The ending of a movie can make or break an entire film, and if done well, audiences can feel much rewarded. Employing something as simple as a solid denouement will do wonders for the overall mood of the project, feeling nearly five minutes longer than you would think possible!

However, if the movie does not tell too much (or perhaps even too little) and instead chooses to leave some things up in the air, then that is fine. That being said, these are the 5 movies which will be better if it ended 5 minutes earlier –

Lincoln

Lincoln
Lincoln

As the credits rolled on Lincoln, fans couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied. The movie was certainly good (and two and a half hours long), but at several points throughout the film, it became very clear that Spielberg wanted to tell this iconic story in a way that he considered a definitive fashion. He couldn’t have known that nearly four years later, he would be the elected president. Yet for all his efforts to make Lincoln “aspirational” and “inspiring,” he somehow neglected the actual historical events of Lincoln’s life that made his accomplishments so extraordinary.

Related: Movies: Films Based on True Stories You MUST Watch Once

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part II
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part II

The film stops suddenly when Katniss and Peeta are about to kiss each other, but not before Jennifer Lawrence holds the strange-looking baby. As movie consumers, we weren’t expecting this jumpcut to make us laugh – in fact, we were quite moved by the moment. And it’s great that the film even stopped there on purpose because of course a scene like this called for some tenderness at its end. It’s too bad they didn’t think through how they were going to reveal what the baby looked like since this ending felt so abrupt that it basically took away from everything else we just watched.

Psycho

Psycho
Psycho

The classic brain teaser of horror movies, Psycho, is another Hitchcock film that needs no additional dressing up. He simply builds tension with the character Norman Bates and his emotional conflict between satisfying his desires to please his mother while trying to kill the object of his affection. However, the ending leaves the audience with an unrelenting feeling of suspense from its very first scene to the last moment.

Related: Historically Inaccurate Movies That Do Better By Straying Away

The Devil’s Advocate

The Devil’s Advocate
The Devil’s Advocate

Although Reeves’ sacrifice gave Shaw some valuable time to complete her mission, it was a little anticlimactic to see him return from the dead as if nothing had happened. If they had really gone through all of that effort with his character and made the choice to kill him, fans felt like there would’ve been more meaning behind holding onto that decision than bringing him back without adequate explanation.

Flight

Flight
Flight

The ending of Flight seems very out of place. Fans get that it shows how the lead character is paying for his crimes but it’s not as if this was brought up before at all so it’s kind of weird to suddenly introduce it in the movie when it’s not really needed. Critics understand why the makers wanted to end on a more optimistic note and maybe convince people that Whip is going to be ok but fans don’t think this ending has done the trick for them.

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