Movies/TV Series with the best & worst endings/finale. *Spoilers*

[Laraven]

I just love a good ending! And I'm not saying happy ending necessarily.

BEST: One of my all time favorite finales is HBO's series Six Feet Under.
https://youtu.be/eNwARV9tPUw

WORST: And another one of my favorite series HBO's Sopranos left me with the worst finale ever (besides the song ofc.)...
https://youtu.be/rnT7nYbCSvM

[melodramocracy]

6 Feet Under did have a great wrap up.

My initial reaction to the Soprano's ending was "wtf is this shit", but as time passed, I did start to think it was the correct way to end it.

Other good wrap-ups:

MASH
Battlestar Galactica (I know lots of folks hated this one, but I did think it was good)
The Wire
Big Love
Breaking Bad - one of the better series endings I've ever seen.
Boardwalk Empire
Sons of Anarchy

Other bad wrap ups:

Lost... to be fair, they had written themselves into a wrap up that would have been difficult to make everyone happy with. I didn't mind it that much, but there was enough unanswered for me that I found it lacking.
Mad Men. Just a bleh ending to a wishy washy last season.

I got tired / lost interest in the show a few seasons earlier, but I've heard that the finale of Dexter was pretty awful as well.

[Pendulous]

Depends on WHEN you consider Scrubs' ending if it's the best or worst.

[Faltemer]

Most shows have good or passable finales, so I'll just list those that I felt had particulary poor finales/last few episodes.

Lost The obvious choice for many reasons. The show quickly fell apart year after year as it became the writers/creators not only had no idea hwere the show was going but didnt plan to try and figure it out until it was already way too late.
Dexter Terrible finale, lackluster last season. Couldve been easily fixed, by changing up the last two episodes slightly.
HIMYM Another one with a puzzling finale/last season. It's a sitcom, you really should never be able to mess up a sitcom finale and yet somehow people do.
Chuck The last five or so episodes including the finale were frustrating at best. No reason for them to have done it, they knew it was thier last season.

There are others that i didnt feel great but not as poor as those above.

[Adam Jensen]

Breaking Bad was great. Loved it. That entire series, beginning to end, oh my god. The finale was satisfying. It made me sad because BrBa was now officially over.

Battlestar Galactica . . . eh not so much. "Oh lets launch our technology into the sun and start over again!" And I never did figure out what was the deal with Starbuck.

[Justpassing]

How I Buried Your Mother

[Pipboi]

How I Buried Your Mother

Yeah this was easily the worst and I struggle to re-watch the show knowing how disappointing the ending was.
That and I really took a liking to Cristin Milioti's character, was sad to find out she was next to pointless.

[caervek]

My 3 favourite/worst:

BEST:

CSI New York: Closed everything, made you feel happy for the characters, was a good swansong.

Star Trek DS9: Excellent ending that made you feel like you had been on a journey.

House: The heroes rode off into the sunset, you felt sad but happy



WORST:

Stargate Universe: It ended on a cliffhanger because the next series didn't get picked up, so annoying as it was great

Reboot: So it all ends with the world being reset, okay it's in keeping with the computer theme, but still...

Sons of Anarchy: God I hated this ending, like it made me angry at the time lol. Firstly the ending to Jax's story was exactly how it had been foreshadowed and how we had all pictured it from series one, the writer was determined to end it that way, even if the story/character development didn't lead there. The last episode or two was so detached from how the story/episode had evolved it felt like the ending had been written before the show ever aired.

Secondly, the blitz/spree ending was so rushed it was almost completely cheapened, that's the type of ending you use when you get told last minute your next series is cancelled, not how you plan a six year culmination. In a few minutes we see the death of multiple villains/antagonists who could have provided another series or two of story. It all felt so rushed, it was very badly written as it implied the writer simply ran out of time to resolve these plot points (and make it look like the club couldn't have done so without Jax).

[Deleted]

Best -

Eastbound and Down had the best ending of any TV show i've ever watched. It was fucking epic.

Worst -

Dexter - pure garbage.

[Gallahadd]

The Best:
Farscape. The last scene in Peacekeeper wars is great, they tie up most of the loose ends and it's as close as possible to a "They lived happily ever after" that you could expect from the show.

BSG: I know people had issues, and there has been much discussion after the fact. However one point remains, ever single time I watch it, I love it (yes, it E seen the whole show multiple times). Is it the perfect ending? No. Does it Make a whole lot of sense? Not really... Does it leave you satisfied that you've spent your time well watching the show? Damn right it does.

Friends: "I got off the plane!" Cry every time :'(

The Worst:
HIMYM: also know as "How I Ruined Your Show". At best a mediocre sitcom, with such a colossal "fuck you viewers" ending that I'm still mad about it to this day.

Chuck: Wonderful series. Absolutely loved it. Right up until they ruined it with a really annoying ending that left me frustrated and angry. There are a number of ways they could have done a similar plot that wouldn't have left the audience feelin cheated.

The WTF:
Lost: seriously, wtf happened? I still have no fucking idea what that show was about, seems no one else did either. The ending posed more questions than it solved and left more loose threads than a blind seamstress.

Anything in the Whedonverse: Seriously, take a moment to think about it... Name me ONE Joss Whedon show that has a satisfactory finale. Buffy's was pretty solid, if super cheesy (and is later ruined in the comics). Angel's is a massive cliffhanger with loads left unresolved... And then we have Firefly.

[Deleted]

Sorry but the Sopranos ending was awesome - made you talk about for years!

- - - Updated - - -

Buffy's was pretty solid, if super cheesy (and is later ruined in the comics in MY oppinion).

had to fix that

Angel's is a massive cliffhanger with loads left unresolved...

which was resolved in the comics.
And both Comic series are still going good.

[Stormcall]

Breaking Bad and Justified both had great endings. Leverage had a really good ending too. Even though it only ran 1 season before Sutter decided to end it, The Bastard Executioner actually managed to wrap things up remarkably well in it's finale. Justice League Unlimited, Frasier, Community, and The Shield all had pretty solid endings.

On the other end of things, Dexter had a fucking terrible ending. Deadwood was a brilliant show with a rather meh ending, since it was basically written with the thought that there was going to be a 4th season, then...there wasn't. Lost's ending left a lot to be desired as well. 24 had a shitty ending, with Jack being shipped off to Russia and nobody able to do shit about it(I know they're doing the reboot or whatever now, but since Jack supposedly isn't coming back, I don't consider it the real 24).

[Tempguy]

Worst is between sopranos and how I met your mom. Not sure which I hate most.

Best? I really don't know. Not even sure if I ever finished a series other than anime.

[eschatological]

I thought the Sopranos ending was brilliant. Like, literally genius. And I thought that immediately, and then in the next instant was like, "Oh man, people are going to hate that." It was a show about Tony Soprano, told from his perspective, and it ended the moment he was shot in the back of the head. A death which he didn't see coming, but a death he directly provoked (by not letting Eugene retire) so we didn't see it either. People often laud the show for its brutality and depiction of mob life, but ultimately it was a show about Tony's inner life, from season 1. That was the whole conceit with the psychologist.

I also liked the LOST ending. LOST was always a character study to me, and it had great characters in a story about them finding each other. I think the writer's strike kind of threw it off the rails, plot wise, but for me the plot was basically wrapped up in the previous season when Ben killed Jacob and we learned that the island was basically a struggle between two demi-god brothers.

Worst:
Dexter. By far. The Julia Stiles season was okay-ish, but her not dying at the end of it kind of marked the beginning of the end. That was also the season Dexter tried to throw back to Trinity and revealed himself to Trinity's son, who had also become a killer. Too many people knew about Dexter, and then they totally botched the last season. Like holy shit every episode was a complete shit show. Just the premise itself: that there was a psychiatrist who counseled Harry on how to raise Dexter and approved of Dexter's killing as an outlet from becoming a "more bad serial killer" was literally pants-on-head bad.

HIMYM: worst sitcom ending ever. Wow. It basically invalidates the premise of the whole series to say, "Oh hey, remember that girl you dated in the first episode and thought you loved? IT turns out you really did love her, and this story is about getting back to that first episode." It could have made sense if they did it like the Ryan Reynolds movie Definitely, Maybe, and Robin is the mother all along but he's been giving her a different name so the kids don't know during the story, and it's Robin who's died at the end....but holy shit.

[Zoranon]

Best: Easy. Code Geass, nothing more needs be said.

Worst: Even easier, new BSG, I have seen bad endings, I have seen terrible endings and then I have seen the ending of BSG. It has left me so disgusted that despite liking the series quite a bit, I have never re watched the series.

[eschatological]

The BSG ending was a mixed bag for me. I don't really understand how Lucy being half-Cylon half-whatever uplifted the primitives they found on "our Earth" into being humans today.


And were Six and Balthar immortal? Like, whatever. It also seems weird that Dylan's All Along the Watchtower was some sort of song that permeated the universe to tie them together, but okay.

[Soeroah]

The Lost Room was a fantastic six episode miniseries, but it ended assuming it'd have another season green lit, so there's an element of unfinishedness even though the main plot resolved.

[Powerogue]

I'd say the best would be Avatar The Last Airbender and Gravity Falls, and the worst endings are the dreaded non-endings, where TV shows go on long, long after they should've died peacefully, like some sort of horrifying zombie.

Like Fairly Odd Parents!

[Icaras]

Another bad one- Quantam Leap:

A single line of text explaining that the main character never gets home, despite that being his main goal as stated by the opening credits. Thanks alot you lazy cheap bastards!

[announced]

Dexter for the worst ending of all time. Dexter was a brilliant show till seeason 8.. it went downhill fast from there.

The Wire had a bad ending too imo

and Sons of anarchy for the 3rd worst ending.