Film

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Name: I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Drama
Released: 2020
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, David Thewlis, Guy Boyd

Mystery
Drama
Very dark
Strange

Charlie Kaufman's 2020 film is a haunting descent into psychological unease. A young woman joins her boyfriend on a drive to meet his parents at an isolated farmhouse, but reality fragments beneath mounting dread. It's less a thriller with twists than a fever dream about identity, intimacy, and self-erasure—visually stunning, deliberately strange, and absolutely not a conventional narrative. For viewers who prize atmosphere over plot and don't mind being unsettled.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love films that bend their own rules and leave you turning over the pieces for days, happy to be unsettled rather than told what happened.

Skip it if you need a story that clears its throat and explains itself, since this one hangs back, repeats its small talk and never quite tells you where you stand.

What it asks of you: Two hours and fifteen minutes of patient, low-lit unease, where long stretches of quiet conversation carry as much weight as the strange jolts, and you have to keep paying attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Under the Skin2014

Scarlett Johansson as an alien predator gliding through Scotland in hypnotic, wordless sequences. Like *Ending Things*, it prioritizes mood and visual strangeness over conventional storytelling, building dread through tone and the uncanny.

But Long stretches with minimal dialogue or obvious narrative momentum. Demands patience and tolerates ambiguity—frustrating if you want clarity.

The Lighthouse2019

Robert Eggers' claustrophobic descent into madness between two men on a rocky island. Formally inventive, psychologically unmoored, and committed to its own logic rather than audience comfort. Shares that queasy sense of reality warping.

But Black and white, boxy framing, and a deliberate artificiality that some find pretentious. Slow-burn horror rather than immediate thrills.

Mulholland Drive2001

David Lynch's LA nightmare about identity, desire, and the unknowability of other people. Baroque, hypnotic, and structured like a fever dream. If you're drawn to Kaufman's refusal to make conventional sense, this is essential.

But Openly nonlinear and deliberately obscure. Multiple interpretations exist; some find that liberating, others maddening.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from I'm Thinking of Ending Things

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Same director; same obsessions with selfhood, artifice, and the unbridgeable distance between people. This is where his vision crystallized.

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut—a sprawling, theatrical meditation on creation, mortality, and the impossibility of capturing life through art. It shares *Ending Things*' DNA: reality fragmenting, identity collapsing, and art as both salvation and trap. Essential Kaufman before *Ending Things*.

But Intentionally baroque and self-conscious about its own theatricality. Some find it profound; others think it's navel-gazing dressed up as philosophy.

A Ghost Story2017

Casey Affleck as a literal ghost watching time erode meaning and memory. Meditative and strange, it shares *Ending Things*' preoccupation with time, identity, and the inability to truly connect. Surprisingly moving.

But Glacial pacing and a famously long scene of pie-eating. Requires surrender to its melancholic rhythm.

The Double Life of Véronique1991

Krzysztof Kieślowski's hypnotic meditation on duality and fate, following two women who may or may not be the same person. Visually gorgeous, eerie, and interested in the mystery of selfhood rather than explanation.

But Deliberately opaque and Eastern European in its restraint. Minimal plot, maximal atmosphere—not for viewers who want answers.

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers trap a man in a suffocating suburban nightmare of inexplicable suffering. Like *Ending Things*, it's formally precise and deeply unsettling, building dread through the texture of ordinary life turning hostile.

But Darkly misanthropic and offers no catharsis. The unease never quite resolves, which is the point—and also the problem if you want relief.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos' clinical horror about a surgeon whose life is invaded by a mysterious boy. Eerie, formally controlled, and interested in how easily civility cracks. Shares that sense of wrongness lurking beneath the mundane.

But Stilted dialogue and emotional distance make it feel deliberately cold. The dread is existential rather than visceral.

Annihilation2018

Alex Garland's sci-fi thriller about a mysterious shimmer that corrupts everything inside it. Visually stunning and philosophically unsettling, it trusts atmosphere over exposition and refuses easy answers about what it all means.

But The climax grows increasingly abstract and surreal. Some find it profound; others feel it devolves into pretentious nonsense.

The Master2012

Paul Thomas Anderson's portrait of spiritual manipulation and masculine yearning between a drifter and a cult leader. Dense, beautifully shot, and interested in psychology over plot. If you respond to Kaufman's formal ambition, this scratches a similar itch.

But Three hours of deliberate pacing and no conventional arc. Demands active engagement and rewards repeated viewing more than first viewings.

Phantom Thread2017

Both are about the slow, terrible clarity of recognizing you're disappearing within another person's vision of who you should be.

Paul Thomas Anderson's gorgeous, unsettling portrait of a fashion designer and the woman who enters his life—and slowly erases her own identity within his. Like *Ending Things*, it's about the slow dissolution of self within an intimate relationship, dressed in period beauty.

But Surfaces are immaculate but the emotional temperature is cold. The film's elegance can distance you from what it's actually depicting.

Stalker1979

Both prioritize the texture of consciousness and dread over narrative convention. Both suggest reality is fundamentally unstable and that intimacy is a form of haunting.

Andrei Tarkovsky's hypnotic science-fiction meditation on desire, faith, and the distance between wanting something and understanding what it means. Visually austere and philosophically dense, it's about the uncanny strangeness of the human interior. A completely different register than Kaufman, but shares his belief that cinema can be about consciousness itself.

But 163 minutes of slow camera movements and lengthy philosophical monologue. Soviet-era pacing; if you're watching for plot momentum, you'll be disappointed.