It can be hard to find sci-fi movies and TV that don't completely dissolve by their endings, but one 1995 movie starring Bruce Willis held its nerve. Case in point, from Lost to Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, J.J. Abrams has divided audiences, with some claiming his work is some of the best ever made and others loudly proclaiming its rapid descent into nonsense as each project nears completion. However, the same can't be said for one of Bruce Willis' best sci-fi movies, artfully directed by Terry Gilliam and released in 1995.

This movie is the brilliant and is probably Gilliam's best, although Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are also in the running. While the 2007 picture I Am Legend ended with the most unsatisfying character death, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence had huge scale and potential, but an ending with very flimsy justification, From 12 Monkeys' timeline and consistent approach to time travel to Willis and Brad Pitt's convincing performances, the ending actually works.

Amidst a sea of sci-fi movies with premises too ambitious to resolve, 12 Monkeys stands out above the crowd. The movie opens with a shot of a child and a woman lamenting the gunning down of a man in an airport and fades to Bruce Willis in a cell. This smart introduction sets up the rest of the movie for success, enabling it to end neatly with a perfectly circular ending. having gradually explained it.

This may not be immediately noticeable, given all the twists and turns that make this one of the best dystopian sci-fi movies of the 1990s. It is easy to forget just how the movie starts. Viewers get quickly absorbed into the epic scale, switching between fast-paced and tightly shot action scenes and more relaxed parts of the saga that accurately evince the passage of time. But the movie does explain its opening shot smartly in its last scenes, leaving viewers reeling with an emotional sucker-punch of a reveal.

12 Monkeys shows Willis' character getting more and more disgruntled as it goes on, occasionally blurring the line between dream and reality. It would have been all too easy for the movie to end without confirming which was which. Instead, it goes for gold, confirming who gets shot at the start, and exactly what happens to the main character, concluding his story completely. More than that, the appearance of his boss at the end confirms that he was able to carry out his mission. , given the tragic story.

12 Monkeys' depiction of time travel is one of the best in cinema. In its circularity, it aptly summarizes what most time travel movies struggle to portray — the paradox inherent to time travel. at once. The movie implies that the child in the opening shot is Willis' character (James Cole) by how it cuts to him and proceeds to display his long-suffering, traumatized persona. But it becomes clear that Cole is also the man being gunned down.

This is oddly obscured at the start. In 12 Monkeys' opening scene, the adult Cole and his lover, Dr. Railly, are both wearing wigs, as they are on the run. This hides them from the young Cole and the viewer, enabling the movie to start in media res, fully explain why it started that way by its end, and stun viewers with a jaw-dropping time-travel reveal. The wigs are Gilliam's dream plot device, preventing the opening scene from giving the game away. One of those rare movies where everything comes full circle by the end, nails time travel.