History Main / EndingFatigue

---> "WHAT HAPPENED AT LIVE 8 ROSS?!"

* ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' was a long time ending, particularly because the Anti-Monitor just didn't want to die. When Franchise/{{Superman}} finally kills him, he outright does it saying [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "I'VE HAD ENOUGH!"]]

* The "Cross-Time Caper" plotline in ''ComicBook/{{Excalibur}}'' began in [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/8/8d/Excalibur_Vol_1_12.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/308?cb=20080120145534 issue 12]] with the plotline's name and "Part 1 of 9" on the cover. It continued through issue 19, took a break for issue 20 to catch its breath, then picked back up for issue 21... through 24. That's 12 parts (of 9, remember) not including the skipped issue. It was about the team accidentally travelling from an alternate Earth to another, and they got back on their Earth several times, only to flash away moments later. Issue 25 still included the "Cross-Time Caper" logo, but the words [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/4/4d/Excalibur_Vol_1_25.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/323?cb=20080208002338 "is still over!"]] followed it.

* Another byword for too-long comic stories is ''ComicBook/TheTrialOfTheFlash''. This ambitious storyline from longtime Franchise/TheFlash writer Cary Bates put Barry Allen through hell for two years. It was meant to be long, but not to be Barry's ''last'' story; unfortunately, partway through, the order came down from editorial that Barry would die in ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths''. This hurts the Trial with readers, as does the false ending halfway through where Barry is nearly acquitted (mass amnesia erases this) and the many [[http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2007/04/bob-ingersoll-on-trial-of-flash.html legal mistakes]], including the need for a trial at all... not to mention the inherent story problems in keeping a hero known for battling villains with Super Speed inside a slow-paced courtroom environment. The second-last issue states boldly on the cover "IT'S OVER!" The reason it lasted as long as it did, was due to the fact that DC was modernizing itself creatively and that Cary Bates and Carmine Infantino were basically given Flash to write/draw because none of the editors wanted to give them any big-time assignments due to the fact that they represented the old "50s/60s era DC Comics" style that they were trying to run away from. The whole trial storyline was designed to get the editors to see that they could be hip and relevant as far as capable of producing the long-form storylines that DC editorial wanted at the time; and DC editorial, partly because they didn't want to seem like heartless bastards, let the story run and run and run and run as long as it did mainly because no one wanted to be the one who would have to fire the two from the book. "Crisis" solved this problem, but at the same time made it worse: it was decided to keep Flash being published until ''Crisis On Infinite Earths'' #8 was published to hide the big reveal that Barry was going to die. This meant that the storyline had to be dragged out even longer so as to do so.

** In ''Theatre/DerRingDesNibelungen'':

* Puccini did pay mind to this problem with ''Theatre/MadamaButterfly'' by shortening its final aria and postlude.

* Parodied on Podcast/RiffTrax's commentary for ''Film/ReturnOfTheKing'':

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': Jerry uses literal ending fatigue against Tom in "The Cat Concerto", by repeatedly restarting the frantic finale of "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" and forcing him to play it out each time rather than let the audience know he's being played, until he finally finishes and just collapses on the piano on the brink of unconsciousness.

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony''[='s=] last class trial also suffers from this. Among [[BrokenBase other problems that people have with it]], the trial keeps dragging ''on'' and '''on''' even after the BigBad is exposed. The whole thing (including the epilogue) lasts roughly ''four hours'', the longest of '''ANY''' Danganronpa game. And when the gameplay finally turns up, you are mostly restricted to using only one Truth Bullet, to say nothing of the segments where you have to lose the minigames on purpose to progress. After that, [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent you get to play as every survivor]] (which is a nice add-on feature, but it quickly wears out its welcome when they don't control any different than the main character). And '''''then''''' you finally have the final Argument Armament with the outside world. Regardless of how people feel about the ending, most can at least agree that it goes on longer than necessary.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[TakeThatMe A rare case of self-awareness]].]]

[[caption-width-right:250:A rare case of self-awareness.]]

ArcFatigue is a small-scale version, where a single story-arc goes on longer than it should. Compare EpicInstrumentalOpener, where the intro of a song seems neverending, and LeaveTheCameraRunning. YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle is when the reader/player thinks the protagonist has reached the ending, only to find out it's a ruse.

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony''[='s=] last class trial also suffers from this. Among [[BrokenBase other problems that people have with it]], the trial keeps dragging ''on'' and '''on''' even after the BigBad is exposed. The whole thing (including the epilogue) lasts roughly ''four hours'', the longest of '''ANY''' Danganronpa game. And when the gameplay finally turns up, you are mostly restricted to using only one Truth Bullet, to say nothing of the segments where you have to lose the minigames on purpose to progress. After that, [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent you get to play as every survivor]] (which is a nice add-on feature, but it quickly wears out its welcome when they don't control any different than the main character).

* A number of fans have expressed such complaints regarding ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', though in this case, the trope is largely justified, as the writer, Greg Farshtey did intend to continue telling the story. But thing is, the main story was pretty much wrapped up mid-2010, the BigBad killed, the planet restored, a new civilization has been formed, TheHero delivered his final enlightening speech... as for the side stories, those hadn't been tied up yet back then. However since the new story serials tried to tell completely new stories instead of attempting to give closure to the ongoing plots, some would rather see the whole thing end, fearing all the story threads would just degrade into a similar [[KudzuPlot mess]] that some previous serials have become, especially since the writer is going through a horrendous ScheduleSlip. The main story's famous closing lines ironically foretold the situation:
--> '''"NEVER... THE END"'''[[note]]At least as long as uncle Franchise/{{LEGO}} allows Greg to continue playing in this world of his.[[/note]]

The reasons vary: maybe it has pacing issues after the first half or the first main villain in the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil is defeated, or it's become deathly dull post-climax, or the effort needed to beat the FinalBoss just doesn't seem worth it, or the FinalBattle goes on for too long, or perhaps the author just didn't know how to end it, couldn't decide on an ending and just threw all of them in.

* OlderThanSteam: The fifth acts of many Creator/WilliamShakespeare plays are simply Shakespeare rushing to tie up all the loose ends and give a resolution to every character. There are several exceptions, of course, ranging from ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' to ''Theatre/KingLear''. However, the worst offender has to be ''Theatre/AntonyAndCleopatra'', where there are at least half a dozen points where Shakespeare could have ended the story, if he wasn't so obsessed with [[KillEmAll killing every minor and major character]] save Octavian and his entourage. The ''final'' ending of the play, when Cleopatra commits suicide, is suitably awesome, however.

* Parodied extensively on Podcast/RiffTrax's commentary for ''Film/ReturnOfTheKing'':

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Foodfight}}'' is already a pretty terrible movie, but the ending does a lot to drag it down even from a SoBadItsGood perspective, due to most of it being consumed by a ''very'' lengthy battle scene where the characters throw food at each other. It takes up most of the film's last third, and the repetitive gags, continuous ''splat'' sound effects and animations, and lack of advancement in general make it downright interminable. Even the majority of CausticCritic reviews just flat-out skip over most of the sequence because there's just so little to say about it.

* spoofed in ''WebVideo/TheHorriblySlowMurdererWithTheExtremelyInefficientWeapon'' which takes ''9 hours''

* ''Literature/TheDeathOfWCW'' cites this as the reason ''Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro'' moved from three hours to two, it simply being too long for a wrestling show that comes on every week.

* This tends to happen when long matches tease too many finishes. The Hell In A Cell match between the Undertaker and Triple H at WrestleMania XXVIII was notorious for this. The last five minutes of it were made up of nothing but false finishes.

[[folder:Sports]]
* A lot of observers point to the length of baseball games as one reason for the decline in popularity of the sport, as baseball has no time clock and the rules in Major League Baseball don't allow for draws, which means that a game must go into extra innings if not resolved in nine. Games also have more lineup changes than Music/{{Yes}}, particularly pitchers, which also slows down an already slow-paced game significantly, especially in later innings. MLB has recognized this as a problem, and in 2020 implemented a rule limiting mound visits.
* Basketball can suffer from this for games that are sort-of close. Late in the game, a losing team's only hope of a comeback is to score quickly, foul the opponent (which stops the clock but gives the opponent free throws), hope the opponent misses the free throws, rebound the ball, score quickly, rinse and repeat and hope you can complete the comeback before time runs out. The end result is the game slows to a crawl as the trailing team follows the above steps. The final two minutes (game time) can take upwards of fifteen (real time). Making things worse is that, as long as a team is merely competent at free throw shooting, the process doesn't work (and usually results in the winning team ''increasing'' their lead).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* This actually tends to be a ''very'' common problem for manga, especially {{Shoujo|Demographic}}. (Sometimes the author adds in a note somewhere, flat-out ''admitting'' they don't know how/when to end it!)
* [[TheAce Eiji]] from ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' references [[spoiler:and {{defie|dTrope}}s]] this trope in-universe. When he first got published, it was on the condition that upon reaching number one, he'd be able to end a series of his choice. [[spoiler:He meant his own; he wanted to end his series at its peak rather than drawing it out for profit to the detriment of its quality.]]
** The manga itself though, goes through some of this in its final arc, being about [[spoiler:"ending a manga when it should end"]], going out of its way to mention it often, after a previous arc that amounted to [[spoiler:a rehash of the message/story from a previous arc (including being the same antagonist doing "the same thing, just with more people"]]
* At the beginning of ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}: New Vestroia'', the brawlers joined a resistance group that's trying to free the Bakugan enslaved by the Vestals. Then they had to stop the Vexos from destroying all the Bakugan on New Vestroia. ''Then'' they had to [[spoiler:stop the Vexos from ''[[OmnicidalManiac destroying the whole universe]]'']]. By the time the brawlers are [[spoiler:stopping Zenoheld's plan to end the whole universe]], it feels like the climax had passed a long time ago. This was so bad that ''New Vestroia'' doesn't really seem to end as much as transition into ''Gundalian Invaders'' by the way it was ended.
* Happens in both the novel and manga adaptation of ''Literature/BattleRoyale'' in regards to [[ImplacableMan Kiriyama]] finally going down and ending the game, though the manga makes it more obvious. A student manages to land a hit on Kiriyama, he might be injured, but not dead. He was in a building that '''[[MadeOfExplodium freaking explodes]]''' and he still survives it. Even after getting a shotgun blast to the stomach, a throwing knife into the eye and being shot through the cheek, he still gets up for the next hit.
* A common complaint about ''Manga/DeathNote'' in manga form is that it drags through the second arc, largely because the author wanted there to be exactly [[Mystical108 108]] chapters. The anime, on the flip side, shoehorns as many as nine manga chapters into a single episode.
* After the death of Cherubimon in ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', the anime's pacing falls apart and the second half is just the main characters losing to the QuirkyMinibossSquad. [[CurbstompBattle Again and again and again.]] For eight episodes straight.
* The final arc of ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' (the [[spoiler:World Youth Cup]]) was just one too many for a lot of the fans because the Devil Bats had already ''won'' the big game they'd be working towards from the start of the series and this just felt like a needless PostScriptSeason. It was also comparatively poorly written. The creators seemed to agree, as they wrapped the arc very hastily. It segued surprisingly well into the series finale, though.
* In ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', just after [[spoiler:Kenshiro defeated his long-time rival, older brother, and main antagonist Ken-Oh/Raoh]], Ken finally manages to rescue his lover Yuria, gives farewells to all of his friends, and ends his farewells by literally RidingIntoTheSunset with Yuria by his side. The series could have ended perfectly right there, but it just kept going with a lot of recycled plots and enemies, plus adding a lot of completely out of nowhere backstories just for the sake of not wanting to end. The Asura arc manages to pick up the pace a bit, but then at the very end, after Kenshiro has defeated [[spoiler:Raoh's elder brother, Kaioh]] and brought peace to the Land of Asura, the manga continues for ''another'' few arcs before finally coming to an end. Notably, the anime doesn't follow the series past the end of the Asura arc, leaving the last few arcs exclusively manga-only.
* The climax of ''Manga/FruitsBasket'' takes place around Volume 21 (c. 120-125), with the last two volumes being essentially an extended epilogue.
* There have been many discussion about this concerning ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'': the series ran for ten volumes, and the "end arc" is the Battle of London... which kicked off about halfway through the fourth. It took place over the course of one night, but given Hirano's record of ScheduleSlip, [[WebcomicTime the arc ran on for about eight years.]]
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Part 5]] hits the climax at the end of the final battle with King Crimson/[[spoiler: Diavolo]]... And then we get a four-chapter long flashback centering around Spotlight Stealing character Bucciarati that does absolutely nothing for the plot, reveals nothing, and reduces Giorno's [[spoiler: rise to the head of the mafia into a footnote]].
** And [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun Part 7]] does it again, Johnny has just defeated [[spoiler: Funny Valentine, villain is defeated and the corpse can finally be put to rest, but Gyro dies in the process]]. At this point, it looks like a good way to close out for the next part as all things are coming to their close. [[spoiler: Except now the corpse has been stolen again forcing Johnny to chase down the one responsible. As it turns out it's another Diego brought to this universe in between Funny's slow death from Tusk's ability. This ultimately served no purpose outside of the storage of the corpse and ended with Johnny getting disqualified from the race.]]
** Many fans complained about this in regards to [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureJojolion Part 8]], which ended after ten years and 110 chapters, making it the longest part by far. The part's BigBad, [[spoiler:Tooru]], only revealed themselves at chapter 97, numerous plot points weren't addressed, and fans often complained [[spoiler: that after the defeat of Tamaki Damo and the Josuke's identity being fully explained, that the plot has devolved into a game of keepaway regarding the rokakaka branch, with each villain's defeat introducing even more villains]].
* ''Manga/{{Kaiji}}'' has the second arc's fight with [[spoiler:"The Bog". It's easily the most intense Pachinko game of all time, but it goes on for so incredibly long that the tension starts to eat your brain. It's kind of justified in that The Bog was designed to be unbeatable, but wow. The sheer number of times it looks like a ball is going to make it through, championed by dramatic narration likening it to single tank breaching enemy lines and so on... and then ''doesn't'', is astounding. Even the characters just want it to end. Eventually it's beaten, in the only way possible - sheer, mind-numbing attrition, clogging the machine up with so many balls that they can't possibly go anywhere ''but'' the final hole. And after all that, Kaiji STILL gets screwed out of most of his enormous, well-deserved earnings by the rat bastard Endou. Geez..]].
* ''Manga/{{MAR}}'' falls into this in the anime, mainly due to excessive filler arcs but even without those, the climax of the series is a whopping seven episodes long. This is in direct contrast to the manga ending, which was considered rushed and anti-climatic.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'''s final battle went on for about two years. That's one battle taking multiple books to finish. It doesn't help that [[TheBigBadShuffle who the characters are primarily fighting against changed at least]] ''[[TheBigBadShuffle seven times]]'' [[TheBigBadShuffle from start to finish]], with Tobi and Madara (and, to a much lesser extent, Kabuto, Orochimaru, and Sasuke) becoming the focus more than once each. It also doesn't help that the "final" arc, the 4th Shinobi War of which this is the FinalBattle, began in early 2011, i.e. the war went on for over ''three years'', and Naruto was engaged in a single fight with Tobi and Madara for ''two'' of those years. And then a THIRD villain shows up in the form of [[spoiler:Kaguya, the Rikudou Sennin's mom]]. And once all of these are finally dealt with, with plenty of AlasPoorVillain and other denouement? [[spoiler:Sasuke--[[BaitTheDog who over the course of the battle had finally decided to abandon his revenge obsession and also pursue the position of Hokage and protect Konoha like his brother Itachi had tried to do--]]declares that the only way to ensure this never happens again is to tear down the whole system ([[{{Hypocrite}} like]] ''[[{{Hypocrite}} Tobi and Madara]]'' [[{{Hypocrite}} had tried to do]]) [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor by taking control of the Tailed Demons and killing the Kage]] ([[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and the demons as well once he's done]]).]] To be perfectly fair, the author had stated the manga's final fight would be between [[spoiler:Naruto and Sasuke]], but this was jarring beyond belief [[spoiler:[[AmericansHateTingle especially when much of the readership had long since]] [[CreatorsPet gotten sick of Sasuke in general]]]].
** The anime was even worse in this regard when after the aforementioned final battle, began adapting the Konoha Hiden novels, before finally ending the series on episode 500 with [[spoiler:Naruto and Hinata's wedding]].
* One of the many criticisms of the ''Best Wishes'' portion of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' is its Decolore Islands FillerArc of a final season. With the main plot of the series (Both Ash's badge quest and dealing with Team Plasma) over and done with, and several months before ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' would have been released, there's nothing more for Ash to do except head back to Kanto... a goal that takes several episodes of island-hopping to accomplish, and unlike the Orange Islands series, there's no original goal or motive for him (or the audience) to invest in. After ''10'' episodes of pure filler, we finally get one episode that is actually important to the plot, that being a character [[EarlyBirdCameo from Kalos]] who plays a somewhat major role in the first few episodes of the next series joining the group for the small remainder of the series. Granted, we have to sit through another 6 filler episodes before Ash finally reaches Kanto.
** Unfortunately, The XY series's ending fell victim to ending fatigue too. After the big climax of the series, there are still ''4'' episodes following it. Granted, important events do happen in these episodes, it's just that they're paced very slowly and they could have easily been merged together into only 3 or 2 episodes.
** 90% of the Pokémon movies fall victim to this too, as their climaxes tend to make up half of the movie's running time. It has become so bad that you can just leave the room and get a snack and the story still hasn't advanced.
* ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' either needed two fewer episodes or [[CosmicDeadline two more episodes]], depending on how you look at it.
* ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' didn't just have a long ending, it had multiple false endings, with the sudden FaceHeelTurn ending of the reality warping cat being the most egregious out of the bunch. There's even a chapter called "The End" and guess what? It's not the end.
* Most of the longer works of Creator/RumikoTakahashi face this problem. The longest one that didn't was probably ''Manga/MaisonIkkoku''.
* The climax of ''Anime/{{Steamboy}}'' definitely gives the impression that the director was having too much fun piling one piece of epicness after another onto the battle and didn't want to stop. The worst bit is when the Steam Castle is brought down and we get the PatrickStewartSpeech decrying its hubris (which is even delivered by Stewart himself if you're watching the dub), and then it's revealed that the Castle will destroy London and they have to travel deep into its engine room to stop it.
* The original ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross''. TransformingMecha, action-packed space battles, a climactic final confrontation... and then ''nine episodes'' of Hikaru trying to make up his mind about if he loves Misa or Minmei more.
* The later chapters of ''Manga/TheWallflower'' betray the fact that the author doesn't know how to end the damn manga, with grindingly slow character development and pushing the BelligerentSexualTension beyond the point of the reader's endurance.
* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' manga ''The Heart of a Warrior'', the main villains are defeated two-thirds of the way through. The rest of the plot deals with Barley's brothers hanging around the barn, abusing Ravenpaw until Barley finally tells his brothers that they should get the hell off his property.
* The ending of ''Anime/YuGiOhARCV''. The series-arching BigBad is defeated eight episodes before the show ends. The final arc consists of tying loose ends and giving closure to some of the characters. This is padded out with a superfluous plotline about the protagonists trying to remember the past after a CosmicRetcon. After that, the episodes follow a formulaic plot of "Yuya goes to X dimension and duels Y person." It really isn't helped by the plotline itself, involving trying to purify the spirit of the BigBad by making the baby he's trapped in smile, already being a tough sell for a lot of people.
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' was intended to end with the blatantly climactic Chapter Black arc, but [[ExecutiveMeddling editorial management]] forced Yoshihiro Togashi to extend the series to one more story arc, which starts out about an approaching war, suddenly turns into a third TournamentArc, the majority of which gets blatantly fast-forwarded through, and then ends with several random stories that indicate that Togashi had practically stopped caring at this point. The anime [[AdaptationDistillation somewhat fixes things]] by cutting the random stories at the end out and making a better, more emotional series ending overall.
[[/folder]]

** [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Part 5]] hits the climax at the end of the final battle with King Crimson/[[spoiler: Diavolo]]... And then we get a four-chapter long flashback centering around Spotlight Stealing character Bucciarati that does absolutely nothing for the plot, reveals nothing, and reduces Giorno's [[spoiler: rise to the head of the mafia into a footnote]].

** Many fans complained about this in regards to [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureJojolion Part 8]], which ended after ten years and 110 chapters, making it the longest part by far. The part's BigBad, [[spoiler:Tooru]], only revealed themselves at chapter 97, numerous plot points weren't addressed, and fans often complain [[spoiler: that after the defeat of Tamaki Damo and the Josuke's identity being fully explained, that the plot has devolved into a game of keepaway regarding the rokakaka branch, with each villain's defeat introducing even more villains]].

** Many fans have complained about this in regards to [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureJojolion Part 8]], which has more than 100 chapters (compare Part 7's 95 chapters) and the end still isn't within sight; the part's main villain hasn't been revealed yet, there are numerous plot points that haven't been addressed, and fans often complain [[spoiler: that after the defeat of Tamaki Damo and the Josuke's identity being fully explained, that the plot has devolved into a game of keepaway regarding the rokakaka branch, with each villain's defeat introducing even more villains]]. Worth mentioning is that Part 8 has been running longer than any other part, currently at 8 years and still ongoing, surpassing part 7's previous record of 6 years.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/JurassicPark'': Tim has successfully improvised himself through Jurassic Park's computers to finally restore the main power, thus securing the survivors and being able to call for help. The end, right? Nope, Grant insists that they have to find all the dinosaur nests and count the eggs. They only find one nest before the Costa Rican military arrives, muscles the survivors off the island, and then firebombs it. Then when they get home, there's a SequelHook hinting at dinos that have escaped to the mainland... which was never followed upon in the sequel.
* Creator/StephenKing is prone to this trope. It's said that he's great at fitting a 300-page story into a 600-page book.
** ''Literature/TheShining'', for instance, could have ended at the [[spoiler: destruction of]] the Overlook Hotel. But instead, we get another chapter set the following summer, for no particularly good reason.
** ''Literature/TheStand'' features an endless epilogue about how someone gets back home after the climax. The uncut version has an additional epilogue, though this one's only a few pages.
** ''Literature/{{It}}'': During the final (1985) confrontation, a storm rages aboveground while the Losers' Club battles Pennywise (in Its GiantSpider form) in Its lair; the effects of the incredibly destructive storm on the residents (and landmarks) of Derry are exhaustively described. After the Losers finally defeat It, the book goes on to describe how the surviving members of the Club leave Derry one by one, how each one of them (including Mike) are forgetting everything for good this time, and how Bill revives the catatonic Audra. And ''then'', how the Losers parted ways after ''their'' confrontation with It in 1958.
** ''Literature/{{Firestarter}}''. After the slam-bang climax at the Shop's HQ, there's a sizable ''dénouement'' with Charlie finding her way back to the Manders' farm, Irv and Norma nursing her back to health while trying to keep quiet her presence at the farm (the reconstituted Shop is determined to find her and liquidate her), and, finally, her journey to NYC to find someone to tell her story to.
* Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' is the best American novel right up until Tom Sawyer shows up. Creator/ErnestHemingway famously said, "If you read it you must stop where... Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating."
* The last several books of the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' series suffered from this problem. After the Antichrist came back from the dead, killed people with fiery pillars from the sky, and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, there just wasn't anything more evil for him to do. And that was Book Eight of a ''13'' book series (not counting the three prequels). It doesn't help that anyone who will read that particular series through Book Eight already ''knows'' the ending (spoiler: [[spoiler:Satan loses]]) and is just slogging along to see exactly how they're going to get there.
* While their quality remains consistent throughout, Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/DarknessSeries'' are of an incredible length. The series probably does go one book too many, but it's based on World War II, which did extend three years past the "climax" (Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Midway) to resolve.
** His various series may fall here, though. One particular novel may look as if it's coming to the conclusion of a particular world's story, with a trilogy just about to be wrapped up... but nope, it's still going, and a new trilogy is about to start, so you still have to keep reading...
* Christopher Paolini's ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Inheritance]]'' has about 150 pages after the big bad is defeated.
* Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Literature/{{Phantoms}}''. While a very good book overall, the battle against the Ancient Enemy is clearly the climax. Following that, the fight at the hospital feels completely tacked on. It is only tangentially related to the main plot and doesn't count as a TwistEnding or AssPull because it doesn't actually change anything. It just feels like an attempt to cram one last dramatic moment into the final chapter, and it falls flat because the main plot of the story has already been soundly resolved.
* Creator/DianaWynneJones's later children's books. Readers used to complain that she finished her plots too abruptly and without sufficient explanation (the original book of ''Literature/HowlsMovingCastle'' and ''Literature/FireAndHemlock'' are cases in point). Clearly her editor has got on to her about this, because from ''The Merlin Conspiracy'' onward, every single book seems to have a satisfying conclusion, and then at least one or two chapters explaining what happened to all the characters after that. ''Conrad's Fate'' tells you what happens in the next ten years or so.
* ''Pamela.'' You'd think it would end after she resists and reforms [[HandsomeLech her boss]] and they get married, plunking down AnAesop in the process. No, there are still 200 pages. It reaches the happily-ever-after and, instead of rolling credits, just ''keeps on going.''
* Used apparently on purpose and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in [[Creator/TerryPratchett Sir Terry Pratchett's]] ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals'', which has "You think it's all over?" written in large letters, followed by another scene, a few times.
** As well as being a lampshading of this trope, this is a reference to the famous commentary of England's victory over Germany in the World Cup of 1966, which went into extra time after finishing level after 90 minutes, but which eventually led to England's victory. Which possibly makes the game itself an example of this trope.
** Also to an extent, but unlampshaded, in ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}''. Susan's saved the Hogfather and defeated the Auditors. Then she still has to deal with Teatime. Fair enough, it's just that YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle. But then, with the main story definitely concluded, Pterry [[ThirdLineSomeWaiting remembers the subplots]] and resolves them all one after the other: the raven's quest for carrion; the Cheerful Fairy and other manifestations of belief; Albert and the rocking horse; Ridcully's bathroom; and finally, the Canting Crew and their unexpected Hogswatch dinner, previously referred to about halfway through the book.
** Just about all of Creator/TerryPratchett's books have this, though he writes it well enough and the books are short enough that the extended endings are not unpleasant to read.
* ''This Body''. It's about a middle-aged mom named Katherine who dies unexpectedly and finds herself a year in the future in the body of a 20-something named Thisby (yes, ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' is a recurring theme), who died of a drug overdose. Most of the book is about Katherine getting Thisby's life together and finding ways to reconnect with her original family. The book is interesting, but it soon becomes clear that the author didn't know how to finish it, and there's some three-month flash-forward before the book wanders into its ending.
* ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth''. The climactic battle against the aliens actually occurs at about 300 pages into the [[DoorStopper 1,050 page paperweight]] of a book. Once the humans have kicked the evil aliens off Earth, the rest of the book deals with the surviving villains fighting over the scraps of their empire, and some kind of legal battle over the real estate ownership status of the planet.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': The climax of the story takes place little over the halfway point of ''Return Of The King'', with the return journeys home being just as important as the journey ''to'' Mordor in the first place, practically making it read like a PostScriptSeason. Partly {{justified|Trope}}: Tolkien didn't want a cliche "happy-ever-after" ending, and included the Scouring of the Shire to show [[CharacterDevelopment how the small hobbits of the Fellowship had grown into true heroes in and of themselves]]. It also shows how most of the hobbit race (except for some bad eggs) are [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Crouching Moron Hidden Badasses]] when [[GodzillaThreshold push truly comes to shove]], and that they absolutely abhor killing their own kind, which was one of the [[DividedWeFall MAJOR failings of]] [[Literature/TheSilmarillion the Elves of the First Age]].
** Unfortunately, while the use of the extended ending worked well with that story, with the book being the ur-example of fantasy fiction, it had the side effect of many other authors writing extended sequences [[FollowTheLeader in imitation]]. Famed author ''Creator/GeorgeRRMartin'' has expressed his intent to have a "Scouring of the Shire" like section in his ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' series. Considering the general popular and critical dislike of the post-climactic section of the television [[Series/GameOfThrones adaptation]], one hopes he will be very careful in how he implements this.
* In ''Literature/ThePoisonwoodBible'', the epilogue is actually a sizable portion of the book. It details the lives of all of the main characters over the next thirty years. The book really ends almost 37 years later.
* ''Literature/AnnaKarenina'': The eponymous character [[spoiler:commits suicide]] and the plot essentially ends at the end of book seven. There's a ''whole other hundred-page book'' dealing with the spiritual awakening of secondary character Levin, Tolstoy's AuthorAvatar. It's referred to even in academic circles as somewhat masturbatory; Tolstoy had gone through a similar spiritual experience and wanted to spread the word.
** ''Literature/WarAndPeace'' gets dinged for this as well; after the war ends and we find out the fates of all the main characters, Tolstoy gives us a long dissertation on history and the forces that decide the fates of nations. Fascinating stuff, if a bit dry.
* The endings of many of Joe Haldeman's novels feel incredibly forced. Oddly enough, however, he uses this trope to good effect in ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', as he's set the story up such that the only way to end it is to force an ending, which reinforces the point that the war has been going on for so many centuries that, at least on the part of the humans, no one knows any longer why they're fighting or what they hope to accomplish.
* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', more specifically [[AuthorFilibuster John Galt's speech.]] Actually, you could skip the entire novel and just read that speech, and you'd get the gist of Ayn Rand's rant anyway.
* ''Literature/TheFountainhead'' as well. Around page 350, when Howard Roark gets his grand-standing speech in court describing his motives and his view on humanity (pretty much dropping Rand's anvil, if you haven't been awake long enough to get what she was aiming at the whole book). It seems when you've got your character in a position to monologue for three pages about everything that he did since the beginning of the book to society at a whole, this is a good place to say, "climax! Now for the denouement!" Apparently, Rand knew that her personal philosophy wouldn't go down quite as easy, so Roark ends up in prison and he doesn't get his moment as "revolutionary genius" until ''another'' 350 pages.
* ''Literature/TheLostSymbol'', by Creator/DanBrown: We hit the climax of the book with a good 2 or 3 chapters in hand, which are then spent tying up loose ends and discussing Christianity.
* ''Literature/TheJungle'' by Upton Sinclair seems to find something of an ending when Jurgis joins the socialist labor union cause... and then the book goes on for another 20 pages to outline [[AuthorTract some arguments important to the socialist cause]] at the time. Even if you're familiar with Marxism and know what they're talking about, it's hard to read.
* ''Literature/{{Memory}}'' by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold has three endings. First, the main detective plot wraps up; then, Miles makes a decision about whether to take up Gregor's offer; and then he goes off to sort things out with Quinn. The two later endings are necessary to the continuing story, though, so if they hadn't been wrapped up in this one they would have needed to be explained in the next book.
* The ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'' series has this problem. First, Lief has to find the [[GottaCatchEmAll seven gems]] for the [[MacGuffin Belt of Deltora]], the only tool capable of defeating the [[BigBad Shadow Lord]]. [[spoiler: Then collect and assemble the three pieces of the [[MacGuffin Pirran Pipe]], the only tool capable of rescuing the people captured by the Shadow Lord. Then wake up the last seven dragons in Deltora, the only creatures capable of destroying the Four Sisters, evil objects slowly killing Deltora and created by [[OverlyLongGag the Shadow Lord]]. Lastly, said dragons must destroy an explosion of grey poison capable of destroying Deltora, and by doing so, defeating the Shadow Lord.]]
* ''Bats Fly at Dusk'' by Erle Stanley Gardner plays with it. While most of this series are first-person narratives from Donald Lam, this book is a third-person narrative centering around his partner, Bertha Cool while Donald is in the navy during World War II. Donald sends several telegrams suggesting lines of inquiry and pointing out facts about her case, but Bertha finally washes her hands of the case and goes fishing. The next day she comes back to the office to find Donald got a military pass, came to town, solved the case, and left her a note explaining it and pointing out her mistakes.
* Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/ColdheartCanyon'' -- the tiled room's power is broken, and from there the forces that kept the villain safe are destroyed. The villain gets a satisfying comeuppance... and then [[spoiler: the two survivors deal with a police investigation and a book based on their experiences, along with getting on with their lives. Then they learn that the male lead's soul hasn't crossed over yet, and try to save him from the inevitable before everyone realizes that there's no need to fight fate]]. This takes about 100 pages. To make matters worse, had this material been trimmed or dropped, the 75-or-so pages that set up the minor subplot points resolved in it could have been cut too!
* ''Literature/AmericanGods'': After the book's climax is over, we're treated to 50 or so pages dedicated to tying up a minor subplot that's been sidelined since the middle of the book. Once that's done we get a proper epilogue but for some readers, the climax is too far gone for this to really matter.
* The Literature/AgentPendergast novel ''Literature/BookOfTheDead'' sees the antagonist's plot foiled and said antagonist currently facing the front end of a gun. So villain gets killed and the story wraps up? Not yet. Instead we see him survive his attempted murder and have an extra hundred pages devoted to him getting hunted down before the story finally wraps up.
* ''Literature/{{Feed}}''. The point about how the execution of the New Media had been pretty much made within part 2 - part 3 and 4 of the novels seem to feel like Anderson is trying to hammer it in even more.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Similar to ''The Lord of The Rings'', the Season 2 finale of ''Series/{{Lost}}'' has at least 3 perfectly viable endings, and has an unnecessary scene with Claire and Charlie between them, creating some ending fatigue. The endings are [[spoiler:Desmond turning the key, Jack having the bag put over his head and the ending with Penny answering the phone]].
* There have been a couple of instances in ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' where teams have gotten so far behind in a leg late in the season that they’ll never be able to catch up only to be saved by it being non-elimination. Since it’s a ForegoneConclusion that they will be eliminated in the following episode, it messes with the pacing of the ending. They legally are not allowed to change the placement of non-elimination legs once they are set because it would be insurance fraud so there’s not really anything that can be done if this happens.
** In season 17, Nick and Vicki made it to the second to last leg and quit a task out of frustration in fourth place. Since there was another episode and the finale is three people, they should have known that episode was non-elimination but they quit anyway. The penalty is six hours added to the start time of the next leg so they were not able to get on the same flight as the other three teams. At that point, there was no way for them to come back so two episodes unwittingly became just pure filler.
** In season 21, James and Abba’s taxi driver stole their bags and one of their passports in leg seven. They had had a twelve-hour lead on some of the other teams because of a missed flight but they spent the entire evening trying to track the guy down, including going to Interpol. They finally were allowed to check in once the two other teams who’d gotten so far behind did so to find out it was non-elimination. The next leg didn’t have any travel so they spent the entirety of the day trying to find the passport while still technically racing. Being non-travel also made it impossible for them to catch anyone when they finally did the tasks. Not helping matters is the looming fact that they’d be eliminated on the spot when they had to go to another country. This also made two episodes late in the game unintentional filler.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' lasted for five seasons. However, the main arc of the show (the Shadow War) was wrapped up in the fourth season's sixth episode. Its secondary arc (the Earth Civil War) was resolved at the end of the fourth season (it would've been by the fifth season's sixth episode or so but was compressed due to [[ScrewedByTheNetwork events beyond control]]). The fifth season was a PostscriptSeason which mostly consisted of "what comes after" stories, which at the end resolved the arc regarding Londo and the Centauri as well as letting all the characters slowly depart the station and move on.
** The Earth Civil War arc itself is seen by some, though by no means all, members of the fandom as this. On the one hand, Earth is clearly much less of a threat than the Shadows, so it makes sense to deal with the Shadows first and save Earth for later. On the other hand, the end to the Shadow War feels like much more of a natural climax, and once that's out of the way handling Earth just feels like wrapping up a loose end.
* ''Series/TheBlacklist'' has a particularly egregious example of this in the season 5 episode "Ian Garvey." First, Liz and Tom are attacked in their apartment in a long, drawn-out, slow-motion scene that gets extremely {{narm}}-y very quickly. Then they're found and taken to the hospital, which takes up another couple of minutes as seemingly every police vehicle in the city shows up to escort them while they exchange tearful declarations of love. Then they get to the hospital, and the camera takes a while to linger on the doctors treating them, the rest of the task force, et cetera. Then Liz slips into a ConvenientComa. ''Then'' Liz wakes up from the coma, apparently more or less unharmed, a year later. And ''then'' it's revealed that [[spoiler: Tom Keen is dead.]] By the time the episode is finally over, it feels like it's had six separate endings.
* The DVD commentary of the Christmas episode of ''Series/FatherTed'' has one of the ''show's creators and writer of the episode'' complaining that the plot has petered out, even exclaiming at one point "End! END!!"
* Subverted by ''Series/SixFeetUnder'', which has a satisfying (if cliched) conclusion 10 minutes before the end, but then goes on to have one of the most amazing, heartwarming endings ever.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' sometimes runs into this:
** The farewell scene in "The Daleks".
** "The War Games" was Creator/PatrickTroughton's last story and intended at one point to be the finale of the show. The show at the time had been in TroubledProduction, and it had to be written quickly to cover ''several'' serials that had fallen through. It is ten episodes long, much longer than any other ''Who'' serial ever before and again. Creator/TerranceDicks has noted that it was possible to [[{{Padding}} pad it]] indefinitely because its premise (the history of human warfare) was a case of 'how long is a piece of string?', so they were able to add in new groups of human warriors to deal with whenever they ran out of story.
** "Pyramids of Mars" is one of the great triumphs of the Classic series, but Creator/RobertHolmes had an attack of writer's block about ten minutes of the way through the fourth episode and had to cobble the rest together from producer and director suggestions - and it shows. The first three episodes are suspenseful, gently funny GothicHorror with elements of family drama and a terrifying villain. The last episode starts with an amazing moment where Sutekh takes over the Doctor's mind, steals the TARDIS, and has the Doctor executed in front of Sarah's eyes by a henchman!... and then the Doctor's revealed to be okay via an AssPull of him [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands developing a new power he's never shown before]], and the plot derails into {{Filler}} of goofy puzzle rooms, with Sarah even doing an ad-libbed {{Lampshade Hanging}} on its similarity to a (lame) previous script.
** "The Face of Evil" has a weirdly long ending. The Doctor restores Xoanon to sanity less than halfway through the final episode, and the rest is him chatting in the Tesh 'Sacred Heart' with Leela, chatting with Xoanon about what exactly had been wrong with him, the Sevateem and Tesh arguing over who gets to be leader, Leela helping with the debate... and ''finally' Leela facing the Doctor and demanding to come with him in the TARDIS.
** The episode "The Family of Blood" certainly has a drawn-out ending. First the Doctor dealing with the Family, then saying goodbye to Nurse Redfern, then saying goodbye to Latimer, then attending a memorial. Whether this fatigues you is personal variation. (''Human Nature'', the Virgin New Adventures novel this was adapted from, has a similarly prolonged wrap-up -- Creator/PaulCornell wrote both.)
** "Journey's End" spends the final quarter of an episode that had been extended to 65 minutes tying up all the loose ends. The ending where Donna has her memory wiped is quite climatic, but the ending had already dragged on, showing ''all'' the characters RTD had created, and showing a frankly ridiculous scene where the Earth is towed back to its original location.
** "The End of Time, Part Two" was the GrandFinale for the Tenth Doctor ''and'' Russell T. Davies's tenure as showrunner, so he used its final stretch not only to revisit previous events and companions but also to realize ideas he had over the course of his tenure that he'd never managed to squeeze in. Thus, after absorbing a fatal dose of radiation, the Tenth Doctor takes his time paying his respects to ''every single one of his companions'' apart from the ones in the Christmas and Autumn specials -- ''and'' a few people who weren't, such as the great-granddaughter of the aforementioned Nurse Redfern. There are walk-ons by other past characters such as Midshipman Frame and a young Blon Fel-Fotch Slitheen, then he staggers around in the snow while the Ood sing him off, ''then'' he staggers around some more in the TARDIS, and then finally -- ''finally!'' -- he regenerates. As the DVDCommentary puts it, "It does have more endings than ''Lord of the Rings'', this, doesn't it?"
** Clara's death in "Face the Raven". It deserves plenty of focus and attention because it's the first time a companion has properly, actually died since the 1980s ([[spoiler: even though she gets "wiggle room" two episodes later]]). But after it becomes a ForegoneConclusion we get the Doctor arguing with Ashildr about trying to find a loophole, Clara giving a big speech to the Doctor, Clara giving ''another'' big speech to the Doctor, and then Clara going out to confront the Quantum Shade in slow-motion. Even when she actually dies, we see the Shade hitting her again, in several slow-motion replays, from different angles. She is a controversial companion to start with, but even the fans who liked her were wishing she'd just get on with it and be dead.
** The final two episodes of the Twelfth Doctor ''and'' Creator/StevenMoffat's showrunner tenure, "The Doctor Falls" (Series 10 SeasonFinale) and "Twice Upon a Time" (ChristmasEpisode / GrandFinale) play with this concept. The denouement of "The Doctor Falls" reaches the HowWeGotHere point shown at the start of the previous episode "World Enough and Time", and then OnceMoreWithClarity kicks in: [[spoiler: the Doctor ''doesn't'' regenerate because he'd rather just die]]. With that, a [[RayOfHopeEnding Ray of Hope]] TwistEnding sets up "Twice Upon a Time": [[spoiler: he and the '''First Doctor''', who felt the same way about regeneration, cross paths]]. Some of this comes off as a poke at "The End of Time"'s notoriously drawn-out ending. Creator/StevenMoffat has admitted that he intended "The Doctor Falls" to be Twelve's GrandFinale, but when the incoming showrunner decided not to handle the 2017 Christmas special, threatening the end of an annual tradition, he decided to give Twelve a happy, low-stakes adventure as a contrast to the sorrowful "The Doctor Falls". "Twice Upon a Time" flirts with this trope after the Doctors return the Captain to the battlefield and the TimeStandsStill crisis ends. First the Captain [[spoiler: survives after all thanks to Twelve having his return coincide with the Christmas Truce]]. Then the Doctors bid farewell to each other and the First departs and regenerates. Then Twelve bids farewell to [[spoiler: all three of his companions in Glass People form, Clara and Nardole being Unexpected Characters]], including a WhoWantsToLiveForever speech, before retiring to the TARDIS. THEN he gives a FinalSpeech to [[spoiler: his next self]] and regenerates -- but all of that ''plus'' Thirteen's first scene is accomplished in fifteen minutes or so. And since this is not an epic-length, action setpiece-driven story to begin with -- again, unlike "The End of Time" -- it doesn't feel like a big comedown to have the final stretch primarily involve characters having heart(s)-to-heart(s) chats.
** Those last two examples also work on an arc level with regards to Jenna Coleman and Steven Moffat, both of whom had several false endings to their careers in the franchise.
** Coleman was going to depart at the end of ''Last Christmas'', but then decided to stay on another year. The ending of the special therefore had to be changed: The Doctor finds her as an elderly woman reminiscing about her time with him decades prior, but this turns out to be another dream and she's actually still young. Another effect is that Clara's role is much reduced in series 9 compared to 7 and 8.
* After they [[spoiler: ''finally'' find the ''real'' Earth (or rather ''our'' Earth, which is not the first Earth but merely named after it)]] in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', the show spends a good 45 minutes on what all the characters plan to do with the rest of their lives.
** [[spoiler: And even that, having what could be considered a poignant ending during said stretch (Adama sitting on the patch of land he plans to build he and Roslin's cabin on), it continues to keep going.]]
** Also the end of Season 2, when they colonize New Caprica. Especially fatiguing is the fact that the episode is actually 90 minutes long, rather than the normal hour. If you don't know this going in, you may start to wonder just when the episode ''is'' going to end.
* ''Series/TwinPeaks''. Oh GOD Twin Peaks. Due to an unfortunate case of Executive Meddling, Laura Palmer's killer is revealed by the midway point of the second season, freeing up the rest of the season to focus on... James? Nadine still thinks she's a teenager? Civil war reenactments? The fact that the episodes are 45 minutes each does not help the situation. That being said, the episodes do have their moments, and it does build well to the finale, regarded as one of the best episodes of the series
* Noticeably averted in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', when the series ended when the ship arrives at Earth, much to the disappointment of many fans. This may have been the reason for the overly-long ending of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', given Ronald D. Moore's desire to make an 'improved' Voyager with that series.
* ''Series/KamenRiderKabuto'' had it set in about episode 30. After that, expect to be facepalming as they try and fail to tie up all the loose ends.
* Even the most ardent fans of the Cook/Effy/Freddie LoveTriangle in Series 3 of ''Series/{{Skins}}'' admit that Katie and Emily's episode (which ends with Naomily's RelationshipUpgrade) is a better ending than the actual finale (which ends with SoWhatDoWeDoNow).
* For several seasons ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' was only nominally about the whole superheroic destiny thing and was vastly more concerned with Clark and [[DamselScrappy Lana's]] on-again/off-again [[SupernaturalSoapOpera relationship]], leading every single episode to wrap up its MonsterOfTheWeek plot around the 45-minute mark to allow Clark, Lana, Lex and sometimes Chloe to each have a little epilogue where they ruminated about their feelings. You know how when you watch most shows you look at your watch and think "They've gotta wrap this thing up in the next five minutes or it's gonna be 'to be continued'"? With ''Smallville'' you'd say that when there were 20 minutes left!
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Flashforward|2009}}'' in the episode "The Gift". The episode plays out like all the other episodes of the series, following a different aspect of Mark's investigation wall with a different police plot. Indeed, it is one of the more prevalent plot threads in the first part of the season. However the culprit is locked away, and everything seems to be finished by about 30 minutes in. Ending Fatigue should set in for the remaining 12. However, it uses this time to create a brilliant TwistEnding that plays on the emotional undercurrents of one of the characters in the episode.
* Averted quite noticeably in late-'70s/early-'80s British TV show ''Series/TheProfessionals'', where the credits often ran straight after the scene in which the bad guy was caught or shot (or the objective achieved). In such cases, there were just a few seconds of terse post-action dialogue or banter before things finished. Where epilogue scenes did exist, they were still fairly short and no-nonsense.
* Parodied by (of course) ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iDiMXTx5wU here]].
* The series finale of ''Series/HannahMontana''. [[{{Padding}} Or basically any two-part episode, come to think of it.]] It was particularly tedious because the entire last season was a rushed mini-season with less than half the number of episodes a regular season had.
* The season four finale of ''Series/TrueBlood''. The season's BigBad is defeated halfway through, which is followed by half an hour of character stuff that ranges from moving to "Shouldn't this be over?" But the last few minutes make up for it with a mind-boggling number of character deaths and cliffhangers. The fifth season is much worse. Even viewers who didn't suffer ArcFatigue from The Vampire Authority's plotline were ready for a conclusion of some sort. Instead, the whole season ends right at the climax.
* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' when he is reading a novel that an old friend of his wrote, based on a story he told him. Fraiser notices the end ludicrously overuses metaphors and skips to the end. The series finale is also a case of this, as the writers wanted to have an ending for as many characters as possible.
* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse'', after ending climatically and pretty definitively, covers twenty minutes of the [[spoiler: Ramos family buying the house and being scared off by the then-recently deceased Harmon family]], ends dramatically again, and then has a 3 year time skip to reveal beyond a doubt [[spoiler: that Tate's baby really was the anti-Christ]]. ''Even worse'' in ''Asylum''. [[spoiler: Every BigBad has been killed off]] by the third last episode, and the viewer has to sit through two and a half episodes full of nothing but loose-end tying.
* The final double-episode of season 7 of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''; it ''should'' have ended with the birth of Marshall and Lily's baby, [[spoiler:but then we find out that Barney proposes to Quinn, ''then'' it cuts to "a little ways down the road," where we find out the bride is ''Robin'']].
** The entire final season. There are multiple perfectly good ending points, and the real ending is a rushed series of flash-forwards that create loose ends just to tie them up five minutes later.
* Happens InUniverse (thankfully mostly off-screen) with Sue and Brad's school play in ''Series/TheMiddle'' episode "The Lonliest Locker". Unable to agree upon an ending, they use all of the endings they came up with. This leads Brick to comment that he likes the third ending the best.
* ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'''s first season finale was criticised for this, being made up of mostly the killer's narration explaining the backstory of everything. Once that's over with, there's about ten minutes dedicated to trying to wrap the episode up.
* ''Series/{{Beetleborgs}}'' impressively manages to feature this trope while having NoEnding, due to the show being cancelled. After the Astral Coins saga, which resulted in the titular heroes acquiring the allegiance of a powerful sentient HumongousMecha, the show kind of loses its drive. Many of the episodes following it are just the Beetleborgs and Crustaceans fighting and summoning their HumongousMecha, who also fight each other. Most of the final episodes don't even feature a unique MonsterOfTheWeek.
* ''Series/JessicaJones2015'': The first season's main conflict, capturing [[SerialRapist Kilgrave]], ended on episode 9 of a thirteen-episode long season, the following episodes would focus on Kilgrave somehow escaping every time he is captured, more often than not due to characters randomly grabbing the IdiotBall.
* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': [[spoiler:The last third of the final episode is devoted to a bunch of ''very'' slow wrap-up scenes. Even worse, they're mostly based around the characters coming to terms with their grief over Matt Murdock's "death" in Midland Circle, which for the audience falls squarely into LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt territory since it had already been announced in July 2016 that a third season of ''Series/Daredevil2015'' was coming, and this would be a weird writing choice after season 2 of ''Daredevil'' went to the trouble of setting up Wilson Fisk starting to seek revenge on Matt, Foggy and Karen.]]
* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': The credits for the season two finale roll about ten minutes after the final battle, and aside from Karen delivering a cheesy monologue, Matt revealing his secret identity to Karen, a scene setting Frank Castle up for [[Series/ThePunisher2017 his own show]], and a brief shot setting up Elektra being brought back to life by Alexandra for ''The Defenders'', not much happens.
* ''Series/LukeCage2016'':
** The general consensus from the critics and fans seems to be that the show starts off incredibly strong, but begins to lag during the final few episodes. In particular, it's noted that the first seven episodes are incredibly strong in characterization and narrative flow, only to fall apart [[spoiler: once Cottonmouth dies.]]
** One of the major complaints about Diamondback is that he's able to escape time and time again despite having no real reason to actually do so. He's not superhuman, he's not a trained elite warrior, he's not an ultra-charismatic leader. But from episode 7 onward, the entire show revolves around stopping him and, [[HatedByAll despite everyone hating him]], he keeps the upper hand until the final battle. It takes until the twelfth episode for him to pull another game-changing secret weapon to show why he's the main threat and he needed PlotArmor to use it (keeping Domingo's soldiers off when they had him dead to rights to get his PoweredArmor.)
* In the final episode of ''Series/TheHauntingOfBlyManor'', the story keeps going for another half an hour after the climax. While it sums up what happened to the main characters and reveals who the Storyteller is, a lot of it ends up feeling long-winded, bordering on plot fluff, and could've been condensed without affecting the overarching story.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
Sometimes, not only is a song [[EpicRocking unusually long]], but it will reach a point that ''seems'' like it's supposed to be the end but then keeps going. Sometimes a song will even have a fake-out ending ''intentionally''. In one of his humorous music-snarkery books, Tom Reynolds referred to this phenomenon as "Rasputin Syndrome" (after the Russian monk who famously survived [[RasputinianDeath numerous attempts at assassination]]).

* Half of the premise of this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazlqD4mLvw old Dudley Moore pastiche]] of a Beethoven piano sonata. Even the pianist eventually can't hide his frustration.
* In ''Music/BillBailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra'', there's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdO3u6ORlGM&t=57m1s musically-played-out argument]] between Bailey and the orchestra about which party gets the final notes of the performance. The orchestra plays different endings à la Dudley Moore.
* [=CDs=] vs. [=LPs=]. They both have their advantages and disadvantages as far as sound quality goes, but [=CDs=] can hold 80 minutes of music, while it's difficult to find an LP that can hold more than 50. Musicians feel compelled to fill up the entire CD so the listener can get their money's worth, which leads to lots and lots of [[AlbumFiller filler]].
* Several tracks by Music/GodspeedYouBlackEmperor don't really end as much as ''disintegrate''; once the crescendo of the song has been reached, the band will prolong the aftermath in ambiance or noise for minutes on end. Examples: "East Hastings" and "Static". Then there are tracks like "Storm" and "9-15-00", which will spend 15 minutes building on one idea only to shift into a completely separate-sounding coda.
** ''F# A# Infinity'''s vinyl edition ends on a locked groove. Thus, the last song literally goes on forever with two notes unless the listener finally takes the clue and removes the needle. FridgeBrilliance, natch.
* Music/{{Pendulum}}'s albums usually have final tracks that contain false endings, one of which is used incredibly well in "The Tempest" which ends their 2008 album ''In Silico'' with an EpicRocking part that goes on for 2 minutes. However, one particularly odd case is "Encoder", which ends 2010's ''Immersion''. There's a fade-in cymbal which you think marks the end of the song, then a Music/{{Coldplay}}ish part fades in that musically is [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment out of place completely with the rest of the song]]. then once you think it's over, we are subject to a full minute of water splashing and heavy breathing, then the song finally ends as a wham noise begins to fade in but cuts out. It's a good song, but it's annoying the first couple times you hear it.
* Music/BillyIdol's "Mony Mony" has a whole third verse when you've think you've gotten to the last chorus.
* Unearth's "Grave of Opportunity" ends with a very long guitar note. The guitarist then plays a quick riff and abruptly stops. What's worse is that this song is featured as a bonus song in ''VideoGame/GuitarHero World Tour''. It's a very fun song to play, but that last note is always annoying.
* Averted in Music/BlindGuardian's "And Then There Was Silence". The song has three such points, but they're all rather short and are used more like act breaks to shift points of view in the story. The song "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight", however, does this at the end. The music and singing reach a crescendo, then start to trail off, then five seconds of silence and the music and singing come back, full force.
* Hunters & Collectors' "Throw Your Arms Around Me" is exactly this, especially its live version.
* Seemingly just to screw with the listener, The Flaming Lips' "Scratching The Door" starts fading out where you'd expect the song to end, only to fade back in. Then it happens again. And a third time. Then it finally ends. This takes up two minutes of the song.
* Mew's "Comforting Sounds". The song is done and dusted after four minutes; the remaining five minutes are spent repeating one theme about ten times. Granted, it gets some embellishments, and is [[EpicRocking more epic as it goes along]], but by the seventh time around the loop you're forced to wonder how much more they can do with it. And there's ''still'' an acoustic outro after what Guitar Hero might have called the End Wankery section.
* The Irish band Hothouse Flowers had one huge hit in the '80s, a song called "Don't Go". They now milk this for all its worth with a live version of the song that lasts for at least 20 minutes.
** The Eight Steps by Music/JoeSatriani, fading back in to continue the end solo that was going on before the fade out.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has a bit of a SelfDeprecation in Beck's guest star episode. While singing a song, a standard time-cut is shown, and Beck ends the song, then says:
--> '''Beck''': Wow. That song usually doesn't last for three hours, but we kinda got into a thing... and then I forgot how it ended....
* Caïna's second album ''Mourner'' suffered from this a little bit.
* Anton Bruckner's symphonies go on for hours pretending to end.
* In a very rare CountryMusic example, Music/KeithUrban has done this a few times:
** He jams for about 2 minutes at the end of "Somebody Like You", and does some lesser jamming on "Better Life".
** "Once in a Lifetime" also shed about 2 minutes (out of a possible 6) between album version and radio edit.
** "Stupid Boy" is possibly the worst offender, as it's one of the only ballads he's done that's gotten this treatment. The song is 6:12 on the album, but only 3:46 for the radio edit.
** "Everybody" also has a lot of vamping, but with an orchestra instead.
* Music/WovenHand's "Animalitos (Ain't No Sunshine)" is 14 minutes long, with at least four fakeout endings.
* The song "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" by Music/TheyMightBeGiants is not especially long or boring. In fact, it's rather short and enjoyable. It is still very confusing to hear "And now this song is over now and now this song is over now and now this song is over now, this song is over now," and then have the song keep going for another minute or so. Oh TMBG, you amuse me so.
** Several songs on 1996's ''Factory Showroom'' went on about a minute longer than they really needed to.
* The Jesus Lizard's "Panic in Cicero". The song stops. The drums don't. For, like, two minutes. The majority of the song is the never-ending ending.
* Music/{{Motorhead}}'s "Overkill" has two false endings, before the double kick starts up again and the song continues. Though this was obviously intentional, given the song title.
* Adiemus' "Cu Challain" from their fourth album, ''The Eternal Knot''. The song pauses ''twice'' where it could and should end. As such, it feels like three songs Frankensteined together.
* Handel's ''Messiah''. After two hours, the final chorus has three distinct sections to it. The third of these sections consists of ten pages of 'Amen' sung fugal style, which was written as an afterthought.
** And the iconic "Hallelujah!" segment that everyone remembers ''isn't even the end of the piece''. It's just the end of the second part of three.
* Music/BryanAdams' "(Everything I Do) I do it for You" has a significant pause around 2:45 which most people remember, but it also has another one around 3:45 that most people forget about.
* Knights of the 21st Century by Music/HammerFall ends, then has about a minute and a half of silence before briefly reprising the opening, which consists of a few seconds of groaning followed by "Hell fuckin' yeah! The Prophecy!"
* Music/DeltaGoodrem has committed this trope twice, once in Believe Again, which has excess intro and outro to the tune of 80 extra seconds, and both the intro and outro could've been cut in half or not used AT ALL. The second time she did this was with Control which has an excess of 42 seconds free style singing at the end for no reason. It has a clear finale at the point of 3.19!
* The lyrics of Milliontown by Frost* end around 17 minutes into the song. The song continues with an instrumental section, which itself has a bit of a false outro, until around 25 minutes, where it apparently ends. After about 30 seconds of silence, a short piano section is played and the song ends at about 26 and a half minutes.
* "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" by Fates Warning has a bit of this. At the very end of the song, there is a short pause followed by the sound of an alarm clock ringing for about 15 seconds.
* Music/LadyGaga does this at the very end of "Poker Face". You think she's stopped singing, but she repeats the lines over and over.
* Music/{{Korpiklaani}}: The title track of ''Korven Kuningas'', which is also the final track, ends with a repetitive bit of booming percussion. This repeats for ''15 minutes'', three times the length of the actual song.
* "Even Rats" by The Slip has a rather long, repetitive wordless vocal coda.
* Video game music example: The "Castle" music in the [[UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 TurboGrafx CD]] version of ''Monster Lair'' (which used Redbook audio) has a really long violin solo that seems to go on forever before finally fading out (you'll only hear it all on a CD player). The boss music is also rather long, with half-a-dozen guitar solos and a TruckDriversGearChange near the end; in-game, the BossBattle will time-out before you hear the whole thing.
* Music/RelientK's song, Deathbed suffers from this. Several times throughout the song it starts to wind down or appear to be ending, only to suddenly start into another verse. After several times of this, one starts wishing the guy on his deathbed would just die already.
* Also, "I'm Your Captain" by Grand Funk Railroad. The song is pretty fantastic. Then you get to the halfway point and the singer keeps saying "I'm getting closer to my home." over and over again.
* "Everybody Hates My Guitar Sound" by Beat Crusaders (best known for [[GratuitousEnglish the fourth opening of]] ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''. Only its ending consists of a really long and bad guitar solo. They end up getting booed into shutting up.
* Music/{{ABBA}}'s "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" seems to go on for an awkward amount of time ''after'' starting to fade out. There's also an extended version that has a disco-inspired breakdown in the middle.
* The end of the song "Assassins" by Nachtmystium fits this trope. Who REALLY wants to hear an entire minute of the same synth buzzing noise over and over again?
* The song "...Before I Leave!" by Czech metal band Root. It clocks in at 19:36, but the last two-thirds of it consist of singing the final stanza repeatedly after the rest of the instruments have left.
* ''Music/YoLaTengo'' has a tendency to tack on 10-20 minutes of repetitive, anxiety-inducing noise-symphonies to the end of albums that in no way enhance the tone of the album, possibly in an effort to never make a perfect album. Most notorious examples: "I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One" and "Popular Songs."
* Done deliberately in the Creator/MontyPython song "I'm So Worried". Ending of third to last verse: "I'm so worried about whether I should go on, or whether I should just stop." Beginning of second to last verse: "I'm so worried about whether I ought to have stopped. And I'm so worried 'cause it's the sort of thing I ought to know." Beginning of final verse: "I'm so worried about whether I should have stopped then. I'm so worried that I'm driving everyone round the bend." Note that when the final verse starts, you hear the backing chorus ''come back into the room,'' as though even they thought it was over. You can also hear an audibly frustrated sigh in the background.
* Music/{{Chicago}}'s "Fancy Colours." It's a good song, but at the end, all you get is extremely loud obnoxious long notes repeated over and over.
* "Pretend We're Dead" by L7. "We're deeeeaaaaaaaaaad" about 12 times, with the only variation being a very short, simple guitar solo towards the end.
* Malcolm Arnold's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5343nfOnkk "A Grand, Grand Overture"]], for comic effect.
* Music/{{Opeth}} seem to suffer from this trope a lot. Almost every song has a riff that seems to be cut short before being repeated with a remarkably machinelike (and monotonous) accuracy over and over again...and over again.
* Music/BruceSpringsteen's [[MisaimedFandom "Born In the USA"]] has a very long, drawn-out ending in which the chords repeat over and over while the drummer does some [[RuleOfCool cool]] fills.
* The tracks from Music/CaptainBeefheart's ''Mirror Man'' album. "25th Century Quaker" and "Kandy Korn" make up for it with their shorter lengths and neat ideas (the former showing off an Eastern, proto-Krautrock dirge; the latter containing a hilarious jingle for candy corn), while the title track and "Tarotplane" just go on and on with no variation.
* Potentially subverted with "Desolation Row" and "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", both by Music/BobDylan. While the songs basically contain the same verse sections with no bridges, the phantasmagorical lyrics have the listener wanting to find out what happens next. Still, it might be played straight for those not into Dylan's voice or lyrics.
** "Like A Rolling Stone" started out as this. Dylan had about 10 to 20 pages worth of verses and considering the average length of a verse was about a minute and a half, that version probably would've taken up an entire LP. Fortunately, Dylan picked the best parts and put them together in the form we know today.
* Music/SydBarrett's "Gigolo Aunt" is this to some fans. While the main part of the song is considered good, the ending jam just meanders.
* {{Invoked|Trope}} by Music/PaulAndStorm as an OverlyLongGag at the end of "Shake Machine" (as the separate track "Shake Machine, Part II"). The track consists of eighty-eight seconds worth of fake-out endings (and one final ending)...after Part I's already lengthy ending.
* The Music/BarenakedLadies song "Grade 9" has great fun with this trope, building up to two false endings before the real one.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oimHJCURbo The Lambeth Walk]], the closer for the first act of ''Me & My Girl'', is a ChorusOnlySong that repeats for 5 minutes, [[TruckDriversGearChange changing keys each time]].
** [[UpToEleven Oh no, it doesn't stop there. You hear it ONE MORE TIME]] as you go into intermission.
** [[SerialEscalation But, come on, 2 reprises of the catchiest song in the show still ain't enough, let's do the WHOLE THING AGAIN at curtain call near the end of the show,]] [[AudienceParticipation AND THIS TIME LET'S GET THE ENTIRE THEATRE TO DO IT WITH US!!]]
* Autechre's [[DroneOfDread drone ambient]] piece "Perlence Subrange 6-36" is 58 minutes, and the second half is mostly a repeat of the first half.
* The several-minute-long harpsichord solo towards the end of the first movement of Bach's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49IOKnhX0Sk Brandenburg Concerto no. 5.]] It keeps sounding like it's going to end and the rest of the orchestra is going to come in, but no, the solo just keeps going.
** Unless you're familiar with classical concerto form, in which this type of extended solo before the final cadence (called a ''cadenza'') is a standard feature.
* The finale of Music/JosephHaydn's String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2, aka "The Joke", sounds like a normal rondo until the end of the piece, when there's a grand pause. Then he starts the piece over with the four-phrase main theme, with two measures of silence between each phrase - and then four measures of silence, followed by the first phrase again, at which point the piece ends, in the musical equivalent of the middle of a sentence. Audiences had no idea when to applaud, as the piece just kept going.
* Music/{{Pulp}}'s "The Day After the Revolution", the final track from their album ''This is Hardcore'', comes to a natural halt at around the five-minute mark; but a held strings chord continues for the next ''nine minutes'', at which point lead singer Jarvis Cocker helpfully bids us goodbye.
* The harpsichord flourish ending a recitative (the second movement) of the Music/PDQBach cantata ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_eW0Y-tFAY Iphigenia in Brooklyn]]'' (it starts around 2:35 in the video and lasts a little over a minute). P.D.Q. Bach has ''so much'' of this. Notes held for incredibly long amounts of time, little things that are four or five times as long as they "should" be... it's one of his most common gags, behind blatantly ridiculous instruments. A prime example is the ''Schleptet in E-Flat Major'', which opens with two insanely long-held chords, separated by the wind players taking a deep, loud, comical breath. (And these are not ''fermatas'' -- the opening is scored in a ridiculous time signature, something like 72/4.) In live performances, the usual ''schtick'' has the horn player black out from holding the second note, falling off the chair, and taking the music stand to the floor with a crash. (Which, for a musician untrained in physical slapstick, can be hazardous, and has sometimes resulted in a damaged horn, or a damaged horn player!) He would also end pieces on unresolved chords
* Creator/AllanSherman has "The End of a Symphony," which directly addresses the tendency in classical music for long, drawn-out endings. In the piece (which runs over eight minutes) he complains about this while offering multiple parodic examples.
* The dance remix of "Where You Are" by Jessica Simpson is 11 minutes, but mostly repeats the final refrain over and over for the last 5 minutes, preceded by a fake ending.
* These can be painful to listen to live. Any song with a FakeOutFadeOut and a not perfectly knowledgeable fanbase is going to end up with a lot of people applauding in the wrong place and then being very annoyed and/or confused when the song keeps going.
* Music/DinosaurJr's "Said The People" has what feels like a natural Solo Out conclusion, until it comes back for another verse, another chorus, and ''another'' solo.
* Music/KanyeWest
** "Last Call", the closer from ''The College Dropout'', lasts 12 minutes, starting with an excellent 4-minute track and spending the last 8 minutes in a monologue of Kanye's career up to that point,
** "We Major", from ''Late Registration'', which goes on for a good two more minutes than it should,
** "Runaway", from ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'', where a SubduedSection about 6 minutes in leads into what can best be described as "three minutes of vocoder wankery."
** The music video version of "All of the Lights". It almost has beginning fatigue in the music video with the string orchestra intro, then goes on for instrumentals and repeats the chorus for almost a minute after where the radio and album versions end.
* Music/AlanJackson:
** "Long Way to Go" drags on and on because he repeats the chorus ''four times in a row'' at the end.
** "I Still Like Bologna" also has a third verse that basically spins its wheels and only drags the four-verse song down some.
** On "Country Boy", he couldn't decide whether to use one of two different bridges, so he just used both. And ''then'' he repeats the chorus twice on top of that.
* Music/TheWho's "Won't Get Fooled Again" has a keyboard break that goes on for half a minute, and you'd think that's when the song ends. Nope. After about half a minute, the break ends, then the rest of the band joins in.
** The album version of "Who Are You" is 6:27, and the single is only marginally better: 5:06. The US radio edit cuts it down to 3:27, slicing three whole minutes.
** "You Better You Bet" clocks in at 5:36, most of the second half of which is the chorus ("When I say I love you, you say you better / You better, you better, you bet!")
** Live versions of Who songs tend to get lengthened, even short ones like "Magic Bus", which becomes a ten-minute jam (though the fatigue is generally averted here).
* Art Blakey's legendary rendition of A Night in Tunisia last for about 11 minutes... of which, about 2 and half minutes consists of them winding down to ending. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHKyVJ5YfNU Just take a listen for yourself.]]
* Arlo Guthrie's hilarious song "Alice's Restaurant" clocks in at a little over 18 minutes. It could easily have ended with the resolution of the littering plot... but then he reveals he came to talk about the draft for the Vietnam War, which is only somewhat connected to the littering plot, then starts talking about walking into a therapist's office singing "Alice's Restaurant", then gets the audience to sing it with him twice, which have to wait for the right spot to come around in the melody...
** In some versions, Guthrie lampshades it during the AudienceParticipation part: "I've been playing this song for 15 minutes. I can play it for another 15 minutes. I'm not proud... ''or tired''..."
** An updated version that Arlo sang in TheNewTens includes yet another monologue about an urban legend regarding the song as it relates to the Watergate scandal.[[note]]During tapes of Richard Nixon speaking in the Oval Office, there is a pause that's 18 minutes and 20 seconds long, which is exactly as long as the original recording of "Alice's Restaurant. Arlo then concludes that "Alice's Restaurant" has the power to topple empires.[[/note]]
* The Proclaimers' album track "Oh Jean" ends with four minutes of a repeated riff accompanied by singing of the title, both getting louder and louder, suggesting that any time soon they're going to launch into another rousing rendition of the chorus - but it never happens. Eventually the riffing just stops and the track ends there.
* Music/{{Catatonia}}'s "Karaoke Queen" proclaims in the chorus that "it's just a three-minute song, it doesn't last very long". Uh-huh. It's a five-minute song because the outro ("ooh sha la la, ooh sha la la" repeat) goes on forever.
* "Sylvie" by Music/SaintEtienne ''has'' to be lampshading this, with "Over and over and over and over again" about eleven times in a row - each one carefully timed to overlap the previous on the -gain of "again", resulting in "over and over and over and over a/over and over and over and over a/over and over..." etc.
* Spoofed by ''[[Series/{{KYTV}} Radio Active]]'' in their Music/StatusQuo parody "Boring Song (by Status Quid)". Each time the "final" guitar chord starts to fade away, the song starts up again, with lyrics {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing the song's apparent refusal to end.
* [[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps "It's No Game (Part 1)"]] by Music/DavidBowie does this intentionally; once you think the song's about to end, Robert Fripp's guitar solo starts to drag on, prompting Bowie to give Fripp three BigShutUp[=s=].
* "Moonchild", by Music/KingCrimson. Basically a two-and-a-half-minute song with a ten-minute-long improv piece tacked at the end that goes nowhere. It got so bad that for the newest reissue Robert Fripp cut off about two minutes of it.
* Repeatedly PlayedForLaughs by none other than Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart in his four movement [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFPoRmsiFzc&feature=fvwrel A Musical Joke]].
* "Adonai", by Music/{{Hurt}}. The song ends... and then a quiet recording of someone chanting a prayer plays for a while (at least a minute) before finally FadingIntoTheNextSong.
* "Sinner Man" by Music/NinaSimone seems to be ending at the eight-minute mark, only to continue for another two minutes with some ACappella {{scatting}} and a drum solo.
* {{Music/Devo}} has been known, in concert, to play a thirty-minute version of ''Jocko Homo'', in Mark Motherbaughs words, "until people were actually fighting with us, trying to make us stop playing the song. We'd just keep going, "Are we not men? We are Devo!" for like 25 minutes, directed at people in an aggressive enough manner that even the most peace-lovin' hippie wanted to throw fists."
* {{Music/Magazine}} intentionally invoke this trope at the end of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dvUgtveuHU 'I Wanted Your Heart']], a song Nick Kent of the New Musical Express picked out as a masterpiece, which it is, right up until the last minute when the band seemingly find themselves having some sort of vaguely Music/CaptainBeefheart style jam that seems completely out of place in the context of both the song and the album.
* The music tracks in ''VideoGame/OutRun'' loop their final section until you complete the race, which is especially annoying with "Magical Sound Shower", where it sounds like a {{broken record}}.
* Dance remixes and dance songs in general will sometimes have false leads outs, often containing little more than the beat, mid-way through the track to give DJ's an option to mix out. Often if you kept playing the track, you might get a repeat of the first part, a reprise that repeats or sometimes instrumentation. Worst-case scenario is when the 'true' ending to the track will be a fade-out or a cold stop (with no beat-only outro) making the DJ's wish he would have taken the mid-track lead out instead to get a cleaner mix.
* Donald Fagen, and Music/SteelyDan in general. The outros to his songs tend to start at about the halfway mark of the track and just. keep. going. Notable examples: "West of Hollywood" and "Tomorrow's Girls".
* Music/ElectricLightOrchestra's famous "Mr. Blue Sky" seems to have a proper fade-out at the 3:48 mark...but then goes into OminousLatinChanting and LastNoteNightmare for another minute and a half.
* Ravel's famous ''Bolero'' goes on for about 15 minutes, which is probably five times as long as it needs to be. It's like Ravel knew he was on to a good thing and didn't want to let go.
* Music/MichaelJackson became prone to this post-''Thriller''. Like Meat Loaf, he also has bad cases of starting fatigue.
** "Man in the Mirror" hits this at the "I'm gonna make that change/It's gonna feel real good!" part, since the previous chorus capped off with the na-na-nas was a perfectly fine way to end the song.
** The full-length version of the "Black or White" video has the notorious "panther dance" epilogue, which goes on for several minutes after the actual song has long since ended, and doesn't seem to logically/thematically follow on with what previously happened in the clip. The quick payoff with Homer and Bart Simpson really isn't worth it. (The album version has starting fatigue thanks to a superfluous Slash solo and a skit with the kid and the dad who wants him to turn his music down.)
** "Will You Be There" has ''two'' choral preludes, the first of which is nicked from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (which initially went uncredited). Then, after he stops singing, he offers a spoken-word prayer to God. The single edit drops all this...and is thus slightly less than half the length of the album edit.
** The Brazillian favela version of the "They Don't Care About Us" MusicVideo goes on for almost two-and-a-half minutes after the song itself ends; the time is filled by an extended drum solo for the Olodum troupe, as Michael prances, mugs, and occasionally shouts non-words along to the beat. Not surprisingly, there's an official edit that cuts out most of this.
** "[=HIStory=]" could have cut at least a minute off its 6:46 running time if they'd dropped all the soundbites and recitations of famous dates in history from the beginning and especially the end. To make matters worse, while this would have been an appropriate closer for the ''[=HIStory=]'' album with its upbeat tempo and attitude, there's still two more tracks to go afterward: the {{Glurge}}-laden "Little Susie" and the CoverVersion of Creator/CharlieChaplin's "Smile", which itself has trouble ending.
* Sibelius' Fifth Symphony has a unique ending. The symphony builds to its conclusion in several waves of sound and at just the point where you might think there's nothing more to say... everything ends and there are six sudden explosions of whole-orchestra noise, like hammer blows, at two or three-second intervals - six false endings, in fact.
* Colbie Caillat was guilty of this with "Breaking At the Cracks". Roughly a minute and a half or so of her repeating "Love, I need you back" ad nauseam.
* Music/JohnMayer's "Say (What You Need To Say)" ends with so many repetitions of the title phrase that one gets the feeling that she'd ''like'' to say what she needs to say, but he won't shut up long enough to let her do so.
* Music/NickCave and the Bad Seeds song ''Babe I'm on Fire'' without the Music video. Fourteen minutes of repeating fairly similar lyrics with each increasingly silly variation on who says the titular phrase being ending with the same musical sting that could be the ending.
* "Abacab" by Music/{{Genesis}}.
* "Suzy Q" by Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival.
* Steve Vai's "Fuck Yourself" lasts for a reasonable four minutes... and then the '''entire song''' repeats with a guitar solo instead of lyrics.
* Music/LittleBigTown's "Boondocks". The coda with the repeated "You get a line, I get a pole / We'll go fishin' in the crawfish hole / Five-card poker on Saturday night / Church on Sunday morning" goes on for well over a minute. It was mercifully cut down on the radio edit.
* "Born to Fly" by Music/SaraEvans. The album version has a nearly one-and-a-half-minute instrumental ending.
* Music/TheMarsVolta. At one point during the last, 30-minute-long track of ''Frances the Mute'', you can feel the song itself getting a little tired.
* Enzo Siffredi's "High On Trumpets" is 7 minutes long, but after the climax comes (shortly before the 5-minute mark), the remaining 2 minutes are nothing but the dull, looping background percussion part -- almost makes the song sound like it was unfinished.
* "Texas (When I Die)" by Music/TanyaTucker. The chorus repeats ''six times'' at the end.
* The album version of Tony! Toni! Toné!'s "Anniversary" (on ''Sons of Soul'') is nine minutes and twenty-four seconds long. The actual song ends somewhere around 4:30. After thirty more seconds of repetition [[note]]"Do you know what today is? It's our anniversary."[[/note]], at around 5:00, the instrumental outro comes in, which consists of the entire song being played over again, but with different, almost drifting, vocals. Needless to say, the radio edit clipped the last five minutes.
* The song "Girls Like You" by The Naked and Famous, despite being SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic, suffers from this trope more than it should. It may be the last song on the ''Passive Me, Aggressive You'' album, but the song's ending patterns of distorted guitars and synths go on for 2 more minutes after the song actually ends.
* The Music/BobSeger song "Night Moves" has it happen very jarringly, with a fairly poignant line about how "the night moves... when autumn's closing in..." fade out, and then jump to an entire rehash of the chorus.
* Music/TheThe "Uncertain Smile". More than one radio moderator complained about the outro that seems to be longer than the rest of the song.
* {{Music/Metallica}} [[WordOfGod themselves]] stated that this was the reason for their going in a softer, more poppish direction. Kirk Hammett has stated that he isn't a fan of ''...And Justice For All'' because the songs were "[[CreatorBacklash too fucking long]]" and noted one incident in particular- a grueling concert during the ''Damaged Justice'' tour, where he saw "the entire front row yawn after the 8th minute" of the eponymous track.
* While he avoided it on his albums, Music/{{Prince}} had a tendency to let solos and instrumentals go on ad nauseam in concert. Concert versions of "Purple Rain" would play the last twelve or so bars, including the suspended note, ''twenty times'' before it properly ended!! And his controversial performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," at a tribute show for Music/GeorgeHarrison, featured a 4+-minute electric guitar solo long after Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, and Jeff Lynne ended the song proper.
* "Monoliths" by Lotus Plaza features a repeated coda that takes up slightly more than half of the song.
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_t2gE1EsKU Supa Scoopa & Mighty Scoop]], Music/{{Kyuss}} plays the final riff ''nine'' times with increasingly prolonged pauses. This is the same group that eventually led to Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge - famous abusers of [[FakeOutFadeOut fake endings]] in their songs.
* Music/{{Low}} do tend to drone on a bit in their slow, minimalist rock workouts, but one example particularly stands out: "Born By The Wires" from the Songs For A Dead Pilot EP. The song ends with several minutes of a single chord being strummed every several seconds, stretching a nearly six-minute song to ''thirteen.'' It's either really mellow and hypnotic, or it'll just drive you up the wall.
* "I Can't Love You Back" by Easton Corbin is four-and-a-half minutes long, nearly half of which is an instrumental coda that repeats the main melodic hook ad nauseam.
* In the Music/ElvisPresley song "Suspicious Minds", the song begins to fade out over the coda, only to then fade back ''in'' and continue in the same vein for another minute or so. Considering that the final lyrics when this happens are "I'm caught in a trap / I can't walk out / Because I love you too much, baby", this is entirely intensional.
* Just when you thought Hazel O'Connor's song "Will You" had come to a satisfying end, a couple of seconds later a brief drum riff leads into a blistering two-minute sax solo by Wesley [=McGoogan=]. It's virtually two epic songs for the price of one.
* Trying to end one of Beethoven's symphonies is a very tedious process.
** The Fifth Symphony is a big offender. The Presto section at the end of the finale (beginning at bar 364 of 446), which is scored for full orchestra throughout, goes on for over six pages in one edition of the score (out of just over fifty) and could achieve an epic ending almost anywhere after the second page, but instead it goes on and on and on. The last 29 bars of the symphony consist entirely of C major triads repeated over and over until at last, the orchestra plays a final-sounding C major chord... and then another... and then another... and then three more... and another... and finally a unison C. One has the impression Beethoven couldn't decide which ending to use, so he decided to use them all, one after the other. As noted by the commentary in [[Music/PDQBach Peter Schickele's]] "New Horizons in Music Appreciation", even just the first movement has some fake-outs.
---> '''Pete:''' Wait a minute! The brasses have taken the theme! They're not letting it stop! They're taking the theme and running ahead! Bob, this piece is definitely going to go into overtime, I can see that.
** Pointing to any phrase on the last two pages of the Seventh Symphony will give you a satisfactorily epic ending. BUT NO.
** The finale of the Ninth Symphony builds toward a fast, loud climax, but gets interrupted several times by abrupt slowdowns. By this point the lyrics of the "Ode to Joy" have been exhausted, so the words from previous sections are reused.
* Music/{{Gorillaz}}:
** Almost half of "Clint Eastwood" is [=2D's=] refrain being repeated several times and the instrumentals. Radio stations tend to cut out about half way through the instrumental portion.
** The Soul Child remix of "19/2000" repeats Noodle's section two extra times at the end, making the song about 2 minutes longer than the original version.
* "I Love It Loud" by Music/{{Kiss}}. It starts to fade out and it seems like the end to the song, but it fades back in even louder, just under a minute before the song fades out again.
* "Human Touch" by Rick Springfield. At about the point where you think the song is going to end (about 3:20) cue unnecessary guitar work, keyboards, and repeating of the chorus for another four minutes.
* Thanks to Music/JeffBuckley's well-known CoverVersion of Music/LeonardCohen's "Hallelujah", most other cover artists neglect some of the original song's most poignant verses in favor of repeating "hallelujah" over and over again, for a solid two minutes. Good luck finding a cover that doesn't.
* The first and third movements of "Embryons desséchés" by Music/ErikSatie each end with a ridiculous number of final chords relative to their length (eighteen consecutive G major chords in the first movement and over two dozen F major chords in the third).
* Music/MeatLoaf songs tend to be on the long side. "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" is a whopping 8 minutes and 30 seconds, "Like A Bat Out Of Hell" is 9 minutes and 52 seconds, and "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" runs for roughly 12 minutes. In short, never select a Meat Loaf song for karaoke. Everyone will hate you.
* This is how Music/RiversOfNihil feels about the touring cycle for ''Monarchy'', and it was one of the bigger factors in the substantial change in sound on ''Where Owls Know My Name''. While ''Monarchy'' did a lot to establish them as a band with teeth rather than an overhyped upstart that was going to drop off the face of the earth once their fifteen minutes of fame were up, they felt that the touring cycle for the album had roughly six good months followed by a whole lot of nothing and just kept dragging on and on, and by the end of the 2017 edition of Devastation on the Nation (the last tour in support of ''Monarchy''), they felt like they had dragged it out well past the point of justifiability and had far less to show for it than they had hoped for, which led them to more or less say "fuck it" and go for broke on what wound up being their true watershed album.
* The Music/{{Oasis}} album ''Music/BeHereNow'' is loaded to the brim with [[EpicRocking songs over five minutes]], and quite a few end up like this, such as the two minutes of noodling and "la la la" that closes "All Around the World". Noel Gallagher even said he expected the label to cut some of "D'You Know What I Mean?", [[ProtectionFromEditors but they didn't]].
* José González's song, Cycling Trivialities, has a crescendo near the logical endpoint of the song, before going into a decrescendo and repeating the same phrase 27 times, at which point it finally ends. The repeated phrase is pleasant the first few times but quickly becomes monotonous.
* Music/IronMaiden has it at times. "The Angel and the Gambler" ends with the chorus being repeated ''[[BrokenRecord 7]]'' times. "The Red and the Black" has an instrumental section that goes for 6 minutes. "Empire of the Clouds" returns to the pared-down sound that made for a SlowPacedBeginning, and the calm delivery makes every verse feel like it could be the last.
* The lack of production polish is one of the charms of the early transitional Ska and Blue Beat records from UsefulNotes/{{Jamaica}} in TheSixties, leading up to the birth of {{Reggae}}. But one issue is that the producers really didn't know when to fade out the songs, and they just go on and on. "Do The Reggay" by Toots & The Maytals, the song that gave the genre its name, sounds like it should end around the 2:15 mark, but there's almost a minute left to go at that point.
* "Trip to Heaven" by epic house/progressive trance act Blue Amazon, in addition to being [[EpicRocking 14 minutes long]] overall, has a 5-minute ambient coda that overstays its welcome.
* Gary Moore's song "No Reason To Cry" is 9 minutes long...and roughly 6-7 of those minutes are instrumental. Also, roughly 3/4 of the instrumental is at the ''end'' of the song, with no lyrics.
* Al Stewart's songs "Year of the Cat" and "Time Passages" are both around 7 minutes long, but contain extremely long instrumentals after their bridges, before the final verses. However, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad in this case.
* Jefferson Starship's song "Miracles" gets pretty monotonous at the end, and it's also close to 7 minutes. But once again, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In most RTS game levels with 'destroy the enemy' victory conditions, you get your victory only by sending your world-crushing army scouting round the entire map, trying to find the last enemy unit that wandered off on its own. It's so common that RTS fans have a name for it: Last Enemy Syndrome. Later games tend to judge defeat by having no buildings left, which lowers the chances of this, unless they manage to smuggle a peasant out. Others, like ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'', let the AI enemy request to surrender when it's obvious that a human player is going to win.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' resolved this problem with a creative and very fitting technique: once you destroy all their production facilities, the enemy will instantly sell the rest and then send ''all their remaining units'' against you in a final "blaze of glory" march. Which can be surprisingly effective and might end up destroying your base, but at the same time, it's far more entertaining than the hard way.
** Standard multiplayer RTS etiquette is for the losing player to surrender when the result is clear so that the winner doesn't get frustrated hunting down the last unit. Newer players occasionally don't understand this, figuring it to be polite to give the opponent the satisfaction of smashing everything, but anyone who has won more than a couple of matches will simply find it tedious.
** This is especially bad in ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'', since not only do you have to wipe out every unit from which it is possible to recover (which includes many common military units), but you have to wait until said defeat reaches the immutable past, which usually takes several minutes of real time.
** Though turn-based rather than real-time, "rout the enemy"-style maps in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' tend to get this critique to a tee--HHM ''Cog of Destiny'' in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' is particularly infamous for going on much longer than it needs to, due to the massive amount of enemies, all of whom use magic attacks and therefore can only be countered by other mages or RangedEmergencyWeapon-users. "Defend"-style maps can get this if the player is particularly quick to take the fight to the enemy, meaning that the first three or four turns are an explosive confrontation and the next turns are just mopping up the token reinforcements.
* ''[[Franchise/DotHack .hack//G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption]]''. After a battle with shiny lights, faux computer abilities, and screams (lots of them), Ovan's Avatar finally finishes its mission to reset The World and save his little sister, by sacrificing his own life, and all people who went comatose do wake up, one by one. That should be the end of the game, huh? Well, not really. All of a sudden Yata reveals that Cubia, a BigBad from the previous series of games, suddenly resurrected (under pretty vague circumstances) and now he is threatening to destroy The World. Now you have some more 6 hours of gameplay on doing almost nothing interesting to stop it.
** All of Volume 3 really has this problem. Before you fight Ovan you have to deal with Sakaki making a random return to....basically act evil, kick you out of your guild and host a tournament that does nothing really but waste time before you kick his ass again and he's finally removed from the story. The staff was banking on the Ovan reveal being a massively shocking plot twist that was the climax of the game. The director even mentioned they were expecting Evangelion level backlash, death threats and all. They didn't get it as most saw it coming and the others than didn't it wasn't that big a deal to. To make matters worse they had to reveal Ovan in Volume 2 so that people following Roots and people who played the game in Japan would get the reveal at roughly the same time (they tried to do the same in the US, but the US practices of changing timeslots and preempting episodes quickly ruined that plan) so Volume 3 is mostly wasting time before the fight with Ovan, and then Cubia as an epic final threat.
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', once you've whupped Malpercio's ancient godly ass and saved the world everything's over, right? Nope! You're in for about a half-hour of exposition that attempts to wrap up all the loose ends left by the game's rather confusing plot. Then it's over, right? Nope! They introduce ''new'' plot points and drop even more exposition on you that takes an extra 20 minutes or so to wrap up. ''Then'' it's over, right? "Noooooo! Not so fast kiddies! What do you think you're doing?!" Yep, Geldoblame is somehow back to cause a ruckus with one brief final boss battle, followed by another half-hour or so of the ocean being restored, Xelha's fake-out HeroicSacrifice, a bit more exposition to wrap things up, and the final "good-bye to the player" scene. Yes, you could actually watch ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' in its entirety in the time it takes for ''Baten Kaitos'' to finally wrap up.
* ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' has, counting both endings as one, nine chapters. The first four chapters deal with 90-some-percent of the game's content, from bosses to jobs to items. Then you hit chapter five, and the game dries up. There's nothing left to do but re-fight the same cadre of bosses with minor permutations such as increased HP or a new attack or a different enemy party. And if you want to get the True End, you have to do this '''four''' more times. You could skip the optional bosses, but that would leave you severely under-leveled and without the best abilities in the game. By the time you reach the end, TheReveal has become [[CaptainObviousReveal tedious and explicit]], the game has become [[GameBreaker a cake walk]], and it all goes in [[BrokenAesop direct opposition of the game's moral.]]
* The second disc of ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' feels like one BigBad fight after another, and it can get ''very'' wearing. It's not helped by the plot infamously collapsing in on itself due to a GambitPileup. First, you fight [=FATE=], who has been built up as the BigBad for the entire game. But then he goes down, and [[spoiler:the six elemental dragons do a FusionDance to become the Dragon God, who promises to ravage the world now that FATE, the thing sealing it away, is dead]]. Then, you go through the MarathonLevel to end all Marathon Levels, kill the new BigBad, and that's it, right? Nope, now you have to [[spoiler:kill the Time Devourer, which is a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere compared to the other enemies you had to fight]]. And if you don't jump through a couple of GuideDangIt laden hoops, then you literally ''do not get an ending'', just [[AWinnerIsYou a little card saying 'Fin']].
* A universal problem in 4X games such as ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' and many others. Players tend to reach the point where their empire is so powerful that they can't possibly be defeated, but mopping up the AI or completing the Victory Conditions may still take several more hours, at which point the game ceases to be challenging or interesting. Nothing to do but load up a new game and start again! Nowadays games try to mitigate this in various ways, usually by having a scripted "crisis" occur in the late game to actually challenge the player's empire. Even so, many players freely admit to never having actually finished a game, despite having dozens or even hundreds of hours of playtime. (In 4X-game VideoGame/{{Stellaris}} for example, only 5% of all players have the Steam achievement, "Win the game through any victory condition." And the game is one of the pioneers of throwing scripted crisii at the player near the end with its Endgame Crisis system; even that has not been enough to make players actually ''finish'' the game after the crisis is over)
* If you play ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' to its regular conclusion, you won't encounter this trope, but if you go for the GoldenEnding and try to find all the secrets, you're in for an anticlimactic time. The [[BrutalBonusLevel secret levels]] themselves are fine, if not especially novel and exciting, and your reward for clearing all of them is a new vehicle, the Gyrocopter. The Gyrocopter itself is cool, but the only new areas it unlocks are the last few Banana Bird Caves, which means the last thing you'll do in the game is solve a Simon puzzle, before a final cutscene that is, admittedly, pretty funny. Contrast with ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'', whose bonus levels ended in an appropriately-climactic TrueFinalBoss battle.
* The original ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' has a case of this, due in part to its origins as {{Shareware}}. New enemy types, powerups, and weapons start to get thin on the ground after the end of the first episode (which was the part released for free), which means most of the later levels don't have many options for how to change things up other than "spawn twice as many enemies as the last one." After the Cyberdemon boss fight at the end of the second episode, there's still nine levels left to go, and by that point, the only things there are left to see are the missable, TooAwesomeToUse BFG-9000, and the game's final boss, which is a relative pushover. Part of what made ''VideoGame/DoomII'' so significant was just that it added a ton of new enemies, which meant later levels still had tricks up their sleeve.
* ''VideoGame/Doom3'' seemed to go on forever... you go to hell, kill the boss, a great stopping point, then come ''back'' to Mars for hours of more gameplay, but it's the best part of the game!
* ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'''s endgame devolves into this for some people, possibly because [[spoiler:the BigBad gets killed [[WhatAnIdiot in a very stupid way]] two dungeons before the end of the game, forcing the party to climb a ridiculously large tower and fight his right-hand man instead. And then the game throws one last boss fight at you in the form of Chopin himself]]. Add to that a lengthy ending cutscene, not to mention [[CharacterFilibuster the entire cast lecturing you over the end credits]], and you've got a game that seems to go on forever.
** It gets fixed a bit in the [=PS3=] UpdatedRerelease, as [[spoiler:the BigBad doesn't die straight away and instead accompanies his right-hand-man to the final dungeon]]. The cast lecture is either altered or eliminated as well, depending what version of the ending, you get, as well as certain changes to some scenes.
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', the [[spoiler:Verdant Wind and Silver Snow]] routes suffer from this. After [[DiscOneFinalBoss the apparent final confrontation with]] [[spoiler:Emperor Edelgard]], there's another mission in which the army [[spoiler:invades Shambhala, home of Those Who Slither In The Dark]]. But the game isn't over yet, as there's one more mission against [[spoiler:a resurrected Nemesis on Verdant Wind and a berserk Rhea on Silver Snow]]. To make matters worse, in the final month of the [[spoiler:Silver Snow]] route, the characters act as though the war is over in monastery conversations, and the game actually does end with the aforementioned DiscOneFinalBoss on [[spoiler:Azure Moon]].
* Many games of ''VideoGame/FootballManager'' suffer this as a season draws to a close. Players heading towards the end of the season, especially if they stay up late and into the early morning, can often start pushing towards the end of the season and not paying as much attention to their team, lineups, tactics, and various non-match related aspects like scouting new transfer targets for the off-season. This can lead to extremely frustrating losses and situations that can cause that entire season to go up in smoke. This is [[JustifiedTrope not the games fault]] as each season has as many games as it would in real life.
* ''Videogame/GoldenSunTheLostAge''. Make no mistake! The ending is great, very climactic, and satisfying. But what is the one thing you want to do above all after defeating that nasty Boss? That's right! Save your progress! However, while you sit around with your Game Boy in your sweaty hands, shaking uncontrollably with the unquenchable desire to save, the ending drags on and on and on...
* ''VideoGame/GuitarHero 5''. [[ThatOneLevel Do You Feel Like We Do.]] It is by far the longest song in the game at 13 minutes and 40 seconds, more than double the next longest song. There is an achievement just for getting 95% of the way through, whether you then successfully complete the song or not.
** And while you're at it, everything under the Music folder that has been on Guitar Hero or Rock Band also fits here. Which makes the Rock Band 2 edit version of Prequel to the Sequel the odd one out - the entire second half of the song is removed, [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks and the fans HATED Harmonix for that]].
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' known for this in it's numeral titles:
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' wraps up nearly all of its plot points in the Hollow Bastion chapter, where Sora defeats the BigBad [[WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty Maleficent]], rescues the seven [[Franchise/DisneyPrincess Princesses of Heart]], squares off against Riku in a dramatic CainAndAbel confrontation, and pulls a HeroicSacrifice to save Kairi by [[spoiler:temporarily becoming a Heartless]]--all of which would make for a perfectly satisfying ending. But then the game ''just keeps going'' with the End of the World area, with Sora reliving all of his adventures in the previous worlds, culminating in a battle with ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}} Chernabog]]''. Except that's not the ending either: afterwards, Sora still has to survive the most intense Heartless battle in the game... which only leads to the door to a boss battle with the ([[TheManBehindTheMan actual]]) BigBad Ansem. And even then, he has to defeat Ansem ''four times in a row'', then fight his way through a succession of Heartless-packed room before destroying his battleship form.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' has a little [[SubvertedTrope ExpectationSubversion]] where Hollow Bastion - now your HubWorld - is attacked by [[SpecificallyNumberedGroup big]] [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness baddies]] of the game - Organization XIII and hundreds of Heartless ([[BigBadassBattleSequence Thousand, to be exact]]). You fight side by side with Franchise/FinalFantasy characters and even Goofy [[DeathFakedForYou almost dying]]. All in all - by the end of the sequence you finally: see [[TheReveal Organization's leader face]], he makes some [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil plot twist]], finding out that [[DamselInDistress your friend has been captured]]. And just when you think now it'll be your final confrontation...the game sends you to second trip around worlds, yeah. After all, [[TheSmartGuy Chip and Dale]] finally locate the Organization Headquarters - [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The World that Never Was]]. You go through ominous city, and then you approach a [[HauntedCastle giant castle]] flying over it. Inside you encounter huge amount of cutscenes and taking down last remaining Organization XIII members. There you also find [[BigDamnReunion both of your friends]], see HeroicSacrifice, and finally confront Xemnas himself. At first, the battle will be just like with the others when you fight him face to face. Then, Xemnas will sit on a giant dragon atop of the castle, from where he'll be throwing buildings at you. After that, you need to beat him in his armor while he sitting on his throne. After that, there's ''another'' dragon battle - firstly you just shoot off his wings and take down another armored figure. And only after all of those you will face the man in final fight.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' take this trope [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] or, in this case, ''[[InJoke up to thirteen]]''. The final confrontation with 13 Seekers of Darkness takes around 1/4 of the game's lengh - firstly you'll need to fight a ''huge'' [[BigBadassBattleSequence amount of Unversed, Nobodies and Heartless combined]], the Demon Tide, a giant tornado full of Heartless, and only after that you can begin your long boss rush against first 12 members of the Organization. ''That's not all''. Only after only one Xehanort remains, there's two-part boss battle before you can face the old man himself - firstly you'll need to take down 12 replicas (luckily [[AntiFrustrationFeatures with only one HP bar]]), defeat Xehanort in his armor, and after that you come face to face with the old master.
* The new Kirby games are notorious for their insanely long MarathonBoss finales.
** ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'' ends with a fight with Landia, a shoot-em-up section, a fight with the Lor Starcutter, and a fight with Magolor. In case that's not enough, the fight with Magolor is split into two distinct phases, the former of which ends with a section that uses Kirby's super abilities.
** ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'' has a two-phase fight with Masked Dedede, a fight with Queen Sectonia, a cannon-firing segment, another fight with Queen Sectonia, and a Hypernova Kirby finale.
** ''VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot'' has a fight with Mecha Knight, a fight with President Haltmann, and a three-phase final boss against Star Dream. The True Arena version is even worse as Star Dream has an additional fourth phase.
** ''VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies'' is the worst, though. It has a fight with Zan Partizanne, a two-phase fight with Hyness, and a ''four-phase'' fight with Void Termina. And that's not even the end, after beating Void Termina, you have to go through a button-mashing segment to truly defeat him.
* The sequel to the otherwise famously excellent GameMod ''Brotherhood of Shadow'' for ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', ''Solomon's Revenge'' has this. What appears to be a fairly straightforward final battle in a climactic location ends up in an extremely long scene littered with flashbacks, self-findings, and whatnot, and most importantly, neither the heroes nor the villains JUST.STAY.DEAD.EVER. Whenever it seems like one side has finally been dealt a lethal blow, they still somehow manage to get up again and everything begins once more. This actually culminates in a scene where the player character has to beat down the Brotherhood around a dozen consecutive times under exactly the same conditions in different environments until they ''finally'' give up.
* At around the three-fourths mark in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', the game sends Link on a fetchquest to recover part of the Triforce, which requires the player to find the 8 charts showing their locations, have enough cash to get all of them deciphered, and then sail to where they're at and haul them up with their boat's grapple arm. All this really amounts to is stretching out the running time when the story is clearly wrapping itself up. The HD rerelease [[AuthorsSavingThrow addressed this]] by introducing the much more efficient Swift Sail and reducing the fetching needed by replacing most of the charts with the Triforce pieces themselves.
* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' became a bit too long in the tooth at the end. The developers actually seem to be aware of this, as April (the protagonist) is around midway outright given a PlotCoupon, instead of having to do the usual fulfilling of ancient prophecy ballyhoo (April {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this).
* ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'': Volume I of the Epic story has a short Epilogue, tying up some loose ends left after the climax of the story. Volume II that followed it, however, has as many as ''twelve'' different Epilogues, enough to form another Book or even two.
* ''Super VideoGame/MeatBoy'' has five full chapters and a short finale chapter consisting of five levels and a boss. The end? [[spoiler:EscapeSequence time! Your reward? A SmashToBlack as a block is about to land on Meat Boy.]] The end? [[spoiler:Brownie to the rescue! Now it's just Meat Boy and Bandage Girl watching the FloatingContinent blow up.]] The end? [[spoiler:Dr. Fetus attacks Bandage Girl!]] And it actually ends right there unless you beat the Dark World version of the boss level, in which case [[spoiler:Bandage Girl turns out to be unfazed by Dr. Fetus's punches, and stomps on him]].
** ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'', by the same developer, has a DiscOneFinalBoss which, when you defeat it, unlocks two more floors. Defeating the new final boss nine times unlocks an alternate version of that boss, as well as ''another'' floor with a ''new'' final boss. And if you have the ''Wrath of the Lamb'' DLC, you also unlock an alternate choice of floor with its own boss. Beating that floor [[spoiler:six times, acquiring a trinket unlocked by doing so, and beating the alternate final boss with it]] unlocks ''yet another'' floor, which contains the (currently) Really Final Boss and a MindScrewdriver ending.
*** And then there's the UpdatedRerelease ''The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth'', which has more playable characters and yet ''more final bosses!'' And it kept escalating with every DLC, too. Reaching the true, actual, final, closure-bearing ending of the story needs hundreds and ''hundreds'' of runs all on its own, and that's not counting challenges done just to unlock things to help.
* ''Franchise/MegaMan'':
** Metal Man's stage in the ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' ROM Hack Rockman 2 GX has multiple doors that make it look like you're about to fight him in the next room, only for the stage to continue.
** ''VideoGame/Rockman4MinusInfinity'': Wily 3 is an [[MarathonLevel insanely long]] [[TheMaze maze level]], the Wily Machine has ''far'' [[DamageSpongeBoss too many health meters]], Wily 4 has ''three'' more bosses, then the BulletHell [[ThatOneBoss Wily Capsule]], and ''then'' an annoying stretch of level, and then ''finally'' you fight the final boss. [[spoiler:''[[SelfDestructMechanism AND THEN THERE'S A SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE.]]'']] The credits are long too!
** ''VideoGame/MakeAGoodMegaManLevelContest 2'''s final stage consists of, in order: a brief intro sequence; a lengthy cutscene; another [[MarathonLevel insanely long maze]] in the vein of ''Rockman 4 Minus Infinity'' with five boss fights scattered throughout; a long battle against a Wily Machine that spends most of its second phase out of your attack range; the FinalBoss fight, bookended by lengthy cutscenes; a PostFinalBoss; one last cutscene; and finally the credits roll. That's eight boss fights and four cutscenes in one stage! [[spoiler:''Then'' the postgame opens up: 12 new stages (including several infamous {{That One Level}}s) with 14 energy elements and 37 [[CollectionSidequest Noble Nickels]] between them, a huge [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon really-final-we-mean-it-this-time stage]] with ''24'' good-sized areas to clear (though thankfully you're only required to do six unless you're going for HundredPercentCompletion) along with three more Noble Nickels and a four-phase BonusBoss. And '''''then''''' it ends for real--unless you want 100% on your save file.]] Whew!
** Every ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' game has lots of awesome postgame content -- and every time, you can't get to the end of it without filling your [=BattleChip=] library. The final boss and the bonus boss are always separated by a wall of ''many'' hours of grinding for rare drops. [=BN4=] comes close to being the worst by requiring extra playthroughs if you're careless enough to miss a Mystery Data on any of your first three runs. But [=BN3=] is the champion: it pulls a Pokemon and requires Navi chips from the ''opposite version'' (which are treated as non-required Secret Chips in all the other games). If you don't have access to it, you're not fighting the Omega Navis unless the [=BugFrag=] Trader listens to your prayers.
** While not quite as prolonged as ''Rockman 4 Minus Infinity'''s ending, the Wily Fortress in ''VideoGame/Rockman7EP'' starts to drag on towards the end. The final Wily stage (which is [[spoiler:the new fifth stage rather than the fourth]]) takes over twenty minutes even for a fast player, owing to its four lengthy MultiMookMelee rooms, rematches with all eight mid-bosses, and one more level segment and a MarathonBoss afterwards.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has Skull Face being killed and Metal Gear Sahelanthropus destroyed in Mission 31. However, there's 50 missions total so the game drags on for another 19 missions to wrap up minor sideplots and introduce MORE sideplots that never get resolved. Also, half of those 19 missions are actually just rehashes of some of the first 31 mission with increased difficulty. And the icing on the cake was that there was supposed to be a massive 51st mission that was supposed to wrap up all of the still unresolved plot points, but it was ultimately cut from the game.
* ''[[VideoGame/MetalSlug Metal Slug 3]]'', the final mission. First you go through a long, hard dogfight with Morden's forces, then you fight Morden himself... But it turns out to be a Martian. The Mars People then abduct the character you're using, forcing another character to go after them, you storm the mothership, you battle the Mars People from inside, rescuing Morden and your captured comrade in the process... Then comes a FreeFallFight with the leader of the Mars People, Rootmars. On a good run, the game takes 45-50 minutes to complete, with the final mission taking about half an hour out of that time. Yes, that's right, ''you spend over half of your play time on the final mission.''
* The renowned hack ''[[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Super Metroid Redesign]]'' has the same plot and bosses as the original game, but stretched out much, much longer. How much longer? The final escape countdown starts at '''25 minutes'''.
* ''VideoGame/MightyNumber9'' achieves the bizarre feat of having this trope ''and'' a too-''short'' ending. The actual ending is three pictures and TheStinger, but between those is a ''three-hour, fifty-eight-minute credits sequence'', literally the single longest credits sequence in ''any'' form of media ever.
* ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' is a strange example, as the game literally says that you got ending A when you beat the game while playing as 2B. This unlocks route B, which consists of playing through mostly the same game as 9S (with some differences, as you see what happened with 9S when he was separated from 2B). This ends in the same way as the first ending, giving you ending B... and unlocking the ''second half of the game'', route C+D, which is entirely new content. Each of the endings marks a PointOfNoReturn, but you can go back after you get ending C or D (whichever you choose) and replay earlier content in the game, including sidequests which otherwise would have been [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]]. [[spoiler: Though if you complete ending E, and choose to sacrifice your save data to help other players, you really will lose all your save data and have to start the game over from scratch.]]
* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'': The Book of Armageddon, if you're going for the best ending. You need to see every scene possible, even the ones where you pit the wrong character against certain bosses. This requires a ''minimum'' of four playthroughs, although thankfully you can cut the second and third short in the remake after beating the third boss without missing anything if you don't make any redundant character choices.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' is divided into 6 day segments. Day 5 is easily the longest in the whole game where you slog through the [[FinalDungeon American Museum of Natural History]] whose duration in time spent in there is almost as long as the trek through [[MarathonLevel Central Park]] earlier in the game. The museum has four floors with a lot of backtracking required once you have the proper keys to open doors. A lengthy cut scene with the TheDragon ensues, followed by a mini-boss fight, an actual boss fight, a trek to the top floor to confront the BigBad, a ''really'' lengthy cut scene showing the protagonist and the military teaming up to reach the villain, and then a two-stage boss battle with the main bad girl herself. But wait, now you have to progress through day 6 before completing the game! While the 6th day is thankfully short, it mostly consists of a cut scene, the FinalBoss fight that has ''five'' stages with a cut scene in between, followed by a chase sequence with the dying final boss going after you while you flee, rig the cruiser to explode, then escaping as the ending (which is reasonably short) plays out. Woe to you if you die during any of these segments and have to watch the cut scenes all over again!
* All Franchise/{{Pokemon}} games in general suffer from this after completing the league. You're left with simply grinding up your Pokémon to level 100 and entering those Pokémon in high level PlayerVersusPlayer battles with other players. Later games at least ''try'' to rectify this with closed off Routes you can only explore after completing the league and the introduction of the Battle Frontier for those that have done some INSANE grinding.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon Generation I]], didn't affect people as much due to being the first of the franchise, but the endgame grind after the league is still pretty fatiguing. Especially since there was a lot less move diversity in the first generation. The Gen III remakes did add plenty more content after the main story though by adding a group of islands with a sizable plot. They also added the ability to rematch the Elite Four and champion, but a lot of grinding will be needed especially by the time you get to the fourth and final rematch.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon Generation II]]. Sadly, the remake of Kanto after completing the league falls victim to this if you're not butted by the nostalgia factor in seeing an updated Kanto from Generation I. The main flaw here was that the Kanto remake felt incomplete due to the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor cartridge format lacking the room to portray Kanto as it was in Gen. I; this caused many points of interest such as the Safari Zone, Pewter City Museum, etc. to be closed off to save room on the cartridge. In addition, there was nothing close to a plot in the entire region other than a side-story regarding a last-remaining Rocket member sabotaging the Power Plant. The Generation IV remake mostly rectified this other than there still being no major plot after completing the league.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Pokémon Generation III]]. The humongous water routes after setting off from Lilycove City, spanning as much as the last two Badges and the League fatigued A LOT of people. The water routes in ''Emerald'', even with the increased surf speed, can still be considered fatiguing, but the good news is that the well-liked endgame Battle Frontier was introduced here. Finally giving another reason outside PlayerVersusPlayer battles to grind up your Pokémon. Just a shame it takes FOREVER to grind levels in this generation.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Generation IV]]. The battle against [[BigBad Cy]][[TheEvilsOfFreeWill rus]] and Team Galactic is extremely interesting, at least for a main series Pokémon plot. But once you've defeated him and captured [[OlympusMons Palkia, Dialga, or Giratina]], you've still got another Badge and the Elite Four to go before you see the credits roll. Did we mention that Cynthia may be a rare occasion where the FinalBoss qualifies for ThatOneBoss? Even with your godlike friend from the Spear Pillar (or [[EldritchLocation the Distortion World]]), you're gonna have to grind big time.
*** The Heatran island mission after clearing the league isn't any better. Just a bunch of high-level trainers, some new Pokémon to catch, and having no plotline. ''Platinum'' tries to make it more plot-relevant with a return of what's left of Team Galactic, but still comes off pretty weak.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Pokémon Generation V]], in ''Black'' and ''White'', had this AFTER clearing the [[spoiler:Plasma-controlled Pokémon league]]. Not only is there no relevant plot to follow in the now accessible Eastern portion of Unova, but the trainers rise to being 10 to 15 levels higher than what your Pokémon would be currently at after beating the league if you didn't grind a considerable amount beforehand. Not only that, but if you want to fight the league again [[spoiler: and beat the champion, like you probably originally intended to do before having to deal with N]] you have to grind up to the mid-70s because they all gained 23 levels and 2 new Pokemon since the last time. Luckily, grinding was made a bit less annoying in these games.
** [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite2 The sequels]] to the Gen V games returned to the Gen IV style plot progression after the major twist of the previous games. After dispatching with Team Plasma for the final time, you still have the Elite Four and Champion before the credits roll. Once again afterwards there is no more plot to speak of as you explore the rest of Unova, including the Southeastern part which held the first quarter of the story from the first games. Like the previous games trainers in these areas have Pokémon ten levels higher or so than you would be by that point in the game requiring more grinding. Fortunately the games also introduced the Pokémon World Tournament which allows for trainers to be battled [[NostalgiaLevel from previous games in the series]]
** [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Pokémon Generation VI]] was infamous for this when it came out (and indeed prompted some FanDumb segments to declare it the worst game in the series before they had even played it). Notably, there are no post-game areas besides Kiloude City, and the Unknown Dungeon (which is a single room with Mewtwo in it). That means that there are no more Pokémon to catch outside of the Friend Safari. Unlike the past two generations, there are only four legendaries to catch, counting the one that you catch during the main campaign, and two of them are from previous games. The Looker subplot was praised by some, however, for being better written than the main plot, even if it didn't offer much in terms of gameplay. Meanwhile, the Delta episode from ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire]]'' received considerable criticism for its reliance on backtracking and its short length, with the only real highlights being Mega Rayquaza and the final battle against [[spoiler:Deoxys]].
** [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Generation VII]] have a very different plot from previous games in the series, with the Gym Challenge replaced by the Island Challenge and a very major turn of plot taking center stage midway through with the Island Challenge as an afterthought. Both the Island Challenge and major plot point wrap up right before the Pokémon League, but after the credits roll, once again there is no more major plot to speak of. The player can join Looker in a sidequest to catch six ultra-dimensional Pokémon but every leg of the sidequest runs the same. You talk to Looker at one of the hotels, go to the area where it might be, and engage it in battle. Besides that, there is only one new area, the Battle Tree. It does allow the player to fight Red and Blue among other tournaments, but you'll need a lot of grinding to be able to face them easily.
** Another entry in the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series, ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity Gates to Infinity]]'', is chock full of them, particularly at the very end of the game, which, after beating [[spoiler:the Bittercold]], the final cutscene before the credits is ''over a half-hour long''. Doesn't help that there are two rather lengthy ones in between the two parts of battling [[spoiler:the Bittercold]], either.
* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' has [[spoiler:two epilogue chapters from John Marston's perspective after Arthur Morgan dies, containing perhaps 10 to 15 ''hours'' of more story content, longer than the entire story of many games. The epilogue covers John's attempts to lead a peaceful life and build the ranch at Beecher's Hope after an eight-year TimeSkip, but -- while it does have some touching moments between John, his family, and several surviving gang members -- it doesn't have the kind of drama of the game's six main chapters. The early epilogue missions in particular can be extremely frustrating because of how slow and uneventful they are. Arthur's story ends with a great deal of action and emotion, and almost immediately afterward, the player is essentially required to sit quietly and complete errands that feel far more like a tutorial than something you need to do 80% of the way through a game. Even when John has to fight, it's only against generic thugs, gangs, and bounty hunters until the final mission, when the player finally gets to kill [[HateSink Micah Bell]]]].
* Just a simple game of ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'' can end up having this once the players have researched all of the endgame upgrades. These upgrades allow the player to instantly create units, quickly accumulate resources, instantly take over cities and be immune to nukes and missile attacks. This results in a tedious endgame, in which the surviving players throw endless hordes of units at each other, in which the winner is usually the player who can persevere against the tediousness of it all.
* ''VideoGame/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' games tend to fall into this in the end game, much like civilization, since most of the fun comes from negotiating and dealing with the other factions. Thankfully, some games allow you to let the AI finish the game.
* Ryo's journey to Kowloon in ''VideoGame/ShenmueII'' ends with a lengthy, spectacular climactic fight through the Yellow Head gang's headquarters that culminates in an awesome rooftop duel against leader Dou Niu, all while the BigBad watches from a helicopter. We then get a denouement where Ryo learns that he must travel to Guilin, and he departs for the next chapter of his adventure. So far, so good, but then we find out that wasn't the real ending; it actually makes up ''the entirety of disc 4''.
* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}''
** ''VideoGame/Persona3'', which alternates between a DatingSim and a DungeonCrawler, takes place over the course of one year in-game, but come November you suddenly run out of things to do apart from your few remaining social links and have no real pressure to hurry up in Tartarus anymore. Two solid months go by without real plot development.
** The PlayableEpilogue "The Answer" is pretty bad too. The end is five boss fights in a row (thankfully you can save in between them) and long cutscenes.
** Notably averted in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', which fixes this by skipping several months in story time. Although they justify the time skip well enough, the remake ''Persona 4: Golden'' actually gives you most of this time back, and a few extra nifty things to do. Also unique in how each Ending (three or four depending on the version) extends the game, meaning that the ending is only as long as how far the player wishes to ‘pursue the truth’.
** This trope comes back again in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. After the BigBad is defeated, the rest of your days are spent on final exams and finishing up any last bit of Confidants you have left. That's not too bad, but the fatigue really starts to kick in a few days after that as you go through the DiscOneFinalDungeon ''and'' TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon ''in a single day.'' That's right, you spend a single day having to do what amounts to two dungeons, without any breaks, which is especially jarring when the series' core gameplay consists of progressing through dungeons in small increments and taking breaks to pursue Social Links and otherwise improving your character. The second dungeon is essentially four minibosses in a row, which doesn't help. It's not too bad if [[spoiler: you've been consistently making trips to Mementos, which gives you immediate access to its deepest parts]], but it can be ''very'' draining.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'': After maintaining a brisk pace through the first two thirds, the game slows to a crawl once you beat Yaridovich and get the fifth Star Piece. The trek for the sixth star takes you through Land's End, Bean Valley, Nimbus Land, and then Barrel Volcano. All of these areas are rather long, have at least one boss in them (Nimbus Land has two, as well as skippable miniboss fights, and Barrel Volcano has three) and Nimbus Land also has a lot of cutscenes to sit through. But at last, you get the sixth star in the volcano. Then it's on to Bowser's Castle which is even longer than the previous areas and at one point forces you to fight your way through four of six random hallways, which variably pit you against difficult platformer segments, logic problems, or just a gauntlet of enemies. And when you finally get to the end of the castle, after beating the third of three bosses, guess what? ''There's still one more dungeon to go'', even longer than Bowser's Castle, with ''six'' bosses before you get to Smithy at last, and the stage is full of clones of Smithy's minions that are themselves minibosses. When Bowser steps out at the entrance to said dungeon and basically says "I'm done, I'm not going any further," the player is probably agreeing with him.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'': You finally face off against [[BigBad Princess Shroob]] in the climax...[[spoiler: But then the [[MacGuffin Cobalt Star]] is reconstructed, releasing Elder Princess Shroob. And just when you think you've won, she has [[OneWingedAngel a second form]] that takes even LONGER to beat. And ''then'' she possesses Bowser. Luckily, the PostFinalBoss is easy and takes a shorter time to beat.]] It doesn't help that all the bosses have an ungodly amount of hit points in the US version.
* ''VideoGame/TalesSeries''
** In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', [[spoiler: the BigBad seemingly dies, but many parts of the storyline have yet to be resolved. Suddenly, the BigBad returns and the world is thrown into an even ''more'' dire situation than the one it was just saved from, and the heroes head to the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon for one last throw down with the final boss]]. It's actually much grander than it sounds.
** ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' features a similar situation to ''Symphonia'', but it also adds in a lot of {{padding}} and dealing with minor side villains before the central conflict can be resolved. It's still an interesting example because this trope is felt and expressed by the party members, [[TheHero Luke]] in particular. Already gloomy from [[spoiler: his unresolved issues as a [[CloningBlues Replica]]]], he gets more and more depressed as everything the party worked so hard to accomplish falls apart.
** ''[[VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia Legendia]]'' is the worst offender of this trope in the Tales series. You enter the Big Bad's fortress, defeat all of his major subordinates, defeat the BigBad himself, and finally [[spoiler:main character gets closure on his childhood love interest, complete with a nice cutscene]]. But then YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle and the game goes on. Later, you enter TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, fight the Final Boss, [[spoiler:save the damsel in distress for the umpteenth time]], the credits roll... and then the second half of the game starts.
*** And the second half has its own share of Ending Fatigue. While it does resolve the plot threads and character arcs for the whole party, you retread the same dungeons you cleared in the first half of the game to do this rather than go to any new locations, with [[UndergroundMonkey recolors of the same enemies you've already defeated as random encounters]]. This all adds up to a 10-15 hour slog of nothing new or interesting to see besides maybe the conclusions of each character's story. It doesn't help that this arc has no spoken dialogue at all (compared with the first half of the story, where almost every cutscene was voice-acted), making it feel like even more of a drag. This lasts until [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Absolutely-Definitely-No-Take-Backs-We-Really-Mean-It-This-Time Final Dungeon]], which is little more than a BossRush with the TrueFinalBoss waiting at the end.
* ''[[VideoGame/TrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel 2]]'' is guilty of this. Once you beat [[ClimaxBoss Vermilion Apocalypse]], you'd expect the game to end (and rightfully so, as the ending plays after a very lenghty cutscene), but nope! You have to play another (but short) chapter featuring two of the main protagonists of the Crossbell duology. Then you beat that and ''the epilogue begins'', where Rean and the rest of Class VII, as well as the rest of the students, spends their last days together before graduating. And then it's over, right? '''Nope!''' You still have one last Free Day with two mandatory sidequests and three optional ones. Then you finish those and the game ends, right? '''''There's more!''''' Once you finish and report everything, '''''the real final dungeon''''' of the game becomes available, where the TrueFinalBoss, [[spoiler:a reskinned version of Loa Erebonius from the first game]] resides. Beating that will ''finally'' allow the player to see the ending.
* ''VideoGame/UltimaVIIPartII''. After visiting the entire map with numerous roundabouts and mandatory sidequests, you finally face down with Batlin, the BigBad whom you were chasing and why you were on Serpent Isle in the first place. Turns out this is about the half-way point in the game.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs|1}}'' was notorious for feeling like it was going to end at many points throughout the game.
** ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' fares better, but the end sequence itself feels longer than the entire game.
* For all of it's high quality, not even ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'' is immune to this. After finally rescuing Ciri, and the epic showdown at Kaer Morhn, the game looks to be reaching its climax very soon after. Instead, there's still ''10+ hours'' of story left to go, which brings the momentum from said fight to a screeching halt. Now you have to go back over previously cleared areas of the world with Ciri at your side. With no new parts of the world left to explore, it can make the final few missions feel like they drag on and on, though seeing several key side characters and plot points get resolved does help alleviate this somewhat. Notably, even CD Projekt Red seems to agree that the game went on a bit longer than it needed to, and have stated that the upcoming ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-09-20-cyberpunk-2077-will-be-slightly-shorter-than-the-witcher-3-because-players-complained-the-witcher-3s-was-too-long will be shorter than Witcher 3, perhaps to avoid this trope popping up again.]]
* In ''VideoGame/XMen2CloneWars'', the final level is the Phalanx Mothership and it is almost as long as the entire rest of the game combined. Multiple stage segments, two big boss battles (Cameron Hodge and the Brood Queen), and then the final battle is a rather anticlimactic fight with clones of each of the playable X-Men (Magneto optional). One at a time. And this on a game that [[BladderOfSteel lacks a save function or level select cheat]].
* ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion''. The game ''should'' have ended after [[spoiler:Gulcasa died and the dragon threat thing was over]], but the game goes some chapters after just to explain what was Nessiah's purpose all along. While Nessiah is a cool character and a good enemy, that still doesn't change the whole "The game is over... NOT!" effect it makes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/VelvetGoldmine'', 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".
* ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'' has six or seven endings in quick succession, as if Creator/DavidFincher couldn't decide on what closing shot would be coolest.
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing''. 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 DoorStopper book that was DividedForPublication[[/note]].
** 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 DistantFinale epilogues for the entire cast, which were better paced in the novel (but a book can do things a film can't).
* ''Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain'' 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.
* ''Film/DestroyAllMonsters'' 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.
* Several of Creator/RobertZemeckis's films:
** ''Film/CastAway'' first climaxes when Tom Hanks' character 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 ''[[ProductPlacement FedEX]] [[UnstoppableMailman will deliver your package anywhere in the world. No matter how long it takes]]''.
** ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', 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 day. Marty is reunited with Jennifer. Is it the end? Doc ''returns'' to bring Marty along on another adventure. ''Then'' it ends.
** ''Film/ForrestGump'' 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 [[spoiler:their wedding and her eventual death via AIDS]]. 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.)
* In the ''Film/JamesBond'' reboot film ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'', 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 [[spoiler:retires and ultimately faces the tragedy that makes him]] the ruthless lothario we all know.
* The 1967 version of ''[[Film/CasinoRoyale1967 Casino Royale]]'' has this; it arguably starts when [[spoiler: 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 BigBad. The resultant climax degenerates into a gigantic free-for-all fight in the casino [[spoiler: with a Kill Em All ending]] played for LAUGHS, followed by a [[spoiler: 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.
* ''Film/TheStrangers'' reaches the perfect ending (It will be easier next time) and adds a boring and unnecessary sequence just to show us that, [[AssPull despite the impossibility of it]], [[spoiler: Kristen]] is NotQuiteDead.
* ''Film/TheDeparted''. Even after [[spoiler:Frank Costello dies]], the viewer has to sit through a good half hour of tying up loose ends.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** One of the (many) criticisms of ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' 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 ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' and ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith.''
** Unfortunately, the ''climax'' of ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' tends to go on and ''on''. First Anakin and Padme; 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.
** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] with ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''; Creator/GeorgeLucas notes in the DVDCommentary 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.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' invokes this in an interesting way. At the climax, [[spoiler: 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 ''Film/ANewHope''. All to drive home that Jyn and Cassian and the others ''weren't'' the heroes; they were just the [[RedShirt 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.]]
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'': There are ''four'' climatic fights stuffed between the second and third act of the movie. [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler:Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker]]. To say the least, it goes on and on, and it's ''a lot'' to take in.
* The one complaint about ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' 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. [[spoiler: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.
* All other complaints aside, perhaps the biggest failing of ''Film/{{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 TwistEnding. The biggest problem with the [[ExecutiveMeddling Love Conquers All]] version is that it kept most of those endlessly rising endings and then cut the punchline/climax.
* The hospital dream sequence in ''Film/AllThatJazz'' 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 [[spoiler:choosing to die]].
* The main plot in ''Theatre/MammaMia'' 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 [[HookedUpAfterwards 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.
* Other film musicals that suffered this:
** The Floor Show in ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' 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 AudienceParticipation exchange references this fact:
--->'''Dr. Frank 'n' Furter:''' Whatever happened...
--->'''Audience:''' To the ''plot?''
** In ''Film/TheWiz'', 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 [[Theatre/TheWiz the original play]], this stretch of the story included ''six'' songs.[[/note]]
** ''Film/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' defeats the villains during "Come Together" and then wastes four songs (two performed in one medley) as the town and Billy Shears deal with [[spoiler: Strawberry Fields']] demise... which becomes a DisneyDeath after all that, making all the moping pointless.
** ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' has three of these: once [[DownerEnding 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.
** The plot of ''Theatre/HelloDolly'' 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 ending of ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' upsets some audiences for [[BreakingTheFourthWall 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.
* The biofilm ''{{Film/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.
* By Creator/StevenSpielberg:
** ''Film/{{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 [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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.
** ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' 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.
** ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'' takes this trope as far as it can be taken. Finding the eponymous James Ryan is only the end of the second act, and there's a full battle scene to prepare for. After [[spoiler:TheCavalry [[GunshipRescue arrives]]]], it tries to wrap everything as quick as possible.
** ''[[Film/AIArtificialIntelligence 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 Ending}}s of their own, but then the film cuts to a DistantFinale long after humanity has gone extinct, and some Sufficiently Advanced Robots turn the film into a real TearJerker.[[note]]Perhaps this reflects the difficulty Kubrick and his various co-writers had coming up with an ending they liked[[/note]].
** ''Film/CatchMeIfYouCan'' tries to end three or four times, but Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio ''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!
** ''{{Film/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.
** ''Literature/WarHorse'' makes the viewer think there's an additional action scene going to take place after its climax, then drags out its denouement.
** ''{{Film/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, [[spoiler:or rather, psyching out the audience by depicting a ''simultaneous'' play,]] to Lincoln's deathbed, then to him giving his second inaugural address.
* The last third of ''Film/{{Casino}}'' seems to involve a lot of padding.
* Plenty of {{slasher movie}}s do this by having the second half of the movie consist almost entirely of the killer chasing the FinalGirl around, with no plot twists or anything to shake things up.
* [[Creator/MarxBrothers Chico Marx's]] piano performance in ''Theatre/AnimalCrackers'' was an in-film example.
-->'''Chico:''' I can't think of the finish.
-->'''Groucho:''' I can't think of anything else!
** For context, Chico is playing Sugartime and...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 think I went past it.
-->'''Groucho:'''Well, when you come around again, jump off!
* ''Film/{{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 [[ItMakesSenseInContext until the kangaroo disappears.]]
* ''Film/{{Australia}}'', which had an intermediate climax good enough for one movie on its own. It starts all over again halfway through.
* A major criticism of ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' is that the final battle dragged on far too long. For [[Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen the sequel]] it's more that the final ''battle'' was actually ''[[CurbstompBattle too short]]'', while the whole sequence of [[spoiler:running-to-bring-Optimus-back-to-life]] was too long.
* In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', 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 HeroicSacrifice 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...
* Japanese Film ''Film/TheGreatYokaiWar'' 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. With so little happening in what had been a pretty spontaneous movie up until then, all the audience has to think about are the resulting UnfortunateImplications.
* ''Film/BattleRoyale 2'' does this at least three or four times.
* For being an 87-minute film, ''Film/FreddyGotFingered'' 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 "Is this fucking movie over yet?".
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'' ends and then promptly moves onto a previously unmentioned plot point, several times. (The film clearly was intended as a FiveEpisodePilot -- it aired on television in that format later -- not a theatrical film.)
* ''Film/SantaAndTheIceCreamBunny'' 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.
* A common complaint of ''Film/TheAssassinationOfJesseJamesByTheCowardRobertFord'' is that the title event happens, and then the movie goes on for another hour. This is largely due to BillingDisplacement 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.
* ''Film/BadBoysII'' 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 [[spoiler:get blown up by a mine]] rather than just getting arrested.
* There are at least three points in ''Film/TheBox'' 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.
* ''Film/TheNightOfTheHunter'', 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).
* ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' 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. [[spoiler:Instead, we cut to after their confrontation, in which they apparently just chatted and parted on good terms. The film ends quickly afterwards.]]
* ''Film/TheGuardian'' goes through about three perfectly acceptable endings after the final action scene.
* ''Film/{{Excalibur}}''. As Creator/WilliamGoldman said, you're just unnerved when you should be shocked because [[spoiler:King Arthur '''dies''']].
* ''Film/{{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 LeftHanging endings.
* ''Film/DinnerForSchmucks''. 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.
* ''Film/TheRing'' ''appears'' to suffer from this. The whole curse thing is resolved and we get a few scenes of the characters returning to their... [[OhCrap hey, what's with Noah's TV?]] Ultimately subverted in that this fake-out ending is probably the best-remembered thing about the film.
* ''Film/TheLastAirbender'': Since Aang's goal is taking Katara and Sokka to the North Pole, you'd think the movie will end after they do that. It is actually the beginning of the third act. This is the result a clumsy attempt in figuring out how to fit a 460 minutes worth of material into a 103 minutes 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 [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the show]], where the events at the North Pole only span three out of twenty episodes, or 15% of the entire season.
* ''Film/{{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.
* ''Film/TheBeastmaster'': 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.
* {{UsefulNotes/Nollywood}} movies often have this, because they are usually very long -- so long that they come on two [=DVDs=].
* The film version of the Creator/TylerPerry 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.
* ''Film/{{Scream 4}}'' lampshades this, by the ''killer'' no less:
--> [[spoiler: '''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.]]
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
** ''Film/TheWildWorldOfBatwoman''. 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).
** ''Film/{{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 CosmicDeadline 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?
%% ** ''Film/TimeOfTheApes''.
* In ''Film/TheGreatEscape'', 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. [[spoiler: And most of the escapees don't make it that far.]]
* ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy 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. Funny 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.
* ''Film/MenInBlackII'': 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.
* ''Film/TheHelp'' 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.
* ''Film/{{Savages}}'' has what seems to be a big climactic finale that would end the story...oh wait it was just an ImagineSpot by the narrator. Now HERE'S the real ending!
* ''Film/AirForceOne''. 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.
* Deliberately invoked in ''Film/HotFuzz''. After a long climactic battle where it seems all the villains have been dealt with, BigBad [[spoiler:Frank Butterman]] escapes and takes Danny hostage. Nicholas is just as exasperated by this as the audience, and shouts "Pack it in, [[spoiler: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.
* The UsefulNotes/{{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.
* ''Film/ReeferMadnessTheMusical'' ''could'' have ended with [[spoiler:Mary's death.]] It ''could'' have ended with [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler:aforementioned group number when Jimmy gets pardoned]].
* Inverted with ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. The movie ends ''before'' the climax!
* In the 1942 ''Film/JungleBook'', the film continues even after [[spoiler: Mowgli kills [[BigBad Shere Khan]] in their FinalBattle]], which is how [[Literature/TheJungleBook the original book]] ended, with three villagers pursuing a treasure that they kill each other over until the survivor [[spoiler: 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 [[Film/TheJungleBook1994 1994 film]] even deliberately averts this by having the treasure plot resolved before Mowgli's final confrontation with Shere Khan.
%% * ''Film/TheLoneRanger'':
* ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'':
** ''Film/ManOfSteel'''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 Sup and the US military collaborate to destroy Zod's ship and the World Engine, except the troops can't destroy Zod's ship until Sup destroys the World Engine, which he can't yet because [[spoiler:the alien atmosphere is toxic to him]], and even afterward they have deal with [[spoiler:Jor-El's key not activating]] and Faora attacking them, and even after all that Zod still isn't dead...
** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' climaxes with [[spoiler: Superman's HeroicSacrifice]] and the denouement starts with a scene between Martha and Lois. Then we get a talk between Bruce and Diana, [[spoiler: an extended funeral montage]], another talk between Bruce and Diana, a sequence wrapping up Lex's fate, and [[spoiler: teasing that Superman is NotQuiteDead]] before the credits finally roll.
** One of the most common criticisms of ''Film/WonderWoman2017''. 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.
** ''Film/Shazam2019'' 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.
* ''Film/UpInTheAir'' 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...
* ''Film/JackieBrown'' 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.
* ''Film/DjangoUnchained'': 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 Creator/SamuelLJackson, 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.
* After the evil werewolves and government agents are dead, ''Film/HowlingIIITheMarsupials'' 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.
* ''Film/DoctorZhivago'' 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 [[spoiler: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 2005 ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' has this due to AdaptationExpansion, namely the DarkAndTroubledPast it gives Willy Wonka. Because of his [[MommyIssues Daddy Issues]], he [[spoiler: 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 [[Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory the 1971 film]]'s suspenseful and emotional climax.
* An amusing variation with the movie ''Film/{{Clue}}''. When the film was in theaters, moviegoers could see one of three different [[TheReveal 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 [[MrExposition 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!
* The [[Film/IntoTheWoods film version]] of ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'' 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.
* ''Film/AWalkAmongTheTombstones'' seems set to end with [[spoiler: 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 CruelMercy 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]].
* ''[[Film/{{Taken}} Taken 3]]''. First, there's the climactic StormingTheCastle final shootout on Oleg Malankov's hideout, which ends with Bryan defeating Malankov. Then, [[spoiler: Malankov reveals that he was merely TheDragon to [[BigBad 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 [[PistolWhipping pistol whips]] him]].
* In ''Film/RunAllNight'', [[spoiler: [[BigBad 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.
* ''Film/{{Speed}}'' goes on another half-hour after resolving the bus plot, leading to a prolonged chase scene/hostage standoff in a subway.
* In ''Film/{{Cooties}}'', The teachers get away from the school - the main plot point that had to be overcome. Then they get a JumpScare in the truck. Then they get to Danville. Then they get chased again. then they're cornered. Then TheCavalry comes. THEN the movie ends.
* ''Film/{{Spectre}}'' builds up the climax to be in Morocco. However, with half an hour left for the movie, the real FinalBattle occurs when Bond returns to London.
* ''Film/ExodusGodsAndKings'' 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.
* ''Film/AngryVideoGameNerdTheMovie'' 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.
* The film ''Film/TheThrone'' 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.
* ''Film/OutOfAfrica'' 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.
* Inverted during post-production of ''Film/TheTerminator''. The producer insisted that the film ends at the scene where the title character appears to have been killed in the oil-truck explosion. [[Creator/JamesCameron 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 climax of ''Film/XMenApocalypse'' has been seen as this by some viewers. 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.
* The ending of ''Film/TheTigerMakesOut''. It 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.
* ''Film/FunnyPeople''-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
* ''Film/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
* Lampshaded and defied in ''Film/KissKissBangBang'':
-->'''Harry''': Don't worry, I saw ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Lord of the Rings]]''. I'm not going to end this seventeen times.
* Averted ''twice'' by Creator/DavidCronenberg with both ''Film/TheDeadZone'' and ''Film/TheFly1986''. As originally shot, ''both'' movies ended with short, hopeful epilogues detailing [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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.
* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' spends roughly 30 minutes wrapping things up after the climactic final battle and [[spoiler: Tony Stark's funeral.]] Justified in that the film is the GrandFinale of the ''first three phases'' of the MCU, so there's a lot to wrap up.
* The 60's spy-spoof ''Film/DrGoldfootAndTheBikiniMachine'' climaxes with a DrivingADesk chase-scene around San Francisco that goes on ''way'' too long. It finally ends with [[spoiler: Goldfoot and his idiot henchman Igor appearing to die in a very emphatic fashion,]] but then [[spoiler: the heroes celebrate by going on a plane trip, only to learn the duo are somehow still alive.]]
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* After the heroes defeat the villain in ''WebAnimation/DusksDawn'', we are treated to… Donut walking through a corridor for an extended period of time talking to himself about how bored he is.