20 Greatest Horror Movie Endings of the 2020s (So Far)

13. Nosferatu

Robert Eggers' Nosferatu achieved the near-unthinkable feat of arguably outdoing F.W. Murnau's statuesque 1922 original, and one of the remake's biggest improvements came with its ending.

This time around, heroine Ellen Hutter (a brilliant Lily-Rose Depp) is an active participant in Count Orlok's (Bill Skarsgård) downfall, conspiring to lure the vampire into her room and allowing him to feed on her until sunrise, at which point he perishes.

This ending at once gives Ellen a more overt hand in causing Orlok's demise and better explores Orlok as a creature of pure appetite, unable to resist the urge to feed even as his own demise nears.

Needless to say, Orlok's death is depicted in nauseatingly brutal fashion, seemingly bleeding from all orifices, before we're left on the strangely beautiful departing image of Ellen and Orlok's intertwined corpses.

Murnau's original film was quite the tough act to follow, but Eggers debatably surpassed it with his extremely confident, full-throated, forward-thinking reimagining.