End Game (2018) User Reviews

Excruciatingly vivid

[nancyldraper · 7/10 · 8 February 2019]

This film puts you right in the middle of 4 people's passage to death. I found it an excruciating experience because I couldn't disconnect from seeing myself or my family caught in the same inevitable journey. That is good filmmaking. The closer you are to this future reality the more poignant and intimate. Nominated for an Oscar, this film is well made. I give this film a 7 (gripping) out of 10. {Documentary on dying}

The Final Transition Á Vérité

[unclesamsavage · 6/10 · 27 February 2019]

End Game is a look into the final stage of a few people's lives and how they and their families deal with it. I can not say I have ever seen anything like this. I remember seeing my first piano teacher of 4+ years in Hospice as a young kid and being so shocked when she passed. There are many hard decisions and acceptances along this path. Dr. Miller, a palliative care professional, maintains a unique outlook on the whole process and does his best to bring peace to those he can.

I did, however, find it hard at times to stay engaged with the stories because I felt they moved a tad too slowly. Regardless, the film is eye-opening and touching at many different moments.

Dying is a part of life

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 17 October 2018]

"End Game" is a new 2018 documentary short film produced by and for Netflix and this one runs for 40 minutes approximately. This was made by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and if you take a look at the former's history with the Oscars, there is no denying that this film is a definite contender for the Best Documentary Short Film Oscar at the upcoming ceremony. The subject is fitting too. It feels touching and relevant. We get an insight into the life inside a hospice where patients spend the last remaining days of their lives when they know death is near. There was one really touching example/quote for me when we hear a woman talking about a routine check-up and they find that her uterus was full of cancer. So it is a pretty depressing watch and the statement I mentioned in the title of my review is tough to really see in here, to see anything positive or uplifting to this documentary. But still, it is good this was made as the people depicted in here may be gone now, but they live on in our memories and yes sadly basically everybody (who is not a doctor, nurse or visitor) shown in here is dead now. There's talk about crucial decisions if it is better to take the dying person home and stop her suffering or to believe in the truly minimal chance for healing, even if it means a lot more pain for the patient and dying outside the place they've loved for years, maybe decades. So I think this could be a good Oscar winner. I would not say it was a really great watch, but it reminds us of the fugaciousness of everything, most of all our own lives, in moments where we really are not thinking too much about this subject. It was easy to feel the patients' pain and the pain of their dear ones. Go watch this one and prepare some towels if you do so. Thumbs-up from me. Not too far from my personal list of best documentaries 2018.

Heart Wrenching

[ami-48108 · 10/10 · 4 May 2018]

This documentary packs a powerful blow in unmasking death. I've sat through two hospices deaths: my aunt and my dad. I found going to and from the hospice's incredibly difficult. Being with my dying loved ones wasn't, but the trip to them felt like a sledge hammer was hitting my heart. It was a relief to let both go, even though at the time I didn't feel that. I felt as we all do a desperate clinging to have them back if only for seconds. Since I've found peace to accept memories are all I have left - and that is enough. Hoping for miracles carries a heavy emotional price-tag thats not easy to put into words or even pictures - but this documentary does a superb job.

Treasure life. It always feels like its gone too quickly.

Touching, Moving,intimiste yet Realistic documentary

[flafluboca · 10/10 · 8 May 2018]

Wonderful job filming the reality with patients and one family in particular. The doctor talks about how he had to face grief himself in his own body, and this gave him the strength and the inspiration to help other human beings look at this huge mystery, to look at the "end (of the) game", the end of life itself. A gem of documentary showing vulnerability as the ultimate strength.

Heartachingly accurate and beautiful

[day248 · 10/10 · 6 February 2019]

I am a hospice worker and this accurately portrays how we, as health care and palliative care teams are working to change the end of life experience. If you have ever wondered what the end could be, look at this beautifully told story.

Wonderful documentary touching on a very sensitive subject matter.

[sukihare · 10/10 · 9 May 2018]

I am very fresh from grieving three loses in my family. Two of those from cancer. This documentary touches on the realities of the disease and i felt some sort of relief in understanding the last moments which unfortunately i was unable to see of my own relatives.

Its very tastefully delivered and answers some questions about loss and death itself.

What a beautiful piece. Which made "The end game" seem like the start of a new journey.

End Game: Acceptance of Death, or Defining It

[babyjaguar · 9/10 · 20 February 2019]

This poignant documentary by Rod Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman follows the lives of people with terminal illnesses in San Francisco, California. Each one is consulted by hospital staff to try a new way of dealing with their situation, some are led to the Zen Project runned by Dr. Miller, who had a near death at age 19.I

This film tries to show their non traditional methods, separating it from a traditional hospice situation. But one story stands out is Mirta, an Iranian woman dealing with Cancer. It's such a sad situation of her relationship with her family, and their struggles to Mirta's possible mortality. She is offered the way of the Zen Project and other surgeries.

In the end, each person is shown on how they dealing with their terminal medical condition, as they deal with understanding death as a human process.

A reminder of an inevitable..

[samabc-31952 · 9/10 · 30 December 2021]

"We are wired to run away from death but dying is a part of life. " This is a story of four terminally ill patients are about to reach their destination.. who are ready to embark upon a new unknown journey that would relieve them from all the sufferings. Conversations with them, interviews with some of their families as the patients spend their final moments with them.. the candid conversations about the end of a life .. it is surely a tough watch but this short doc is a reminder of the inevitable.. as the healthy ones keep thinking about how to live by all worldly avaricious norms, the sicks just want to live ...it is made in a verite style that this bitter truth that we often brush aside would nudge you that it is going to meet you at the end of the path..

• Purvi.

the only guarantee in life

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 13 January 2022]

Over the years, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have made documentaries usually focusing on LGBT topics (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet, State of Pride, etc)*. With the Academy Award-nominated "End Game", they look at a different topic: death. This production focuses on palliative care, forcing the viewer to think differently about death. After all, it's a topic that we try to avoid, but it will eventually happen to every one of us.

Serious but calm, the documentary is one that every person should see.

*Without Friedman, Epstein directed "The Times of Harvey Milk", a documentary about the assassinated gay politician.

In an ideal world..

[medman1982 · 9/10 · 29 February 2024]

While this takes you on the edge of a second hand experience of death... I know for most people, such kind of support system (both medical and family) is hard to get....

Death is a larger (more definitive) truth than birth... and it's more difficult to comprehend for those who are left behind compared to those who "experience" it,,,

While different relations may perceive it differently, the question that remains is who/what died?

Anyways... highly recommended for people of all backgrounds irrespective of age, sex/gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, educational status and religious/non-religious/scientific beliefs...