Summary

A movie ’s final scene can affect how consultation sense about the entire storey , but some conclusion are so confusing that they have been at the center of debates for years , or even decades . Confusing endings usually descend into one of two family . The first category is the purposefully ambiguous termination , where audience are forget with unanswered questions about what chance next or what they have just seen , like howRocky IIIends with a freeze - frame as the battle start . The other case of confusing end involves a puzzling fit where the audience is get out to deconstruct the signification for themselves , like Tommy Lee Jones ' dream monologue at the end ofNo Country for Old Men .

No matter what type of confusing cease a film maker chooses , a flick can live on a pile longer in the memory if it depart a mystery story after the credit roll . Rather than induce everything answered neatly , interview are more probable to turn the story over in their head for a quite a little longer if something is left unresolved . Such termination can also tie into a movie ’s fundamental radical . Black Swanfeatures some intense hallucination , so it makes sense for its ending to avoid answer the question of what is material and what is n’t . It ’s not always easy to test and pull out off an equivocal closing , but when it ’s done well it can have audience scratch their head for a prospicient fourth dimension .

10Lost In Translation (2003)

Bob whispers to Charlotte

Cast

Lost in Translationfollows two American stranger in Tokyo who strike up an unconvincing thing as they search for satisfaction in their lives . Bob , an over - the - hill actor , meets Charlotte , a neglect young cleaning lady , and they find solacement in each other ’s company . Just as they are about to part ways , seemingly forever , Bob distinguish Charlotte in a crew and climb up from his taxi to espouse her one last clock time . He pulls her close to partake a parting message , but it ’s unclearwhat Bob whispers to Charlotte . After the vividness of their brief affair , it would be heavy for Bob to encapsulate his flavour in a unmarried sentence .

92001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Dave arrives in a strange bedroom

2001 : A Space Odysseycan roughly be split up into four parts . The movie begins with the dawn of man , jumps forrad to exploration of the moon and Jupiter , and then finish with Dave journeying through a wormhole of some kind . Dave hurtle through a dazzle corridor of abstractionist luminosity and colour before arriving in a gray bedroom , which fuse classical design element with the unfertile feel of a laboratory . Dave sees himself aging apace , but when he is on the brink of demise , he is born-again in an adapted form , floating out in space . The enigmaticending of2001 : A Space Odysseyhas puzzled audiences for over 50 years .

8American Psycho (2000)

Paul Allen is alive

American Psychois shockingly tearing , but the conclusion suggests that the graphic murders may have only taken property inside Patrick Bateman ’s vision . After include to kill between 20 and 40 the great unwashed , Patrick finds that his confession is brushed off as a trick , and that one of his mellow - profile victims , Paul Allen , is still live . This propose thatPatrick may not have killed anybody , but it ’s unclear how many of his experience were guess and how many were real . If his crimes were fanciful , then the picture show does n’t report for his real actions , and the repercussion of the crime , such as the electrifying police pursuit , would all be meaningless .

7Birdman (2014)

Sam visits Riggan in hospital

rinse - up player Riggan Thomson tries desperately to rectify the esteem he feels he merit by adapting a collection of Raymond Carver ’s short tale for Broadway , but the production is plagued by issues . In the oddment , Riggan strain his point of accumulation and shoots himself in the head on stage . He awaken up in a infirmary bed with his daughter Sam by his side , and it seems as though he has achieved everything he wanted . It appears as though he jumps out of the window , but Sam looks up and smiles . The final vista could all be take place in Riggan ’s imaging , or it could be just an abstraction of his dream .

6Enemy (2013)

Helen turns into a spider

Enemyis a twisting psychological dramatic play about a man who finds his exact doppelgänger , and the path that their life begin to immix together . Jake Gyllenhaal plays both purpose , and although he does a fantastic line of secernate their subtle mannerisms , director Denis Villeneuve expertly blurs the lines separating the two men . In thefinal scene ofEnemy , Adam kick the bucket into the bedroom to turn back on Helen before he leave , only to detect that she has transform into an enormous spider . Spiders are a recurring motif inEnemy , but Helen ’s sudden transmutation is still a electric shock that storm up the surrealist factor .

5The Graduate (1967)

Benjamin and Elaine catch a bus

The ending is a Rorschach trial of sorts , and viewers are able-bodied to fancy their own feelings onto the young couple .

After Benjamin rescues Elaine from her wedding , the two hinge upon away on a bus . As the thrill of their leakage starts to settle , their smiles slicing , and they leave their ordeal wither into the background . The ending ofThe Graduateis fairly simple , but consultation debate whether or not it constitutes a happy ending . On one hand , Benjamin and Elaine have stick out up to their parents and done something for their own benefit , but their facial expressions suggest that they may know their actions were hasty and overly sentimental . The conclusion is a Rorschach examination of sort , and viewer are able to visualize their own feelings onto the young match .

4Us (2019)

Hands Across America

The Tethered struggle to originate up both metaphorically and literally from their underground dwellings , until they prod a violent uprising to take the lives that they believe they merit . Thefinal human action ofUsis packed with lurid twist , but the last double show the Tethered forming a human chain across the country , reverberate the Hands Across America Jacob’s ladder event . There are several different interpretation of this image , and they all circle back to the question of what the Tethered represent , whether they are America ’s working class , a specific ethnic group , or a personification of the dark corners of the human psyche .

3The Italian Job (1969)

Teetering on the edge of a cliff

After a gang cope to pull off a venturesome heist in Turin , they fete wildly as their bus topology slides around the straining corner of an alpine route . Just when they retrieve they have escaped peril , the bus topology brake shoe toward the edge of a cliff . With the weighting of the gold jeopardize to rive the bus over the boundary , Charlie Croker says that he has an idea , but the movie terminate dead . It ’s unclear if his plan would function , or even what it is , sinceThe Italian Jobends on a real cliffhanger . In the decades sinceThe Italian Jobthere have been heap of theories , but none have been confirm .

2Inception (2010)

The spinning top

BothTenetandInterstellarare great examples of movies with endings which require multiple viewings , butInceptionmay present Nolan ’s most enduring conundrum .

Christopher Nolan is intelligibly a fan of ambiguous or otherwise confusing endings . BothTenetandInterstellarare great examples of movies with close which require multiple viewings , butInceptionmay present his most long-suffering riddle yet . The mind - bending thriller toy with the construct of reality , and the conclusion does n’t definitively do whether Cobb is still dreaming or not . He use a spinning top to distinguish between the real world and his own subconscious , and the top falter ever so slightly just as the movie edit to black . There are mountain of persistenttheories aboutInceptionattempting to decrypt the movie , even over a ten after its release .

1Blade Runner (1982)

Is Deckard a replicant?

The enigma at the ending of Ridley Scott ’s sci - fi classicBlade Runnerhighlights the same mystery which runs throughout the entire movie : is Deckard a human being or a replicant ? There are a few tinge that Deckard may not be human spread out throughout the movie , and Scott ’s dissimilar cut add more fuel to this theory . Harrison Ford thinks Deckard is a replicant , butBlade Runneris less explicit . Roy Batty saves Deckard from come down to his death , and he seems to relate to him , as if he can recognize a fellow replicant . Roy ’s famous monologue also suggest at a shared understanding between himself and the man who has been hunt down him .

Sidious, Tyranus, Maul, and Vader.

Josh Hartnett looking shocked in Fight or Flight

Denzel-Washington’s-Best-The-Equalizer-2-Scene-Revealed-The-Real-Robert-McCall

Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson as Bob Harris and Charlotte hugging each other at the end of Lost in Translation

Cast Placeholder Image

Headshot Of Bill Murray In The 65th BFI London Film Festival: ‘The French Dispatch’ premiere

Headshot Of Anna Faris In The Overboard Los Angeles Premiere

Headshot Of Giovanni Ribisi In The 5th Annual Kodak Film Awards held at The ASC Clubhouse

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) walking down the halls of his office lost in thought in American Psycho.

Headshot Of Jared Leto

Headshot Of Reese Witherspoon In The 49th AFI Life Achievement Award

Headshot Of Chloe Sevigny

Headshot Of Willem Dafoe

Emma Stone looking up in Birdman

Headshot Of Emma Stone In The Premiere of ‘Kinds of Kindness’

Headshot Of Edward Norton In The 10th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

Jake Gyllenhaal looking at the giant spider at the end of Enemy (2013)

Headshot Of Jake Gyllenhaal

Headshot Of Mélanie Laurent

Headshot Of Sarah Gadon

Headshot Of Isabella Rossellini In The Los Angeles screening of ‘Spaceman’

Katharine Ross and Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967)

A bus hanging off a cliff in The Italian Job

A close-up of a spinning top in Inception

Headshot Of Leonardo DiCaprio In The 35th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Night

Headshot Of Joseph Gordon-Levitt In The Hollywood Critics Association’s 2023 HCA Film Awards

Headshot Of Elliot Page in The 48th Toronto International Film Festival: ‘Backspot’ Premiere.

Headshot Of Tom Hardy In The Premiere Of The Bikeriders

Headshot Of Harrison Ford In The 29th Annual Critics' Choice Awards

Headshot Of Edward James Olmos