Though straightforward on the surface-level, the dark comedy/crime film “In Bruges” raises questions on repeated viewings. At the end of the movie, guilty assassin Ray (Colin Farrell) takes a bullet in the streets of Bruges and is carried into an ambulance. Did he die? The movie doesn’t tell us. It also doesn’t tell us…if Ray is already dead.
During the length of the movie, Ray is complaining about discomfort and boredom, leading some film theories to posit that Ray is already dead, and Bruges is some form of purgatory. Others believe Ray will be forced to live out the rest of his life in Bruges, bored, cold, and annoyed.
Gone Girl
Though not confusing in the traditional sense – we know exactly what happened to the characters and why – but a lot of viewers had follow-up questions for the film that never got answered. The film ends with Amy (Rosamund Pike) clearing Nick (Ben Affleck) of her murder. She had initially framed him for it, but she then forced him to stay with her by getting pregnant with his child.
Viewers couldn't help but ask: would Nick really stay with her? How long will the relationship last before it ends in murder? Did they actually want to be together because they enjoyed the drama, or is it going to crash and burn?
Pan's Labyrinth
The dark fantasy film “Pan's Labyrinth” by Guillermo del Toro has an ending that can be interpreted in several different ways. At the end of the film, the main character, Ofelia, dies in the mystical, magical stone labyrinth, but the film continues to show her being reborn as Princess Moanna, taking her place at her father the king's side.
Did Ofelia imagine her rebirth into royalty as a last gasp at a happy life after a childhood full of darkness and despair? Or did it really happen? She died with a smile on her face, so it is impossible to tell, and it's all up to the audience to decide.
The Road
At the end of the dramatic apocalyptic movie “The Road,” Viggo Mortensen's character dies, leaving his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) alone in a world full of famine, drought, and cannibals. A family approaches him, wanting to take him in, but he is mistrustful.
They convince him to go along with them, and the movie leaves the audience to decide if this was a good decision or not. Will he be able to live for very long without his father? Will the family treat him well? Like the road the two main characters travel for the movie's duration, the ending is wide open.
Oldboy
There are few movies with as many shocking and disturbing twists as the South Korean action-drama “Oldboy.” At the end of the movie, Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) gets his revenge on the person who kept him captive for fifteen years, but then the villain reveals that the woman he's fallen in love with and made love to is actually his daughter.
Reeling, Dae-Su chooses to have a hypnotist wipe his memory. In the final scene, his daughter says she loves him. The enigmatic expression Dae-su has on his face doesn't let the viewers know if the hypnotism worked, or he is stuck with the awful knowledge and unwilling to tell his daughter the truth.