It's been said that you can't please everyone
all of the time. That's especially true for movie endings. Hollywood history is full of shocking finales
that have left people confused, made moviegoers mad, or sparked fierce debate between critics. From decades-old films to modern-day blockbusters,
here are some of the most controversial movie endings of all-time. Major spoilers ahead, obviously. Monty Python's Life of Brian Want a surefire way to stir up controversy? Make a movie about Jesus. It worked for Mel Gibson, Martin Scorsese,
and of course, Monty Python. Okay, technically Life of Brian isn't about
Jesus at all. It's about a guy named Brian who gets mistaken
for a messiah and ends up getting crucified. And while our reluctant hero dies a painful
death, all the guys hanging on crosses around him launch into an upbeat musical number. "Always look on the bright side of life!" Needless to say, Life of Brian made some people
pretty upset. Protesters sang hymns outside movie theaters,
and the film was banned in some countries for decades. The Catholic Church jumped in and made up
their own rating for Life of Brian: a "C" for Condemned. Harsh. But despite the notoriety — or more likely
because of it — Life of Brian has since become a comedy classic. Titanic Sure, Titanic is still the second highest-grossing
movie of all-time, but those billions of dollars couldn't save the film from endless scrutiny. According to countless fans across the world,
the ending of Titanic is nothing short of a disaster. After the boat goes down, Jack and Rose find
themselves stuck in the freezing cold waters of the Atlantic. Then, Jack freezes to death. It's this scene that's sparked most of outrage. Wasn't there room on that piece of wood for
the both of them? The debate was so intense that in 2012, Mythbusters
dedicated an entire episode to discovering the answer. With the help of director James Cameron, they
determined that if Rose had just tied her life jacket to the underside of the door,
there would've been enough buoyancy to hold them both. But Cameron doesn't buy into that argument,
saying that, "The script says Jack dies, he has to die. Maybe we screwed up. The board should have been a tiny bit smaller. But the dude's going down." In other words, true love is a lie and you
should never hope for happiness. Geez, Cameron... Blade Runner By this point, there are seven different versions
of Blade Runner available to watch, and thanks to all that tinkering, sci-fans have spent
countless hours discussing whether or not Rick Deckard is actually a replicant. So what's the correct answer? Well, if you go by the original ending, it's
a straightforward "no." The theatrical cut ends on an upbeat note,
with Deckard and his robotic lady love escaping into the mountains to live a long and happy
life. However, that all changed with the Director's
Cut. That's the version in which Scott added Deckard's
unicorn dream and cut the happy Hollywood ending. This time around, the film ends with our protagonist
finding Gaff's origami message, implying the cop knows what Deckard dreams about — because
Deckard's memories are implants, thus making him a replicant. Ever since, people have argued about Deckard's
true nature. Even Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford don't
agree. The director firmly believes Deckard is a
machine, while the actor fought to keep his character 100 percent human. "So I resisted the idea of being a replicant,
I suppose, as a replicant would." That settles it then. Or does it… The Mist The ending of The Mist is one of the bleakest
finales ever put to film. Directed by Frank Darabont, The Mist focuses
on a group of New Englanders trapped in a grocery store by a mysterious fog. The titular mist is full of horrifying monsters,
but things aren't so great inside the store either. Once people start getting sacrificed, Thomas
Jane's character, David Drayton, makes a break for freedom with a small band of survivors,
but unfortunately, there's no happy ending here. Lost in the mist with no hope in sight, David
performs a mercy killing to spare his friends — and his own son — from the oncoming
creatures. And then, just a few painful seconds later,
a group of army guys show up to save the day and look for survivors. Yeah, it's bleak, grim, and completely different
from Stephen King's novella, but the author loved Darabont's twist, saying, "Frank wrote
a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever." Watchmen Even though Alan Moore's Watchmen is widely
considered the greatest graphic novel ever written, it took quite awhile to get a movie
adaptation up on the silver screen. At one point, Terry Gilliam took a crack at
the material, but when that didn't pan out, it eventually fell to Zack Snyder to get the
thing made. The result was a film that was pretty faithful
to the book…except for one giant, major change. In Moore's original story, the villainous
Ozymandias destroys New York with a mocked up alien squid. The arrival of the monster convinces the world's
superpowers that extraterrestrials are going to attack, forcing the US and the USSR to
put aside their differences and band together in order to face the otherworldly foe. However, Snyder totally dropped the whole
alien sea beast angle. Instead, Ozymandias blows up New York and
frames the omnipotent Dr. Manhattan, tricking America and the Soviet Union into becoming
friends to defeat the naked blue superhero. "Millions of lives were suddenly ended, in
an act of evil perpetrated by Dr. Manhattan himself." Snyder has since said that the squid was cut
out so more time could be spent building the characters of Manhattan and Rorschach. For his part, he's also acknowledged that
the altered ending was "the biggest knock against the movie." So there's that. The Dark Knight Rises Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was
a game-changer for superhero movies, and, as the final film in the series,The Dark Knight
Rises had a lot to live up to. But instead of diving headfirst into the darkness,
the third Nolan film ended on a much happier note, with the Caped Crusader saving Gotham
from a nuclear bomb before giving up his vigilante ways to travel the world with Selina Kyle. As a result, many fans wondered if this was
some sort of Inception-style dream sequence. After all, the scene plays out exactly like
a fantasy described by Alfred earlier in the film. "I had this fantasy that would look across
the tables and I'd see you there with a wife." Christian Bale, on the other hand, insist
Batman's happy ending is completely real: "My personal opinion is no, it was not a dream,
that that was for real." Some people thought the movie should've gone
in a more depressing direction by killing the superhero, while others were glad that
Bruce Wayne finally got a happy ending. And really, we shouldn't have been surprised
by the film's upbeat finale because, as Harvey Dent once explained it: "The night is darkest just before the dawn." This was the dawn audiences had been promised. The Grey Set in Alaska, The Grey follows a hunter named
John Ottway, played by Liam Neeson, who's stranded in the wilderness with a group of
oil workers. While he starts the movie suicidal, Ottway
slowly regains the will to live — which is too bad since he winds up in the middle
of a wolf den. Ready to fight, Ottway tapes a knife and broken
bottles to his hand, but before the final confrontation can start, the screen cuts to
black. Movie over. "WHAT?!" "WHAT?!" "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…." Audiences were sharply divided. Some people though the ending was perfect,
while others felt cheated. As for director Joe Carnahan, he cut the wolf-fighting
finale because the film had already reached its "emotional conclusion," and he also worried
that the sight of CG canines might ruin the scene. However, Carnahan admits the promotional material
"was the enemy of the film in a lot of ways. I guess it created a promise that people felt
the movie didn't live up to." Snowpiercer Directed by Bong Joon-ho, Snowpiercer is set
in the middle of a wintry post-apocalypse with the last of humanity on a train that
travels around the world. Unfortunately, living conditions aren't a
picture of equality. Folks in the tail end are treated like prisoners,
while the people in the front live like kings. So a group of rebels, led by Curtis, played
by Chris Evans, fights their way up to the front of the train, hoping to overthrow the
head honchos. But when Curtis makes his way into the engine,
he learns the train operates using child slave labor. Realizing the entire system is corrupt and
impossible to save, Curtis destroys the train, possibly killing everyone on board, except
for two kids. Emerging from the rubble, a teenage girl and
a young boy find themselves Adam and Eve of a frozen world. And as they step into the snow, they see a
polar bear, a sign the world is thawing out and that maybe there's hope after all. Well, that's what Bong Joon-ho intended anyway,
saying, "It's a very hopeful ending...those two kids will spread the human race." But many people had trouble getting past certain
plot issues. As plenty of critics have pointed out, those
two kids have lived their entire lives on the train, so they'd have no hope of surviving
the frigid wasteland. That is, if that big ol' bear didn't eat them. He's gotta be pretty hungry. Passengers On paper, Passengers should've been one of
the biggest blockbusters of 2016. It starred Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence
— two of the biggest stars in the business — and it was based on a screenplay that
many hailed as one of the best scripts in Hollywood. But the sci-fi flick was a flop, grossing
$100 million domestically on a $110 million budget. So what went so terribly wrong aboard Passengers? Well, moviegoers were expecting to see a story
about two beautiful people who accidentally wake up from suspended animation while traveling
to a new planet. Unable to return to their pods, the two are
fated to spend their lives together on the spaceship. But the trailers were more than slightly misleading. As it turns out, Chris Pratt's character,
Jim, wakes up after his pod malfunctions. Unwilling to spend his life alone, he selfishly
releases Jennifer Lawrence's character, Aurora, against her will. Even the robot bartender was surprised. "Who's the lucky lady?" "This is Aurora." "Aurora…" Admittedly, the movie could've done something
interesting with this premise. But instead of dealing with Jim's decision
in a mature, complex way, the filmmakers have Aurora fall in love with the guy and decide
to spend her life with him…even though he's essentially kidnapped and murdered her. When the rest of the passengers wake up nearly
90 years later, they find that Jim and Aurora lived a long, happy life and grew a bunch
of trees on their spaceship. As a result, critics hit the movie hard, and
audiences decided to stay away from theaters. Thanks for watching! Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our
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