10 Most Disturbing Movie Endings Of All Time
Probably don't watch The Mist if you're feeling at all fragile.
Whilst most of us do enjoy good old-fashioned Hollywood happy endings, it's those movies that seek to disturb that seem to stay with us the longest. Understandably, producers are far more content sending their audiences away happy and uplifted opposed to disgusted, horrified or outright shaken.
However, as you’ll see from this list, there are so many cinematic classics that have ended with a gut punch. After all, these are the water cooler moments that have kept people talking about the films over the years. Furthermore, with so many vanilla, clichéd or predictably neat conclusions, it becomes almost refreshing to see a film with the courage to break the mold and really make us feel something.
Ultimately that’s what we watch films for; to feel something. Whether that be laughter, sadness or the feeling of utter disturbance, we have at least been moved in some way. This list is a celebration of the movies that do just that, move us, but not in the conventional way. These are the ones that have no problem making us feel unsettled, uneasy, and genuinely disturbed.
Naturally, as this list deals with film endings, be warned, disturbing spoilers ahead!
10. Se7en (1995)
This ending has become so infamous and ingrained in the annals of cinema that watching it now is like revisiting an old friend. However, that familiarity is a disservice to how alternative and shocking it was when originally released.
David Fincher had to fight the studio in order to keep this monumentally down-beat, yet intelligent, ending in. With the help of Brad Pitts’s backing he got his way, and thankfully so, as it ties together one of the best films of the 90’s in a dark, nasty, neat package.
The film treats Gwyneth Paltrow’s character in such a way that you always feel she is on the side-lines, separate from the dark world of the detective’s case, making the reveal that John Doe has used her for the final piece of his macabre puzzle all the more surprising. No one saw it coming. Especially Mills, who finds out in a further twist that she was also pregnant. A devastating ending to an outstanding movie.