15 Greatest Movie Endings Of The Decade
The full-stops that defined our cinema in the 2010s.
A good ending isn't necessarily just one that leaves you satisfied: some of the most profoundly affecting endings are precisely the opposite of that. The Shining's finale lives on in infamy because of its woozy magic and anything that poses a question or offers a huge statement can be the difference between a good ending and a great one.
A good ending also isn't always enough - take Independence Day: Resurgence, for instance, whose ending is as brilliantly entertaining as it is utterly ludicrous, but it comes at the end of a film that is near-unwatchably bad. So to be truly great, you also have to crown something great and luckily for modern film fans, there have been some incredible examples over the past decade.
Now that it's creeping to its end, it's time to look back on the full-stops and dot dot dots that defined the decade...
15. Toy Story 4 (2019)
Considering how perfect everyone declared the ending of Toy Story 3 to be - particularly in the immediate wake of the announcement of its belated follow-up - it's frankly stunning how perfect the end of the fourth chapter had ended up being.
For the original trilogy, the message had been about the avoidance of mortality. Even as the toys came to realise that their time with their beloved owners was fleeting and they had to accept that they'd move on, the trilogy ender never really gave Woody his end. Andy grew up, Bonnie got the new toys, but Woody just had to go along with it.
The genius of Toy Story 4 is that it turned that around and gave Woody more of a fitting end, allowing him to realise that he had worth for himself beyond an owner or making someone else happy. And while the potential for another sequel is there, him going off to be free is a fitting enough end now.