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Ever felt confused after a movie's credits roll? Join us as we break down those head-scratching film finales that left audiences debating for decades! From cosmic rebirths to time paradoxes, we're diving deep into the hidden meanings behind cinema's most puzzling conclusions. Spoiler alert: clarity ahead!
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00:08Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're breaking down the confusing endings of
00:13various films. We'll be getting into major spoilers for multiple movies so
00:17consider this your warning. Number 10. Loki found Keller. Prisoners. This high-intensity thriller
00:41follows a detective named Loki who's tasked with rescuing the young daughter of a man named Keller.
00:46As tensions mount, Keller gets trapped in a pit by the movie's villain Holly Jones and is left to die.
00:52Fortunately, he has a whistle which he uses and Loki actually hears it. But the movie then ends.
00:58Fans debated if Keller was rescued or not but despite the confusion, he most likely was.
01:03Pray for the best, prepare for the worst.
01:09Loki would have absolutely investigated the whistle sound especially since we knew he heard it.
01:14Plus, the movie's writer Aaron Guzikowski even confirmed that an unused scene was filmed which
01:19showed Loki finding Keller. Prisoners ended at a dramatic point but logically, Loki was never going
01:25to just turn back.
01:38Number 9. Regan likely found peace but the rest is intentionally a blur. Birdman.
01:55It might sound disappointing to say that a movie is supposed to confuse you, but that really is kind of
02:01the point of Birdman.
02:02The absurdly surreal flick is about Regan, an old has-been trying to get his career as a movie star
02:06back up and running.
02:08The wild visual spectacle concludes with Regan exiting from his hospital room window after surviving a gunshot wound.
02:14Did he actually fly away or did Regan die from his gunshot wound and the ending is just a hallucination?
02:20We can't say for sure.
02:22Director Alejandro Iñárritu never clarified the ending.
02:25There's competing theories but a simple healthy interpretation is that Regan gained closure after his final performance.
02:32We're just a little fuzzy on the how in the aftermath.
02:48Number 8. Ben and Elaine aren't really in love with each other. The Graduate.
02:54Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.
03:01When college grad Ben Braddock romances Mrs. Robison, a friend of his parents,
03:05the relationship is complicated when he falls in love with Robison's daughter, Elaine.
03:10Eventually, Ben crashes Elaine's wedding and the two run off together.
03:13The movie ends with the happy couple smiling but their smiles eventually fade away.
03:17There's a simple explanation here.
03:19Director Mike Nichols let the camera film longer than expected.
03:22That explains why the facial expressions changed.
03:24However, thematically, this ending represents Ben and Elaine's adrenaline wearing off as they're left to accept the reality of what
03:31they did.
03:31Is this dumb love or are they truly meant to be together?
03:35We're seeing them in real time discover they love the thrill of the chase but not much else.
03:40And the vision that was planted in my brain
03:46still remains within the sound of silence.
03:55Number 7. It's about course correcting time.
03:59Donnie Darko.
04:00What's going on?
04:02Horrible accident.
04:04My neighbor.
04:06I'll kill.
04:08Time travel is inherently confusing.
04:11And Donnie Darko is no different.
04:13It's a dark sci-fi thriller about a troubled teen named Donnie who's plagued by ominous vision.
04:18The movie also dabbles with multiple timelines and that idea spills into the ending.
04:22The final moments see Donnie staying in his bedroom as a plane engine crushes his house and kills him.
04:28In the beginning, Donnie actually survived this experience but that wasn't supposed to happen.
04:32This created a branched off timeline that shouldn't have existed.
04:35To fix things, Donnie had to let himself be killed by the engine.
04:39If you're a fan of comic book movies, consider this Donnie's canon event slash inevitable intersection.
04:44The logic isn't bulletproof but Donnie ultimately sacrificed himself to fix the universe.
04:49What happened?
04:51Got smushed by a dead engine.
04:56You got it?
04:59What was his name?
05:01Donnie.
05:02Donnie Darko.
05:04Number six.
05:05Anton probably murdered Carla.
05:07No country for old men.
05:09Call it.
05:11The coin don't have no say.
05:14This adaptation of an iconic Cormac McCarthy novel chronicles a hunt for drug money and the fallout to come from
05:20it.
05:20Though the movie's ending with Sheriff Bell's monologue is a bit head-scratching, it's actually Carla Jean's ending we're focusing
05:26on.
05:27In her last scene, she's visited by Anton Chigurh, who had a choice to make.
05:31Kill her or spare her.
05:33We don't see what directly happens, but Anton leaves her house and glances down at his boots.
05:38There's a possibility he's checking to see if there's blood staining his footwear.
05:42We also have to remember that Anton's cold-blooded.
05:45He represents evil, and the movie suggests evil doesn't change.
05:49With that in mind, it's likely Anton killed Carla rather than have a change of heart.
05:54It's just you.
05:58I got here the same way that Colin did.
06:02Number five.
06:03Deckard may or may not be a replicant.
06:06Blade Runner.
06:07It's too bad she won't live.
06:11But then again, who does?
06:15In this cyberpunk franchise, replicants are humanity's artificial counterparts.
06:19Almost human, but not quite.
06:21They're pretty dangerous, so it's Officer Rick Deckard's job as a Blade Runner to kill them.
06:26He's considered human, but the ending suggests he's a replicant.
06:29Rick finds an origami unicorn left in his apartment, and it's a big deal, since he dreams about a unicorn
06:35early on.
06:36Replicants can have fake memories implanted in them, so there's an implication that Rick's unicorn dream was implanted, making him
06:43a replicant.
06:44While Ridley Scott confirmed this was his intention, Harrison Ford vehemently denied that Rick was a replicant.
06:50Rick's basically stuck in limbo as a Schrodinger's cat, both a replicant and not a replicant at the same time.
06:57But then again, who does?
07:06Number 4. Jack is reincarnated. The Shining.
07:21Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's book, The Shining, is classic horror cinema.
07:27It follows the Torrance family's stay in the Overlook Hotel as the father, Jack Torrance, goes mad.
07:32While the film's unnerving, it's also a little puzzling with its ending.
07:36The final shot is a 1920s photograph of the Overlook where we spot Jack front and center.
07:42In an interview with Michelle Cement, Kubrick suggests Jack was reincarnated.
07:46The reincarnation angle actually seems even more plausible because of some of Stephen King's other properties.
07:52For example, Pennywise dies in It Chapter 2.
07:55However, his death is almost recontextualized as his own beginning in It Welcome to Derry.
07:59The seed of your stinking loins and his filthy friends bring me my death.
08:09Or is it birth?
08:12Overall, Jack's doomed to undergo cycles of violence as he continuously lives and dies trapped within the Overlook.
08:19You are the caretaker.
08:25You've always been the caretaker.
08:30Number 3. Ignorance is Bliss Inception.
08:45This notoriously complex movie is about a crook named Dom Cobb who enters people's dreams to steal info.
08:52Dom has a chance for a clean slate if he goes through Inception, which involves planting ideas into dreams of
08:57enemies.
08:58It's hard to tell when someone's actually dreaming or not, and Dom himself is confused at times too.
09:03So at the end, he spins a totem to figure out if he's dreaming about being with his family, but
09:08he doesn't actually see what happens to the totem.
09:11Basically, it doesn't matter if he's awake or asleep because he's finally with his family once again.
09:16Regardless of what reality actually is, Dom wants to be with his kids, so that's the outcome he's choosing for
09:22himself.
09:44Number 2. Travis was praised as the hero, even though he wasn't. Taxi driver.
09:49Mrs. Steensma and I would like to again thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
09:56Unfortunately, we cannot afford to come to New York again to thank you in person, or we surely would.
10:04Taxi driver is a character study of Travis Bickle, a cabbie with PTSD in grungy 70s New York who commits
10:11murder in a self-indulgent fantasy to clean the streets.
10:14Travis rescues a girl named Iris from a terrible situation, but also participates in many instances of chaotic violence.
10:21Travis recovers and continues driving his taxi, as we learn he's been praised as a hero by the press.
10:27However, was the ending a delusion?
10:30Director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader wanted the ending to be considered real.
10:34Though Travis is glorified as a hero, viewers ideally should recognize he's a troubled man whose inner turmoil led to
10:43destructive situations.
10:44Point is, Travis Bickle is a cautionary tale, not a literally me character.
11:24Number one, Dave was reborn. 2001, a space odyssey.
11:45Another cubic classic.
11:472001 is about a trip a group of astronauts take to Jupiter, but their expedition is compromised by their onboard
11:53sentient AI, HAL 9000.
11:55There's also mysterious black rectangles called monoliths which guide humanity through their evolutionary process.
12:01After the last surviving astronaut Dave Bowman defeats HAL, he goes through a journey of cosmic proportions.
12:07The ending sees Dave as an elderly man, gets shockingly transformed into a fetus.
12:12Throughout this, he's in the presence of a monolith, so what's happening?
12:16Well, Dave's entire life is literally being put on display for the beings behind the monoliths.
12:21They watch Dave, and when he turns into a fetus, he's now a powerful being called the star child.
12:27Trippy? Yes.
12:28Super cool?
12:29Also yes.
12:55Is there a confusing movie ending we forgot to talk about?
12:58Dissect it down in the comments below.
13:00And don't forget to like and subscribe for more WatchMojo videos.
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