8 Fantasy Show Endings That Are Genuine Masterpieces

Image via Disney XD Published Jul 16, 2026, 7:39 PM EDT Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel. A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated. Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point. Sign in to your Collider account Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for multiple TV shows.It's tough enough to make a fantasy TV series that's amazing from beginning to end, but to make one that sticks the landing in such a perfect way that its ending can be called a masterpiece? That's an even rarer occurrence, one that all fans of the genre always know to treasure. Throughout history, there have been certain fantasy show endings which have earned their spot among the greatest of all time, and then some. There are several ways in which a fantasy show can have an ending that's a total masterpiece, depending on what kind of series it is. Some can have elements of comedy, others are lethally serious; some are explosively magical, others tone down the fantastical elements a bit; some are from award-winning "prestige" shows, others are from cult favorites for younger audiences. Regardless of the case, when a fantasy show has such a resounding conclusion, it makes the series a must-see for all fans of the genre. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (1997–2003) Image via UPN Buffy the Vampire Slayer fundamentally revolutionized teen genre television, and over the years, it has proven to be one of the most influential fantasy shows of the '90s and 2000s. It introduced a blend of monster-of-the-week episodes with overarching serialized elements, something that wasn't particularly common on American broadcast television at the time. And just like that, it quickly became one of the biggest cult classics in the history of fantasy television. Part of what makes Buffy so great and so undeniably timeless is that it has one of the most satisfying fantasy show endings of all time. "Chosen" is a hell of a final episode, reconstructing and elevating the feminist mythos that the whole show spent seven seasons building. Instead of remaining the Chosen One, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) uses Willow's (Alyson Hannigan) magic to empower every potential Slayer around the world. Character arcs get satisfying conclusions, thematic threads are powerfully resolved, and the whole mythology of the narrative gets rebuilt. Image via Bones Hiromu Arakawa's manga series Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the best of the 21st century, so even though the 2003 anime series was great, fans were craving an anime experience more faithful to the source material. That's precisely what Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was conceived as: a direct adaptation of the manga series stripped of any kind of filler or narrative fat there could have been. The resulting experience is one of the most universally beloved anime series of all time. One of the big advantages of following the source material more closely was that the ending was right there for Brotherhood to simply pick up and adapt; and what a faultless adaptation it is. Operating on the same philosophical law of Equivalent Exchange as the rest of the story, the finale is both structurally perfect and emotionally stirring. Watching Edward (Romi Park) give up his ability to perform alchemy to restore his brother's human body is poignant and satisfying in equal measure. 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' (2004) Image via Channel 4 Part fantasy, part sci-fi, part horror, and 100% one of the funniest comedy miniseries that Great Britain has ever produced, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a brilliant cult classic parody poking fun at low-budget '80s television and the auteurs who created it. There's terrible acting, nonsensical writing, and hilariously bad special effects here, but it's all fully intentional and in service of the story and its comedic intentions. This series of endless intentional failures couldn't have possibly concluded with a more deliciously disastrous ending. In the finale, Garth's (Matthew Holness) fictional alter ego must confront a viral alien sexually-transmitted outbreak. The plot moves at a frantic pace without making a bit of sense, the microbudget makes for several hilarious moments, and the show brings its themes to an intellectually satisfying breaking point. It's an absolute masterclass in how to write and execute the ending of a fantasy comedy show. 'Gravity Falls' (2012–2016) Image via Disney XD There's a strong argument to be made that Gravity Falls is the biggest cult classic in the history of the Disney Channel, and it's almost undoubtedly one of the best fantasy shows of the 2010s. This fantasy sci-fi cartoon inspired by the likes of David Lynch's Twin Peaks may be primarily aimed at children, but all those who love genre television—regardless of their age—should be able to have an absolute blast with it from beginning to end. The show's climactic final arc, "Weirdmageddon," takes place over the course of three episodes. It's an absolute masterclass of a final story arc that takes a cosmic apocalypse and resolves it through the driving force of the whole series: the beautiful dynamics between the main characters. It's visually striking and satisfyingly epic, striking the perfect balance between the bittersweetness of saying goodbye to a show you love and feeling entirely happy about it going out with a bang. Collider Exclusive · Game of Thrones Personality Quiz Which Game of Thrones House Do You Belong To? Stark · Lannister · Targaryen · Baratheon · Tyrell Five great houses. Five completely different answers to the same question: how do you hold power in a world that will take it from you the moment you stop paying attention? Eight questions will determine where your loyalties — and your nature — truly lie. 🐺Stark 🦁Lannister 🐉Targaryen 🦌Baratheon 🌹Tyrell FIND YOUR HOUSE → 01 Someone powerful is acting dishonourably and everyone knows it. What do you do? In Westeros, the answer to this question has ended more than one great house. ACall it out, openly and on the record. If honour means anything, it has to mean something when it's costly. BUse it. Information about someone else's dishonour is leverage — and leverage is power. CAct decisively to correct it — with or without the approval of those around me. DChallenge them directly. Strength settles disputes more honestly than courtroom manoeuvring. ENavigate carefully — build alliances, apply quiet pressure, and create a situation where the right outcome becomes inevitable. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What is the source of your power? Every house endures because of something. What is it for yours? AThe loyalty of people who trust me — earned over generations, not bought with gold. BWealth, intelligence, and the willingness to use both without sentiment. CA legacy so fearsome and a vision so total that opposition becomes unthinkable. DPhysical strength, military force, and the respect that comes from being the kind of person nobody wants to fight. ECharm, connection, and the ability to make powerful people feel that my success is also theirs. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Who do you truly fight for? Strip away the banners and the words. The honest answer tells you everything. AMy family and my people — those who depend on me and have kept faith with me through everything. BMy family — the ones who share my blood, even when they exhaust me, even when they disappoint me. CMy cause — a vision larger than any single person, including me. DMyself, and those few who've proven themselves worth fighting beside. EMy house — its name, its future, the position I intend to leave it in when I'm gone. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with your enemies? A house's method reveals its character as clearly as its words ever could. AHonestly — I face them directly, and I give quarter when it's warranted. BThoroughly — I don't leave loose ends, and I don't make the same enemy twice. CDecisively — fire answers questions that diplomacy only delays. DHead-on — I'd rather meet a threat on the battlefield than behind closed doors. EElegantly — I prefer to make former enemies into allies, or at least into people who owe me something. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What kind of ruler do you believe in? Westeros is full of answers to this question. Most of them end badly. AA just one — someone who serves the realm rather than using it, who leads by example rather than fear. BA capable one — someone smart enough to navigate the game, ruthless enough to win it, and realistic about what winning costs. CA transformative one — someone who doesn't just rule what exists but reshapes what's possible. DA strong one — someone whose authority is beyond question because the alternative is obviously worse. EA wise one — someone who understands that the realm is fed by more than armies, and that a full stomach keeps more peace than a sharp sword. NEXT QUESTION → 06 You suffer a devastating loss. How does your house respond? How a house handles defeat tells you more about it than how it handles victory. AWe grieve, properly and together — and then we endure, because endurance is what we do. BWe adapt. We reassess. And we ensure that whoever caused this loss comes to regret it completely. CWe burn hotter. Setbacks don't soften us — they clarify what needs to happen next. DWe hit back. Grief and revenge are the same motion in our house. EWe regroup quietly, rebuild our position, and return when we're ready — on our terms, not theirs. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Which of these truths about Westeros do you most believe? Every house has a philosophy. This is yours. AThe lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Nothing matters more than the people you protect. BA Lannister always pays their debts — in gold or in kind. Reputation is built on consistency. CI am the blood of the dragon. Some destinies are written before the person who carries them is born. DOurs is the fury. When we move, we move completely — and we don't stop until it's done. EGrowing strong means knowing when to bloom and when to wait. Patience is its own kind of power. NEXT QUESTION → 08 The Iron Throne is within reach. What do you do? The answer reveals not just your ambition — but your character. AClaim it only if the realm needs me to — and rule in a way that makes it worth having. BEnsure someone who owes us sits in it. The power behind the throne is safer than the throne itself. CTake it. It was always meant to be mine — I feel that in my bones and in my blood. DSeize it — with both hands, without hesitation. Opportunity in Westeros does not wait to be asked. EPosition my house to be indispensable to whoever sits there — influence outlasts any single reign. REVEAL MY HOUSE → The Maester Has Spoken Your House Is…Your answers point to the great house whose words, values, and way of surviving in Westeros match your own. Bend the knee — or don't. That's very much up to you. 🐺 House StarkWinter is Coming — and you have always known it. You prepare not out of fear but out of duty, because the people who depend on you deserve someone who takes the long view. You lead with honour even when it costs you, because you understand that a reputation built on integrity is the only one worth having. Your loyalty to family and people runs deep — not as sentiment but as a code that doesn't bend when things get difficult. The North endures because Starks endure — not by being the cleverest players in the game, but by being the kind of people others are willing to follow into the cold. You are that kind of person. The pack survives. The lone wolf dies. You already know which one you are. 🦁 House LannisterYou understand the game — its rules, its exceptions, and exactly when the rules become the exception. You play it without illusions and without apology. You are sharper than most people realise, and you have learned to use that gap to your advantage. A Lannister always pays their debts — and you always keep your word, because your word is an instrument of power, and instruments must be kept in working order. You love your family with a ferocity that sometimes blinds you, and you know it, and you do it anyway. The lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep. Neither, in the end, do you. 🐉 House TargaryenYou carry a sense of destiny that is difficult to explain and impossible to ignore — the feeling that you are not simply participating in the world but meant to reshape it. You are capable of extraordinary things, and you know it, and that knowledge is both your greatest strength and your most dangerous quality. Fire and blood are not just words to you — they are a philosophy about what change requires and what it costs. The Targaryens at their best were transformative rulers who broke chains and defied the limits of what anyone thought possible. At your best, so are you. The dragon has three heads. You are one of them. 🦌 House BaratheonYou are a force — direct, powerful, and difficult to ignore when you enter a room or a conflict. You do not negotiate with challenges. You meet them. Ours is the fury — and yours is a kind of intensity that commands attention, respect, and occasionally fear from those who underestimate what's behind it. You value strength and straight dealing. You'd rather know where you stand in a fight than navigate a web of courtly whispers. The Baratheons built their house on the back of one of the greatest military victories in Westerosi history — and then struggled with what came after. The lesson of your house is that winning is not the end of the story. Governing is. You are learning that too. 🌹 House TyrellYou understand that power does not always announce itself — that sometimes it arrives with flowers, good wine, and a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes. Growing strong is your house's motto, and you live it: patiently, strategically, always investing in the relationships and resources that will matter most when it counts. You are charming by choice and calculating by nature — a combination that makes you one of the most effective players in any room you enter. The Tyrells fed King's Landing and shaped its politics without ever sitting on the Iron Throne — and they were arguably more powerful for it. You know that the person who controls the food controls the kingdom. And you always know where the food is. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'The Good Place' (2016–2020) There aren't very many fantasy sitcoms out there, but even if there were hundreds upon hundreds, The Good Place would likely still be one of the very best. With its perfect blend between a high-concept comedic premise and surprisingly deep philosophical themes, it remained one of the greatest comedies on television throughout the course of its entire run. Quite fittingly, it came to one of the best TV endings of the last 10 years. "Whenever You're Ready" is one of the best final episodes of any sitcom in history, taking the philosophical depth and comedic sharpness of the whole series to their absolute pinnacle until bringing the whole thing to the credits. The characters realizing that an eternal afterlife eternally drains life of its meaning is quite a philosophically and spiritually daring statement, but it's pulled off with such a wonderful, artful sense of poetry that it just works. 'The Leftovers' (2014–2017) Image via HBO HBO's The Leftovers is without a doubt one of the greatest TV dramas of the 2010s, but it's also a remarkably difficult show to categorize. Is it sci-fi? Technically, yes. Is it supernatural fantasy? Technically, also yes. But while its genre elements are subtle, the way they elevate this absolutely wonderful tale about grief, trauma, and the human condition is absolutely remarkable. Those who prefer more bombastic, showy fantasy elements may prefer to look elsewhere; but those who love to see the genre pushed to its very limits will be enraptured by The Leftovers all the way until the very end. Many fantasy shows collapse under their own weight at the finish line because they try too hard to explain their own mythology, but this masterpiece sidesteps that obstacle brilliantly. Subversive, emotional, and mysterious, it's one of the best ambiguous endings in all television history. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' (2024) Image via Netflix Written by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude is not only one of the best books of all time, but also one of the most hugely important and influential in the history of the Spanish language. It's worth reading in any language, just as Netflix's television adaptation of the book is worth watching regardless of where one is from. Faithfully adapting the source material while adding plenty of its own gorgeous visual spice, it's one of the best book-to-small-screen adaptations of recent years. Just like the book, the show comes to a conclusion that serves as the perfect temporal magic trick, taking this centuries-spanning family epic and ending it in a moment of pure inescapable destiny. The whole ending is one big, jaw-dropping meta twist that's as tragic as it is thought-provoking. It's not a feel-good ending, that's for sure, but it's one of the best-executed tragic endings of any fantasy show in history. 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' (2005–2008) Image via Nickelodeon Anybody who thinks that cartoons are worthy of less respect than live-action shows only needs to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender to likely have their minds changed. It's the highest-rated animated TV show of all time on IMDb, and for good reason. Epic, exciting, mature, visually delightful, and full of riveting character development, it's just as much of a masterpiece as history's best live-action fantasy series—if not perhaps even better. Indeed, Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best 2000s cartoons worth revisiting, because there's always some new detail to discover here. Quite likely, a few of those new discoveries will come from the show's thrilling four-part final arc. "Sozin's Comet" is the absolute pinnacle of fantasy show endings because of just how satisfyingly it resolves the entire narrative, bringing every plot thread to a flawless close and every character arc to where they needed to get. Avatar: The Last Airbender Release Date 2005 - 2008 Network Nickelodeon Cast Zach Tyler Eisen Aang (voice) Showrunner Michael Dante DiMartino Directors Giancarlo Volpe, Ethan Spaulding, Lauren MacMullan, Dave Filoni, Joaquim Dos Santos, Anthony Lioi Writers Tim Hedrick, Elizabeth Welch Ehasz, Joshua Hamilton, James Eagan, Joann Estoesta, Nick Malis, May Chan, Katie Mattila Franchise(s) Avatar Main Genre Animation Seasons 3 Producers Bryan Konietzko Creator(s) Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko Story By michael dante dimartino Streaming Service(s) Netflix Executive Producer(s) Bryan Konietzko