Top 10 Ambiguous Movie Endings

Hello, dear reader!

Originally, I was going to post either a list of the greatest dystopian films or a list of the greatest party movies today. I thought I'd know which one to post after Tuesday. Yet somehow, neither one feels quite relevant at this point. Instead, my mind has been drawn to movie endings - especially those ones that are left open and leave you begging for answers and some closure. Do you know the feeling when something is left up in the air and you just can't wait to see what would happen next?!

So, with no subtext whatsoever, here is my ranking of the greatest ambiguous movie endings of all time.

SPOILER ALERT: Since I'll be discussing movie endings, there will be major spoilers. I suggest reading the titles first, and then skipping the entries concerning films you haven't seen but might want to see someday.

Here are my honorable mentions: Enemy (2013), Life Of Pi (2012), No Country For Old Men (2007), Taxi Driver (1976), The Blair Witch Project (1999).

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

As I mentioned in my ranking of Ari Aster, Jordan Peele and Robert Eggers's movies, this film can be interpreted in various different ways - and the final scene makes it all the more up-for-debate. It is pretty clear that both main characters wind up dead, but what exactly lead to this is left wide open. Perhaps The Lighthouse was a symbolism-heavy psychological thriller, and the characters went crazy on the island and ended up killing each other. Or maybe the 'symbolism' was meant to be taken literally, and the island was actually occupied by supernatural forces that ended up destroying the human inhabitants of their home. We'll never know for sure.

9. Shutter Island (2010)

"Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?"

That is the question that Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) asks at the end of this psychological thriller. And a good question it is. The line helps the viewer fully grasp the double-sided meaning of the film's big plot twist - it has been revealed that Daniels is actually a patient in the asylum instead of a marshal investigating it, but there's more to it than that. His mental state and motives are left open, leaving a possibility of interpreting the ending in two very different ways - either he is fully insane and many of the film's events were distorted by his imagination, or he knows exactly what he did and was simply reliving the experience through a strange recreation. Either way, it's quite dark.

8. Lost In Translation (2003)

One of the many brilliant style choices in Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation is leaving the final line very open for interpretation - not in two, but really any number of ways. As the film's two unlikely lovers have one final embrace before going their separate ways, Bob (Bill Murray) whispers something in Charlotte's (Scarlett Johansson) ear. As the line can't be heard, we have no idea to this day what he said to her. One can theorize, as the substance of the line can lead to very different kinds of futures depending on what choices the two main characters make after the film's events.

7. Blade Runner (1982)

A real classic in the realm of ambiguous endings. Mind you, it didn't stay that way forever - the pseudo-sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017) provided an answer to the main question left on everyone's minds as the credits to the original Blade Runner start to roll. The film's milieu is filled with real people and replicants, and here's the hook - we don't know which of these groups protagonist Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) belongs to. For a majority of the film, the audience assumes Deckard to be "real" as his job is to hunt down other replicants, but the final lines and the visual imagery that goes with them makes one realize that he may have been a replicant all along - or then not.

6. The Shining (1980)

After the film's events have come to a close and everything seems to be over, the final scene of this horror classic creates one hell of a curveball. We see an old-timey photograph from 1921, and as we zoom closer, we see Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in the photograph, looking the same age as he is during the film's events. This can be interpreted in a multitude of ways: was he a ghost or other immortal being all along? Was he inhabited by a spirit from the Overlook Hotel? Is there time travel involved? All in all, a real head-scratcher.

5. American Psycho (2000) and Joker (2019)

I counted these two psychological thrillers as one, as they pretty much have the same ending. The ambiguity of both endings works in the same way, posing very similar questions. In American Psycho, serial killer Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) has a conversation with his colleagues that reveals that Paul Allen (Jared Leto) is alive, which confuses the viewers as we saw Bateman murder Allen earlier in the film. In Joker, the titular character (Joaquin Phoenix) laughs ominously at an asylum and tells his therapist that she "would not understand it".

In both cases, the dialogue in the final scene makes the viewer realize that there has been an unreliable narrator. We don't know how much of the film's events actually happened, and how much was just in the protagonist's head. Quite chilling stuff.

4. Birdman (2014)

I love this ending so much. The film's themes of dark humor, existential crises and interpretational fantasy symbolism come to a brilliant climax that feels dark yet hopeful in a magical way. Protagonist Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) walks to the edge of his hospital room to look at the birds flying in the distance in a fascinated manner, as his daughter Sam (Emma Stone) leaves the room. When she returns, Riggan isn't in the room. Wee see the window from an outside view, as Sam peers out of it to see what happened. And then, the most amazing thing happens: she looks confused, after which she looks up. This fits in with Riggan's past, the bird-related symbolism and the surreal feel of the movie like a glove. Sheer amazement.

3. Damn Near Every David Lynch Movie

Now, there are a select few David Lynch films that don't end on an ambiguous note - Blue Velvet (1986) and The Straight Story (1999) come to mind. But most of his films have delightfully open-ended or otherwise interpretational endings, ranging from strange to even stranger. The closing moments of Eraserhead are a real head-scratcher, as an increasingly psychedelic display of imagery is interrupted by the Lady In The Radiator (Laurel Near) giving a cryptic message. Mulholland Drive is even more notorious, as the film ends with protagonist Diane (Naomi Watts) being chased by hallucinations that lead her to a mysterious demise, with no clarity to why or how this happens - unless the viewer is up for some hardcore detective work.

Then there's the nightmarish and unclear final act of Lost Highway (1997), the possibly-hallucinated "happy ending" of Inland Empire (2006) and Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) unsettling fit of tears and laughter in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). I'd like to dive into any one of those in full essay form, but this list isn't the right context for a deep Lynchian analysis - some other day.

2. Inception (2010)

"It was all a dream" is one of the most clichéd ways to end a story. Christopher Nolan decided to one-up this trope by making a film all about going into people's dreams, and ending it with "this is a dream - or is it?". As the main character Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) reunites with his family after completing his mission, he leaves a spinning top on the table. This top has been a 'totem' throughout the film, meaning that spinning it is a way to check whether you're in reality or in a dream - if it stays spinning instead of eventually falling down, you know you're in a dream.

As Hans Zimmer's Time brings the audience to tears, the final scene closes with the top still spinning. Will it continue to do so, or fall down? Is this a real happy ending, or just a dream of Cobb's? Is the top irrelevant as some fans have speculated, due to Cobb's actual totem being his wedding ring while the top was his wife Mal's (Marion Cotillard) totem? These are questions definitely worth asking.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

This one is simply on a whole other level. If you've seen the film, you'll know. If you haven't, I can't really put it to words (and you should consider not reading this part and watching the film for yourself). I've seen 2001 three times, and if you asked me to tell what happens in the last 20 minutes, I really couldn't. But it's my favorite movie ending of all time. There are psychedelic visuals, epic monoliths and a gigantic space baby involved. The use of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra in the soundtracks makes everything a lot more epic.

The ending is so large in scale, that one just knows that it means something magnificent and larger-than-life, even if one can't pin down quite what it means. Whether it represents humanity entering a whole new stage of evolution, a full circle of history coming to a close, the edge of the universe clashing with our world after humans interfere with infinity or something entirely different, it definitely means something big. And it leaves me in sheer awe every single time.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for my list of the greatest Leonardo DiCaprio performances, in honor of the actor's 46th birthday. I might post either my Dystopian Movies list or my Party Movies list during this weekend, depending on how things shape out.