Movies with Ambiguous Endings

Did they live or die at the end of Thelma and Louise?

Inception is an example of a movie whose meaning and entertainment value is dramatically increased by the ambiguity of the ending.

The original Black Christmas has a great one where the heroine has survived her ordeal, but killed her boyfriend who she believed was the killer. It's implied that she was wrong and the real killer might still be hiding in the attic, waiting to finish her off. Really chilling.

R3, I disliked that film for never revealing what the hell was going on. And the character played by Margot Kidder was all over the map.

The ending of The Birds got a big "huh?" from me when I first saw it, but I prefer it now to what they had planned.

Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene

Vertigo

The ending of Cruising. A lot of people seem to think Al Pacino was the killer. I think he realized he's gay.

Lord. These threads.

Ambiguity.

It's a great thing, a good thing, a lazy cheat or perhaps the OP just thinks a movie does not have a sharpened ending.

So many possibilities...............

R5, ooh good one, I loved that movie, Olsen’s performance, & that creepy ending.

That one freaked me out R9.

Another good one is Take Shelter.

Albert Finney reaching for Diane Keaton's hand at the end of Shoot the Moon.

Valentine (2001)- Was the cunt Dorothy involved in some of the killings?

[quote] Did they live or die at the end of Thelma and Louise?

They lived, Rose. The convertible converted into a hovercraft, shocking everyone.

Entre Nous, an is-she-or-isn't-she a lesbian, from her child's POV.

I choose to believe she was, though I've never heard that that's been established.

Wonderful movie.

"Hello, Dolly!"

Was she really Dolly Gallagher Levi, as she claimed to be, or was she a disguised serial killer?

I just saw one called "The Assistant" and in the end you don't know if she's going to quit her job due to a Harvey Weinstein-type boss- or keep on working there to further her career. She just walks down the sidewalk.

FWIW, I thought the ending of Ammonite was pretty unambiguous.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Did she make it home with the painting intact?

Did they ever get together again?

Two great Coen Bros. movies:

No Country For Old Men

A Serious Man

The Incredible Shrinking Man

What happens when he goes through the window screen and leaves the house for good?

"A League of their Own" -- Dottie drops the ball, meaning her team loses and her sister's team wins. Did she drop the ball on purpose?

R21. It's good ending, but I don't think he survives. Probably eaten by an insect or another spider.

Blade Runner, especially when you add in the director’s cut.

GWTW -- Does she get Rhett back or not?

Center Stage

The Black Hole. Not a great film of a great ending, but certainly ballsy by Disney standards.

R17? I wouldn't live with a woman and her husband, even if he's in the other bedroom.

Grease, because other than the fact that they spontaneously sing and dance and change costumes, it wasn’t a supernatural film. But it ends with the car flying off and up. Huh?

The Innocents (1961)

All the french movies.

[quote] Grease, because other than the fact that they spontaneously sing and dance and change costumes, it wasn’t a supernatural film. But it ends with the car flying off and up. Huh?

Clearly they both died the previous summer when Danny tried to save Sandy from drowning at the beach. Everything we’re seeing is their vision of the senior year they could have shared.

Limbo (1999), directed by John Sayles. A slow-burn thriller that ends on a quiet but disturbing note: is David Straithern about to be rescued--or has his past finally caught up with him?

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - somehow Palpatine doesn't die.

The Children's Hour. When Audrey Hepburn's character walks off after the funeral, James Garner is walking far behind. Do they reunite? Is she too bitter about what happened? Does she think she's gay?

R36 Because that wasn’t in the original play, so they didn’t know how to end it

R31, I remember Cache was like that as well. You never find out who it was who was filming the house.

Stranger By the Lake

The ending of "Ammonite" wasn't ambiguous at all - Mary Anning turns down the offer of a married woman's spare room, and goes back to living her life and being herself.

Now "The Innocents", that's the mother of all ambiguous movies and the best! With "Mulholland Drive" right after! Most movies that try for that sort of thing don't really make it work, like "Donnie Darko", "2001: A Space Oddessy", or "Lost in Translation". Most of them end up somewhere between a quirky good movie, and an interesting failure.

There's a horror movie that came out a few years ago called Cam. It starred Madeline Brewer (Janine from The Handmaid's Tale) as Alice, a camgirl. She is determined to break into the top 50 on her camsite, but when she does she discovers that a doppelganger has taken over her account and performing shows (and getting all her tips), while doing things she would never do. She finds out that one top girl died years ago, but some sort of AI makes it look like she's doing new shows. There's also an obsessive fan and a big spender she interacts with. It's never explained why a girl's account gets taken over, or who is doing it. Is the big spender orchestrating it, or the fanboy, or the site itself? It all seems a bit half-baked but it's still a good movie, mostly because of Brewer's performance.

The original ending of The Descent before Lion's Gate got nervous and ended it a minute or so before. We're not sure if the heroine will snap out of her madness long enough to get out of the cave and save herself.