Dealing in speculative and futuristic concepts,sci-fihas been pushing the boundaries of reality ever since the genre first made its way to the silver screen. While this state of affairs allows for an array of remarkable stories that could never take place in the real world, it also means that the genre is capable of producing some of the most disturbing endings that cinema has to offer, bestowing a laundry list of hypothetical nightmarish fates upon many of its greatest characters in the film’s final act.
From confusing endingsthat leave viewers in a state of existential befuddlement toshocking final twiststhat blow the audience’s collective mind, there’s no set form to a terrifying sci-fi movie conclusion. The one common trait that these film endings all share is an innate ability to scare their viewers silly, depicting such a hellishly unenviable end to proceedings that the audience find themselves counting their lucky stars that they don’t inhabit the universe being depicted onscreen.
Knowing
Cast
Released in 2009, Knowing is a Science Fiction and Thriller starring Nicolas Cage. The story, from Ryne Douglas Pearson, sees humanity “knowing” when upcoming diasters and apocalyptic events will happen thanks to a strange piece of paper covered with numbers.
2009’sKnowingmay have only received middling reviews from critics, but the Nicolas Cage-led movie features what is arguably one of the most unsettling endings in sci-fi history. While a number of survivors escape on interstellar arks,the film’s ending sees the entire world destroyed by a cataclysmic solar flare.Cage’s protagonist is left with no recourse but to hug his remaining family, embracing in the final seconds before all life on Earth ends in a fiery instant.
What Nicolas Cage’s Knowing Movie Was Really About
The scale of ideas explored in Knowing’s storyline can be both exciting and baffling for viewers - especially regarding what its plot is really about.
Depicting entire cities crumbling beneath an apocalyptic wall of flame,the ending toKnowingis an awe-inspiring visual spectacle, shocking viewers into silence through the scale of the sheer destruction unfolding onscreen. It’s every child’s nightmare of all life on Earth suddenly ending given form on the silver screen, erasing humanity’s footprint from the universe in such an abrupt manner it was like they had never existed.
Ex Machina
Young computer programmer Caleb is selected to participate in a groundbreaking experiment by evaluating the human qualities in a new and improved female artificial intelligence. But in the luxurious, isolated mansion of the man who created this technology, all may not be as it seems.
Widely regarded as one of thefinest sci-fi movies of the 2010s, Alex Garland’sEx Machinareceived rave reviews from critics upon release in 2015. Chronicling a programmer’s attempts to perform the Turing test on a humanoid AI, the film ends with Alicia Vikander’s android turning the tables on her human captors. Garland gleefully lures his audience into a false sense of security by subtly humanizing Ava throughout the movie, shattering the viewer’s perception in devastating fashion by ultimately underlining her inhuman nature.
Best Visual Effects
Won
Ex Machina’sconclusion sees Ava trick Domhnall Gleeson’s Caleb into thinking she has romantic feelings for him, using his emotions to engineer her escape. After she repurposes parts from other androids to take on an appearance indistinguishable from a real human,Caleb is left trapped in the room originally used to confine the android,presumably left to starve to death as the vengeful AI escapes and makes herself at home in human society.
Alien: Covenant
Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott, follows the crew of the colony ship Covenant as they discover an uncharted planet. Initially seeming like a paradise, the planet soon reveals dark secrets. Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, and Billy Crudup lead the cast in this science fiction horror film, which serves as a direct sequel to Prometheus and continues to explore the origins of the Alien species.
The sequel to 2012’sPrometheus, 2017’sAlien: Covenantboasts what is contentiously theAlienfranchise’s most harrowing ending. After the film’s protagonists have made their escape from the android David’s planet of nightmares and resumed their journey to Origae-6, all appears to be well as the movie draws to a close, compounding the levels of sheer horror as Ridley Scott whips the rug out from under his audience.
Alien: Covenantboasts an IMDb rating of 6.4.
David is revealed to have replaced theCovenant’sandroid Walter, taking advantage of their identical appearances. Katherine Waterson’s Daniels realizes his deception too late, clocking on just as David places her and the remaining survivors in cryosleep. Things get even worse from there, asMichael Fassbender’s devious androidbarfs up two facehugger embryos, locking them in cold storage with the colonist’s counterparts to rubber stamp one of modern sci-fi’s most appalling endings.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 science fiction horror film depicting two Department of Health workers in San Francisco. As residents transform into emotionless replicas of themselves, the characters unravel a chilling extraterrestrial threat spreading across the city.
Playing host to a disturbing sci-fi conclusion for the ages, 1978’sInvasion of the Body Snatchersserves as the second cinematic adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel,The Body Snatchers.The sci-fi masterpiecerevolves around a group of aliens surreptitiously replacing humans with perfect biological copies, the only difference being that these clones are completely lacking in human emotion.
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The Invasion(2007)
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A preeminent case study in cultivating cinematic unease,Invasion of the Body Snatchers’central premise is already the stuff of bad dreams long before the film’s conclusion rolls around. Phillip Kaufman saves his hellish final twist for last, revealing that Donald Sutherland’s protagonist Matthew Bennell has also been replaced by the movie’s antagonistic invaders.Bennell’s abhorrent facial expression as he unleashes one of the aliens' trademark howls is legitimate nightmare fuel,a harrowing audiovisual spectacle compounded by the fact that he has just identified one of the few remaining humans for assimilation.
Us
Us is a horror film directed by Jordan Peele, depicting the unsettling vacation of the Wilson family, led by Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide and Winston Duke as Gabe. Their beach house retreat turns sinister when unexpected guests, identical in appearance to the family members, disrupt their peaceful getaway.
The second feature film outing from Jordan Peele, 2019’sUsblends sci-fi with fully fledged horror to produce an unforgettable cinematic experience. Peele’s sophomore effort is renowned for itsdisturbing twist ending, unmasking Lupita Nyong’o’s Adelaide Wilson as one of the movie’s"Tethered";the ghoulish doppelgängers who share a soul with their human counterparts but are forced to live out a subterranean shadow existence.
Peele ups the horror factor even further by implying that Evan Alex’s Jason has ultimately become aware of his mother’s deception…
A flashback reveals that the real Adelaide was subdued and trapped underground by her villainous alter-ego during a childhood encounter,with the"Tethered"version of Wilson gleefully assuming her place in the human world. Peele ups the horror factor even further by implying that Evan Alex’s Jason has ultimately become aware of his mother’s deception, compounding the terrifying aura of the movie’s ending by deliberately leaving this unsettling story thread ambiguous.
The Thing
A team of researchers set out to study an alien spacecraft found in Antarctica, where they also discover an alien body on the site. The alien buried in ice is actually alive and has the ability to imitate human form. The group must find a way to distinguish who the real person is from The Thing and stay alive. John Carpenter’s 1982 film is a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World and stars Kurt Russel as the hero RJ MacReady.
A seminal sci-fi entry from John Carpenter, 1982’sThe Thingdepicts a group of researchers' petrifying encounters with the iconic movie’s titular creature, an extra-terrestrial entity capable of assuming the physical form of its victims. Set against the backdrop of Antarctica,The Thingis notorious for its ambiguous ending, an indescribably eerie scene that takes the form of an uneasy truce between Kurt Russell’s MacReady and Keith David’s Childs.
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A long-forgotten series of comics from Dark Horse answered the biggest question from John Carpenter’s The Thing. However, should it have an answer?
The movie concludes withthe sole survivors sharing a bottle of whiskey as they slowly freeze to death, unsure as to which of them is really the Thing.Inviting speculation that has raged on to this day, Carpenter’s cryptic ending simultaneously elevates the movie’s quality while providing an appropriately harrowing conclusion to such a disturbing tale. The idea that the movie’s tormentor is sitting there bold as brass, waiting for its final victim to let their guard down, is too unsettling for words.
Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes follows astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) who awakes from suspended animation to find his ship crash-landing on a mysterious planet. He soon discovers that the planet is inhabited by talking apes, who have enslaved their native human population. As the only human with the capacity for speech, he resists the oppressive ape regime, all the while hoping that he can eventually find his way home.
Serving as the catalyst for the wildly successfulPlanet of the Apesmovie franchise, 1968’s original installment,Planet of the Apes, still retains its status as the series' finest offering, despite concluding in inimitably upsetting fashion. The movie leads its audience to believe that the titular planet could be located anywhere in the deepest recesses of space, hammering home the devastationwhen Franklin J. Schaffner reveals that the action has been taking place on Earth the whole time.
Crumbling landmarks are all that remains of a world where humans ruled supreme, their only home in the universe replaced with an unforgiving world where they are no longer even the dominant species.
Planet of the Apes’iconic twist ending sees Charlton Heston realize his appalling circumstances after coming across the destroyed Statue of Liberty. This seminal conclusion remains one of the genre’s most devastating examples because it ruthlessly strips the final remnants of humanity’s sense of identity away. Crumbling landmarks are all that remains of a world where humans ruled supreme, their only home in the universe replaced with an unforgiving world where they are no longer even the dominant species.
12 Monkeys
In 12 Monkeys, convict James Cole (Bruce Willis) travels back in time to learn the origin of a man-made virus that has unleashed worldwide chaos in the future. Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi movie, which boasts a cast that includes Brad Pitt, Christopher Plummer, Madeleine Stowe, and David Morse, is based on Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetée and originated a 2013 TV series adaptation.
Boasting one ofcinema’s best depictions of time travel, 1995’s12 Monkeyssees Bruce Willis' James Cole sent back in time to obtain information about a virus that wiped out 99% of life on the planet. Throughout the movie, Cole experiences disturbing flashbacks of a shooting at an airport, foreshadowing the macabre ending that Terry Gilliam uses to conclude his lauded sci-fi movie with.
12 Monkeys Movie Timeline Fully Explained
The 12 Monkeys timeline can be viewed from multiple perspectives, with Bruce Willis' James Cole being just one character to experience the phenomenon.
Desperately pursuing the individual carrying the virus through an airport, Cole is shot and killed by a security officer. As he lies dying, Willis' protagonist sees his younger self in the crowd, revealing that his flashbacks have been depicting his own death. Not only does Cole fail to prevent the virus from wiping out humanity,but he is locked in an inescapable time loop, doomed to watch himself die over and over again while his crucial mission crashes and burns endlessly.Cheerful stuff.
Life
A six-member crew is tasked with studying a sample from Mars that may be the first proof of extra-terrestrial life.
Bearing remarkablesimilarities to theAlienmovie franchise, 2017’sLifechronicles the murderous rampage of a predatory extra-terrestrial entity dubbed"Calvin"aboard the ISS. Daniel Espinosa’s star-studded sci-fi horror also happens to play host to one of the genre’s most terrifying endings. An attempt to fire Calvin into deep space using an escape pod during the movie’s climactic sequence backfires spectacularly; the alien splashes down to Earth instead, presumably heralding the end of humanity.
In addition to Rebecca Ferguson, Life’s ensemble cast also includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Ryan Reynolds.
However, it somehow gets even worse from there. Rebecca Ferguson’s Miranda North was meant to return to Earth in a separate escape pod, but collides with debris en route, leaving her vehicle spinning uncontrollably into the recesses of outer space. The notion of drifting endlessly into the void towards one’s own death, unable to do anything more meaningful than scream in abject horror, is an utterly harrowing one, a state of affairs mirrored perfectly by North’s howls of despair.
The Mist
Stephen King’s terrifying novel is brought to the screen with The Mist - a horror-thriller film directed by Frank Darabont. When a small town suddenly sees a giant rolling fog arrive, they show mere curiosity. But when people begin to die mysteriously within, several survivors hold up in a grocery store as they attempt to find a way out and survive - unfortunately, the dangers don’t just come from outside- they also come from within.
An adaptation of Stephen King’s novella of the same name,The Mist’sendingis arguably the most devastating conclusion that science fiction has ever witnessed. Apparently surrounded by monstrous creatures with their escape vehicle completely out of gas,Thomas Jane’s David makes the harrowing decision to mercy-kill the car’s occupants with their remaining ammunition,a group that includes his young son, Billy. Unfortunately for David, the movie’s titular mist clears moments later, revealing the U.S. Army arriving on the scene to rescue survivors.
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I have been affected by a lot of horror movies in my time, but there is one adaptation whose ending always shocks me every time I watch it.
Jane’s protagonist’s appalling sacrifice is rendered utterly meaningless, with his devastated screams mirroring the reaction of the movie’s horrified audience. Remarkably, Frank Darabont’s macabre conclusion was an original creation for his take on King’s source material. The novella actually ends on a hopeful note as David hears a potential survivor over the radio, compounding the shock factor and desolating emotional impact that the live-actionsci-fiadaptation levies instead.
