SPOILER ALERT! This list discusses the endings of many popular films. Here’s the deal. Storytellers craft a narrative that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Audiences spend about two hours, hopefully becoming invested in the story, and at the conclusion, there’s a payout. The writer is expected to wrap up the story, giving audiences some kind of closure. Except, of course, when a screenwriter doesn’t pen a cut and dry ending, and instead chooses to leave the audience hanging with a serious cliffhanger or otherwise open-ended movie. This list ranks the best films that have ambiguous endings. You may ask yourself why a screenwriter would choose to leave an audience gasping, “What the heck happened, how does the story end!?” Some spectators don’t think it’s fair and feel cheated when they don’t know what really happens, while others believe that it’s sort of cool and interesting to work through plot points upon repeated viewings and attempt to analyze a conclusion. Of course, everyone has their own interpretations of these open-ended films. For every person who watched American Psycho and thought that Patrick Bateman was really a murderer, there is another person who is absolutely positive that he was just delusional. Controversy is just one of the reasons why these movies are so brilliant; they create thought through deconstruction. All of these films contain multiple layers, each features plot points that beg to be examined, and several ultimately blur the line between reality and fantasy. We can’t trust our eyes and we have to ask questions. We are forced to think outside the proverbial box to try to create order out of a filmmaker’s chaos. Have a favorite open-ended film that’s not on this list? Let us know in the comments section and be sure to cast your votes for the greatest movies below, despite (or maybe because of) their ambiguous and unclear endings.
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Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) spends so much time inside of other people's subconscious that he needs to carry a totem, a spinning top, in order to tell what's real and what's a dream. At the end of this science fiction heist story, Cobb finally gets his kids back. He spins his top to make sure it's all real, however, writer/director Christopher Nolan cuts to black in the middle of the spin. Was it all just a dream? Is Cobb really with his kids? Is Cobb even alive?
Is Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) a sociopathic serial killer or just a crazy loon? Audiences spend the entire movie watching him kill people, or so it seems. The successful New York businessman is able to keep his psychotic side in the closet, until the third act when he goes totally bananas. In a hysterical state, he calls his lawyer and confesses his crimes. However, the dead bodies he was keeping around disappear into thin air. Did Bateman hallucinate killing people, or did he actually do it?
Time travel, alternate and tangent universes, supernatural powers, destiny, death, the end of the world, and a crazy looking rabbit. To say you need a Ph.D. in the theory of time travel to understand this movie is probably an understatement. Whether or not Donnie saves the universe at the end of the film is certainly up for debate.
In the original version of Ridley Scott's 1982 dystopian sci-fi classic, audiences were treated to a sweet ending. Deckard and Rachel were on the road to happily ever after. However, when the director's cut was released, the original ending was thrown out the window. Was the paper unicorn dream actually a planted memory? Is Deckard a replicant? Are Rachel and Deckard actually on the run?
There are only a couple things we know for sure about Christopher Nolan's non-linear masterpiece Memento. Leonard's (Guy Pearce) wife was brutally attacked in a home invasion that left him with short-term memory loss, so he makes it his single mission in life to find out who killed her. He has a system to help him with clues that he can't remember: tattoos, written notes, Polaroids. However, the big twist at the end of the film makes the audience question everything. We realize that we can't trust anyone, not even Leonard (especially not Leonard), a man who is the definition of an unreliable narrator. He even says, "How can you trust a man with brain damage?" In fact, our protagonist may just be chasing his wife's supposed killer because he doesn't have anything else to do and Leonard may actually be the one who killed his wife! This is a film filled with liars who can't be trusted. At the end of the movie, which is actually the beginning of the narrative, there are more questions than there are answers.
Stanley Kubrick's love it or hate it sci-fi classic is divided into several slowly-paced parts. You'll need no less than 100 viewings to figure out how all the segments fit together. In a nutshell, the film explores two themes: the evolution of mankind and the perils of technology. Let the debates begin! Does Dave transform into a Starchild or even become some kind of omnipotent "God" at the end of the film?
Is Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) really a secret agent in a fake marriage in Paul Verhoeven's 1990 sci-fi adventure? Or was the Rekall implant just a false memory? Pick a side; a case can be made for both schools of thought.
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) loses his mind in Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining. A harsh, cold winter of solitude combined with a deadly helping of writer's block and a creepy hotel up in the mountains not only make Jack a dull boy, but they also make him want to murder his wife and son. Jack is killed at the end of the film, however his image lives on in an old photograph that we see on the wall of the hotel. Do you believe in ghosts? Is Jack now the evil spirit that haunts the hotel?
Director Darren Aronofsky is obsessed with obsession. Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman in the Oscar-winning role) is cast as the lead in Swan Lake, the part of a lifetime for any ballerina. However, Nina's tenuous grip on reality quickly fades. By the end of the film, the ballerina has gone completely nuts, and audiences know that they can't trust any of her hallucinations. But the questions remain - did she kill Lily backstage? Did she ultimately kill herself?
This 2010 Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio psychological thriller once again asks the question: Is the protagonist a crazy loon or is he being played? DiCaprio plays US Marshal Teddy Daniels. He and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to investigate the disappearance of a murderess on an island for the criminally insane. The plot-twisty narrative leads spectators to the possibility that Teddy may actually be a patient, not a Marshal.
Oh, David Lynch, you surrealist master of confusion. The director's 2011 non-linear, non-sensical, neo-noir has too many questions to ponder. In fact, at the end of the movie, we're not even sure if it's the beginning of the story. What is real? What is fantasy? What is a dream? Audiences have to act like detectives in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together. But who says that a story has to make sense to be great?
Aimless college graduate Benjamin Braddock is seduced by Mrs. Robinson, the much older wife of his father's business partner. By the end of the film, Benjamin decides that he's in love with her daughter Elaine, and he crashes her wedding. Elaine and Benjamin run off and escape to the back of a public bus. At first, they are all smiles, Elaine obviously still wearing her wedding gown. Then they realize the enormity of what they've done. The smiles disappear and a "holy cow, now what" look emerges on both their faces. The film ends and audiences are left shaking their heads. Now what, indeed.
Confusion, due to the complexity of the Matrix films, hits its peak with the third and final installment of the trilogy. When the film faded to black, audiences were left wondering if Neo died in the battle with Agent Smith. Or, did his spirit perhaps survive and somehow live on and exist within the Matrix. And is the war between the machines and human kind over? So much was left unanswered.
George A. Romero's 1978 horror classic pits zombies versus humans. A group of survivors seeks refuge from the walking dead in a shopping mall, however zombies eventually find their way in. Francine and Stephen are able to escape the flesh eating beasts in a helicopter, but there isn't much fuel left in the tank. When the credits roll, audiences have no way of knowing whether or not the pair will survive.
It's that eternal question: while hanging off a bridge in the final scene of a movie, do you drop the guns in your other hand that your friends sent you out to dump because they connected you all to a crime, or do you answer your phone to learn that those guns are worth some serious cash money and you should actually hang on to them? If you're confused already, don't worry - the entire plot of this Guy Ritchie film is a bit of a maze to navigate, and at the end of the day, this ending is left hanging. Literally.
Auteur director Darren Aronofsky has never been one to shy away from ambiguous endings. In the comeback saga The Wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) returns to the wrestling ring despite a doctor's warning that his heart is too weak and he could die. The Ram ignores the advice because he feels the need for glory, but the final shot shows him jumping off the ropes. Did the move ultimately kill him, or did he survive?
Christopher Nolan is another director with a penchant for ambiguous endings. In the final chapter of his Batman trilogy, the masked crusader dies a hero's death. Or so it seems, anyway. Perhaps, Bruce Wayne just needed to escape from the demanding life of a superhero? Does Alfred see Wayne in Vienna at the end of the film? Or is Alfred's immense grief playing tricks on him?
What the heck did Bob (Bill Murray) whisper into Charlotte's (Scarlett Johansson) ear at the end of Sofia Coppola's sophomore film Lost in Translation? The mismatched couple never shared anything more than a single kiss, but still had a profound emotional connection, deeper than most marriages.
Can anyone explain the ending to Cameron Crowe's 2001 psychological thriller!? Even if you think that you have the definitive answer, you're probably wrong. Crowe himself admitted there were quite a few different interpretations for the ending of the film.
Zack Snyder's 2011 adventure fantasy takes place inside an insane asylum where young girls are forced to dream up alternate realities in order to cope with their surroundings. All of the dreamworld states leave audiences guessing as to what was real and what was fantasy.
Throughout Adrian Shergold's Cordelia, the titular character and the audience do not know if the people she sees are just screwed up parts of her imagination or real beings. When it is revealed that her potential love interest Frank has been the one stalking her, she stabs him. What happens next is where it gets confusing. As he dies, Cordelia runs upstairs to his apartment, finding that all the pictures he took of her are gone and his entire apartment empty. While this may sound like a complete ending, the execution is just confusing, leaving you wondering what was real with no clear answer given.
Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play old gangsters in this Fisher Stevens film, reuniting upon Pacino's release from prison. Unfortunately, Walken was ordered by a mob boss to kill his old pal Pacino. The film ends in a magnificent battle, but who survives? Does the mob win? As the camera pans to the sky, viewers will never know.
Shane Carruth made this sci-fi cult classic for around $7,000. Just don't ask the writer/director to explain the film, because he can't. Disorientation was actually his goal and no one involved with the production understood how the plot worked in this reimagined film about time travel. If it was confusing to the cast and crew, then imagine how befuddled audiences are.
We all know Mr. David Lynch is not the type of director who is going to wrap things up in a pretty bow and his cult classic directorial debut may actually be one of the most confusing films to ever hit the big screen. For all of the bewilderment surrounding his neo-noir Mulholland Drive, at least it had a plot that, in theory, could be pieced together in a logical way. Audiences leave Eraserhead wondering if the film was just an awful nightmare for Henry Spencer, or an actual glimpse into the apocalypse.
