10 Films That Should Have Ended Ten Minutes Earlier

6. Blade Runner

Here's a film that went on too long to such a ruinous (if not lengthy) extent that odds are you've never actually seen the added scene we're talking about. The fact that there's a happy ending to Blade Runner, with Deckard and Rachael driving off into the countryside, is now treated as a fun bit of trivia, but for the first ten years of its existence it was impossible to watch the film without it.

Even today, in a world where elements of its design are part of the sci-fi language, Blade Runner is a rather unconventional film; its plot moves at an intermittent rate and even for the eighties there's some weird stuff going on. That's obviously all part of the appeal, but it can prove off-putting to some. And that was only the case to a greater degree upon release in 1982.

Test screenings didn't respond overly positively to the film, with the studio imposing the inclusion of the happy ending and a noir-style voiceover from a clearly disinterested Harrison Ford. As with any studio mandated decision it was a poor one, undercutting a brilliantly sudden ending.

Thankfully the film's emergent popularity meant director Ridley Scott eventually got his cut of the film (multiple times in fact). To learn more about the ending of Blade Runner, check out our dissection of its final moments here.