The Most Confusing Movie Endings Explained

There are plenty of great movies that leave things on a bit of an ambiguous note to keep the viewers thinking after the movie ends. After all, an ending that wraps everything up can be great in the right movie, but life is usually a lot more confusing than that.

Filmmakers like the Coen Brothers thrive on ambiguity, and their endings to films like Barton Fink and No Country for Old Men are still being discussed to this day.

We think we’ve figured out what’s going on with some famous final scenes, so let’s take a look at the explanations of some confusing movie endings.

#Movie #Film #Hollywood

Inception | 0:00
The Dark Knight Rises | 1:16
Birdman | 3:14
Vanilla Sky | 4:55
Barton Fink | 6:21
No Country For Old Men | 7:47
Mulholland Drive | 8:47

[Looper]

What other confusing movie endings should we feature next?

[HunterVex.]

Pay attention to Inception... DiCaprio always has his wedding ring on in dreams. He wasnt wearing one in the final scene!!

[droidfanor]

Film directing 101: Make a confusing ending and everyone will think you're a genius.

[TheRealBrotherGrimmy]

The ending to birdman (at least the way I think of it) is that he did in fact successfully commit suicide, she looked down and saw his body, but as she was raising her eyes to the sky, she saw his soul. I think it adds more of a poetic feel to it

[NTigger]

Half of these you just said "The director said the ending is whatever you think it is." You didn't explain shit.

[Grandpa_]

What about "The Room" I wanna know the hidden mean behind "Oh hi Mark!" :V

[cuevacuev]

I swear to god if I hear someone question the ending about Inception one more time Imma throw a shoe at them

[doc-holliday-]

If you were confused by the ending to batman you should probably just give up on life, it gets a lot harder then that.

[EnterTheSoundscape]

Inception is pretty easy to decipher.
1. Cobb wouldn't have seen his kids faces if it were a dream.
2. The top wouldn't have wobbled if it were a dream.
3. It's implied with the gun placed on the table that he shot himself to escape limbo and wake up on the plane along with Saito.

[Hobosdkcheese]

The Dark Knight was not complicated. Donnie Darko? Fight Club? Memento? Do movies that actually have answers for fucks sake.

[RandomGameCritic]

Every single one of these examples were either not explained or not confusing.

[Schmecked]

If anyone was confused at the end of the dark knight rises, quit watching movies. That didn't need to be explained.

[aydndemirors]

i love you guys!! and the only reason i'm this overflowing with joy is that you included movie titles and their exact spots on video. this is just professionalism. as a person who didn't watch most of these movies and is totally scared of getting any sort of spoilers, i thank you from the bottom of my heart

[Coolrockndad]

Without a second thought "2001" is a must for confusing endings!

[walladim]

The ending of Inception is the reality. In his dreams, he is wearing his wedding ring and in the real world he is not.

[krystallovesclassics]

My sister and I watched Vanilla Sky for years trying to understand it, We eventually gave up and I believe we made the right decision.

[CJLOVE]

Vanilla Sky is my favorite movie. I literally ball my eyes out the minute he looks up at the vanilla sky and says “Let them up there read my mind” and then he looks down and Penelope Cruz is standing there so beautifully lit and the beautiful Sigur Ros song starts playing. Ahhh I’m getting chills just typing it out. If anyone needs ANY kind of explanation for Vanilla Sky, let me know. I can tell you everything. I’ve seen it at least 10x and the original just as much

[sciblastofficial]

Bird Man's ending was her looking to heaven...

[michaelroditis]

i totally disagree on the dark knight and especially on bird man. About birdman, everything at the end scenes were perfect. The husband-wife, the father-daughter and the friend-to-friend relasionship are all better than ever. The same is true about the woman that wanted to destroy his play. Also all the paparatsi are all over him and finally the all known scene where he jumps out of the window and the girl watches him fly. Let me point out that she wasn't surprised or scared but she just smiled, totally what I would do if I watched my father fly. All that's true because it actually isn't, it's all in his mind. He was thinking how it would be if he had survived the shot but, news flash, he really killed himself on stage.

[dirtblack]

"Mulholland Drive" needs to be understood in relation to his previous film "The Straight Story" an uncharacteristically normal film with broad appeal. It's main audience was aging Americans and became incredibly popular in that demographic. This demographic is also rather uninterested in keeping up with every film genre and current film being made and their directors like the yonder generations are. They saw a nice movie by a nice man who also made a new movie. They were advertising "Mulholland Drive" this way.
I remember when I went to see it in my local theater, it was filled with nothing but whitehaired nice people thinking they were going to see another nice movie. When the film took its inevitable turn, I looked around and saw an entire theater filled with horrified people who all thought they had lost their minds. I suddenly realized what Lynch had done.