as in thriller
something (as a close contest) that induces much suspense as to its outcome
finally, a Super Bowl game that turned out to be a real cliff-hanger
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Recent Examples of cliff-hanger
That film ended on a massive cliff-hanger, meaning a lot of people have been waiting to see what happens after Peter Parker makes the difficult decision to erase his identity from the world.
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Brent Lang, Variety, 5 Jan. 2026
The show remains compulsively watchable; each episode ends on a cliff-hanger.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 26 Dec. 2025
This was a fun, melodramatic cliff-hanger, but it’s not included in this full version of Kill Bill; the viewer only finds out the daughter is alive when Beatrix herself does: when the girl suddenly shows up in the film’s final sequence.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 5 Dec. 2025
Angus Cloud, who played drug dealer Fezco, died after season two; the second season ended on a major cliff-hanger involving his character.
—Jackie Strause, HollywoodReporter, 17 Oct. 2025
For now, Mars keeps its secrets, and Bright Angel stays a cliff-hanger.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 11 Sep. 2025
The biggest key to the success of minidramas, though, is the cliff-hangers, which push viewers to keep paying for the next episode.
—Yixuan Tan, NBC news, 17 Aug. 2025
Which means there are some major cliff-hangers to obsess over for the next few weeks.
—Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 11 Aug. 2025
Last week's episode ended on a cliff-hanger, as the result of the latest banishment ceremony is still unknown.
—David Wysong, The Enquirer, 2 July 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cliff-hanger
thriller
Noun
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Kansas survived a Big 12 thriller 104-100.—
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The platform features content across multiple genres including romance, thriller, variety and fantasy, all subtitled in local languages.—
Cite this Entry
“Cliff-hanger.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cliff-hanger. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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