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On SpanishDict they have an example of "acabar" and "acabarse" to indicate something comes to an end, and it is unclear to me what the difference is and when to use the pronominal version:

  • "Te llamaré después de que acabe la película": I'll call you after the movie ends.

  • "La película se acabó temprano": The movie finished early.

Also, is "acabarse" a reflexive pronominal?

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  • Perhaps worth noting that most of the usages given in the DLE whether transitive or intransitive are not also used as pronominal dle.rae.es/acabar?m=form The pronominal ones are marked U, t. c. prnl
    – mdewey
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 16:23

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The sentence:

  • La película se acabó temprano.

is not idiomatic. We would normally use non-pronominal "acabar" or "terminar".

"Acabarse" is generally used to mean "run out":

  • Las provisiones se acabaron. (The supplies ran out.)

or to mean "come to an (abrupt though expected) end":

  • Mis esperanzas se acabaron. (My hopes came to an end.)
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  • I'm sorry Gustavson, did you mean to make the examples with "acabaron" or "acabarse"?
    – Jaime Santa Cruz
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 20:16
  • As I said, in the examples with "se" the verb is more than just "finish". It's more like "run out".
    – Gustavson
    Commented Dec 18, 2022 at 23:09
  • Yes, acabarse is run out (El cafe se acabo.).
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 19, 2022 at 17:02

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