Ending Fatigue / Live-Action Films

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Repeat Offenders:

• Averted twice by David Cronenberg with both The Dead Zone and The Fly (1986). As originally shot, both movies ended with short, hopeful epilogues detailing the final fate of the protagonist's lover (and in the latter their unborn child). In fact, no less than four versions of an epilogue were shot and tested for the latter. But none worked well with test audiences or the filmmakers themselves, so instead both films just end immediately after the protagonist dies. In the case of The Fly, this aversion meant that a major plot point went unresolved... and allowed a sequel to be produced three years later.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Man of Steel's last 45+ minutes are essentially one enormous action climax that gets too tiring to appreciate. Superman and Lois escape from Zod's ship! Now the fight goes to the surface, where Superman battles Faora and Nam! Then there's an even longer final fight where Supes and the US military collaborate to destroy Zod's ship and the World Engine, except the troops can't destroy Zod's ship until Supes destroys the World Engine, which he can't yet because the alien atmosphere is toxic to him, and even afterward they have deal with Jor-El's key not activating and Faora attacking them, and even after all that Zod still isn't dead...
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice climaxes with Superman's Heroic Sacrifice and the denouement starts with a scene between Martha and Lois. Then we get a talk between Bruce and Diana, an extended funeral montage, another talk between Bruce and Diana, a sequence wrapping up Lex's fate, and teasing that Superman is Not Quite Dead before the credits finally roll.
  • One of the most common criticisms of Wonder Woman (2017). While the movie clocks in at a little over two hours (not exceptionally long by superhero movie standards), some people feel that the last act drags on more than it should, which, along with it being often considered as the movie's weakest part altogether, has made some feel that it could have been shorter.
  • SHAZAM! (2019) was often criticized for its length, which was probably caused by the really long final battle. First, there's a seemingly final battle in the Shazam throne room. Then, the main characters have to escape from the throne room. Then, there's a battle in the amusement park. Then, the Shazam gang appears. Then, there's a big final battle that lasts around fifteen minutes. As a whole, the climax of Shazam! is one of the most overlong in the DCEU, which is already a big competition.
• By Steven Spielberg:
  • Hook. With the climax down to the swordfight between Peter and Hook, it ends and begins again twice before the villain finally gets his comeuppance. After that, Peter sends Jack and Maggie back to London with Tinkerbell guiding them, then bids farewell to the Lost Boys (and chooses Thudbutt as their new leader) before setting off alone. The kids greet Moira and Wendy in the latter's townhouse, but Peter comes to Kensington Park for some reason and encounters in turn a trashman who may be Smee and Tinkerbell, making a final farewell to her. He returns to the townhouse for another joyous family reunion, the business deal and "Tootles's lost marbles" subplots are tied off, and then the movie ends.
  • The Lost World: Jurassic Park has its peculiar San Diego T-Rex rampage epilogue, which was not in the source novel and seems more fit for a full-fledged sequel than the last half-hour of its predecessor — especially with most of the human characters absent save for the protagonist, his lover, and the villain. The story goes was that it was originally conceived as such, but Spielberg doubted he would direct a third film. In addition, it does make the movie slightly less of a straight retread of the first one.
  • A.I. seems like it will end twice: when David drops on the sea that engulfed New York, and when he is talking to a submerged statue of the Blue Fairy, begging to be turned into a real boy. Both would be Downer Endings of their own, but then the film cuts to a Distant Finale long after humanity has gone extinct, and some Sufficiently Advanced Robots turn the film into a real Tear Jerker.^note Perhaps this reflects the difficulty Kubrick and his various co-writers had coming up with an ending they liked.
  • Catch Me If You Can tries to end three or four times, but Leonardo DiCaprio just won't stop running away. Even when he does finally get caught and it has a perfectly satisfactory ending, there's a good 20 minutes more about his working with the man who caught him!
  • Munich: After Avner returns to his family there are at least two to three scenes that feel like the film is building up to its end, only to have it keep going.
  • War Horse makes the viewer think there's an additional action scene going to take place after its climax, then drags out its denouement.
  • Lincoln has a poignant shot of Honest Abe walking away after bidding his goodbyes before heading off to Ford's Theater. Does the movie end there? Nope. Instead it continues on to his assassination, or rather, psyching out the audience by depicting a simultaneous play, to Lincoln's deathbed, then to him giving his second inaugural address.
• Star Wars:
  • One of the (many) criticisms of The Phantom Menace is that it has four simultaneous ending threads that it cuts rapidly between. This makes each individual thread difficult to follow. George Lucas realized how problematic this was too late into production to fix it, but the lesson learned here led to much more concise endings for Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
  • Unfortunately, the climax of Attack of the Clones tends to go on and on. First Anakin and Padmé go to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, get into a scrap in the droid factory, get captured, and have to fight in an arena battle alongside Obi-Wan. Then the other Jedi show up and have a fight with battle droids. Then Yoda shows up with the Clone army and there's another massive battle while the heroes chase Dooku. And then there are three separate lightsaber duels involving Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, and Dooku, before the movie finally reaches its resolution. While there are certainly some good and exciting moments in the third act, considering the entire film is over two hours long (until The Last Jedi was released, it was the longest theatrical Star Wars film), one gets the sense some of the action could've been condensed to shorten the runtime.
  • Defied with Revenge of the Sith; George Lucas notes in the DVD Commentary that he cut out a scene from the epilogue of Yoda traveling to Dagobah expressly because the ending was already so lengthy and information-packed that anything more would just make it drag on.
  • Rogue One invokes this in an interesting way. At the climax, the Rogue One crew have successfully transmitted the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance, but all died in the process. It looks like the end, but then the movie just...keeps going. For the next ten to fifteen minutes, it seems to forget about Rogue One and shifts to the Rebel soldiers who are carrying the Death Star blueprints to safety. The movie keeps shifting viewpoints until it eventually lands on Princess Leia getting the plans, leading directly into the events of A New Hope. All to drive home that Jyn and Cassian and the others weren't the heroes; they were just the Red Shirts and Spear Carriers whose narrative purpose was to set up the actual heroes. Once they're gone the story just goes on without them.
  • The Last Jedi: There are four climactic fights stuffed between the second and third act of the movie. Kylo Ren defeating Snoke and then he and Rey fighting his guards and then each other, Finn dueling Phasma as Snoke's ship goes pear-shaped due to Holdo hyperspace-ramming the Raddus into it, the First Order's assault on the old Rebel base on Crait where the last of the Resistance are hiding, and finally rounds it out with a duel between Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker. To say the least, it goes on and on, and it's a lot to take in.
• Several of Robert Zemeckis' films:
  • Cast Away first climaxes when Chuck is rescued by an oil tanker after losing Wilson. We then follow him as he returns home, reunites with his now remarried wife, sees how people take simple tools for granted, and then goes on to show the audience that FedEX will deliver your package anywhere in the world. No matter how long it takes.
  • Back to the Future, while not wearing out its welcome, looks like it's going to end about twice before it actually does. Doc drops Marty off at his house before heading off to the future. Is it the end? Cut to Marty waking up the next morning. Marty is reunited with Jennifer. Is it the end? Doc returns to bring Marty along on another adventure. Then it ends.
  • Forrest Gump just never seems to end, as you'd expect everything to wrap up once Forrest's life story caught up to the present and he reunited with Jenny, but it keeps going past that to cover their wedding and her eventual death. It's kind of a surprise when the credits finally do roll. (Ironically, some might have expected the movie to go on even longer since it was released in 1994 but the movie's "present" is in the early 1980s.)

Individual Films:

• Nollywood movies often have this, because they are usually very long — so long that they come on two DVDs.
• Plenty of slasher movies do this by having the second half of the movie consist almost entirely of the killer chasing the Final Girl around, with no plot twists or anything to shake things up.

• Air Force One. Just when you thought the film was gonna end after Korshunov and Radek die, MiGs loyal to Radek launch to shoot down the plane only to be stopped by friendly F-15 Eagles. Then, it turns out the plane is almost out of fuel and thus unable to land. Marshall pilots the plane to the Caspian Sea and the USAF sends in an MC-130 to evac the president and everyone else via zip-line, but then Gibbs tries one last attempt to kill him, but fails to do so as the plane crashes, taking him with it. The film finally ends for real afterwards.
• Alien³ has six or seven endings in quick succession, as if David Fincher couldn't decide on what closing shot would be coolest.
• The hospital dream sequence in All That Jazz stretches on for about five separate songs and more than 20 minutes, just repeating the same message over and over again. No wonder the last song is the main character choosing to die.
• Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie introduces a few too many plot threads and ends up with a bloated climax to tie everything up. The Nerd and the alien have to escape from Area 51, the alien has to rebuild his ship, and the Nerd has to review Eetee for his fans, which would have been plenty to end the film on, but there's also a giant monster that has to be stopped, which adds a solid twenty minutes to the runtime and drags the main plot to a halt.
• Chico Marx's piano performance of "Sugartime" in Animal Crackers was an in-film example. He...just keeps playing it, going over the same part over and over again. This eventually leads to a series of jokes about trying to end it.
  Chico: I can't think of the finish.
  Groucho: I can't think of anything else!
  [...]
  Chico:I think I went past it.
  Groucho:Well, when you come around again, jump off!
• The Bollywood film Arth is about a couple having a divorce, the story centered around the woman's emotional struggles. The two finally meet up again, both having gone through hardships. When the woman asks her ex-husband if they'd like to get back together again, the husband answers back, "No," and the second half of the film begins. This next half has a totally unrelated plot, where the last 30 minutes of the film consist of roughly seven sequences, each tying up a loose thread and each edited as if they would cut to credits.
• A common complaint of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is that the title event happens, and then the movie goes on for another hour. This is largely due to Billing Displacement and misgivings over the title. Jesse James isn't the main character, Robert Ford is and it's the story of his legend compared to James's. This even extended to Casey Affleck bizarrely getting nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In the as-yet-unreleased director's cut it in fact goes on for another two hours after the assassination. This accounts somewhat for why the final third feels a bit more rushed than the previous two thirds.
• Australia, which had an intermediate climax good enough for one movie on its own. It starts all over again halfway through.
• Avengers: Endgame spends roughly 30 minutes wrapping things up after the climactic final battle and Tony Stark's funeral. Justified in that the film is the Grand Finale of the first three phases of the MCU, so there's a lot to wrap up. The Russo Brothers even cited this as their primary reason for cutting out many scenes near the end.
• Bad Boys II would seem to logically end around the time when the team captures Tapia's drug and money shipments, gaining enough evidence to have him convicted. Instead, Tapiya kidnaps Sid and flees to Cuba, causing the film to go on for another half-hour and leading to a climax where Mike, Marcus, and a few other cops go to Cuba, hook up with local resistance fighters, and assault Tapia's heavily fortified mansion. Even this takes longer than it should with the gun battle leading to an extended car chase and ending with a standoff outside of Guantanamo Bay. However, one may feel MUCH more satisfied to see him get blown up by a mine rather than just getting arrested.
• Battle Royale 2 does this at least three or four times.
• The Beastmaster: Dar defeats the evil wizard who screwed up his life and took over his rightful kingdom, and announces that he's going to become the new king. Then it turns out the wizard's army is still out there and about to attack the kingdom, so we have a whole other climax on top of it. See this movie for a textbook example of why the Scouring of the Shire was cut from the Lord of the Rings films.
• The ending of Blazing Saddles upsets some audiences for completely dropping the Western facade in the middle of the climactic rumble. The film feels a little adrift as the characters begin running around Hollywood backlots and Los Angeles streets, though highlighting the artificiality of the genre is a running theme throughout the film.
• There are at least three points in The Box that would have been satisfactory endings to the film before the actual ending. One of these even follows the standard ending formula, with a huge climax and an obvious downward slope in the intensity afterwards, as if the film is winding down, only for it to pick up again. As a result the actual ending, which normally could have been a pretty powerful scene, ends up as kind of weak since at that point the viewer is just waiting for it to be over.
• All other complaints aside, perhaps the biggest failing of Brazil was that the final part of the movie consists of one scene after another each of which looks like a climactic ending. Final count: about fourteen. Then it's all subverted with a monumental Twist Ending. The biggest problem with the Love Conquers All version is that it kept most of those endlessly rising endings and then cut the punchline/climax.
• The last third of Casino seems to involve a lot of padding.
• In the James Bond reboot film Casino Royale (2006), what seems to be the climax of the film, the resolution of the big poker game, is only the end of the second act. Some audience members were confused that the film kept going, following Bond as he retires and ultimately faces the tragedy that makes him the ruthless lothario we all know.
• The 1967 version of Casino Royale has this; it arguably starts when Evelyn Tremble and Le Chiffre are killed. The remainder of the film has to bring all the other characters together to unmask and confront the Big Bad. The resultant climax degenerates into a gigantic free-for-all fight in the casino with an "Everybody Dies" Ending played for LAUGHS, followed by a Fluffy Cloud Heaven ending. This was mainly due to a large amount of behind-the-scenes problems, most of which started when Peter Sellers left in the middle of filming.* The 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has this due to Adaptation Expansion, namely the Dark and Troubled Past it gives Willy Wonka. Because of his Daddy Issues, he insists Charlie give up his own family if he wants to inherit the factory, and Charlie refuses. The fallout from this means the story requires an additional climax before the book's happy ending can commence, and pads the movie by at least five minutes not counting the setup in the flashbacks. This is noticeable because other adaptations manage to flesh out the story's finale, which is a bit thin on the page, without dragging it out. Compare it to the 1971 film's suspenseful and emotional climax.
• Chocolat has the climax about 30 minutes before the film ends. There are about a dozen false endings after this point, but the movie isn't actually over until the kangaroo disappears.
• An amusing variation with the movie Clue. When the film was in theaters, moviegoers could see one of three different reveals and endings (or all three, if they wished), depending on which theater they went to. When the film went to the pay-TV channels and video, the creators included all three endings. This meant that if you wanted to see all three endings, you A) paid admission two more times to see the same 87 minutes but with two more different endings, or, B) you had to listen to Wadsworth tell you whodunit (and where, and with what) three times, without really knowing the truth for sure, since all three endings were equally valid and logically sound!
• Some Con Air viewers find the fire truck chase and admittedly silly death of Cyrus to be a significant downgrade when compared to the Vegas Strip airplane crash that occurred just before it.
• In Cooties, the teachers get away from the school - the main plot point that had to be overcome. Then they get a Jump Scare in the truck. Then they get to Danville. Then they get chased again. then they're cornered. Then The Cavalry comes. Then the movie ends.
• Cruella really had an excessive number of showdowns between Cruella and the baroness as if one would bring more stakes than the one before it.
• The one complaint about The Dark Knight seems to be that it goes on for too long and seems to be about to end three or four times before it finally actually does. Part of the problem might be that viewers became more emotionally attached to the Joker than Two-Face. The corruption of Harvey Dent is the masterstroke of Joker's plan, so the resolution with Two-Face is thematically the climax, but once the Joker himself has left the film, audiences started to lose interest. According to the writers, this situation happened because the film's final script was put together with parts from two other screenplays. Two-Face was supposed to be in a completely different film, but once the producers understood the appeal, they wrote him into the film. The original film was supposed to end at the scene where The Joker gets taken into custody.
• The Departed. Even after Frank Costello dies, the viewer has to sit through a good half hour of tying up loose ends.
• Destroy All Monsters has the Humans free their Kilaak-enslaved colleagues. Then astronaut soldiers destroy the enemy base on the moon. Then they themselves take control of the monsters and mass them at the main Kilaak base. But before they can begin the attack, Ghidorah shows up, under Kilaak control, and the Kilaaks also manage to undo Earth's control of the monsters. But it's okay - the monsters know who their enemy is. Dog pile on Ghidorah, he goes down, but the Kilaak's unleash a 'Burning Monster', that turns out to be just another spaceship which Earth forces destroy, and the Kilaak base is finally put down. When the final overview of the peaceful monsters back on Monsterland occurs, you fight between wanting it to end and fully expecting something else to happen.
• Dinner for Schmucks. OK, we had the heartwarming scene, the movie must surely be about to wrap up... nope, there's still more! OK, we're done with the dinner... oh, a little more? Fine. The End, finally, now THERE'S EPILOGUE SCENES?! Ironically, the original film The Dinner Game avoids this by running just 80 minutes and focusing solely on the main story (the subplots were added for the remake as films under 90 minutes seem to be unfashionable in the US). The final result is considered by many one of the best French films of the 1990s.
• Django Unchained: It seems like the gunfight at Candyland will be the finale. But then Django has to give himself up, gets hung upside down for two minutes of torture, has to talk a group of rednecks out of taking him to the mines, rescue his wife and then finally shoot up the rest of the people at Candyland. And this is after things have already gone on for over two hours. According to Samuel L. Jackson, the shootout at Candyland originally was the ending, but after they shot the scene, the director and some of the actors realized that the ending was a bit too generic in light of all that had preceded it. Hence Tarantino's decision to add a bit more.
• Doctor Zhivago could easily end with Yuri and Lara's final parting, with perhaps a brief epilogue to wrap things up. Instead we cut back to Yevgraf and the girl he believes to be Yuri and Lara's child, for another 15-20 minutes of narration and exposition detailing Yuri's death, Yevgraf's relationship with Lara, Komarovsky's possible fate, more of The Girl's backstory... eventually it all seems monotonous, especially since most of it happens offscreen.
• The 60's spy-spoof Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine climaxes with a Driving a Desk chase-scene around San Francisco that goes on way too long. It finally ends with Goldfoot and his idiot henchman Igor appearing to die in a very emphatic fashion, but then the heroes celebrate by going on a plane trip, only to learn the duo are somehow still alive.
• Excalibur. As William Goldman said, you're just unnerved when you should be shocked because King Arthur dies.
• Exodus: Gods and Kings teases its audience with about three possible endings after Ramses is defeated, before finally ending with an elderly Moses and the Ark of the Covenant.
• Expend4bles: No one expected the battle on Rahmat's ship was going to take up the bulk of the film. And just when you thought it'd be over after Rahmat dies, he reveals he never had the kill switch, but his client did, and that's when Marsh steps in to reveal his true status as the Big Bad.
• In Face/Off, the climactic battle between Archer and Castor goes on for an insanely long time. Archer's final cry for Castor to "DIIIIIEEEEE!" seems rather on the money.
• For being an 87-minute film, Freddy Got Fingered at least flirts with this, but also puts a fourth-wall-breaking lampshade on it: After the movie threatens to end about three times, Gord and his father return home from Pakistan, and they're greeted by a crowd holding up signs, one of which reads "When the fuck is this movie going to END?".
• In Funny People, George is dying but gets to make all his restitution emotionally with the people in his life. He then gets the one that got away to fall back in love with him. Then his assistant, who is a child of divorce, ruins that in favor of the couple who is already married. Then George and his assistant reconcile. It's quite a bit of Mood Whiplash.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Like the book, Blomkvist's legal troubles bookend the central mystery plot. After the mystery is resolved, we still spend some time resolving how Blomkvist and Lisbeth get back at Blomkvist's nemesis. Funnily enough, the Swedish version knows when to shut up. After the plot is resolved, we get a short scene of Blomkvist in jail, the news report of his nemesis dead, and Lisbeth in Granada.
• Godzilla Raids Again has Godzilla kill his opponent... over 30 minutes before the film ends. Afterward, the viewer is treated to a still-running and boring romance subplot about the human characters, and then a long and dull scene (five minutes) of airplanes causing an avalanche to bury Godzilla.
• In The Great Escape, after much build-up and planning, the actual escape starts an hour and forty-five minutes into the movie and is over fifteen minutes later. Then there's another forty-five minutes left in the movie. Justified in that getting out of the camp is only the first obstacle. The escapees still have to get out of enemy territory and to a neutral country for the escape to really end. And most of the escapees don't make it that far.
• Japanese Film The Great Yokai War had a lengthy, exciting, and rather satisfying climax followed by an uncomfortable scene where all the colorfully-costumed youkai have left, without closure, leaving a young boy and a grown man alone in the ruins of Tokyo for several minutes in which they have an awkward conversation and the man begins to drink.
• The Guardian goes through about three perfectly acceptable endings after the final action scene.
• The plot of Hello, Dolly! is really over with the reconciliation of Horace and Dolly to the strains of the title song, but this continues without interruption into the entire cast storming on stage with reprises of all major numbers. The movie drags this glorified curtain call out even longer.
• The Help feels like it should end as Skeeter achieves success with her book and helps the maids out financially as they all begin to have success. but the movie aimlessly wanders for about a half-hour too long after before Aibileen leaves to start a new life.
• Deliberately invoked in Hot Fuzz. After a long climactic battle where it seems all the villains have been dealt with, Big Bad Frank Butterman escapes and takes Danny hostage. Nicholas is just as exasperated by this as the audience, and shouts "Pack it in, Frank, you silly bastard!" The creators explicitly noted that they were inspired by the point in Bad Boys II (see above) where it looks like everything's wrapped up, but then Martin Lawrence's character intones that "This shit just got real," and the movie keeps going.
• After the evil werewolves and government agents are dead, Howling III: The Marsupials then starts a drawn-out happy ending with the two werewolf women hooking up with their respective love interests, living happily together, having children, said children growing up, meeting each other after a long time, and so on.
• The film version of the Tyler Perry play I Can Do Bad All By Myself not only runs 20-30 minutes longer than it should but has two false endings. The first occurs after the actual ending, after a fade to black. You get ready to leave the theatre but instead of credits, you get a random musical number that has nothing to do with the plot. After that, you get your second false ending. After another fade to black, you get outtakes (on a movie that wasn't even a comedy, no less). By then, most people would have just given up and gone to their car.
• The film version of Into the Woods has received complaints that it really should have just been an expanded version of Act 1, especially since some of the darker elements of Act 2 are toned down anyway. Since there is no attempt of translating the story being two separate acts into film, it also loses many of the powerful parallels of structure and song.
• Jackie Brown sets things up so that it appears the plan in the clothing store will be the big climax... but nope, the film goes on for another twenty-plus minutes as Ordell just keeps one-upping the protagonists.
• In the 1942 Jungle Book, the film continues even after Mowgli kills Shere Khan in their Final Battle, which is how the original book ended, with three villagers pursuing a treasure that they kill each other over until the survivor goes insane and burns both the jungle and the village to the ground, with the film ending after everyone escaped the fire. Especially since every other adaptation ends with the battle between Mowgli and Shere Khan. The similar 1994 film even deliberately averts this by having the treasure plot resolved before Mowgli's final confrontation with Shere Khan.
• Lampshaded and defied in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:
  Harry: Don't worry, I saw Lord of the Rings. I'm not going to end this seventeen times.
• The Last Airbender: Since Aang's goal is taking Katara and Sokka to the North Pole, you'd think the movie would end after they do that. It's actually the beginning of the third act. This is the result of a clumsy attempt to fit 460 minutes' worth of material into a 103-minute film, with the creators deciding to just showcase the opening and closing bits while leaving out much of the journey. This is not the case in the show, where the events at the North Pole only span three out of twenty episodes, or 15% of the entire season.
• Limitless has a more mild example of this trope as only about 15 minutes remain in the film after the climax. However, quite a bit is crammed into that 15 minutes, giving the impression that it might've been rushed to avoid this trope.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. From the destruction of Sauron to the actual end of the movie is almost 30 more minutes, during which the movie "fades out" six times! The effect is mitigated somewhat if one considers it the ending of a twelve-hour film, and the conclusion of the entire film trilogy^note the source material is not actually a trilogy but rather a single Door Stopper book that was Divided for Publication, especially if you also include The Hobbit trilogy to make it the conclusion of six movies (which backs up Bilbo's send-off as well and the parallels to his return to Hobbiton). Regardless, the common jab at the time was that Return of the King's eleven Oscars were awarded for each of its endings.
  • A further complication is that the novel doesn't have six potential endings in a row: the film adaptation cut out the longer "Scouring of the Shire" sequence, due to the (debatable, but not irrational) assessment that it is anticlimactic and would slow down the pacing of the film - and, if nothing else, it would add another 30 minutes or so of screentime to the movie, between the farewell to all the non-Hobbit characters at Minas Tirith, then the farewells to the Hobbit characters. In the source material, it was less "multiple endings in a row" than an entire sequence serving as a coda. Loosely compare to how adaptations of Les Miserables speed through the Distant Finale epilogues for the entire cast, which were better paced in the novel (but a book can do things a film can't).
• The main plot in Mamma Mia! is wrapped up in the wedding scene, but there are three more musical numbers afterward anyway. "I Have a Dream" is how the show closes on stage, so that's understandable, but in between we have "When All Is Said and Done" and "Take a Chance on Me," the latter of which is merely a segment hooking up two supporting characters. And this isn't even counting the "Dancing Queen" reprise and "Waterloo" that makes up the first segment of the end credits. In the stage show, the cast basically keeps singing encores until the audiences starts to leave, so the lengthy denouement is an intentional reflection of this.
• Men in Black II: Serleena's defeated, the Light of Zartha's on its way home, and then... a locker room/obligatory mind screw scene. It's not that long, but still.
• Inverted with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The money ran out, so the movie ends before the climax!
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • The Wild World of Batwoman. In the film itself, the plot has been resolved, the villain defeated, everything is wrapped up... and yet the movie continues, inflicting more on the viewer, up until the cast evidently decides to indulge in a disco dance party (really badly). Eventually, Tom Servo's frustration hits its breaking point.
    Tom Servo: ENNNNND! ENNNNNNNNND!!!
  • Soultaker has that hospital climax that just drags on and on. Most annoyingly, it keeps cutting to a shot of a clock long after the story's Celestial Deadline has passed and it no longer matters what time it is.
  • In the short "A Case of Spring Fever" the main character wishes that there was no such thing as springs (long story). Coily the Spring Sprite appears and grants his wish. Turns out life sucks without springs and the man soon relents. Lesson learned, right? Nope, turns out there's an entire third act to the short with the man explaining the wonder that is Springs to his increasingly annoyed buddies.
    Tom Servo: Shouldn't this be over?
• The Night of the Hunter, otherwise a masterpiece of suspense, suffers from an ending that drags on for twenty minutes after the main conflict is resolved, for little reason (other than it's following the similarly dragged-out ending of the original novel).
• Oppenheimer has two acts that add up to one extremely long film: The creation of the A-bomb and the inquiry into his patriotism. At the end of the first act, there are a few points with the emotional heft for a valid stopping point. Many audience members, who have not read an extremely detailed synopsis beforehand, could be forgiven for not believing those are ending points. It could even be argued that the scattered insertion of Strauss in the first act was enough to illustrate the subsequent doubts he would face in the second half and make for a complete film.
• Out of Africa spends its last hour with Isak Dinesen saying goodbye to, it seems, every character with a speaking role... in scenes that each individually seem like they were written to be the final scene.
• Pacific Rim: One criticism the film gets is that the extended Hong Kong fight scene is so amazing and triumphant that the story's actual climax feels like a major downgrade by comparison. It seems more like the film is struggling to wrap itself up in a cohesive way rather the rift fight scene being a cool sequence on its own, as though the writers realized they could not top the prior fight scene but tried to do so anyway.
• Psycho. Modern audiences are often frustrated that the chilling finale in the cellar is followed by several minutes of exposition by the psychiatrist, who explains everything that happened in the film. Audiences at the time did not appreciate Left Hanging endings.
• Reefer Madness: The Musical could have ended with Mary's death. It could have ended with the group number when Jimmy is pardoned on death row. Instead, it goes on for about five more minutes, including another song. Granted, that's how the musical and the film ended originally. Now it just ends with aforementioned group number when Jimmy gets pardoned.
• The Ring appears to suffer from this. The whole curse thing is resolved and we get a few scenes of the characters returning to their... hey, what's with Noah's TV? Ultimately subverted in that this fake-out ending is probably the best-remembered thing about the film.
• The Floor Show in The Rocky Horror Picture Show has good songs but doesn't do anything to advance the story, largely because there's so little left to tell by that point. The traditional Audience Participation exchange references this fact:
  Dr. Frank 'n' Furter: Whatever happened...
  Audience: To the plot?
• In Run All Night, Shawn is killed right at the start of the final act, which makes the last twenty minutes and the showdown with Andrew Price feel unnecessary and longer than it should be.
• Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny falls into this in the version that is a repackaging of a standalone Thumbelina film because that movie already has a framing device of a young woman visiting an amusement park and visiting a series of dioramas illustrating the fairy tale — it's a story within a story within a story! When the retelling is over, there's a few minutes following the woman back outside; then the movie returns to the new framing device of Santa Claus trying to get his sleigh out of the Florida sand! Just end already! It doesn't help that Thumbelina, being plopped wholesale into the film, has its own credits intact, meaning there's a "The End" title card shown before returning to Santa and company.
• Savages has what seems to be a big climactic finale that would end the story.. .oh wait it was just an Imagine Spot by the narrator. Now HERE'S the real ending!
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World subverts the trope. After a lengthy climax, Scott defeats the final villain and learns a lesson, but out of nowhere, he's suddenly faced with his "evil doppelganger," making it look like there's a whole additional action scene about to take place. Instead, we cut to after their confrontation, in which they apparently just chatted and parted on good terms. The film ends quickly afterwards.
• Scream 4 lampshades this, by the killer no less:
  Jill: This is how it's gonna be, Sid? The ending of the movie was supposed to be at the house; I mean, this is just silly.
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band defeats the villains during "Come Together" and then wastes four songs (two performed in one medley) as the town and Billy Shears deal with Strawberry Fields' demise... which becomes a Disney Death after all that, making all the moping pointless.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power ends and then promptly moves onto a previously unmentioned plot point, several times. (The film clearly was intended as a Five-Episode Pilot — it aired on television in that format later — not a theatrical film.)
• The Sound of Music has three of these: once when Maria leaves the Von Trapp house, the second at the wedding, complete with soaring, triumphant choral music (even for SoM), and the actual ending of the film. The first would probably not be an ending in itself (due to its downer nature in a mostly uplifting musical), but it feels that way as it leads into the Intermission. Originally, the German release of the film did have the wedding scene as the ending, since the entire third act was cut because of its focus on post-Anschluss Austria.
• Spectre builds up the climax to be in Morocco. However, with half an hour left for the movie, the real Final Battle occurs when Bond returns to London.
• Speed goes on another half-hour after resolving the bus plot, leading to a prolonged chase scene/hostage standoff in a subway.
• In Star Trek Into Darkness, there seems to be a perfectly adequate ending of Spock setting off a series of explosives aboard Khan's ship, followed by Kirk performing a Heroic Sacrifice to prevent the Enterprise from crashing. But then there's an extra ending where Khan, who hasn't been seen for about ten minutes, crashes on Earth and Spock chases him through a city...

• The Strangers reaches the perfect ending (It will be easier next time) and adds a boring and unnecessary sequence just to show us that, despite the impossibility of it, Kristen is Not Quite Dead.
• Taken 3. First, there's the climactic Storming the Castle final shootout on Oleg Malankov's hideout, which ends with Bryan defeating Malankov. Then, Malankov reveals that he was merely The Dragon to Stuart's plan all along, with Stuart having played both Bryan and Malankov. Stuart wounds Sam and kidnaps Kim, forcing Bryan to chase after Stuart to an airport in a Porsche and eventually ramming it into the wheels of Stuart's plane, where he climbs out of the plane's remains and is ultimately subdued by Bryan by being shot and by being knocked out when Bryan pistol whips him.
• Inverted during post-production of The Terminator. The producer insisted that the film ends at the scene where the title character appears to have been killed in the oil-truck explosion. Cameron locked him out of the editing suite so he could include the scenes in the factory after it, where Reese dies after blowing up the metal skeleton, leaving Sarah to finally crush him to death herself. No-one complained that it went on too long.
• The Throne has three different endings. First Sado dies, then King Yeongjo mourns over his body. Pretty powerful ending. Then Yeonjo himself dies. Then Sado's son has a son, who grows up and honours Yeongjo's elderly wife in a celebration, and finally the movie ends.
• The Tiger Makes Out could have ended like the play it was based on, The Tiger, with Ben and Gloria planning to meet her again. But after they consummate their relationship, Gloria goes back home. Ben follows her and gets run over by luggage carts. Ben rides with Gloria on the train. Gloria gets off at her stop. Ben stalks her home. He's noticed by Gloria's husband, and Gloria and her husband jump on the bed so much that their heads go through the ceiling (and probably would have suffocated if the police hadn't started to arrive). Ben runs away from the police. The movie finally ends when Ben is lying in the bed with his landlady and her husband.
• A major criticism of Transformers is that the final battle dragged on far too long. For the sequel it's more that the final battle was actually too short, while the whole sequence of running-to-bring-Optimus-back-to-life was too long.
• Up in the Air has Natalie successfully conducting her first day of layoffs, and Ryan attends his sister's wedding, where he learns that "everyone needs a co-pilot," with the implication that he has finally gotten the inspiration he needs to begin a more meaningful relationship with Alex. Great place to leave off, right? But what's this? Alex has a husband? And children? And then Ryan clocks in his ten-millionth flyer mile? And one of Natalie's layoffs commits suicide? And Natalie quits her job out of grief? And the remote layoff program is suspended? And then Natalie applies for another job...
• Velvet Goldmine, not helped by the entire film being fairly incomprehensible to begin with. A contemporary reviewer described it as "the longest two hours of your life".
• The biofilm W. had a seemingly fitting ending where all the actors morph into their Real Life counterparts and it ends with news footage... then the movie continues for another 30 minutes.
• A Walk Among the Tombstones seems set to end with the final shootout at the cemetery. Instead, it drags on as the antagonists escape and return to their hideout, at which point Albert kills Ray. Then Matthew and the gang show up and Albert is subdued; Matthew advises Kenny to go the Cruel Mercy route and leave Albert for the police, but the film still doesn't end, since Kenny decides to take his revenge, allowing Albert to escape and kill him. Matthew goes back inside, kills Albert, returns to his apartment, and falls asleep. Then it ends.
• In The Wiz, after Evillene's defeat and the heroes discovering the Wiz's true identity, it takes three songs and a good deal of talk to get Dorothy home. Plus, they're relatively subdued compared to many of the songs that preceded them, which feels anti-climactic.^note In the original play, this stretch of the story included six songs.
• The climax of X-Men: Apocalypse. It's awesome to see characters like Cyclops, Storm, and Magneto cut loose with their powers unlike in previous films, but after a certain point, it can become a bit numbing to watch.

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