20 Most Controversial Film Endings Since 2000

Sometimes it's impossible to please everyone.

By Andrew Dilks /

Movie endings come in all manner of shapes and sizes - happy or sad, clear-cut or thoroughly enigmatic, they wrap up the narrative (or perhaps don't) and leave the audience with an overall feeling and understanding of everything that has come before. For the most part, cinematic full-stops are accepted for what they are, but sometimes a film throws a curveball in the final act that generates no end of controversy. Whether that's because the director provocatively ignored the source material, or altered a character's established behaviour fatally, or simply delivered a radical shift or an unsatisfying ambiguous note, the results are invariably the same. Whatever the reasons, some endings cause pandemonium online, with fans and critics alike debating the ins and outs of what they've just seen and stirring the pot further. It's a dynamic which has existed for decades, and if the controversies surrounding movies released since 2000 is anything to go by, it's something which will be with us for some time to come. It goes without saying we're about to enter full-on SPOILER TERRITORY...