5 Unresolved Cliffhangers We Still Can't Get Out Of Our Heads
These endings keep fans up at night wondering what they actually mean.
A great ending can turn a mediocre movie into a great one, just as a terrible ending can completely destroy your positive impression of the movie.
And sometimes there is... none, as the movie simply leaves the viewer on an unresolved cliffhanger, leaving them to make up their own explanations since there is no definitive conclusion provided.
Here are five such movie finales that have fans arguing with each other to this day. Beware of major spoilers.
Inception ( 2010)
Christopher Nolan is famous for making complicated movies with multi-layered stories that encourage viewers to re-watch and see the bigger picture, and this one is no exception.
But when the movie ends, viewers are left with a shot of a "totem" (a spinning top used to distinguish dream from real life because it doesn't stop in the former case) that looks like it's about to fall, but the screen suddenly cuts to black.
Drive (2011)
After the protagonist known only as "The Driver" is stabbed in the stomach at the end of this neo-noir film by Nicolas Winding Refn, many fans are still not over his fate more than a decade later.
The final scene shows him driving through the night, which could be an allegory for death given the severity of his injury.
Annihilation (2018)
Although the main character, Lena, learns that her husband has been replaced by a doppelganger of mysterious origin, she apparently destroys the one created in her image.
But when she visits her husband's double in the film's final minutes, "Lena" doesn't answer a direct question, but embraces him, and their irises flicker, suggesting that it might not be our protagonist after all, or that she's been changed forever by an anomaly.
The Thing (1982)
When the shape-shifting alien appears to be defeated for good, the two remaining survivors take no chances with the creature possibly escaping Antarctica.
So Childs and MacReady just sit there, just as unsure as the audience whether one of them is the creature.
Lost in Translation ( 2003)
As Bob and Charlotte embrace for the last time before they part forever, viewers are presented with one of the greatest movie mysteries of all time, as Bob whispers something in the woman's ear, visibly cheering her up.