10 Best Movies of the 2020s With the Most Insane Endings (So Far)

Spoiler Warning: Multiple recent movie endings are described in detail below.

There are movie endings that are unexpected, and then there are movie endings that just swing for the fences with everything they’ve got. These endings utilize creativity, innovation, and/or epic twists to construct conclusions that are absolutely insane. The 2020s have seen a fair share of mind-bending movies already. Some endings are simple in their absurdity, while others might require multiple watches in order to be fully understood.

Horror is likely the first genre to come to mind when thinking about insane movie endings, but horror isn’t the only genre represented here. A movie doesn’t have to be violent to be wild, though sometimes that does help. What’s important is that the movie takes risks, and that’s exactly what these films from the 2020s have done.

10

‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ (2022)

Sometimes, a good plot twist is everything. It can make or break the end of a movie. The twist at the end of Bodies Bodies Bodies is simple, yet incredibly effective. In this A24 dark comedy, working-class Bee (Maria Bakalova) accompanies her girlfriend, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), to a friend’s mansion for a party they intend to throw while waiting out a hurricane. Halina Reijn (Babygirl) directs with a script by playwright Sarah DeLappe.

Casting Pete Davidson In This Role Made It All Come Together

When the host, David (played to perfection by Pete Davidson), is found dead, the friends all turn on each other — blaming one another for the murder. This leads to more deaths, most of which are murder-adjacent accidents. Bee and Sophie, no longer able to trust one another, fight over Sophie’s phone and accidentally pick up David’s phone in the scramble.

On David’s phone, they find a video that David filmed moments before his death. It turns out, David wasn’t murdered. He accidentally cut his own throat while trying to use a ceremonial sword to open a bottle of champagne — a trick the incredibly buff Greg (Lee Pace) had done earlier. There was never a murderer among them, just an insecure guy trying to show off.

9

‘Drive-Away Dolls’ (2024)

The end of Drive-Away Dolls isn’t that unconventional. After surviving a road trip in which they’d inadvertently stolen a valuable briefcase and discovered their love for one another along the way, friends-turned-lovers Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Jamie (Margaret Qualley) set off to get married. A happy ending, right? Absolutely! So what’s so insane about this story? That briefcase they found was filled with custom-made dildos cast from the penises of very powerful men who would do anything to keep the public from knowing about their youthful escapades with Tiffany Plastercaster (appropriately named and played by Miley Cyrus).

The Real-Life Tiffany Plastercaster

With Ethan Coen (Hail, Caesar!) directing and a script by Coen and frequent collaborator Tricia Cooke, the expectation for this Focus Features crime comedy was that things would get weird. Ethan Coen’s movies are known for being weird. Even by these standards, the dildo reveal is absolutely wild. And the best part? Tiffany Plastercaster is based on a real person. Cynthia Dorothy Albritton (known as Tiffany Plastercaster) was a visual artist who rose to fame in the 1960s by casting the penises of famous rock stars in plaster. It’s said that she cast over 50 penises during her career. Oh, and the powerful politician who wants to get the case back from Marian and Jamie? He’s played by Matt Damon.

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8

‘Saltburn’ (2023)

Saltburn

2
/5

Release Date

November 17, 2023

Runtime

131 Minutes

Writer-director Emerald Fennell made it clear that her form of storytelling is unconventional with Promising Young Woman in 2020, but with Saltburn she does something different. The audience doesn’t really know Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) when he’s introduced as a scholarship student at the University of Oxford. It’s clear that he’s drawn to the wealth and taste of fellow student Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), but Oliver plays most things pretty close to the chest. At first, Oliver seems covetous of Felix, but it goes so much deeper than that. Oliver doesn’t want Felix to love him. He wants to be him.

All the Money in the World

Ultimately, Felix dies during a party at his ancestral home, Saltburn, and Felix’s sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver) dies by suicide shortly after his funeral. Years later, Oliver runs into Felix and Venetia’s mother, Lady Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), and they become close. So close, that she leaves Oliver everything in her will.

Except, there’s a catch: Felix’s death wasn’t an accident. Oliver poisoned him at that party. Oliver was also the one who gave Venetia razors after Felix’s death, encouraging her to use them. Oliver’s chance encounter with Elspeth? Planned. He made sure he’d run into her, gain her trust, and find his way into her will. The final scene of the film shows Oliver dancing naked around Saltburn to the Ellis-Bextor song “Murder on the Dancefloor.” He did it. He won. Some think Saltburn’s ending is controversial, others believe it’s darkly brilliant.

7

‘Malignant’ (2021)

Malignant

Release Date

September 10, 2021

Runtime

111 minutes

Viewers looking for a truly excessive horror flick need look no further than New Line Cinema’s Malignant, helmed by Saw director James Wan and M3GAN scribe Akela Cooper. This gory thrill-ride ratchets up the…well…everything. When Madison (Annabelle Wallis) starts having visions of disturbing murders, she is horrified to discover that her visions aren’t just nightmares. The people she sees are really dying.

A Parasitic Twist

Malignant is a wild ride without a twist ending, but that twist really seals the deal. Madison’s visions aren’t just visions. She sees these murders because she is present for them. It turns out that as a child, Madison had a half-formed parasitic twin brother, Gabriel, who lived in her back. Unable to remove Gabriel, doctors locked him away inside of Madison’s mind. Gabriel is the one who has been murdering people, appearing from the back of Madison’s head and using her body to kill anyone he deemed a threat to his bond with Madison.

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6

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (2022)

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a phenomenon — a film that breaks all the rules and creates a gorgeous cinematic experience in the process. Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert and distributed by A24, the film stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang. Evelyn is a Chinese immigrant running a laundromat in the United States and trying to keep her family afloat. One day, during a meeting with the IRS, a parallel universe version of Evelyn’s husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), jumps into his body and warns her that the multiverse is in danger.

Talking Rocks and a Beautiful Universe

The last thirty minutes of this film are incredible. Through “verse-jumping” that allows Evelyn to access the memories and skills of her parallel universe selves, she finds herself in an epic battle with Jobu Tupaki, a parallel universe version of her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Jobu has created a black-hole called the “Everything Bagel” and when Evelyn goes into it, a lot of things happen simultaneously. At one point, Evelyn and her daughter are literal rocks overlooking a canyon. It’s a unique and inventive sequence that manages to achieve a lot all at once, stretching the fabric of what viewers think they know and understand. For all its absurdist elements, though, Everything Everywhere All At Once is about family and love. There is so much beauty wrapped up in the chaos.

The Menu

Release Date

November 18, 2022

Runtime

106 minutes

Director

Mark Mylod

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Searchlight Pictures’ The Menu is cleverly written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy with expert direction by Mark Mylod (Game of Thrones). The premise is simple: Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) is joining Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) as his date at a high-end restaurant on an exclusive island. They are ferried, alongside their fellow diners, to the island, where Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) and his staff are preparing an unforgettable 10-course meal. Things start off smoothly, but tension quickly rises when it is discovered that Slowik has prepared a very special menu — one that won’t let any of them leave.

The Menu handles an absurd premise with care, crafting each scene as carefully as the kitchen does each dish. Perhaps it is no surprise then, that Margot manages to win her freedom through food. Having seen an old picture of Slowik as a fry cook in happier days, she demands he make her a cheeseburger. Slowik delights in this, relishing his work in the kitchen in a way that had seemed previously lost to him.

When Less Gore Makes It Even Weirder

The joy this brings the chef earns Margot her freedom, and as she escapes by boat, viewers are afforded a glimpse at the dessert menu: human s’mores. Contrary to how it might sound, The Menu is not a graphic film. There’s minimal blood or violence, which just makes the scene in which guests are adorned with marshmallow capes and chocolate hats shortly before the entire restaurant explodes even more surreal.

4

‘Poor Things’ (2023)

Poor Things

4
/5

Release Date

September 8, 2023

Runtime

141 Minutes

Director Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness) has a reputation for making unconventional films, and Poor Things is no exception. This Searchlight Pictures production is based on the novel by Alasdair Gray and adapted for the screen by Tony McNamara (The Favourite). In late-Victorian London, scientist Godwin Baxter (named after the father Frankenstein author Mary Shelley and played by Willem Dafoe) puts the mind of a fetus into the body of a dead woman, bringing a new person to life whom he calls Bella Baxter (Emma Stone).

Ending A Movie With the Brain of a Goat

The movie traces Bella’s journey as she learns and develops opinions of her own. Eventually, she finds out that her body belonged to a woman named Victoria Blessington. Victoria had an abusive husband named Alfie (Christopher Abbott) and she died by suicide trying to escape him. A lot of wild things happen in Poor Things, but the ending is particularly unexpected. Emma/Victoria escapes Alfie and returns to Godwin’s house. There, she replaces Alfie’s brain with that of a goat. Bella/Victoria is free to live out her life and Alfie gets to…be a goat.

3

‘Tenet’ (2020)

Tenet

Release Date

September 3, 2020

Runtime

150 minutes

Remember how mind-bending Christopher Nolan got when he made Inception and Interstellar? Well, Tenet is just as intricate. Released by Warner Bros. Pictures with a 150-minute runtime, Tenet is a science fiction thriller. A man known only as the “Protagonist” (John David Washington) joins a clandestine organization called Tenet, where he learns about objects that move backwards through time because of something called “inverted entropy.”

An Ending That Needs to Be Watched More Than Once

The Protagonist goes back in time, fights himself in the past, and works to stop the past from being entirely destroyed by a dying man who wants to invert the entropy of the world. The ending of Tenet is complicated and plenty of viewers have watched it multiple times to make sure they understand everything. In the final act, after all the action has taken place, it is revealed that the “Protagonist” is actually the founder of Tenet. He invents it in the future, which allows for the past version of him to stop the world from ending.

2

‘Titane’ (2021)

Titane

Release Date

October 1, 2021

Runtime

108 minutes

Titane is a Diaphana Distribution French body horror drama by writer and director Julia Ducournau, who made the thought-provoking cannibalism movie, Raw, in 2016. After surviving a car accident as a child, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) undergoes surgery and has a titanium plate fitted to her skull. As an adult, she is a serial killer who prefers to have sex with cars (and a fire engine).

A Visceral, Titanium Birth

Discovering that she is pregnant with a car’s baby, Alexia burns down her house and assumes the identity of a child who disappeared ten years earlier. She develops a bond with the missing boy’s father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon) who eventually realizes that Alexia is not his missing son. When Alexia dies giving birth to a baby that is part car, Vincent decides to care for the baby himself.

1

‘The Substance’ (2024)

The Substance

4.5
/5

Release Date

September 20, 2024

Runtime

140 Minutes

Director

Coralie Fargeat

Few horror movies in recent memory go quite as hard as Mubi’s body horror drama The Substance. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), this indie hit is about a former film star named Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) who injects herself with a serum that will make her body look younger. This procedure births Sue (Margaret Qualley), a young woman who comes out of Elisabeth’s own body. The two must take turns being conscious, with each taking care of the other’s unconscious body.

The Monstrous Side of Fame

Elisabeth and Sue eventually turn on each other. Sue tries to get rid of Elisabeth, and this results in Elisabeth’s body aging rapidly. Elisabeth tries to destroy Sue, but still craves Sue’s youth and fame. At the end, Sue kills Elisabeth, but this leaves her unable to stabilize. She tries to do the same procedure Elisabeth did to create her, but it results in an unrecognizable body that bears the faces of both women. What ensues is a chaotic bloodbath that ends with Elisabeth’s viscera smeared across her own Hollywood Walk of Fame star. The Substance went on to win an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling.