12 Great Movies Ruined By Happy Endings

Generally, most people love movies with happy endings. It’s true because it gives them hope and satisfaction. People have their faith by watching movie endings that are based on what they believe, such as something moral or immoral. It’s unfair and ruthless when filmmakers force some character into a tragedy. So the plot is created so that the movies can be saved with happy endings, attracting the crowd. In fact, many writers and producers tend to stick a happy scene at the very end of the movies.
However, these movies can also be ruined by happy endings. In another word, although people do love happy endings, it doesn’t work sometimes. And, we will watch a logical ending rather than an illogical but satisfying ending. Indeed, it can’t actually make us pleased when it scatches our heads. So it’s not always a good idea to have a happy ending in every movie.
It’s necessary to say there will be a lot of spoilers so we would like to warn you before you go read the rest of the article. Let’s look at the 15 movies ruined by happy endings.

#1 The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)

Source: @elvesdoitbetter

The Lord of the Rings movie series is known for remarkable action sequences, visuals, and amazing character portrayals. And it seemed like nothing went wrong with the saga. That was true for nearly the whole part. The Return of the King was seen as a satisfying conclusion to a well-executed trilogy.
A happy ending was marked in this movie as well where the heroes prevailed and every subplot was dressed up convincingly. But what should have been a satisfying end was prolonged to such an extent that audiences began losing interest. It’s said to ruin everything and it could have been easily stopped in this case. And Lord of the Ring film series stands among the best movie franchises of all time.

#2 Savages (2012)

Source: @moviesrankings

The 2012 Savages is a movie that is forgotten due to not only the main plot of the movie is down in the dumps, but the twist that was the ending was also so faded and mind-boggling in a bad way that you might feel that you have wasted around 2 hours of your life. It tells the story of the three main characters who belong to a small town, are drug dealers, and particularly are in a polyamorous relationship.
The characters nearly die due to a raging firefight whilst they go under a self-inflicted overdose. Only as you are thanking God that they will all die and the film will end, it turned out that everything up till now had been happening in a nightmare of one of the three. They somehow go on to help the police arrest the actual bad guys of the film. At the end of the movie, the trio goes to an island like a paradise to live out their cheerful days.

#3 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Source: @imdb

It’s really hard to imagine a movie featuring movie featuring Dwayne Johnson not having a happy ending. The 2017 action-adventure flick was totally satisfying and every actor portrayed their respective parts to perfection. The movie begins with Alex Vreeke getting sucked into the Jumanji Game World in 1996. When the main characters join the game world and encounter Alex Vreeke’s avatar 20 years later, they inform him that the latter had been gone for 27 years.
Although the movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a delightful(and expected) ending, the fact that Alex didn’t lose anything in the end, reduces the emotional weightage of his arc.

#4 The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Source: @UBIRising

Needless to say that this sci-fi movie is a true gem but again, it has been ruined by the upbeat end of it. The plot of the movie witnesses Matt Damon as the star of the movie where he serves as a congressman and lives his best life when he unexpectedly figures out a shady organization named The Adjustment Bureau, and once he really does, his life is abruptly turned upside down.
The mission of this organization is to accomplish and maintain a system named “the plan” which is primarily a map of every human’s life on the globe but since it is pre-planned, not one human has free will or the power to self-determine. When the dauntless Matt Damon discovers it, he takes over his responsibility of fighting back whilst he runs away with his forbidden lover portrayed by Emily Blunt.
When the agents of the organization get a hold of them, the main characters share one last kiss but soon Matt Damon finds out that they both have been allowed to live their lives freely because their love is admired by the bureau.

#5 War of the Worlds (2005)

Source: @tomcruisefan

War of the Worlds is considered a fun movie with there being an alien invasion of earth by Martian invasion but seemingly, that is not enough to make a movie stand out. The movie stars Tom Cruise’s son whose character did not know how to make things right in the film.
It is no surprise from the start that Robbie does not have any sort of combat training which means that he might have intended clear the way but did he do that? The answer is reasonable; whilst the Martians are attacking and killing humanity itself, Robbie determines it best to head into the fight himself.
He enters a totally engaged battle between the aliens and the army without a single weapon. You are probably expecting his death but nothing of the sort happens. Obviously, Robbie was looked after by some guardian angel due to whom, at the end of the movie, we see Robbie not only alive but also quite strong, without a single scratch on his body. The alien invasion is not an ideological thing in this film, him being unscratched and alive is.

#6 X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Source: @hollywoodreporter

X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of the most well-received installments in the franchise. Featuring an ensemble cast along with an engaging story and clever direction, the film lovely converges numerous timelines and gives every character a chance to fight for a common goal.
But the ending could have been a little different. After saving the future of mutants by controlling the growth of sentinels, when Wolverine finally wakes up in 2023, he comes across many mutants in the X-Mansion, such as Jean Grey and Cyclops (who were killed off in the third installment). This completely rewrote the events that happened in The Last Stand and it might not have been the cleverest move as it made the timeline even more illogical to grasp.

#7 World War Z (2013)

Source: @mtv

It’s a zombie movie genre in which the main hero, Brad Pitt, and his family are stuck in a sea of zombies as a pandemic breaks out. The film is based on a novel with the same name but very loosely. If you watch it, you will see the distinction and the harsh transitions between the scenes. There were multiple rewrites, so much so that the third act of the movie was truly reshot.
The film sure starts awesome but unexpectedly the audiences see the actor roaming the facilities of the World Health Organization where he seemingly tricks an entire horde of zombies and finds a temporary solution to remaining safe from the zombies. In addition, you even see our hero doing an inexpensive product placement when he drinks a can of soft drink for no obvious reason.

#8 Boxing Helena (1993)

Source: @avxhm

By the time Boxing Helena’s premiere, it was being anticipated by multiple as people were curious how Jennifer Chamber Lynn would fare in her first outing as the director of a feature movie. The plot rotated on a surgeon called Nick Cavanaugh who gets attached to the supposed character Helena, a beautiful woman who becomes a victim of a severe accident.
Nick tries to kidnap her to complete the treatment process in his home. But he removes her limbs to control her. This intriguing thriller is gone in the end by indicating that Nick was dreaming the whole time. The pursuit of a pleasing ending led to an unintended disaster.

#9 The Game (1997)

Source: @imgur

Although this thriller film is by the incredibly starred David Fincher, the ending of the movie is so terrible that people can’t believe it’s his movie. The main character of the film is a rich banker who is refused entry to a high-stakes game that is portrayed by all the other wealthy people but he does not understand why he is denied entry.
Soon after, his life begins crumbling from the most bizarre events. He is chased by goons, buried alive, and driven to suicide. The twist arrives when the movie shows that all the odd events were actually part of the game and he wasn’t actually rejected entry to it.
He had been playing all along without understanding what was happening to him. We believe that the film could have gone many different without the character being driven to kill himself just due to the game.

#10 Minority Report (2002)

Source: @megastarfilms

Minority Report comes straight from the mastermind of Steven Spielberg and stars Tom Cruise which was enough to fascinate anyone as the movie was released. This sci-fi film is pretty amazingly crafted with there being a system of experimental combat that fights crime before it even happens and it is all thanks to a lot of people who have a precognition of the events.
Tom Cruise is the police officer who is on the mission but unexpectedly he is aimed by the system as a future murderer and he certainly decides to run. Finally, our hero gets caught and is imprisoned even though he is just being framed. If the film would have finished there, it would surely have been excellent. But in the end, his ex-wife busts in and saves him, and both of them uncover the truth which is that the main villain is the producer of the system himself.
We are of the strong opinion that the film could have finished with Cruise being implicated and imprisoned without his ex-wife making an entry in the movie.

#11 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

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People know that our readers might be outraged and surprised to see this film on the list but the truth is that Christopher Nolan’s film needs to be categorized just so. You would think that people would allow Batman to rest with the Caped Crusader where he had the ultimate sacrifice i.e. his life but Nolan goes on to make another movie.
The film itself is lovely and brilliant. Still, it goes without saying that the ending is a bit too much because Batman apparently survives the nuclear blast that he launches. He was considered to be dead because who can live after a nuclear blast? But ostensibly, Batman had some sort of protective suit or some other secret talent to save his life. We think that it would be better for everyone to act that Alfred never saw Bruce Wayne or Selina and then the ending could make more sense.

#12 The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Source: @animationeducatorsforum

When Victor Hugo’s fantastic gothic novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame was being adapted into a live-action feature by Disney, most people were worried as Disney had never been a fan of unhappy endings, which is actually how the 1996 movie should have ended. In the Notre Dame cathedral, Quasimodo was disfigured and he tried to seek acceptance in society because of his extremely distinct appearance. What happened there is what you can anticipate from a standard Disney movie. He finds accepted by a Gypsy Esmerelda and in the end, saves the day from the villains. It’s enough for everyone’s delight.
He is then taken to stay happily ever after as a hero. The younger audience should have adored the ending and gone home in peace. Still. Esmerelda and Quasimodo end up dying in the novel. Despite Disney’s appropriate approach, given its target viewers, it was their chance to do something abnormal and they determined not to. However, the movie is definitely enjoyable, and you shouldn’t read the novel first.