10 Brilliant Movie Endings That Give You The Finger

Yep, I'm doing this. Here goes nothing. 

One of the most loathed movie endings of the last few years is... actually kind-of brilliant in its own way. This completely terrifying thriller shows the response of various factions of the United States government to an incoming nuclear missile, with the President (Idris Elba) shown facing an impossible choice about what to do. 

The events of this world-altering half-hour are shown three times from three different perspectives, but the end result isn't shown. We don't see the missile's impact, we don't see what the President did, it's a completely open ending, and that makes it especially powerful. 

Writer Noah Oppenheim later explained this bold choice: "We chose the ending we did because Kathryn and I both believed that any other ending would let the audience off the hook," he explained. "We don't want to give the audience a clean and neat resolution. Any ending where the world is saved or the world is destroyed allows people to kind of walk out of the experience and say, 'Okay, well, that's that.... It ended that way, and it's over, and I can go back to my everyday life.'"

Much like with Picnic at Hanging Rock, the denial of closure is one of the most harrowing things in the picture. More of an ending might've made the film even better, but this ending was still an absolute sucker-punch in its own right. It, and the movie as a whole, deserves more love.