How Filmmakers Choose an Ending

An ending is the last thing an audience sees, and often the last part of a film to be settled. Some filmmakers know it before the script is finished. Others discover it during filming, replace it after a screening, or argue over it with a producer.

These nine commentaries describe how filmmakers chose their endings and what each choice required from the rest of the film. They show that an ending is rarely a separate decision. It depends on the scenes that lead to it, and it changes how those scenes are understood.

§1 Decide early, or leave room to find it

John Mackenzie says he finds endings difficult. On The Long Good Friday, he knew the ending while the script was still in draft.

Knowing the final image told Mackenzie what the rest of Harold Shand’s story had to lead to: a specific moment of defeat.

The Broadcast News commentary describes the opposite approach. The writer planned to let production decide which man the lead character would choose.

Filming mostly in sequence made that possible, because the scenes were shot in roughly the order the audience would see them. The result was an ending the script had not planned: she chose neither.

Exotica reached its ending later still. The final scene was not in the draft the filmmakers took into production.

The commentary describes the late scene as changing how the earlier material reads. An ending found after the fact can still work, but only if the film already contains what it needs.

§2 An ending is built into the scenes before it

I Am Legend was finished with two complete endings. The commentary describes the original as resolving on a philosophical idea and the released version on an emotional one. It also explains how the filmmakers prepared the new ending.

Shooting a rough version on video with stand-ins let the filmmakers work out which shots they needed and how the new material would match the existing footage before they filmed it properly.

The commentary also notes a limit to replacing an ending. The film had been developed around the original one.

The original ending depended on the idea that the creatures were more intelligent than the main character believed. That idea appears throughout the film, so it remains visible even with the new ending. An ending can be replaced, but the scenes written to set it up stay in the film.

§3 Find out what the audience is reacting to

Preview audiences often respond to an ending, but their response does not always mean the ending should change. Barry Levinson recalls a preview card for Rain Man in which a viewer hoped Raymond would “snap out of it.” He also describes a smaller question the filmmakers considered.

Levinson kept the ending because it was true to Raymond’s character. He treats the audience’s wish for something more as the ending’s strength, not a flaw to fix.

The Phantasm commentary describes a different reaction. Audiences objected to the revelation that the events were a dream.

The filmmakers did not change the ending. According to the commentary, the actors’ performances in the final scenes kept the audience engaged despite that resistance. When an audience dislikes an ending, the first question is whether they dislike what happens or how it is presented. A performance or a scene’s tone can make an unwelcome ending acceptable.

§4 Decide what the ending needs to do

The Rogue Nation filmmakers struggled with the end of the film because they believed it needed a large action finale.

They used a foot chase through London instead, which they had always wanted to film. The question that settled it was whether the story needed a larger ending. It did not, so a smaller one was enough.

The Thief commentary explains its ending in terms of the main character rather than the plot.

An ending chosen for plot alone might have been more satisfying in a conventional way. This one follows from the character’s beliefs and how he lives. The commentary calls the result character-driven.

§5 Settle disagreements by what each version means

The final scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street was disputed between the filmmakers and producer Robert Shaye.

The commentary says the film’s ending extends an original version in which the lead simply leaves the house into the fog. The released version is a compromise between that ending and the producer’s request. Both sides kept part of what they wanted, and the ending changed as a result.

A disagreement about an ending is usually a disagreement about what the film means. One version may favor a final shock, and another may favor resolving the story. Naming that difference makes a compromise easier to judge.

§6 Questions for choosing an ending

These accounts suggest five questions:

1. What must the final image show? Mackenzie knew his last shot before the script was finished, and that shaped the rest of the film.
2. Has the film set up this ending? The I Am Legend and Exotica accounts show that an ending depends on material earlier in the film.
3. What are audiences objecting to? Separate a reaction to the event from a reaction to how it is presented, as in Rain Man and Phantasm.
4. Does the ending need to be bigger? The Rogue Nation filmmakers found that the story was already working.
5. What does each version say about the film? In Thief and A Nightmare on Elm Street, the choice of ending was a choice about what the film is about.

An ending can be planned from the first draft or found in the edit. In either case, it works only if the rest of the film supports it. Filmmakers who choose an ending late need to check which earlier scenes it depends on, and whether those scenes are still in the film.