Why Do Great Movies Have Crappy Endings?'

if someone can direct me, that would be appreciated to a topic already addressing this.
I just typed into the search engine 'why do great movies have crappy endings'???
I have been watching a bunch of films lately that were great, but left the ending
hanging in ways that don't make any sense to me.
I understand it leading to a part II, but that's a different kettle of fish.
why do producers and directors do this?
I'm no movie buff by any means, but it's becoming 'old hat' by having 'crappy endings'
without any explanation.....

 

Examples?

 

'Bad' movies with 'Good' endings..
Good movies with bad endings.
Films where the female protagonist chooses the jerk over the decent man

 

Why Do Great Movies Have Crappy Endings? Usually because it's a lot easier to set up an intriguing premise with mystery and disorienting surprises along the way than it is to successfully wrap up all the plot points in a satisfying, self-consistent way, without being predictable. Electric Dreams anthology series is a prime example.

 

Why do great movies have crappy endings? They don't, if a film has a crappy ending than it's not a great movie.

 

This reminds me of the "dropping the cow" concept from "Saturday Night Live". They sometimes wouldn't know how to end a sketch, so they'd literally drop a cow (a fake one) to finish the segment!

They couldn't do it all the time, of course, and "SNL" has always had many good sketches that ended poorly - it really can be tough to find a logical end point for those sketches...

 

That’s true for the most part, but I’ve seen a few excellent movies with crappy endings in my time. The one that always comes to mind right away is the Richard Gere-Andy Garcia Internal Affairs.

 

Lost :TV series had a crappy ending.

 

I find it's more a matter of the third act being weak, which is the result of either lazy or unimaginative writing, or poor direction. Or sometimes it's in deference to Hollywood tropes. Passengers is one recent example, where the script betrays the interesting ideas it sets up in the first two thirds in service to the requisite romantic ending.

One that's always bugged me is Explorers (1986). First two thirds - magical. Third act - wtf?

There are probably thousands of examples. The need for a happy ending hurts a lot of Hollywood movies.

 

I’ve noticed this a lot from the “classic era” of Hollywood. During that time period, that’s just how scripts were written: resolve the conflict and end it. Even movies from that era with great endings (such as Casablanca) often end within seconds of the tension releasing. It comes off as jarring today, but I imagine people in the industry at the time assumed that they had lost the audience’s attention as soon as the suspense ended.

@Rick Bartlett I don’t know if this is what you’re talking about, but that’s what I thought of upon reading the OP.

 

yes...the Platinum Screw the Audience Award!

 

People's taste differ...
I think The Third Man's ending is PERFECT, could not be better...everyone gets screwed (well except the police)
But someone might think differently...

 

Starting such a thread without providing a single example is ... a crappy beginning?

 

Some stories don’t lend themselves to a satisfying conclusion that neatly wraps up loose ends and resolves all of the conflicts. A skilled screenwriter and director will recognize that and work around that problem or compensate for it with some sort of “emotional” or symbolic ending ... but that’s not always easy to do, particularly with bio pics (real life doesn’t follow a traditional, convenient narrative arc) and some movies where the conflict involves a supernatural creature. Stephen King stories are notoriously hard to film because they often involve unseen, all-powerful forces that somehow have to be both depicted on film and then defeated. “It” is a classic example, where the miniseries ends with the revelation that this force is basically a big spider living in the damn sewer.

 

Not only that, but many of them rely on interior monologues that can't reasonably be captured on film in any event.

 

Yeah, that was really true during the 30s. It took me a while to adapt - the movies would end so abruptly! No denouement at all!

 

But how does it end?

 

The Third Man is a perfect film. It may not fit the expectations of filmgoers looking for a happy ending, but that's their fault, not the film's.

 

A bad ending to me does not mean a happy or a sad ending, just endings that feel like a cop-out or being out-of-sync with the story of the film.
I mostly dislike what I call “Hollywood” endings where the movie set and cast are shown (as a behind the scenes sort of thing) with some sort of lame
drama to the end. exm. Blazing Saddles & Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

 

The problem with somebody creative enough to come up with a perfect concept for a movie, win the studio approval, and get the budget to sign only the best people for the production...
...are usually impossible to talk out of the dull, "thud" of an ending once they've got all that support behind them.

 

Ok, I should give some examples:
one I saw recently was 'the thing', a 1982 movie with Kurt Russell.
great movie, but the ending was very 'blah', and after reading other people's
reviews, no one could come up with an ending, only 'maybe's.
I can't stand having that feeling of 'what?' after sitting and watching something
for a couple of hours with no explanation to the end.
it could have led to a part 2, but even great films that lead into a follow up,
usually have a great ending or a cliff hanger of what's to follow.
The Saw films, Krueger, Back to the Future, Star Wars etc etc I think have great
endings with some closure before embarking on new movies.
Just my opinion...

 

The Saw films as part of an example of films with great endings? The first one, maybe.....but come on...the sequels?

And I say that as a fan of horror movies and enjoy the series.

 

Deus ex machina has a long distinguished history indeed.

 

Of course, King's *novels* are notorious for poor endings, as it is!

 

Writer/director Joe Dante has said many times that he told the studio he needed another 4-6 months in order to rewrite the script and come up with a better ending, but they basically said, "the movie has to be out by such-and-such a date, or else we'll cancel the whole thing." Rather than do that, he dived right in and started making the film... to his eternal regret.

This kind of thing happens sometimes. Writer/producer Ron Shusett has admitted that when they went into production on Total Recall in late 1989, the script was not finished and, as a result, their ending suffered and the movie got mixed reviews (but made a lot of money). In their case, they had sold the script to the studio with Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of the package, and he was only available for a relatively-short 2-month period. Either they made it immediately, or it wouldn't get made at all. They chose the former... bad script and all.

As novels, I would say Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Misery, The Dead Zone, Shawshank Redemption (actually a novella), The Green Mile, 11/22/63, It, Firestarter, Hearts in Atlantis, and The Stand all have good endings that make sense. I also like the film versions of all of these stories.

But there are quite a few others that unravel quickly: I'm not a fan of the endings of Cujo, Pet Sematary, Dreamcatcher, Cell, Under the Dome, Dr. Sleep, Christine, From a Buick 8, or Tommyknockers. I also like most of King's Dark Tower series, but those novels are admittedly uneven. The movie versions of some of his films are all over the place, and a few of them are horrifically bad: King himself has disowned all the Children of the Corn films, and I know he really hated the ending of The Shining (though he admits it's a well-made film).