One thing that cannot be denied when it comes to movies is that, no matter how good the plot is, what happens just before the end is what sticks in our memory and makes us remember it afterwards. However, sometimes the audience is not mesmerized by how the story ended, but rather by the uncertainty of that ending, and whether the story will actually continue. At times open endings can be frustrating or unsatisfying, ruining the whole experience for the audience, who will only remember the movie for that last bitter moment. However, when a talented director decides to leave us floating on a cloud of ambiguity at the end of a film, it can actually enhance it and provide an additional value that in many cases leads to an all but guaranteed success.
This was the case with Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, the movie starring frequent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, which to this day continues to arouse curiosity among its fans. And when a movie is great, controversy is guaranteed despite its ending. Over the years, certain films have generated all kinds of theories about what the director wanted to show when he didn’t completely close the story. Huge debates to fill hours and hours of conversation among the biggest fans of cinema and that, even today, continue to be a mystery. So, in this article, we will take a look at some of the best open endings in cinema.
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7 Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) is not having the time of her life: ever since she was strong-willed enough to escape from the clutches of a cult and its persuasive leader (John Hawkes) she has been in a state of deep fragility. She has no idea about where to go, so she turns to her older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), with whom she had become estranged over various issues, and her boyfriend (Hugh Dancy) so that they can help her get back on her feet. However, the memories of her frightening experiences will begin to appear to introduce her into a deep paranoia from which it is very difficult to escape. Martha finds herself once again being pursued by the members of her former sect, confusing her nightmares and bad thoughts with an increasingly blurred reality.
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Sean Durkin debuted as a director with this psychological thriller whose atmosphere revolves around the world of religious fanaticism and the mental power that these doctrines exert on their followers, although in a very different way from what had been seen so far in other productions. With Martha Marcy May Marlene, Durkin won the award for Best Director at the 2011 Sundance Festival.
6 Prisoners
This 2013 film was directed by Denis Villeneuve and featured an international cast including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard and Melissa Leo. The production was nominated for numerous awards, including the Oscar for Best Achievement in Cinematography, and garnered a number of them, such as Best Ensemble at the NBR Awards.
Prisoners follows the story of Keller Dover (Jackman), a carpenter and man of faith, who experiences a turnaround in his life when his 6-year-old daughter and a friend are kidnapped while they are playing outdoors. He desperately turns to the police, yet quickly loses hope when the officer in charge of the case (Gyllenhaal) is forced to release the only suspect, Alex Jones (Dano), due to a lack of evidence. Dover decides to launch a personal search against the clock to find out the truth and save the girls, kidnapping the suspect and seeking justice by his own hand. But how much is enough when it comes to ascertaining the whereabouts of his daughter?
5 Parasite
Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho, who is recently confirmed to be involved in Kim Jee Woon’s new film) is the father of a poor family living in a low-rise apartment in Seoul, paying the bills with very precarious jobs and extremely poor conditions. His situation changes when his son manages to get a job as a private English tutor for the wealthy Park family. Using his resourcefulness, the young man manages to gain the trust of the mother of the family, and thus, little by little, he introduces the rest of his family members to different domestic service jobs. That is the beginning of a monstrous spiral from which no one will ever really come out unharmed.
Parasite is a thriller directed by Bong Joon Ho, and features Song Kang Ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam and Choi Woo-shik in its cast. The movie scored near-perfect on Rotten Tomatoes and garnered more than one award statuette, including Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards and Best International Film at the Oscar Awards.
4 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey is the ultimate science fiction movie in the history of cinematography. In the night of time, the presence of an enigmatic monolith triggers a primate tribe to discover the weapons and tools that man will use to dominate the world. Millions of years later, another monolith buried on the moon awakens the interest of scientists, who travel in a Space Agency spaceship to study it. This monolith emits the signal that guides the Discovery spacecraft to Jupiter. Five astronauts, three of them hibernating, are aboard the spacecraft. There we meet astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), as well as Hal 9000, a machine with artificial intelligence, emotions and feelings that is in charge of controlling all the ship’s systems. However, what is unknown to the crew is that the computer’s memory contains a series of instructions destined to fulfill a mission, and Hal 9000 will not stop until the mission is accomplished.
This classic film is directed by Stanley Kubrick, who co-wrote the film’s screenplay with British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. It stars Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Margaret Tyzack and Douglas Rain as the voice of Hal 9000.
3 Black Swan
Nominated for five Academy Awards and winner of a Golden Globe for its leading actress’ performance, this Darren Aronofsky movie follows the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a ballerina from New York whose life is completely filled by her ambitions and profession. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) replaces principal dancer Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) from the staging of ‘Swan Lake’, Nina spots an opportunity to become the ballet’s star. However, Leroy also sets his sights on Lily (Mila Kunis) for the leading role. The star of the ballet should be a ballerina who can represent the purity of the White Swan as well as the sensuality of the Black Swan. Thomas believes that Nina is fluent enough to be the White Swan, but lacks the eroticism to embody the Black Swan, so he pressures her harder and harder every day to fulfill her role. The rivalry and demands of her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) cause Nina to have an unhealthy relationship with Lily and bring out the worst in her by connecting with her destructive side.
Black Swan was very well received by the critics, and garnered several awards. Among them, the Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Natalie Portman.
2 Gone Girl
This movie adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s book was directed by David Fincher and starred Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry and Carrie Coon. Gone Girl follows the story of Nick (Affleck), a former journalist whose marriage to Amy Dunne (Pike) has long since failed. Trying to improve their relationship they both decide to open a restaurant with the help of one of Nick’s sisters, but it doesn’t go well for them. However, on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy mysteriously disappears and all suspicions about who pulled it off fall on Nick. The version of a happy couple offered by the man to the investigators began to falter very quickly. Facing the media he appears impassive, defending his innocence, but his strange behavior soon makes everyone start to wonder if he really is a murderer.
This 2014 thriller was honored with some nominations, especially for the performance of Rosamund Pike, who won Best Actress in several competitions.
1 Inception
This 2010 film features a star cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio alongside Cillian Murphy, Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine. It was directed by Christopher Nolan and won several awards, including an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Sound and Best Editing.
Inception is so complex that it is considered to be one of the most difficult films to understand in recent decades. Even today there are still theories that try to explain its ending. During the film we follow the story of Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), a thief who specializes in stealing valuable secrets from the depths of people’s subconscious while they are in a state of sleep. This made him very popular in the corporate espionage world, but at the same time turned him into an international fugitive, forcing him to leave everything behind. One day Cobb is offered an unparalleled opportunity to regain his former life, one last mission in which he has to do the exact opposite of what he has always done: implant an idea in the subconscious of Robert Fischer Jr. (Murphy). However, his plan gets complicated because there is someone following him closely who seems to predict his moves, so Cobb must find out who it is before it’s too late.
