10 Best Sci-Fi Movie Cliffhangers
Inception? Back to the Future? Which sci-fi movie has the best cliffhanger ending?
Over the history of film, cliffhangers have become more and more popular. We all have our favourites, and there have been some great ones - who can forget when all of our favourite superheroes faded into dust in the last seconds of Avengers: Infinity War, or when the characters in The Italian Job (the 1969 one, of course) were left literally hanging off a cliff.
Oftentimes, cliffhangers are done to encourage viewers to go see the next movie in the franchise. For example, if it wasn’t for the cliffhanger left dangling at the end of Batman Begins, which hints at the arrival of the Joker, then we wouldn’t have become so desperate to see the sequel 3 years later.
Otherwise, cliffhangers can be done to give us a great twist ending. A truly shocking and well-thought out twist ending will make you see the rest of the film in a different light, encouraging multiple viewings along the way. In particular, if it wasn’t for the last-minute twists of films like Fight Club, The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense, then we doubt these films would have the same popularity they have now.
So here, we rank the 10 best cliffhanger endings that you will find in sci-fi movies (and don’t worry, Star Wars will be on the list).
10. Alien Covenant
Alien: Covenant was not the successful revival to the Alien franchise that many wanted it to be, but it does have a terrific ending.
The sixth movie in the franchise (and second prequel after Prometheus) centres on the Covenant ship crew, led by Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and android, Walter (Michael Fassbender), who, whilst on route to the planet, Origae-6, are forced to take refuge on a mysterious planet, where they are terrorised by a new kind of Xenomorph.
At the end, when it seems like Daniels and her crew have defeated the Xenomorphs, the crew return to Covenant to go back to hypersleep. However, it is then revealed that Walter is in fact his malevolent older clone, David, who then proceeds to set his evil plan into action. He places some alien embryos with some human embryos, planning on making his own Xenomorph, and then sets course for the highly-populated Origae-6.
A dour and grim ending, this is one of the highlights of an otherwise disappointing sequel. It works so well because it feels like an original, innovative moment in an otherwise tired franchise. It’s a shame that we’re unlikely to see a third movie (at least, for a while, anyway), as this ending sets up what would have been a great premise for a sequel.