In the theater when I was watching Return of the King, when Sam said in VO "But the story wasn't over" a dude audibly groaned and said "Aww really?" and everybody laughed.

I kind of like the ending of Return of the Jedi, but that's just me.

Of course the real worst movie endings are movies so bad that they were never hits in the first place.

Worst endings? Several spring to mind right away, at least if we're thinking "Worst endings to movies that were otherwise going to be pretty good."

I'll second the War of the Worlds, and No Country for Old Men votes.

Signs

Deadgirl (though that whole movie was pretty vile)

Signs

The Unborn (because the ending means that 90% of the film makes no sense.)

Signs

Hannibal (still better than the book, though)

Signs

Fight Club: the switcheroo felt so... film school.

Unbreakable: Let's conclude the mystery of David Dunn and 'Mr. Glass' with a voice-over and a title card!

Matrix Reloaded: ham-fisted cliffhanger to a ham-fisted sequel that made me not even bother with the final installment.

The Fountain: Hell if I know what it was all about in the first place. But when Hugh Jackman does cunnilingus on the tree of life that later consumes him, I'm speechless...

I beg to differ sir, regarding HANNIBAL. I thought the book's ending was darkly brilliant, and a good sight more appropriate and interesting than that limp ending they slapped up there on screen.

Oh, and regarding NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the final scene definitely follows the thematic arc of the film, and is a beautiful conclusion. It's just that its significance flies over most people's heads. (Not that NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a flawless film, mind you, since I think it makes some big missteps elsewhere.)

Oh, I forgot to add Vanilla Sky, with its worse kind of Philip K. Dick it's-all-artificial-reality horse hooey. Enter Noah whatshisname as the tech and faster than you can say deus ex machina, Cameron Crowe's gaping maw of a plot hole is filled with lots of doo doo.

When I read the title of the post, LOTR III is what came to mind immediately. So... spot on there. Ending after ending after ending.

Then I'd have to say The Sting. But only because when I saw it during its initial highly acclaimed run (yes, I'm that old) the theater mixed up the order of the reels. Thanks Century 21 Theater in San Diego. No longer there. Guess their ending made more sense.

The ending of No Country of Old Men is brilliant. The Sheriff gives up!

Paycheck: the entire plot hinges on the infallibility of the prediction plot device... but hero wins through SHEER AWESOME BEATING FATE.

I'll second the bitter script reader on "No Country for Old Men." For how good the movie was, to end it with Tommy Lee Jones and friend bemoaning how criminals are getting worse in society ends a GREAT movie on a whimper.

LOVED "The 40 Year Old Virgin" but in my opinion it too suffered from a simliar fate.

In my opinion "40 Year Old Virgin" SHOULD have ended right after Andy (Steve Carell) finally announces his virginity to Trish (Catherine Keener) on the street, after he crashed though the billboard.
The scenes after that really were momentum killers, and to end with a dance number, "The Age of Aquarious" was real head scratcher for me.

HUGE fan of Steve Carell and Judd Apatow, "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is ripe with side splitting, laugh out loud humor. But these comedic masterminds SHOULD have the sensiblity to ediit out that lackluster ending.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

How can anyone cite NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN without mentioning the Coen's next ending-less masterpiece (slight sarcasm) BURN AFTER READING? I generally love the Coen boys, and BURN was pretty damn entertaining, up until... It just freakin' ends, and you're like, "WHAT. THE. F. was *that*?!?"

The next ones are painful for me, as I worship at the throne of Clint Eastwood. But I still can't fathom how a guy who directed UNFORGIVEN -- one of my favoritest movies of all time, with one of the greatest endings of all time -- would allow himself to direct the Lehane-penned crap ending to MYSTIC RIVER. The movie went on about 15 minutes too long. It should've ended after "the big bang" (you know what I mean).

And I would've thought that a fluke, that Clint was just going with the book/screenplay, but what about THE CHANGELING? That thing reminded me of LOTR, "ending" more than once and running, literally, a half hour too long.

The dissent regarding the ending of No Country For Old Men surprises me. Outside of the fact that it basically remains true to what Cormac McCarthy had written, I certainly don't see how it could have ended any other way...

Same with War of the Worlds. Again, very true to the notions in the original H.G. Wells book.

The inclusion of The Abyss is interesting. I would have agreed until I saw the extended edition with that massive tidal wave hovering over the coastline... then everything came together beautifully.

I seldom grouse at endings. I guess if I'm invested enough to stay with the film up to Act 3 anyway, I pretty much will accept whatever the filmmakers throw at me at that point.

But the "No Country..." complaints, again, surprise the hell out of me. How would y'all have preferred it end???

Jeff,

The success of "No Country for Old Men" was ALL about the shoot-outs and tension derived from Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) vs. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). EVERY TIME Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) has screen time it's for a breather.

Just because this is an adaptation, doesn't mean as a creative team you have to be 100 % faithfull to the source material.

Jeff, have you ever adapted someone else's material?

Adaptation is all about picking out what works on screen, and leaving out what doesn't.

When the reviews of "No Country for Old Men" were circulating about I remember reading one of the critics hailed the sherrif character (Tommy Lee Jones) as the story's "soul." For my money, he's like the heavy handed theme -- that doesn't work!

The Coen brothers had a MOVIE that ROCKED, be it from a book or something they created on their own. But EVERY TIME the sherrif character shows up -- poof, tension gone, breather period in, sometimes for far too long a period of time.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

But the "No Country..." complaints, again, surprise the hell out of me. How would y'all have preferred it end???

With some kind of resolution. With a showdown between the Antagonist and Protagonist that we'd just spent 2 hours watching. Not some narrative denouement out of left field with Tommy Lee Jones, a character we neither knew anything about nor cared about, that accomplished nothing.

Ron, BURN AFTER READING has one of the most brilliant (and hilarious) endings of all time. Absolutely fantastic.

And regarding NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I agree that the film has some real problems. The Coens made a very literal adaptation of an already uneven book, replicating the flaws of the source, and in some ways, making them even more problematic.

But from a thematic perspective, the final scene was the right way to end the film. It's the stuff before it that needed straightening out.

1. Untraceable

2. Unbreakable

Can't agree about No Country. It ended just the way the beginning said it would.

I think the Lord of the Rings is a little unfair, considering that it is all way through not structured as most common movies. I think more fans would have screamed if it ended when he got King. They already cut a great deal of the book's ending.

I like the fuzzballs in Return of the Jedi. Great symbolism.

Personally I hate the ending of Dances With Wolfs. I get angry every time. I have this magnificent masterpiece ending in... what?