10 Movies With Annoyingly Abrupt Endings

6. Coming Home - Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman's recent stop-motion film about a lowly and depressed man who checks into a hotel in Cincinnati is near-on perfect from beginning to end. And yet it ends at such an abrupt point in the narrative - with so many things left to resolve and so many avenues to explore - that it feels largely incomplete as a filmic experience.

The main character, one Michael Stone, is having a mid-life crisis when Anomalisa begins, but his world is suddenly transformed when he meets Lisa. The pair bond, and Michael is temporarily lifted from his depression... soon enough, though, his sadness begins to seep back in and they go their separate ways. Michael returns home to his wife and child, and has an embarrassing outburst in front of his friends and associates.

Just when the film seems to be coming to a point, though, it ends: the film leaves Michael in his state of ennui, sitting on the staircase in his house wondering what went wrong, suggesting that he and Lisa never met again. That's it. Story over. All done.

It's a terribly jarring way to end an otherwise great movie that genuinely seemed to be building towards something... anything.