Movies that emphasize ambiguity puts viewers’ brains to the test. While some of these movies are designed to introduce complex ideas, some movies take creative liberties with their structure, eschewing formal storytelling for something that hits you in your subconscious.
With many layers to untangle, sometimes movies turn from an hour and a half of entertainment into a research project to unveil the many interpretations the movie can produce. These films often require some explanation online, a debate with your friends, or at the very least, some soul-searching.
‘Mulholland Dr.’ (2001)
David Lynch’s neo-noir thriller, Mulholland Dr, is infamous for its surrealist craft that transformed a simple story about a woman who survives a car crash and befriends an aspiring actress as she tries to understand her identity. The film’s tagline, “a love story in the city of dreams,” encapsulates the (simplistic) core of Mulholland Dr. Still, many argue that the film is, in fact, less about the characters, and more a criticism of the allure of Hollywood -—though there are numerous explications that can be explored.
The reason behind some of the confusion and open-endedness of Mulholland Dr stems from the fact that it was originally intended to be an open-ended television series until it was rejected by the executive — meaning that David Lynch’s ending of the feature film was developed after the rest of the story had been completed. True to his philosophy on filmmaking, David Lynch has since declined to outline any explanation of the film, leaving the interpretation process individualized to everyone who watches.
‘Inception’ (2010)
As soon as Christopher Nolan’s name is attached to a movie, viewers are in for a complex movie that’s ambitious in terms of its craft. Inception is a landmark of the director’s work, diving into the world of lucid dreaming and the nature of reality.
Inception follows Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) routinely perform corporate espionage by extracting information from their target’s subconscious to steal business ideas, where they create a layered dream before enacting a “kick” that wakes dreamers up from each level. The film traps viewers in a web of dreams and reality through stunning visuals, combining an artistic approach with a cinematic masterpiece. The ending of Inception was purposely created with ambiguity, where it is unclear whether the final sequence was a reality or a dream. While many argue about the film’s ending, Christopher Nolan has refused to comment on his true intent.
‘The Matrix’ (1999)
Probably the most well-known science-fiction work of all time, The Wachowskis’ The Matrix entered viewers into a world of a dystopian future that has humanity trapped inside a simulated version of reality. The successful franchise focuses on computer hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves), who learns about the Matrix and joins a rebellion with those freed from the complex world to fight against the machines.
Outside the phenomenal contribution to cinematographic techniques — especially the visual effect “bullet time” — The Matrix religiously studied the complex principles of philosopher Jean Baudrillard to inspire its meaning and creation, which largely explains the film’s inability to construct a simplistic idea of the Matrix. Every character displays their perceived reality, which has spiraled into a plethora of theories about the film, from Neo being a Machine to Zion being its own Matrix in the Matrix.
‘Shutter Island’ (2010)
Martin Scorsese is known for his morally (and often socially) complex films such as Taxi Driver, and his 2010 neo-noir psychological thriller Shutter Island is no exception. On the surface, Shutter Island follows a detective-type plot, where Deputy Marshal Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at the isolated Ashecliffe Psychiatric Hospital to investigate a missing patient who drowned her children as he struggles with migraines and hallucinations of his deceased wife.
However, as he investigates further into the doctors and patients at Ashecliffe, Teddy learns less about the disappearance and more about his depleting sense of self. A character-based film, Shutter Island toys with illusionary perceptions to lure the audience into a twisted narrative, with an ominous ending that truly polarizes viewers into Teddy’s fate.
‘Memento’ (2000)
Just like Inception, Christopher Nolan created a dynamic film by exploring the intricacies of reality and the mind within Memento — leaving viewers to analyze every part of the non-linear chronology. Following Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) and his splintered mind due to amnesia, the film details his journey to find his wife’s killer through his evidence of polaroids and tattoos as guidance. Leonard’s short-term memory loss limits his ability to retain new information, where he relies on his clues to traverse through his vengeful ambitions.
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The depiction of anterograde amnesia enriches the viewer’s experience through the unreliable narration, while the director’s manipulation of time expresses the idea that memory can be deceptive through the choice to edit events in the mind, causing many viewers to meditate on the psychology of the movie and its characters and the dangers of self-deception.
‘Nocturnal Animals’ (2016)
A tale of revenge like no other, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals encapsulates intricacies that toy with viewers’ minds by weaving two plots that run side-by-side with each other. Amy Adams stars as the rich and miserable art gallery owner, Susan, who feels unfulfilled in her marriage to Hutton (Armie Hammer). Her life feels invigorated again when she receives the first copy of the titular manuscript written by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), dedicated in her honor.
The movie follows Susan’s reading of the novel and her realization of the details of their marriage present in the book. Split between the plot of the film and a reenactment of Edward’s novel, Nocturnal Animals manipulates parallels between the two mediums within the film to distort viewers’ perceptions about the events. Is the book just one big metaphor for their relationship, a revenge device? Is Edward dead, or did he cut ties with Susan once and for all? Is Nocturnal Animals a story of revenge or a tale of moving on?
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
Possibly one of the most influential films of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey is rich with symbolism. The storyline is relatively simple: a four-million-year-old monolith is found buried near a lunar crater, and members of the Discovery One spaceship — including Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) — set out to research the origins of a mysterious artifact near Jupiter. The Discovery One is run by HAL (Douglas Rain), a computer with a human personality that begins to make errors but refuses to believe its incompetence.
The implications of the universe surrounding the cast is the conflict of interest among viewers. The film can be seen as a pessimistic condemnation of human nature or how humanity can redeem itself through its capacity for curiosity and discovery. In typical Stanley Kubrick fashion, he refuses to spoonfeed the audience. As 2001: A Space Odyssey is largely non-verbal, a viewer’s interpretation largely relies on the visual characteristics of the film, which created an ambiguity that allowed many theories to arise.
‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ (2020)
A psychological thriller with surrealism entwined in its narrative is bound to leave viewers mystified. At the forefront of I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an unreliable main character (Jessie Buckley): a young woman who contemplates breaking up with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) during a trip to meet his parents (Toni Colette and David Thewlis). Interspersed between this narrative is footage of a janitor (Guy Boyd) at work, with the cast meeting in the film’s final sections.
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I’m Thinking Of Ending Things can be interpreted in many ways, but often the theories are central to Jake’s character and the janitor’s above all else, with a focus on aspects of the human psyche including suicidal idealizations, escaping reality with fantasy, dealing with relationships, and perceptions of reality when aging. The film encapsulates a rising sense of tension throughout the film, where viewers are almost expecting a horror film instead of a thriller, but confusion riddles the plot with no clear answers (unless you’ve read the original novel by Iain Reed).
‘Tenet’ (2020)
It’s clear that Christopher Nolan seems to enjoy challenging his audiences, and his sci-fi action thriller, Tenet, is no different. In a simple explanation of the plot, the film’s protagonist (John David Washington) is a former CIA agent recruited to the secret organization Tenet, who is determined to prevent humans from destroying themselves in the past and future. A core concept of the film’s plot relates to time inversion, where the entropy of objects and people is reversed, moving backward at a constant pace, leading to bootstrap paradoxes and multiple versions of characters existing simultaneously.
Due to the complexity and multifaceted approach of the world, many interpretations of Tenet exist but cannot be confirmed or denied. For example, due to the cause-and-effect nature of the universe, it can be said that there’s no such thing as free will. At the same time, other viewers could interpret free will in an illusionist stance where it exists only in the mind for the benefit of individuals and society. In true Nolan style, no one knows what is happening in Tenet.
‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)
If any movie is going to send viewers down the Reddit rabbit hole, it would be Richard Kelly’s oddball coming-of-age tale, Donnie Darko. Young Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) inadvertently saves himself from a jet engine crashing into his bedroom through his habitual sleepwalking, guided by a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank (James Duval), who warns him that the world will end in 28 days.
The film then explores Donnie’s attempts to live out his teenage experience as his parents (Holmes Osborne and Mary McDonnell) discount his actions as schizophrenia, where it is suggested that he is detached from reality — and in a way, he is. Playing with the idea of time loops, Donnie has complete control over alternate realities, which he uses to realize the stakes of his actions. Does everything happen for a reason, or are there courses of action that can change fate? Donnie Darko traverses through many realms of interpretation, left up to viewer discretion.
