10 Most Thrilling Movie Climaxes, Ranked
For hopefully obvious reasons, it feels like a real shame when a movie ends on a sour note. An anticlimax can work in certain situations, and for certain films, but if it’s one that’s supposed to be some kind of thrilling or exciting throughout, then it only makes sense for the ending to feel especially thrilling and exciting, and the sort of thing that tops what came before.
These climaxes all do that, and in some instances, it’s more than just the ending being taken into account. A climax can be a little longer than just the final scene, after all, and some of the movies below have extended climaxes that take up much of their movie’s final act. There will be some unavoidable spoilers below, as well, but all of these films are at least a decade old, so such “spoilers” don’t feel as risky to give out.
10
‘The Terminator’ (1984)
Sure, Terminator 2: Judgment Day has more by way of spectacle, but the climax to The Terminator is arguably more thrilling. It’s probably the relative intimacy of it that makes it so, because it’s really just a one-versus-one kind of thing, in the end. There’s a cyborg from the future that wants to kill a woman, and also a man from the same future who comes back in time to protect her, but he dies during the climax.
Also, the cyborg has its exterior living tissue burned off during the climax, so it looks particularly intimidating.
They’re already underdogs when it’s the two of them, but The Terminator gets particularly thrilling when it’s just Sarah Connor, and before she evolved into more of an action heroine in her own right (circa Terminator 2). Also, the cyborg has its exterior living tissue burned off during the climax, so it looks particularly intimidating (more so than even Arnold Schwarzenegger) for the final stretch of the whole ending sequence, inside the factory.
9
‘The Raid 2’ (2014)
The Raid 2 is incredibly long, for a martial arts movie (not quite A Touch of Zen, but still, 2.5 hours is pretty lengthy), and so the idea of it peaking with its final act might sound kind of preposterous, especially when it already manages to feel remarkably intense in its first half. Yet the final hour or so is next-level stuff, with a continually bombastic series of fight scenes.
They can’t all be counted as the climax, but maybe the last 15 to 20 minutes can be, and there are at least a couple of great action sequences that make up that stretch. The one-on-one fight in the kitchen is the last major set piece of the movie, and is also about as good as martial arts fights have ever been, in terms of excitement and brutality.
8
‘Whiplash’ (2014)
You don’t even need to make a thriller to have a thrilling ending, as Whiplash shows. To be fair, though, the whole movie is exceptionally intense, so not just the climax. It’s about a young jazz drummer and his dynamic with a tyrant of an instructor, with the former wanting to be a legend within his given field, and the latter being about as aggressive as someone in a teacher/mentor role could be.
Basically, they keep clashing throughout the whole film, and then it all culminates with the student seemingly outwitting his mentor, only maybe that’s what the mentor wanted all along, and so it’s troubling, not to mention hard to work out who “won,” if anyone even did. It’s unsettling at the same time that it’s oddly exciting, and sure, it’s still pretty recent in the overall scheme of things, but Whiplash already feels like it has an all-timer of an ending.
7
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
Do you need a plot summary for The Silence of the Lambs? It’s one of the most popular crime/thriller/horror movies ever made… okay, it’s about the hunt for a serial killer. Like a lot of movies that fit into those genres. But there’s also another serial killer who’s imprisoned the whole time, and one agent wants to try and use his “expertise” to catch the other.
The dynamic between them makes the movie what it is, much as how the main dynamic in Whiplash is a reason why it’s all so thrilling, but then The Silence of the Lambs does ultimately conclude with the serial killer at large being located and confronted. That’s a different kind of tense and thrilling, and certainly ends the film on a high note (the escape pulled off by the imprisoned killer, also near the film’s conclusion, doesn’t hurt, either).
6
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966)
It’s got an amazing cast, perfect music, and one of the best endings of all time, so of course The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a classic. It’s about the hunt for a buried fortune in stolen gold that takes place while the Civil War’s being fought, with three primary characters – those referred to in the title – go about trying to find said gold, competing with each other more than they cooperate.
So, it’s not exactly surprising that things end with a showdown and shootout between the three, right next to where the gold is buried. And laying it out like that might not make it sound very exciting, but The Good, the Bad and the Ugly does make it so, in ways that are a little difficult to articulate using only words.
5
‘Halloween’ (1978)
The premise of Halloween is simple, befitting the title. It takes place on the night you’d expect, and the plot involves a small number of characters being targeted by a killer who’s been locked up for 15 years, but has just broken free. You couldn’t really get a slasher movie being more no-nonsense (or less-nonsense?) than Halloween, but it was all a bit more novel back in 1978. It wasn’t the first slasher movie, but it was a relatively early and genre-defining one.
Everything obviously builds to a final act that’s the peak when it comes to violence and intensity, more so back in 1978, when people didn’t know there’d be sequels. Still, even if you might know that both the villain and lead character live to fight/kill another day, the climax of Halloween remains capable of packing a punch, and it’s always been impressive how it’s simultaneously so anxiety-inducing and minimalist in its approach.
4
‘Alien’ (1979)
One year after Halloween came Alien, and sure, it’s a different sort of movie setting-wise, because Alien is a sci-fi movie alongside being a horror one, and it largely takes place on a spaceship, but the premise is comparable to the one in Halloween. There’s a seemingly unstoppable antagonist on the loose, and some people who have to fight to survive, but it’s, you know, an alien.
It’s one of the most iconic aliens in movie history, of course, and so Alien does indeed earn the right to call itself “Alien.” It’s almost the alien-on-the-loose film to which all others are compared, or you could call it the defining sci-fi-flavored slasher movie, if you wanted, much as another movie from the 1970s with a simple one-word title is the all-time most significant shark movie. More on that one in a bit, though.
3
‘Police Story’ (1985)
Police Story might well be the best martial arts movie Jackie Chan has ever starred in, and that’s not something that can be said lightly, given how many classics he’s been in throughout his lengthy career. He also directed Police Story, and was one of the film’s writers, so that helps it further feel like a defining movie for him, and the climax of Police Story proves to be especially impressive.
Things basically come down to a big fight inside a shopping mall, and it tops what came before action-wise (no small feat, owing to what else Police Story has to offer). There’s a great deal of destruction, the people fighting look like they’re actually getting hurt, and then it all culminates with one of the most remarkable stunts Jackie Chan ever pulled off.
2
‘Scarface’ (1983)
Like the gangster movie of the same name from 1932 (and most gangster movies made back then, honestly), Scarface (1983) tells a rise-and-fall story. There’s a man who aspires to be powerful and wealthy, and he achieves that through criminal means, only to find himself unable to know when to stop, and then he makes one too many bold decisions, leading to a downfall.
The downfall is especially bombastic in Scarface, with the whole thing being like a particularly aggressive gangster movie, or the whole gangster genre pushed to its limits… it’s not shy about this, either, what with the montage in Scarface backed by a song called “Push It to the Limit.” No subtlety here, both when it comes to the overall movie and (especially) the shootout that concludes it, but that’s okay when everything’s executed so well.
1
‘Jaws’ (1975)
Halloween is a horror movie about a serial killer, Alien is about an alien, and then Jaws is also a horror movie, and one maybe not too surprisingly about a shark. This is also more of a thriller than those other two films, and there’s certainly a survival element to it, but the final act does see a trio of characters take a more proactive approach toward the film’s antagonist.
The first half or so of Jaws has a town being attacked by a shark, and then the last chunk of the movie is about trying to hunt down that shark. Still very simple, and only marginally more “complicated” than having to survive against some kind of relentless antagonist, but it’s all in the execution here, and few movie climaxes even come close to Jaws if you’re assessing them based on how thrilling and exciting they are.
