Your favorite ambiguous endings

I didn't understand all the fireworks at the end of Deep Throat.

 

Nothing.

The only thing I can think of is that some people may think it's unclear who shot Lester - Annette Bening or Chris Cooper. If that's true, those people need to stop watching movies because they're doing it wrong.

 

2001, In Bruges and The Conversation come to mind.

 

Three Days of the Condor, especially if you're a journalist.

 

The Graduate

 

When Kermit finally deflowered Miss Piggy. Oh wait, I thought you said amphibious.

 

It's ambiguous who's gonna go to jail for it.

Certainly there's plenty of evidence for prosecutors to build cases against any number of people.

I could even see trying to build a case against Angela, and maybe even Barbara Fitts.

 

I'm pretty sure they'll be able to figure out which gun fired the bullets.

 

Frank got rid of his gun somehow or other; in his closing shot, he marches past his gun case, with one empty slot for the murder weapon.

Carolyn's panic-stricken attempt to hide her gun shouldn't fool anybody, but who knows -- she might regain her composure, grab it out of the laundry hamper, and hide it somewhere before the cops arrive (unlikely, but hey, it's a movie).

If the actual murder-weapon gun and ballistics tests are out of the picture, the investigation/prosecution could go in a lot of weird directions.

At least superficially, Frank's and Carolyn's guns LOOKED similar -- like .38s -- but there was no dialogue indicating they were the same make/model (which certainly would have raised uncertainty had both guns 'disappeared').

 

I'm sure that's exactly the enduring message the filmmakers intended with that ending.

 

The final product wasn't ambiguous at all. Maybe people are confused because of the backstory, that the original version of the script had Ricky and Jane on trial.

 

Well, since they came back to the video sequence two times (I think), obviously the filmmakers wanted there to be some uncertainty implicit in the ending.

Certainly had the movie been written a bit differently and two or three key scenes changed, it could have been turned completely around into a mistaken-prosecution thriller with the main focus on the charges against Ricky and Jane.