
In a time when we are constantly looking for something to watch, but rarely have time to sit down and enjoy something, picking a good film can be tricky. No one likes to watch a whole movie to get to the ending and have it be so disappointing that you wished you didn't watch in the first place.
Ask Reddit gave us a list of the movies that have the worst endings, and sometimes the worst beginnings and middles too. If you're wondering what to watch next, this list should help narrow down what to avoid all together.
Redditor Asap_lucky69 asked:
"What is the worst ending you have seen in a movie?"
Spoilers ahead, so readers beware.
Passengers was overall pretty creepy.
"That Jennifer Lawrence/Chris Pratt movie where actually she doesn't mind marrying her stalker who took her utopia life away and living just the two of them forever and ever."
The comments got into a little debate over Jennifer Lawrence reaction to the criticism of the film.
"Passengers is the movie I believe you're talking about."
"Although I will add that it annoyed me how after the internet called it out as a creepy relationship. Lawrence said she agreed and if she had noticed it while reading the script she'd have swapped the characters around. No. That's just as creepy."
"The better ending would have been one of the planned ones, where Pratt's character dies in the finale. Then it cuts to like 6 months later and shows Lawrence's character deciding to open someone else's pod up. Showing that humans crave social interaction."
"Lawrence said she agreed and if she had noticed it while reading the script she'd have swapped the characters around."
"That's not what she said, or what others were saying. The criticism, which she agreed with, is that it would've been more palatable if Pratt waking her up were a twist revealed more than halfway through the film instead of showing him doing it early on."
"That would've made it so that there wasn't any underlying issue known to the audience as the two characters' relationship progresses. We would've found out about what Pratt's character did the instant Lawrence's character does, and we would have to reconcile with it just as she had to. One of the main themes of the film is forgiveness, but it's harder for the audience to forgive Pratt's character when they're watching him go into that relationship knowing the truth, rather than being surprised by it."
Wonder Woman wasn't such a wonderful ending.
"WW84"
"Yeah, like, ok, the entire world gets wishes granted and nobody ever mentions it again WTF."
"Especially Bruce Wayne who would've wished his goddamned parents back to life."
"Not only does the entire world get wishes granted, but they are all willing to take their wishes back to stop the apocalypse. No way."
"Man I hope nobody wished their dead spouse/ kids back to life then had to undo that willingly. That's the sort of trauma that f*cks you beyond repair."
"Also, it's weird that nobody wished for the apocalypse, considering how nut jobs like the Joker are running around in this universe. Are they really saying not one nihilistic a**hole would wish for a meteor to crash into the planet just for funsies?"
The Forgotten was an ending we wish we forgot.
"The end of 'The Forgotten,' with Julianne Moore was straight trash."
"I was in the edge of my seat the entire time, then it ended with, 'It was aliens.' F*ck was that disappointing."
"I enjoyed that movie for its peculiar jump scares. It's also the first instance I can remember of the 'surprise T-bone crash' which a million movies have done since, but it was effective in this movie. But, whack conclusion, especially how everything was nearly undone, and she was the only one who could remember the film's events."
"Aliens with advanced, seemingly incomprehensible technology - who decided to just re-wallpaper that kids room and call it a day."
"Everything about that was ridiculous. Alien space magic deletes memory! Close up of protagonist looking confused. But wait! Her uterus hurts! It can only mean one thing! And then an alien gets yeeted... which, honestly, was pretty funny."
"Rest of the movie was decent."
Signs didn't really make sense in the end.
"'Signs' -- Maybe next time you decide to invade an entire planet, make sure it's not mostly made of instant death sauce."
"They could have made the ending great if in the last scene they zoomed out from the field as the automatic sprinklers turn on and you heard aliens screaming."
- jdiben1
People Share The Scariest Thing They've Ever Experienced While Home Alone | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
"It makes a lot more sense if you consider the creatures to be demons rather than aliens and that the little girl was turning all the water into holy water (remember they said an angel was seen at her birth)."
"Not saying that it makes the movie better, just that it makes the movie make more sense."
"I thought that was the entire point of the movie. We never technically see a flying saucer, the aliens don't really seem all that intelligent, and the movie is about a priest who has lost his faith. They even make a point that the way to defeat the 'aliens' is found in one of the holy cities of the middle east."
"That's the twist of the movie. You go in expecting a film about aliens, but it turns out their were not aliens, but rather demons, and all the signs of alien invasion were that of a demon invasion misinterpreted."
- Nambot
"That's plausible but still stupid. The explanation I like is that the trip to Earth is an alien frat house hazing ritual. That's why they show up naked to the acid planet. Also they're drunk the whole time, which is why they can't open doors."
- Porrick
"I love this theory to death and that's exactly what I'm going to imagine is happening the next time I watch Signs. You have just improved that movie so much for me, thanks!"
The movie musical My Fair Lady.
"My Fair Lady. She just goes back to the man who disrespected her like she has Stockholm syndrome."
"That p*ssed me off too! The original play it's based on apparently ends differently (I think she does plan to marry the other guy) and I was mad they changed it. It was completely out of character for her, the moving ending with her staring sentimentally at the back of his head. Ugh."
"That's a great movie though. Rex Harrison's ability to get cast in multiple musicals with 0 ability to sing is astounding."
"And the 1938 movie Pygmalion, based on the play, also has her come back to Higgins in the end. The playwright, George Bernard Shaw, was disgusted with that. (I've never seen My Fair Lady, but Pygmalion would be my answer to the original question. That ending sucks.)"
- Temmere
"I've heard that the author (book) never wanted them to end up together. Henry Higgins was meant to be a gay man."
"Throughout that movie he is referred to as a 'confirmed bachelor,' which is old-time-y speak for gay."
Batman vs Superman missed some opportunities.
"Batman vs Superman"
"'Hey Boss, what do we do if Superman tries save his mom.'"
"Lex: 'Oh torch her as soon as you suspect something'"
"'What if a different caped jackass shows up?'"
"Lex: 'What like just some guy? I want you to fight him, one by one. Don't use your guns. Hold your guns but just run at him face first. And of course if your mothers have the same name just take the night off, we all have our limits.'"
"Is it cheating to pick a movie that also has a bad start and middle?"
"They missed an opportunity for Aquaman to talk about 'Thomas' in Justice League and have Batman lose his sh*t."
"'WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?'"
"'Calm down, it's my dad's name. And my mom's your ex.'"
"Superman could just burn Batman with his laser eyes at a safe distance. Superman has super powers. Batman has a toolbelt. The entire premise is crap."
The new Predator ended up being ableist.
"The new Predator movie (2018)."
"Turns out the aliens were really after our autistic kids. Also the last 10 minutes was them so desperately building for a sequel. completely unnecessary and so insanely cringe"
"Let me rephrase that: The Predators in this movie didn't hunt for sport but to unironically weaponize autism."
"They're speaking the actual truth. Predator is after Earth's autistic kids because apparently autism is the next step in the evolutionary chain and they want to exploit it."
"Because the kid's autism powers were so great he managed to learn their whole language in a single day and now they want to splice his genes or something."
"And it pulls the trick of managing to think it's smartly trying to show autism in a positive light while actually reinforcing the same damaging trope as most movies with autistic characters. That it's OK they're weird, because they get to be super smart. Which, spoiler alert, is not how autism is for most people."
War of the Worlds.
"Spielberg's War of the Worlds. The reunion in Boston which apparently none of the Martians bothered to attack, with the teenage son somehow having survived when no soldiers had and walked to his grandma's house and realized he really loved his Dad after all. Did I mention it was a Spielberg movie."
"I will give the movie credit for sticking to the book's original ending, though."
"Some people felt it was anticlimactic, but I felt it was brave, when they could so easily have copped out and gone for a big "Tom Cruise action hero" type ending instead."
Happiest Season did not come to happy ending.
"Did anyone here watch Happiest Season? Kristen Stewart's character spends the entire film being harassed by her girlfriend's (who by the way seems to have 0 redeeming qualities herself) toxic family. Oh and she meets a hot, wonderful lesbian that validates her feelings and she should have ended up with."
"And then after she dumps the girlfriend for being awful the girlfriend (who by the way has previously assured people she'll be better and did not) and her family have a cathartic shouting match and are magically better people. So the girlfriend does a dramatic run-after-her moment and she goes back for some reason??? And hangs out with the toxic family? Run girl! Run!"
"Oh I know that movie was just HORRENDOUSLY bad. What was baffling was the fact that it was directed by a lesbian. Like... why would you agree to this?"
"Ugggh this movie. I liked it, generally. Tbh movies about stress in relationships almost always stress ME out, so I avoid them. I stuck it through this one, just knowing Aubrey was going to get the girl and it was going to be so cute and I'd probably cry happy tears. Instead I ended up sitting on the edge of my boyfriend's bed repeatedly exclaiming "f*cking WHAT?!""
"Mission Impossible 2. Every character turned out to be another character wearing a mask. The movie came out in 2000 and the masks were so detailed that you could make out with your arch-enemy and think it was your boyfriend."
- han7nah
"The worst mask scene in that movie is when Tom Cruise puts a mask of himself on some thug and tapes his mouth shut and they kill him. Why, in the ever loving f*ck, would anyone carry a mask of THEMSELVES with them."
"The plot was a rip off of the movie Notorious. I saw MI2 first and then was on an old movie kick and saw Notorious and suddenly realized how much similarity there was."
"I think they ripped the idea from a Scooby Doo episode. Both of it has people wearing masks and doing crime as a main plot point."
Thank goodness this Redditor asked this question. There are definitely some movies to avoid after reading this list.
What we're still wondering, is how did these get from the writing room, to the filming set, to the editing floor without someone saying, "Hey, maybe this isn't that good!"
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
People Break Down Which Things About The Early Days Of The Internet Most Folks Have Forgotten
Oh the beginning of the interwebs.
We really thought it wouldn't be much of a fuss.
We definitely did not see what was to come.
Maybe it should've stayed simple.
We'll never know.
Computers rule the world now.
The internet is God.
Let's see where we are in another twenty years.
Those were the days.
Redditor EzucraAaAa wanted to wax nostalgic about the good old days of technology and its humble beginnings.They asked:
"Redditors, what's something the internet was crazy about but is now forgotten?"
I miss the simplicity of not having a thousand apps. I'm simple.
Ah Memories...
"Search engines before Google existed. Alta Vista, Lycos, Web Crawler..."
deenali
Bad Downloads
"Downloading custom cursors for your computer. I gave my family computer so many viruses back in the '00s trying to click things with a lightsaber."
TW1103
"Amazing. I had totally forgotten about all the virusy stuff I downloaded to my home computer, purely so the cursor would disappear and reappear. My parents had zero knowhow with computers either, so likely had no idea wtf I was downloading. Cursors were cool though, despite all the malware."
AdderWibble
Collections
"During the early days of the web, when most websites weren't plastered with advertising... Website view counters."
over_clox
"Back in the day of counters, one day I went to my website and the counter was in the thousands. I just thought it malfunctioned and ignored it. Years later I learned that my website, which had a MIDI collection, was published in a newspaper in another country. I couldn't say for sure if that was true and whether it aligned with the counter change."
pupeno
The Look
"Yea the internet was simpler too, layout style I mean. I like old style HTML webpage layouts. I personally don’t like hyper modern logos and designs on interfaces. Something about old slightly pixelated designs about them home screens and app logos really made them satisfying. I’ve even went as far as seeing if I could install some extensions that could change the layout of sites, make them feel older, give them that 2000’s html look."
Original_Ad_1103
Found It
"Stumbleupon.com"
idont*uckwithstupid
"I used to waste so much time with stumble upon."
lilbroccoli13
What a strange and crazy place the internet was.
notification
"Poking on Facebook."
lamspartacus
"I had a friend that poked me and I never noticed the notification. He died. I now have this unreturned poke as a reminder that I’ll never be able to poke them back."
Klaus0225
Playtime
"Flash games."
mc_mike810
"Many flash games are not dead. BEHOLD! The flashpoint project. They have saved thousands of the old flash games in a playable format. Go forth and relive your childhood Also paging u/The_Middler_is_Here"
Jayccob
"Rip flash games... A neat alternative I've found a lot of games on is an application called Flashpoint. Check it out!"
Warlordninja100
I will find you...
"There was a rhythm game that I don't remember the name of that me and some friends would challenge each other in, and it had the song Guitar vs Piano 2 which introduced me to Envy, who was a pretty big newgrounds artist at the time. I wanna go check out their stuff again now, I'd completely forgot about them till now."
Silvervirage
GroupMeet
"Forums. There used to be so many, incredibly active and dedicated forums."
FromJavatoCeylon
"A lot of the forums I visited were ruined by photobucket when they decided they wanted paid a lot of money from their users. So many build threads and tutorials ruined."
jus_like_at
"IMDb had the best message boards back in the day. Chatting with your internet friends around the globe about every nuance in your fave movie. Man I miss that. Reddit is close, but nothing beats the olden days."
FeFiFoMums
Fun
"Do you guys remember those egg things that hatched little creatures after a while? You'd put one on your website and then the artist would update the source url with images of it hatching? There were all kinds of little fun things like that."
Sapiencia6
And those were the.... DAAAYYYYSSSS!!!!
Not all television and movies are loved by all.
A story and its characters have to appeal to you in order for you to be engaged.
It can take next to nothing for us to lose interest and let the screen go black.
Redditor BarooTangClan wanted to compare notes on all the entertainment we've said "that's enough" to.
"What will make you instantly stop watching a movie or show and why?"
I hate bad acting, writing, storytelling... I hate bad anything.
Stop Jumping
"Fight scenes with a million visual cuts. Gives me motion sickness. Contrast the absolutely masterful work in John Wick. long cuts, realistic use of weapons (mostly), 100% skill."
StabbyPants
Louder
"When the actors whisper the whole movie and you have to crank the volume to hear what's being said - but the soundtrack or some other misc noise starts blaring at a higher volume directly after."
Blaze*itch
"I basically had to watch Stranger Things up in my attic with the windows and doors closed. I was worried the neighbors would think something was wrong or be annoyed if I watched it downstairs in my single family home. It was ridiculous."
ForecastForFourCats
"spice things up"
"Love triangles out of no where in a second or third season to 'spice things up' because studio writers are hacks and their idea of relationship drama is 'potential infidelity' at all times. It's the most tired trope on the go**amn planet and the second I see it rear its head I dip right the hell out."
amalgamas
"The whole concept of a love triangle to begin with an incredibly juvenile. Any healthy functioning adult who found themselves in a love triangle would soon choose to find themselves single."
Ouch_i_fell_down
Save your lips...
"When couples in a movie/show have a fight and one of them instantly goes to a friend and end up kissing her/him after talking for 5 minutes. I cringe so hard i turn it off and never watch it again."
Dry-Mycologist3966
"This pissed me off so much in Manifest. Girl is desperate to get back her ex-fiancé, he finally breaks up with his wife to get back with her and she's like 'nah, it's not fair to your wife, let me do this other dude I just met through a calling and be pissed at you for being jealous.' Michaela was the worst and everyone acted as if she were a saint the entire time."
gingerisla
Talk to Me
"Shows where a single polite conversation could fix everything."
Horror_Librarian_133
We are going overboard with the witty repartee. Talk normal...
Shut Up
"Annoying main character, especially if it's a kid."
abananation
"Kids who have a quippy, sassy retort to everything, and everyone just kind of crumbles before their wit."
CarpetPure7924
Speak Good
"Shows where kids in high school talk like they are 30 years olds who have done everything, been everywhere, know it all and use a ridiculously flowery and extensive vocabulary in every conversation. Like, have any of these writers ever been to high school? Literally no one talks like that. Even worse is when, in addition to this, all the adults talk normal or are just plain stupid, like so weird parallel universe."
StretchArmstrong74
Nonsense
"If the movie is too dark. Not graphic, just literally dark. I lose all sense of intensity in dark scenes and I'm not straining my damn eyes trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
TheShadowOfKaos
"I've seen about 10 percent of all DC movies recently. I've seen all of the individual films in full, just actually saw 10% of each of them."
Mortlach78
"Movies in the late 80s had a lot of dark but you could see the depth because of different shooting techniques. Now you cant see crap because its a CGI fest drowned in black color so you can't see crap because you have no depth in a scene. Compare night scenes in dark alleys in 80's movies and movies now. Utter crap show in the new ones."
Bombzey
Pay Attention Storytellers
"Bad editing would be a big one. A lot of modern horror movies can't help but edit the movies like they're trailers, with added noises to scare the audience because they are afraid the script alone isn't enough to keep people watching."
ThisIsCreation
"I remember this is where the first transformers movie lost me. When the transformers are fighting at the end, it's all a big, jumbled mess of metal and I can barely tell what's going on or who is who."
1840_NO
Drama
"When they go straight to relationship drama right away when it wasn't the selling point of the show."
LightInthewater
Do better, Hollywood. It's not that hard.
I fear death.
I wake up in cold sweats dreaming about it.
I think about it in my waking hours.
It's an obsession and clearly, I'm not alone.
But there are more preferred ways to exit.
All we can do is hope to be lucky enough to skip the mercilessly awful.
Please just let me go quick and in my sleep.
RedditorCallMehRiverwanted to hear about all the ways none of us what to leave this life.
"What Do You Think Would Be The Worst Death Imaginable?"
My list of the worst deaths is long. My imagination runs amok.
Trapped
"For me? Being trapped in a small tube or cave (like the ones you have to wiggle through) and getting stuck to where you can’t move your arms. And all you can do is wait to die. I’m getting chills just thinking about it."
Stuck
"The more I hear about cavers that get stuck, the more I think that's a crap way to go."
- braydenmaine
"There’s a great YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician and this was her #1 worse way to die. I can’t remember the exact details or their names, but two well-known divers went into an underwater cave."
"One of them became entangled and died. Years later, his friend dives back down there to try and retrieve his body, the body itself is rotten and his head comes off and the other guy also becomes tangled and dies. Really sad."
- melancholybuzzard
A Long Process
"Believed to be in a coma but coherent through the whole 20 year process until they pull the plug."
weebeardedman
"Oh man this just reminded me of a story I read on here about a guy who lost the ability to move and speak but was completely conscious. Had to just lay there and be awake but trapped in a useless body. His family thought he was brain dead or something and he couldn’t communicate to them that he was 'all there.' Crazy"
habeeb51
Slow & Steady
"Being slowly impaled by a growing bamboo. It was a form of torture probably used by the japanese during WW2 against Allied prisoners."
JazzySocrate
"My uncle who served back in the day said that people would have the bamboo slipped under their fingernails because it would continue to grow still. It would just continue growing into the body."
Payness0826
Excruciating
"Rabies."
Santolmo
"The scariest part is that once you have symptoms, you 100% will die. A 100% mortality rate has to be a psychological torture in itself."
RonaldRawdog
"Not only that, you feel irrational fear. Your brain is literally being eaten apart by the virus and it fu*ks up everything on it. You can't drink water because it hurts you. You feel dizzy, present a fever, excessively salivate, everything hurts and it only gets worse. I'd rather take a bullet and die when the symptoms are still tolerable."
Santolmo
Why can't we all just go engulfed in calm and quiet?
Suspended
"Some pulpy sci-fi book I read a while back had one of the best deaths of this real piece of crap bad guy. Left to die in a drowning sea lab under the Antarctic ice, he freezes himself in a state of the art suspended animation pod with some kind cold fusion power source that would keep it running for millions of years."
"But he forgot to inject himself with the drug that would put him to sleep. So basically he is in suspended animation at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean while his mind is perfectly awake and conscious in a near unbreakable machine that won't run out of power for millions of years and nobody knows about it."
DubiousAlibi
No Cure
"As an RN I have always thought that the worst way to die (natural process) is ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease."
randymn1963
"My mom and grandmother have Huntington's disease, which is essentially ALS, Alzheimer's, and Dementia combined into one really messed up genetic disease. I have a 50% chance of inheriting it and if I hit 40 and there's still no cure I can't promise I'll feel like continuing on with my life because that disease is absolutely freaking miserable."
DevTheDummy
Agony...
"Radiation poisoning."
binhan123ad
"The fact your chromosomes can be so destroyed your body basically lost it's genetic code and with it the ability to make any new cells. It's literally a 'dead man walking' and you slowly rot away in agony. Stuff is so unimaginably f**ked up."
yea_nah448
"What's also bad about radiation is that it affects your nerves and brain cells last, so you have everything in place to feel all the pain of the rest of your cells being destroyed."
nosmelc
Goo
"I want to believe anything that slowly kills you painfully to be the worst. Such as slowly being crushed or something where the pain is beyond compare and yet not enough to throw you into shock or unconsciousness."
Beardless_Man
"Alternatively, being rapidly crushed into goo would probably be the least painful. I'm talking one of those massive industrial hammers they use for large steel work. Basically smooshed before the nerve signals make it to the brain."
Bannon9k
Now I'll never sleep again without nightmares of death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Foreigners Explain Which Stereotypically American Things They've Always Wanted To Try
Most Americans think nothing of their humdrum daily activities or amenities available to them.
However, others with a different perspective might romanticize the things that are otherwise commonplace ideas and concepts for US citizens, like going to a diner or riding the school bus.
One Redditor looked to foreigners to hear of their American desires to respond to the following:
"Non-Americans of Reddit: what is an American thing you have always wanted to try?"
The things depicted in film really captivated foreign audiences.
Casual Dining
"To visit a diner like in the movies. In the middle of the night, it’s raining and just a few people there with great music from a jukebox."
– TotalAd6225
Iconic Student Transport
"Ride a yellow school bus even if I'm too old. Growing up I always loved seeing them on TV."
– infiresemo
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know
"A white Christmas."
"Living in an Australian state where I've never even seen snow in our winter, let alone experiencing that classic Hallmark movie moment of waking up to a street full of it and sitting around a fireplace while opening gifts/preparing a feast."
"Guess it's not strictly American, but the imagery and trope is something I've only really seen from American Films."
– Stoibs
They may be ubiquitous for us, but they sure seem to be novel ideas to foreigners.
Let's Be Frank
"One of the hotdogs from those little street cart things."
– Who_is_lost
Kitchen Marvel
"A friend of mine from Indonesia said, 'the food chewer in the sink.'"
"Garbage disposal."
– Mnemonic22
American Pie
"Apple Pie made by white-haired grandma, placed near window, who says 'oh dear...' as I levitate towards it."
– MegaJoltik
Pre-Game Ritual
"Proper tailgating before a ball game, the kind where there's ribs and stuff."
– SpiralToNowhere
Fried Delicacies
"Deep fried foods at a state fair. I'm from Scotland and we love to deep fry everything and I wanna know if it's just as good or better."
– fenrisulfr94
There are places to see!
Places To See
"National parks."
– nhungoc1508
"America’s greatest invention!"
– nhungoc1508
Backpacking In Nature
"I always wanted to hike The Appalachian Trail if that counts. Or see Yellowstone."
– EphemeralRemedy
New Chapters
"Being able to start a whole new life 'elsewhere' without having to leave my country and going through an arduous immigration process."
– Gmtfoegy
My cousin told me she looks forward to visiting a Trader Joe's someday when she visits America for the first time.
Her bucket list option was hardly surprising. My parents used to bring treats from TJs as a novelty souvenir gift item, and my relatives ate it up. Literally.
Let's face it. The snacks at TJs rocks.
Even store locations in New York City would have ridiculously long lines during busy hours because the West-coast-based grocer was a novelty on the East Coast.