt and confusing. Donnie Darko‘s refusal to hold its audience’s hand through its final revelations is bold, but it leaves its haunting and depressing ending feeling both bleak and difficult to fully understand. It’s deliberately vague and semi-ambiguous, and while Donnie Darko remains a great film, the true intention of its ending is all but impossible to discern.
1) Planet of the Apes (2001)
While the 1968 original boasted one of the best sci-fi movie twists of all time, Tim Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes reboot tried and failed to emulate the shocking conclusion of its predecessor. After following a story relatively similar to the original movie, the reboot then veers off into utterly bizarre territory, with its final moments rendering its audience completely dumbfounded. Unpacking the intention of the ending requires considerable imagination, making it one of the most notoriously nonsensical endings in cinematic history.
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