12 Longest Film Debates
Good movies make us speak well after we’ve left the theater. Great films have kept us talking for decades. Sometimes an ambiguous ending or an unsolved plot mystery can feel like laziness or a cheap ploy. When done with care, they can engage us in a way that no specific solution could.
Some of the most pressing questions in film history may have real answers if the films in question are analyzed carefully enough. Others are more purposefully ambiguous, their interpretations differing depending on what a given viewer brings with them to the film. In such cases, we do not need to dwell on one particular interpretation, but rather we need to keep several possibilities in mind at the same time. But when a movie is really great, any number of interpretations will stand up to scrutiny and offer their own ideas for reflection.
Here are 12 of the biggest, arguably unresolvable movie debates. Be warned: many of these entries are related to the respective endings of their films, and each contains significant spoilers.