Not really movies that leave a loose end in case of a sequel but rather ones that have absolutely no resolution–they just end.
I caught Two Lane Blacktop last night and was caught off guard by the “melting film” ending. I wonder if G.T.O. guy’s last wacky story was intended as a representation of what the ending was supposed to be, possibly with the roles reversed.
From what I remember of Last Year at Marienbad it would fill the bill. Nothing really happens, but it doesn’t happen several times from a number of different perspectives.
The ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail always bugged me.
Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron. Great flick, right up to the very end where it looks like Peckinpah just turned off the camera in mid scene. Very much worth watching, but be forewarned that the ending basically leaves the story unresolved and is very unsatisfying.
Memento ended at the beginning. And the beginning, which was the ending, was rather abrupt as well.
That description is absolutely perfect.
the ending of K-Pax bugged me to no end also. I didn’t really consider it an ending, since I had been waiting for some kind of resolution or explanation and was just left confused.
You and Me and Everyone We Know. I liked it, a lot, but it sorta felt like the middle of a movie.
We meet the characters in the middle of changes in their lives, and while there’s natural progress, it felt like it never got past the middle. When the screen went black, I said “That’s it? I want more!”
Pulp Fiction has no real ending since the parts are out of order.
Dances with Wolves. Pissed me off royally that I had sat through over three hours of that movie and then it just…ended! No resolution, not even a scrawl to tell you what happens. Just ends.
Spike Lee’s School Daze. It looks like he just ran out of film and decided to end the movie in the middle.
It’s out of order 'cause Tarantino was focusing on a particular character arc.
The “ending” is the epiphany at the end.
I’d say that Broken Flowers falls into this category.
The movie ends with absolutely no resolution as to which woman had written the note telling him of his son, or if the whole thing was a hoax by his disgruntled ex. Of course, the movie is really about his character’s development as a human being and the whole road trip/investigation is just the backdrop to this change - but still, it ends without giving any real answers at all. In my opinion, if the note was real - I think it was Francis Conroy who had the child…there was a lot of subtext/body language in the scene’s with her and her husband that seem to indicate this.
The Apartment, with Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLain.
When I was in college, my girlfriend and I rented Poop Floats… Okay, the title is Hope Floats, but I kept calling it Poop Floats. It was supposed to be a romantic movie.
To be fair, we were focusing a lot more on each other than the TV screen, but when the credits started rolling we both looked at the screen and each other and said, “Is that the end?”
There’s no such thing as a real ending, so MOST movies get it wrong. The only honest ending, in most movie contexts, is a non ending.
My favorites–the ones that come to mind–are *Limbo *and Zabriskie Point.
I disagree with that. The movie definitely ended. They just never explain if he was or wasn’t an alien. It’s up to the audience to decide.
I really liked the ending.
Limbo is a great non-ending. Some Like It Hot is a great ending.
Are you proposing that, because real life does not have endings, movies are somehow flawed if they provide endings? I don’t buy it, but maybe I’m misunderstanding your point.
This was exactly what I came in here to mention.