The Things You Missed

Does The Shining have a post-credit scene?

1980 · Stanley Kubrick · 144 min

The answer

No post-credit scene

No post-credits scene — but don't mute the credits. After the ballroom song "Midnight, the Stars and You" finishes over the end titles, you can hear the Gold Room crowd applaud and chat before fading out, as if the Overlook's party never stopped. Historical footnote: 1980 opening-week audiences saw a two-minute hospital epilogue before the final photo, which Kubrick cut from prints days into release.

Runtime
144 min
Scenes
None
Credits
Nothing during or after
Verdict
Safe to leave

What plays over the credits instead

No post-credits scene. The Shining ends where it ends: the slow glide down the Overlook's corridor onto the July 4th, 1921 ball photograph with Jack front and centre, Kubrick's answer to a question he was content never to settle. The end titles that follow are short by modern standards, a couple of minutes of plain white-on-black.

Do not mute them. "Midnight, the Stars and You" — the Ray Noble recording with Al Bowlly's vocal, the same track the Gold Room band is playing when Jack meets Lloyd — carries over from the final image into the credits. When the song finishes, the mix does not cut to silence. You hear the ballroom crowd applaud, and then keep talking among themselves, voices overlapping, before they fade out. The last sound in the film is a party you cannot see, still in progress. Nobody points at it; on a theatrical mix in 1980, most of the audience would have been on their feet through it.

There is also a genuine historical footnote here, and it is the closest thing this film has to a deleted stinger. Prints that opened in the United States in May 1980 ran 146 minutes and contained a two-minute hospital epilogue slotted between Jack frozen in the maze and that final dolly shot: Ullman visiting Wendy and Danny in recovery, assuring her that investigators found nothing whatsoever at the hotel, and handing Danny the yellow tennis ball. About a week into the general run Kubrick decided against it and sent assistants into projection booths in Los Angeles and New York to physically cut the footage out of circulating prints. It has never been released and is presumed destroyed.

So the film you can watch today is already the second version, trimmed after audiences had seen the first — and the ending it now has refuses the reassurance the deleted scene provided. Nothing follows the credits because nothing is meant to be resolved after them. The applause is the joke, and the joke is that the Overlook is still open.

The short version

Is there a post-credit scene in The Shining?
No — The Shining has no post-credit scene. No post-credits scene — but don't mute the credits. After the ballroom song "Midnight, the Stars and You" finishes over the end titles, you can hear the Gold Room crowd applaud and chat before fading out, as if the Overlook's party never stopped. Historical footnote: 1980 opening-week audiences saw a two-minute hospital epilogue before the final photo, which Kubrick cut from prints days into release.
Does The Shining have a mid-credits scene?
No. The Shining has neither a mid-credits scene nor a scene after the final card. Whatever the credits roll itself carries is covered in the full breakdown above.

While you’re here

The Shining hides 18 more things worth catching

The credits are the last thing this film hides, not the only one. 8 of the 18 entries are confirmed by an official source.

All 18 easter eggs in The Shining

Last updated 2026-08-05 · Verdicts are checked against the theatrical cut. Spotted a change?