Collider ranks the 10 most hopeless movie endings, with Threads at No. 1

Collider published a ranked list on Feb. 1, 2026 by writer Jeremy Urquhart naming the 10 most hopeless movie endings of all time. The list’s lower half includes Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964), which ends with a montage of nuclear devastation; Come and See (1985), whose final image suggests the young protagonist’s psychological and likely physical destruction; Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), a ravaging King Lear–inspired family collapse; Requiem for a Dream (2000), which depicts addiction’s worst outcomes; and Dancer in the Dark (2000), which concludes with the lead being sentenced to death.

Mid-ranked entries include The Godfather Part II (1974), whose subdued finale leaves Michael Corleone isolated after losing those closest to him; The Mist (2007), which alters Stephen King’s novella into an outright tragic ending in which the main character mercifully kills others moments before rescue; and Das Boot (1981), whose crew survive underwater danger only to be largely wiped out on land, underscoring the hopelessness of war.

The list’s top two are Grave of the Fireflies (1988), an acclaimed animated film that the article says builds agonizingly to a known tragedy, and No. 1 Threads (1984), which the piece describes as the most miserable of all — showing nuclear strikes early and then a disturbing, multi-generational societal collapse.

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