The most confusing movie endings of all time… REVEALED

We’ve all left cinemas before, scratching our heads as to what the film’s ending truly meant. Was there another dream within a dream? Was the narrator insane all along? So, unable to work it all out, we turn to Google to tell us the meaning. 

Top10Casinos, therefore, decided to investigate what 20 films end in the most confusing fashion. They took data from average monthly global Google searches, amalgamated it together, and these are the results:

– Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is the film with the most confusing ending, generating over 56,000 global searches every month.

– American directors dominate the most confusing endings list, with 13 entries.

– Christopher Nolan appears an impressive 4 times on the list, earning him the title of ‘world’s most confusing director!’

– Almost every film in the list of top 10 most confusing endings was released after the turn of the millennium, highlighting that films truly are becoming more confusing.

The 20 most confusing movie endings of all time

The top 3

1. In first place is a filmic masterclass of intrigue and mystery: Shutter Island. Directorial master Martin Scorsese utilizes high-angle camera techniques to ingrain the feeling of being watched into the viewer, just one of a myriad of ways the director weaves a sense of discomfort throughout the film. However, what was most discomforting to a lot of viewers was the ending, with a shock main character revelation putting the whole plot into a new perspective. 56,200 monthly global search results for a confusing conclusion places Shutter Island top of the list.

2. In second place is the 2020 science fiction epic Tenet, helmed by British director Christopher Nolan. The near 3-hour film takes place in multiple timelines, with the narrative twisting back on itself towards the end of the film. The approach makes for a remarkable spectacle, but also a concept that viewers struggled to understand fully. Indeed, with a huge 42,270 monthly global searches by people struggling to understand the film’s ending, Tenet truly baffles as much as it entertains.

3. Third place goes to Mary Harron’s American Psycho. Released in 2000 and based on Bret Easton Ellis’ book of the same name, this disturbingly dark and comedic modern classic centres on Patrick Bateman, a daytime banker and nighttime murderer, played masterfully by Christian Bale. Perhaps inevitably, the unsettling film forces some audience members to search for deeper meanings (via Google). American Psycho garners 38,150 monthly global searches regarding its ending.

Other notable findings

– Of the 17 unique directors in the top 20, 13 are American – a whopping 76%. 

– Christopher Nolan, who is both British and American and known for his reality-bending plots, has an impressive four films in the top 20 – Tenet, Inception, Interstellar, and The Prestige. The only other director to have more than one film appear in the top 20 is horror icon Ari Aster, with both Midsommar and Hereditary making it onto the list.

– The oldest film to make it onto the top 20 list is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, released back in 1980. Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, the passage of time has not stopped people from taking to the internet for explanations of this haunting tale.

– According to the data, the year with the most confusing movie endings was 2019, with four releases in the top 20 – Midsommar, The Platform, The Lighthouse, and Us. Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which won the Best Picture Oscar for that year, narrowly misses the top 20, at number 21. 

Methodology:

1. Top10Casinos sought to establish which Hollywood film ending confuses viewers the most.

2. To achieve this, Top10Casinos first created a seed list of over 80 films known to have confusing endings, some of which were taken from articles seen in The List, Buzzfeed, Insider, Screen Rant, and Collider.

3. Once a seed list had been collated, Top10Casinos then took to global search amalgamator Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, searching for maximum accuracy. Search terms included “(movie) ending explained”, “ending of (movie) explained”, “(movie) ending” and “(movie) explained”. The resulting numbers shown are of the average global monthly searches for that term.

4. Once data collection had been compiled, Top10Casinos cleaned the data and ranked the results, with the top result having the highest cumulative global monthly searches.

5. All data was collected on 14th of September 2022 and is correct as of then.

Editorial credit: Sarunyu L / Shutterstock.com