10. Star Wars (1977)
After years of exposure, watching
Star Wars at least once every eight or nine hours, I've become accustomed to its ending in ways that make me love it more than I love anything living. But watching it again recently, I realised just how quickly the movie wraps itself up once Luke Skywalker has completed his assault on and blown up the Death Star.
Star Wars has become famous for its silent "final scenes," of course, which are always made up of shots of the character being happy or optimistic, whilst John Williams' score blares over the top of them. Now we're all okay with this ending, it seems fine, but actually think about how quickly
Star Wars ends after the Death Star is gone. We get like, three minutes, made up almost entirely of a ceremony sequence, a few shots of Luke and Leia and Han smiling at one another, a bunch of dudes clapping, and "Written and Directed By George Lucas" wipes onto the screen. I mean, sure, the ending serves its purpose and it's really efficient, but it always felt to me like there was justification for a bit more chatter, especially since this could've been the last
Star Wars ever.