5 Good Movies Turned Great Thanks To Their Endings

Usually, you can tell a truly great movie by the first hour or so, when you become instantly invested in the story and characters, or completely swept away by the visuals or action.

But in rare cases, all it takes to turn an otherwise good but not brilliant movie into something extraordinary is the ending. Here are five such movies that owe much of their success to an absolutely amazing finale. Major spoilers ahead.

Saw (2004)

A relatively low-budget horror film has unexpectedly spawned a huge franchise, with each subsequent installment becoming more and more questionable in quality, but every fan of the series remembers where it all started.

The final scene, in which the corpse that has been lying quietly in the middle of the room for the entire movie suddenly rises and reveals itself to be the Jigsaw killer, accompanied by the iconic soundtrack, instantly became one of the most legendary scenes in horror cinema.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

While the movie shone with the brilliant acting of Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, the plot was a rather typical ghost story.

Until the ending came and turned everything upside down, with many viewers immediately giving the movie a second viewing, trying to spot all the little hints of the final twist scattered throughout the film.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

After the groundbreaking second film, Terminator 3 seemed like a significant downgrade, and rightly so.

However, the ending shocked audiences with how dark it was, revealing that Judgment Day could not be averted and the whole world burned in a nuclear apocalypse while John Connor and Kate Brewster remained safe in a fallout shelter.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

An otherwise solid neo-noir, The Usual Suspects owes its cult status to its unpredictable ending, which revealed that the seemingly harmless Roger "Verbal" Kint was the elusive Keyser Söze all along, ingeniously tricking the cops and easily escaping captivity.

Shutter Island (2010)

While audiences were captivated by Leonardo DiCaprio 's performance throughout the movie, it was the ending that made it truly outstanding.

After the twist that Edward has been the asylum patient since the death of his family, viewers are left on an ambiguous note as to whether he is back in his delusions or simply made a decision to undergo the lobotomy.