10 Movies That Didn't Know When To End

6. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Steven Spielberg's a great director, though he does have something of a reputation for not knowing when to stop - instead, piling on the saccharine sentiment to the point that it becomes just unbearable to watch.

The director's A.I., an ambitious and thought-provoking science-fiction film that was initially the brainchild of Stanley Kubrick, is no exception, going on about half-an-hour past its natural leaping-off point, even if it does provide some additional food for thought at the latter part of its 146-minute runtime. Still, the film should certainly have ended when robot prototype David (Haley Joel Osment) is trapped at the bottom of the ocean, repeating his request to become a real boy.

It's a haunting melancholic way to end a film, though of course, Spielberg wasn't having any of that. Instead, we cut to 2000 years later, where David is revived by an Alien-like machine race, who grant him a wish of being able to spend one day with a clone of his surrogate mother.

A syrupy ending that doesn't quite hit the emotional notes it strives for, A.I. would have been far more memorable if it ended with David frozen in the ice.