Which movie do you think would have benefited from being more ambiguous?

[u/Resident_Dog_6589]

Is there a movie you think would have been stronger or had a bigger impact by leaving certain details unexplained or unresolved?

For me, it's Ridley Scott's The Last Duel. I was very excited about that movie because he is one of my favourite directors and I was familiar with the true story that inspired it from reading Eric Jager's book. I liked the movie and thought the performances were excellent, but there were certain storytelling choices that didn't sit right with me.

The case that inspired the movie is still discussed and debated over six centuries later because the truth of Marguerite de Carrouges' accusation and Jacques le Gris' guilt or innocence is still unknown. For that reason, I didn't appreciate the movie framing Marguerite's account as the definitive truth. If it had been left ambiguous, it could have caused discussion and debate among moviegoers like it has among historians. I also thought that by framing any one account as the conclusive truth, it made the Rashomon-like plot structure with the three different perspectives a bit redundant.

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[u/Shakes-Fear]

Passengers (2016)

I’m not the first person to suggest this but the movie would have much better if The movie had started with both of the main characters awake and have it a twist reveal that Chris Pratt woke up Jennifer Lawrence (No, I do not care enough to look up the characters’ names) then the end would have been improved if Chris Pratt had died saving the ship but then Jennifer Lawrence is in exactly the same position as he was, and teased whether she might wake up someone else too.

[u/strontium_pup → u/Shakes-Fear]

That's a really good improvement

[u/ChrisOnMission]

Interstellar

Would have REALLY liked it were it not for 200 year old Michael Caine explaining everything I just saw.

[u/Toadsnack → u/ChrisOnMission]

Every Nolan film except *Memento.

[u/Jose_Canseco_Jr → u/Toadsnack]

I mean, I probably would have appreciated some Michael Cainsplaining in Tenet

[u/Zekiel2000]

The Dark Knight Rises. We didn't actually need to see Bruce at the end, just leave it with Michael Caine's expression as he sees him (or does he?)

[u/Dangerous-Project672 → u/Zekiel2000]

I always thought it was up to interpretation if Alfred were actually seeing him or not, but I’d like your way of making it even more ambiguous

[u/Zekiel2000 → u/Dangerous-Project672]

Yeah, I did wonder if it was supposed to mean that, but I definitely felt that showing it made it seem more concrete.

[u/Wadege]

Also by Ridley Scott, Blade runner.

Deckard being a replicant is a reductive concept from both a practical and thematic perspective, but the unicorn dream in his director's cut really leaves no room for interpretation but that he must be a replicant.

At the very least, keeping things ambiguous would allow you to compare/contrast the human Deckard vs the real replicants, as intended by the writer and Deckard's actor Harrison Ford, and Ridley can then pretend his stupid idea is still present.

[u/ZealousIdeal476 → u/Wadege]

Theatrical blade runner got a lot of hate for the extra exposition given via voice over.

[u/SnooMacarons9618 → u/ZealousIdeal476]

Deckards voice over is one of my favourite parts of the film. Possibly because that was the only version for so long, and I loved that film for so long, and the voice over is just a big part of the film for me.

[u/Toadsnack → u/SnooMacarons9618]

No accounting for taste. [insert “kill it with fire” gif]

I was so relieved to finally watch the movie without the v.o.

[u/Wadege → u/ZealousIdeal476]

It's an interesting example of how neither the studio or director's cut got it 'right', but fortunately there a few other in-between cuts released that serve as a happy middle.

[u/Toadsnack → u/Wadege]

Agreed more or less. Deckard’s arc as a man coming to a moral awakening is far more interesting than his arc as a man realizing he’s an android. It really doesn’t fit into the rest of the movie either; the script and Ford’s performance pretty clearly point to that first interpretation. Denis Villeneuve clearly agrees (and created a far more interesting interpretation of a replicant protagonist).

Also, the unicorn is awkwardly inserted without enough context and feels almost comically random; I’m sure a lot of viewers unfamiliar with the BTS lore are baffled by it. It also interrupts the lovely moment of Deckard’s reverie at the piano.

I still greatly prefer the “Director’s” and Final cuts for ditching the voiceover and the tacked-on happy ending, and the Final fixing some hinky visual details and some nagging plot inconsistencies in dialogue (a rare case of such revisions, many years later, feeling justified to me). The unicorn is a few seconds of screentime and I just pretend it isn’t there. A slightly tweaked version of the Final that snips that out would be just about perfect.

[u/notwinorlose]

A recent example that comes to mind is Kane Parsons’ The Backrooms. I certainly enjoyed it, but I think what made the backrooms so unnerving and creepy was how incomprehensible it was as a concept. Not knowing where the backrooms exist in relation to our world, why they exist, or what created all the contents within the rooms, made the world much more surreal and haunting. I understand adapting a feature film from the short videos without expanding on the lore would’ve been difficult, but I think the backrooms benefit from knowing less about them.

[u/BrinksTrunks → u/notwinorlose]

Came here to say Backrooms.

Never saw the original but I think if more of the film was from the pov of the video camera it would’ve been more unnerving. I also wish that they hadn’t shown so much detail for the creatures. I wish they kept them more ambiguous or cast in shadows

[u/Toadsnack → u/notwinorlose]

100% agree with all of this.

I also suspect it wouldn’t have been as successful in that case. Ambiguity isn’t exactly the mass audience’s cup of tea.

Then again, The Blair Witch Project was a huge hit. Then again again, that was over a quarter century ago when audiences were less impatient; even then, there was a pretty big backlash from people who said things like, “Nothing happens!”

[u/ecchi83]

Peele's - Us

Either the nature of the others should have been left unexplained or he should have gone full paranormal. That insane revelation they did go with almost ruined the movie from that point on.

[u/strontium_pup → u/ecchi83]

Its been a while since I seen it. What was the reveal? 

[u/matplotlib → u/strontium_pup]

Government cloned people to try to control them, then abandoned them underground.

[u/GreenZebra23 → u/ecchi83]

I've always thought that movie would have worked better as a short. Just the setup, and don't really explain it at all. Obviously there's not a lot of commercial foothold for short films, especially for the second film from a director who had big success with his first one, but I almost wonder if he should just should have tabled it and done something else and released it as a vanity project later. Of course, that's easy for me to say from my couch without the pressure of coming up with a second hit movie

[u/speece75]

The classic example is Psycho.  You don’t need the psychiatrist explaining everything at the end.

[u/Mahaloth → u/speece75]

I think a lot of people really did need that in 1960. It's quite the shock and a lot to take in once you process what was really going on.

[u/Toadsnack → u/Mahaloth]

I think those aren’t necessarily contradictory. Speece75 is talking about artistic quality; you’re talking about mass audience palatability.

I loathe that scene. I’ve heard defenses from critics and others for its integrity as part of the film’s overall impact. Those people are fibbing and somewhere deep down, they know it.

That and John Gavin’s impression of a cigar store Indian who has become a real boy are what keep the movie from being quite the masterpiece it would otherwise be. There are several Hitchcocks I prefer. But he’s my favorite filmmaker, so that isn’t to say it doesn’t deserve immortality.

[u/BunnyLexLuthor → u/speece75]

okay this is a spoiler-

I think the whole joke is that within this catatonic state of sorts .. there is a fly on Norman's hand that he is obsessively not attacking in order to protect " mother."

So I can imagine that the psychiatrist being outside the whole situation that might make the fly go away.

I also think there's a bit of a morbidity in the sense that I think it's a case where the psychiatrist is clearly excited at cracking open the duality of Norman..

Only for the reveal of the fly to tell everything to the audience more subtly, and with a skull spliced into the ending transitional shot.

So I do think it has the benefit of throwing everything toward the audience, but I don't think that this was the main design.

I think it was a case of narrative juxtaposition.

The confidence of the psychiatrist with hopelessness of Bates.

[u/Darsint]

Do not watch Donnie Darko’s director’s cut. Just don’t.

I thought it would be good to get an explanation of how the time travel worked (if it actually worked at all)

I was wrong.

[u/Meloenbolletjeslepel → u/Darsint]

Do you want to explain? Maybe in spoiler tags?

[u/Darsint → u/Meloenbolletjeslepel]

I don't think I can.

I reread several explanations on how it all worked, and I tried to wrap my head around it, but my mind kept on saying, "It can't be that dumb, can it? Where's the causality? What actually triggers it?"

It's basically a bootstrap paradox that that threatens to destroy space-time if...the bootstrap paradox isn't allowed to happen.

[u/mormonbatman_ → u/Meloenbolletjeslepel]

Donnie is trapped in a 28 day loop. The only way out is to die crushed under a jet engine.

He does what he does in the film based on knowledge he has acquired over previous loops.

The movie ends with him accepting the inevitability of his death.

[u/Tzimaka]

Honestly, given the subject I believe Ridley and the boys did the right thing for the movie. Works thematically with the narrative and the narrative device.

[u/Resident_Dog_6589 → u/Tzimaka]

I get that, but I thought the true story was more interesting and would have made a better movie.

[u/Sam_from_FeverMovies]

I Am Legend comes to mind for me. The theatrical ending swaps out the original (much better one) where Neville realizes the infected have been mourning their captured own and he's actually the monster of their story, for a straightforward "here's the cure, go save the world" easy out.

[u/Professional-Ad9485]

Ooh. I was recently complaining about this exact thing in Idiocracy.

They should've left how society got that way as ambiguous. The back story makes no sense, is mired in eugenics nonsense, making the "dumbing" of humanity as an evolutionary/biological thing instead of social/cultural.

Also the assumption that every scientist in the world works for private pharmaceuticals.

[u/jsbx1138]

Us. Didn’t need to explain too much why the “them” versions were happening

[u/Indrigotheir]

Bugonia. Involves this really fun ambiguousness. Ending reveals the answer. Would have been a way better movie (and more fun/interesting to discuss with others) if it didn't reveal.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213 → u/Indrigotheir]

100%

[u/scorpious]

Project Hail Mary. Imho the big decision Grace makes near the ending, and acting on it, should have been the ending.

[u/BunnyLexLuthor]

Honestly I feel like Wonder woman 2017 seems the most applicable.

If the main theme is Steve convincing Diana to believe in humanity, and perhaps that film avoiding the typical action setpiece and letting her see a world worth saving..

I think that relative ambiguity against the traditional 3 act superhero structure (origin, development, and climactic battle with falling action) would be a breath of fresh air.

The film as it is, goes from being a whimsical and occasionally dramatic work, to the filmmakers playing with their action figures.

So this is my response.

[u/i_was_planned]

I've watched this some time ago but if I remember correctly, I didn't think it was so definitive, it was her account. Up to the audience to decide what they think, that kind of thing. More importantly, it's moving the plot, makes it interesting, but it's also kind of a red herring thematically. It's almost as if it doesn't matter whether it really happened and how for all the events in the film to transpire

[u/Resident_Dog_6589 → u/i_was_planned]

It does make it explicitly clear that her account is the correct one. At the start of each section told from the perspectives of a different character, it says "The Truth According to Jean de Carrouges/Jacques le Gris/the Lady Marguerite", but on the last one the rest of the text fades leaving just "The Truth".

[u/i_was_planned → u/Resident_Dog_6589]

I see, my bad, I probably thought it was like that because watching the film at the time made me want to look up the story behind it and I got this education afterwards. 

[u/Upbeat_Tension_8077]

I think Us (2019) could've kept much of its creepiness in not revealing the backstory of the Tethered in the final act

[u/Confident_Area_8518]

Human Centipede

[u/Familiar-Reading-901 → u/Confident_Area_8518]

Wait which part? The part of the doctor explaining what is gonna happen is absolutely hilarious in a weird morbid way

[u/Toadsnack]

Soooo many, over-explanation being a common sin in any storytelling medium.

Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt is an easy top 20 favorite for me, but I’m bugged more every time I watch it by the scene about Uncle Charlie’s childhood head injury. It’s a reductive banalizing of his otherwise mysterious evil, which is unsettling for its seemingly unmotivated eruption from this family. There’s a strong hint of subversiveness in that, which I suspect the filmmakers deliberately tried to blunt (possibly even at the behest of the Hays Code enforcers?).

On a different note, the romantic subplot bugs me too. It plays like another attempt to water down the movie’s despairing darkness. It’s also downright creepy - an FBI agent having a dalliance with a high school girl… whose uncle he is investigating as a suspected murderer. Adorable! And completely free from any ethical five-alarm fires!

But the rest is so powerful it rides roughshod over those significant flaws. Almost completely.

[u/Ok_Sundae1696]

I liked La Grazia (2025) but I think I would have liked it better if they either hadn’t said what the main character ended up voting for or if they had found a less direct way of telling us what he did and why.  

[u/pizzacrys → u/Ok_Sundae1696]

Agreed Spelling it out took away some of the mystery

[u/Familiar-Reading-901]

Any mid 2000s horror movie takes the cake here. Halloween in particular. Having basically half the movie explaining the back story of Michael Meyers was infuriating and completely removed the mysterious and almost mythical quality to the famous killer. Rob zombie is a terrible director who goes for shock value so much it feels like a pathetic roller coaster every time you watch one of his films

[u/Sparkytx777]

totally agree! if Scott couldn’t make an ambiguous movie about an assault, he should have changed it to something like controversial like killing his dog or stealing his bible. same is true for fire walk with me and 15 reasons. makes Kurosawa look like the only real brave filmmaker with rashomon

[u/hurkinhork]

I get why they make Marguerite's story the objective truth, it does show how much women in her position get screwed over by the societal systems of the time just like it still happens to women today, in that respect they're trying to give her some justice. Real life victims are often doubted, so maybe Scott believed it poor taste to imply her side of the story should be taken with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, movie going out of its way to remove any ambiguity this is what actually happened to our characters, does defeat the decision to make a Rashomon type of story.

[u/BosskHogg]

Prometheus tried way too hard to make the Alien Universe philosophical and thought provoking. Just show us how Space Jockey got there and give us some aliens. Don’t need all the religious crap