Don't expect any help figuring these movie endings out.
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00:00While films that refuse to commit to a hard ending can absolutely come off as cowardly or unimaginative,
00:06when it works, it really works.
00:08And so we come to these 10 films, each of which eschewed a more conventional, defined ending,
00:14in favour of one you were left to figure out for yourself.
00:17So I am Gareth here from WhatCulture.com and here are 10 movie endings you can only work out for yourself.
00:2410. Martha Marcy May Marlene
00:26Martha Marcy May Marlene stars Elizabeth Olsen in her stellar film debut as Martha.
00:32A young woman who has been living with a cult for two years, and upon deciding to leave,
00:38struggles to pull herself away entirely.
00:40Even when exiting the cult and living with her sister Lucy,
00:43Martha has PTSD-induced delusions that the cult members are pursuing her,
00:48leading to a climax where Martha finally agrees to be taken to a mental hospital.
00:52As Lucy and her husband Ted drive Martha there however,
00:55Martha notices a man she spotted earlier in the day get into his car and seemingly follow them.
01:01Martha looks out the back window of the car and then the film just ends.
01:05The whole point of Martha Marcy May Marlene is its ambiguity,
01:09namely that Martha is an unreliable narrator,
01:12and we as the audience have no idea if her perspective is correct or delusional.
01:16Whether you believe she's reacting to a fantasy or is indeed being followed by the cult,
01:21they're both completely valid reading, sufficiently backed up by everything leading up to that point.
01:279. The Gift
01:28In Joel Edgerton's outstanding debut, married couple Simon and Robin Callum run into Simon's
01:35old high school classmate Gordo, an eccentric but seemingly well-meaning man who begins intruding
01:40on their personal life.
01:41Simon quickly grows uncomfortable with Gordo's presence,
01:44while Robin is more accommodating, and eventually Robin becomes pregnant.
01:48It's later revealed that in high school, Simon made a false report that Gordo had been molested
01:53by an older boy, resulting in him being bullied and almost murdered by his own father,
01:58who believed he was gay.
01:59This revelation drives a wedge between Simon and Robin,
02:02who, after giving birth to their son, decides to separate from him.
02:06But at film's end, Simon finds a gift box left for him by Gordo,
02:10containing a video which implies he may have drugged and raped Robin,
02:14and may therefore be the father of her child.
02:16The movie concludes without Gordo confirming the agonizing truth to Simon one way or another,
02:21in revenge for Simon refusing to own up to his own horrific act years prior.
02:26The gift of the title ultimately is the doubt that Gordo plants in the mind of both Simon
02:30and the audience, and if both outcomes weren't equally plausible, the ending wouldn't really work.
02:368. Shame
02:37Steve McQueen's Shame is a terrifically crafted depiction of sexual addiction,
02:42as executive Brandon struggles to quell his overpowering urges.
02:46The film opens with Brandon travelling to work on the New York City subway,
02:50when he makes flirtatious contact with an engaged woman,
02:53who eventually grows uncomfortable and disappears into the crowd.
02:57Throughout the film, Brandon is forced to confront the self-destructive nature of his addiction,
03:01and at the end he once again crosses paths with the engaged woman on the subway,
03:05who this time appears far more interested in him.
03:07As the train pulls to a stop, McQueen cuts to black, leaving the audience to decide whether
03:12or not Brandon succumbs to his urges and follows the woman.
03:16The film gives you basically nothing one way or another to decisively determine what Brandon does.
03:21Him successfully turning the implied invitation down,
03:24or giving in to his addiction are both 100% believable outcomes,
03:28and it's really down to individual viewers whether they perceive the scene optimistically or not.
03:327. Horse Girl
03:34Netflix's Horse Girl stars Alison Brie as Sarah,
03:39a shy, awkward young woman who begins to have strange dreams
03:42and unaccounted for lapses of time in her memory.
03:45Those around Sarah believe her to be going through a mental health crisis,
03:49given her own mother's recent suicide.
03:51But Sarah becomes convinced she was abducted by aliens and may in fact be a clone.
03:56Sarah's beliefs only become more rigid as the story progresses,
03:59even after a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
04:01The film ends with Sarah being discharged, laying down on the ground,
04:05and suddenly being levitated into the air and seemingly abducted by a UFO.
04:10This is one of those endings you're free to take literally or not.
04:13It's entirely possible Sarah was indeed seeing reality the entire time,
04:17and was abducted at the end.
04:18But it's also entirely probable she's in the midst of a delusional episode,
04:22and the abduction could even represent her suicide.
04:25The film makes no attempt at all to come down on one side or the other,
04:28and as such, it's left viewers baffled and divided ever since.
04:32Number 6, Crash, 1996
04:34David Cronenberg's Crash is a fascinatingly twisted erotic thriller
04:39about a group of individuals who are sexually aroused by car crashes.
04:44Following a brutal car accident,
04:45protagonist James Ballard enters this strange subculture,
04:49where those who partake in fetishizing car crashes
04:52often end up killing themselves in accidents.
04:54At the end, James and his wife Catherine embark on a consensual vehicular chase
04:58with one another on the freeway,
05:00with Catherine unbuckling her seatbelt
05:02and being rammed violently off the road by her husband.
05:05However, James finds that Catherine is largely unharmed,
05:08and as the pair begin having sex on the ground,
05:10he tells her, maybe the next one.
05:12There are certainly conclusions which can be drawn from this ending,
05:15most notably that James may be referring to death
05:18being the only realistic outcome of their fetish,
05:20a fate which befalls several other car crash fetishes in the film,
05:24and that it just may come to fruition next time.
05:27It's worth mentioning, however,
05:28that Catherine utters this same line near the start of the film,
05:31when James openly discusses an unsatisfying
05:33extramarital sexual encounter he had.
05:36It's certainly possible that Cronenberg's film
05:38is simply speaking more broadly about the unending pursuit
05:41of an unattainable, ultimate pleasure
05:43which continues to elude the pair.
05:45It's possible Cronenberg intended audience to pick up on all of this,
05:49and yet he leaves it ambiguous enough
05:51for viewers to decide for themselves.
05:53Number 5, Doubt
05:54John Patrick Shanley's Doubt,
05:57adapted from his own Tony Award-winning play,
05:59is centred around the possible guilt of Father Flynn,
06:02a priest who may or may not be abusing a young altar boy.
06:05On one hand, there's Sister James,
06:07who is more willing to believe Flynn's innocence,
06:09and on the other, Sister Aloysius,
06:11who is convinced of his guilt.
06:13Aloysius eventually convinces Flynn
06:15to move to another church under the threat of blackmail,
06:18before it's revealed that the blackmail was entirely fabricated,
06:21yet Aloysius reasons that it wouldn't have worked
06:24unless Flynn were guilty.
06:25At film's end, Aloysius sees Flynn's resignation
06:28as proof of his guilt,
06:29while James maintains his innocence.
06:31In the final scene, Aloysius declares to her,
06:34I have doubts, I have such doubts,
06:36as she breaks down in tears.
06:38There's a lot for the audience to consider for themselves here.
06:41First and foremost, whether Flynn truly was guilty,
06:43and then precisely what Aloysius has doubts about.
06:46Is she doubting her accusations against Flynn,
06:49her faith,
06:49the presence of God around her,
06:51or all of the above?
06:52Exactly what that final scene means
06:54has sparked fierce debate among audiences
06:56ever since the original play made its debut.
06:59Number 4, Burning
07:00Li Changdong's mesmerizing thriller Burning
07:04follows a young man, Jong-soo,
07:06who runs into a childhood friend, He Mi,
07:08with whom he becomes infatuated.
07:10He Mi soon enough heads off on a trip
07:12and returns with Ben,
07:13a man she met on her journey,
07:15an initially affable yet mysterious man
07:18who may or may not harbor a dark secret.
07:20Ben eventually confides in Jong-soo
07:22that he periodically burns down abandoned greenhouses
07:25in order to feel alive,
07:27with the implication being that Ben may or may not
07:29be using burning greenhouses
07:31as a euphemism for murdering young, lonely women.
07:34Thereafter, He Mi goes missing
07:36and Jong-soo comes to believe that Ben is the culprit,
07:39resulting in him murdering Ben
07:40at the very end of the movie.
07:41And yet Changdong never commits to Ben's potential guilt
07:44one way or another,
07:45leaving the matter teetering so brilliantly
07:47on a razor's edge.
07:49Audiences are free to read into Ben's apparent euphemism
07:52and his possible sociopathic tells, or not.
07:55Number 3, Being There
07:56Being There stars Peter Sellers as Chance,
08:00the simple-minded gardener of a wealthy old man
08:02who hasn't ever set foot outside
08:04of the man's lush Washington, D.C. townhouse.
08:07When the man dies, Chance is sent out into the wide world,
08:10where through a series of improbable incidents,
08:13he ends up being considered to become
08:14President of the United States.
08:16In the film's famous final scene,
08:18Chance is shown walking across a lake,
08:21seemingly defying the natural laws of physics,
08:23before dipping his umbrella in the water,
08:25into which it disappears before he pulls it back out.
08:28In the closing seconds,
08:29we then hear the current president say,
08:32life is a state of mind.
08:33There's a lot to unpack here.
08:35There's very obviously a biblical connotation
08:37to Chance walking on water,
08:38which might suggest he's implied
08:40to be a savior of humanity.
08:42On the other hand,
08:43in referring to that final line,
08:45it may be saying that the blissfully ignorant Chance
08:47is able to walk on water,
08:49precisely because he didn't know he couldn't do it.
08:52Either way, it makes for one hell of an ending.
08:54Number 2, The Lobster
08:56Yorgos Lanthimos's deliriously twisted black comedy,
08:59The Lobster,
09:00takes place in a bizarre dystopia
09:02where single people are given just 45 days
09:04to find a partner,
09:06or be transformed into an animal of their choosing.
09:09Singletons are encouraged to seek out potential partners
09:11with characteristics similar to themselves,
09:13and so protagonist David eventually settles
09:16on a woman who, like him, is short-sighted.
09:18However, the woman ends up being blinded
09:20by the leader of the loners,
09:22single people who live in the forest.
09:24And so, at film's end,
09:25David is forced to decide whether to blind himself
09:28in order to remain compatible with her.
09:30At a restaurant, David goes to the bathroom
09:32and prepares to stab himself in the eyes with a steak knife.
09:35Yet the movie ends before he actually does.
09:37It's absolutely believable that David blinds himself
09:40in order to be with the woman,
09:41but at the same time,
09:42it's completely plausible he bails on her and flees.
09:45Hell, perhaps David simply pretends
09:47to have blinded himself.
09:48Lanthimos sets all three of these endings up
09:50without giving preference to any of them.
09:53Number 1, Picnic at Hanging Rock
09:55Peter Weir's brilliant mystery drama, Picnic at Hanging Rock,
09:59depicts, or rather doesn't,
10:01the disappearance of two schoolgirls and their teacher
10:03at Australia's Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day in 1900.
10:07The film ends without the trio's vanishing act
10:09ever being solved,
10:11while the death of the school's headmistress,
10:13Miss Appleyard,
10:14can either be interpreted as an accident or suicide.
10:17Though the movie makes it abundantly clear
10:18that something incredibly strange
10:20is going on at Hanging Rock,
10:22with the eerie presence of invisible,
10:23seemingly supernatural forces.
10:25Like its source novel,
10:27it stopped short of granting the viewer
10:28any concrete resolution.
10:30A cut final chapter from the novel
10:32would have revealed that the girls disappeared
10:34into another dimension,
10:35a revelation which was quite sensibly excised
10:37in lieu of a more provocative, ambiguous ending.
10:40Yet audiences are of course free to consider
10:43that non-ending as a possibility,
10:45or equally that there was no supernatural explanation
10:47for the girls' disappearance at all.
10:50It's down to you to decide.
10:52And that's our list.
10:53Know of any other movie endings
10:54you can only work out for yourself?
10:56Let us know all about them in the comments section
10:57right down below,
10:58and don't forget to like, share,
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11:03then please head on over to whatculture.com
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11:07just like the one this video you're watching right now
11:09is based on.
11:10I've been Gareth from whatculture.com.
11:11Thank you for checking out this video
11:13that you can work out for yourself afterwards.
11:15Now go and check out some more
11:16WhatCulture goodness
11:17and have an epic day wherever you are.
11:19See you later.