Mulholland Drive & 9 Other Polarizing Movies Fans Are Still Debating Over Today
One of the greatest things about the best movies is how they can be interpreted in many different ways by viewers. Whether the movie is edited in a non-linear fashion, purposefully doesn’t answer some of the plot’s biggest questions, or ends on a giant cliffhanger, there are so many movies that divide audiences about their true meanings.
This is exactly what David Lynch does best, as all of his movies are completely ambiguous and their meanings are left to the viewer to decipher, resulting in some extremely different takes on the film. However, instead of fans coming after the filmmakers with pitchforks, it’s what audiences love so much about these movies, and it sometimes even enhances follow-up viewings of them.
10 Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch has never spoon-fed audiences the narrative or tried to have the plot even vaguely understandable, but that’s what makes his movies so great and profound, as viewers create their very own explanation for what goes on.
That has never been more the truth than with Mulholland Drive. There are so many unexplained scenarios going on in the movie that fans clash over it’s meaning on a regular basis. It’s so maddeningly nonsensical that Lynch even included several clues on a slip in the special edition of the DVD, but it seemed to only confuse viewers even more.
9 Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Pan’s Labyrinth isn’t just a fantasy movie, as it amazingly contrasts between the horrors of war and the beautiful fantasy imagery, which is one of the reasons it’s Guillermo Del Toro’s best movie.
But it brings in to question which of the two worlds is actually real. As it’s heavily insinuated that the dream-like world is in Ofelia’s head the whole time, it has left audiences polarized, as people still argue over which of the two worlds is real.
8 The Shining (1980)
With director Stanley Kubrick always padding out his movies with ambiguity and paths that lead to dead ends, that reaches its apex in The Shining, when Jack literally comes to a dead end in the maze.
The maze has sprouted many theories about the movie being based on Theseus and the Minotaur, but people have also argued that it’s an analogy for the way Native Americans were treated by the settlers. Not only that, but that it’s about sexual abuse, too, and the are loads of other fan theories to peruse. The truth is, it could be about any one of these things, but none of them are a certainty.
7 Triangle (2009)
As a group of friends are stranded in the ocean, they board an ocean liner that seems to be abandoned. The main character, Jess, finds herself in a constant time loop that she can’t escape from as her friends are picked off by a random axe wielding murderer. However, Triangle isn’t exactly the slasher film it looks like and is more about how she ended up in the loop. Cinephiles who have seen the film are still debating it today, with some simply arguing it’s a modern day retelling of the Greek myth Sisyphus, but that has left others unsatisfied and looking even deeper.
6 Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner is one of the biggest movies that firmly separated audiences in to two separate camps. At the end of the movie, it asks the question, “is Deckard a replicant?” It has always seemed like there was an obvious answer, but there are arguments for both “yes” and “no.” In what has been a long and storied process of trying to find out the truth, as there have been what feels like tens of re-edits at this point, the sequel has put an end to the debate, as it reveals the answer, as if it wasn’t already obvious.
5 The Italian Job (1969)
It isn’t exactly what happens in The Italian Job that has polarized audiences, but it’s what happens after the credits roll that has had fans debating for more than 50 years. As the movie is a very linear heist movie, in which a group of British conmen rob $4 million in gold in Turin, Italy, the gold gets loaded in to a minibus. However, at the top of a mountain, the bus spins out of control and is left balancing on a cliff. What happens next is anybody’s guess, and it’s one of the movie questions that will never be answered.
4 Fight Club (1999)
Fight Club is a mine field of mysteries, as it forces audiences to question if what people are seeing is real or not. There are so many scenes that hint at other things going on in the world and people not being exactly as they seem, which has led to some of the wildest fan theories about the meaning of the movie, but there some that actually make sense.
People argue that Marla is also a figment of The Narrator’s imagination, but there are others who think the whole movie is all about how he’s fighting over coming to terms with the fact that he’s gay.
3 The Lobster (2015)
Being one of the more recent movies, The Lobster is set in a dystopian future where people are forced to a hotel in order to find a partner. If they still haven’t found a partner after 45 days, they get turned in to a creature of their choosing. The whole movie is baffling and the idea of the hotel itself has polarized viewers on whether it’s metaphorical or completely abstract, but the final scene is what leaves viewers in shock, and it’s one of the weirdest moments of the decade
2 Synecdoche, New York (2008)
With Synecdoche, New York being celebrated screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, the man who helmed bizarre but beautiful movies like Being John Malkovich, the film was always going to have an onion’s worth of layers.
Taking the plot quite literally, the movie is about a theatre director who is given a generous grant to do whatever he wants, so he builds an enormous version of New York inside a warehouse and creates a living, breathing, never-ending play. But that isn’t exactly what the film is about, and trying to grasp what everything in the movie means is a struggle for fans, as there is so much going on, including a woman who literally lives in a house that’s burning down.
1 Inception (2010)
Being one of the biggest questions of all time, Inception leaves viewers awestruck when the movie ends right before revealing whether or not Cobb is still stuck in a dream. Eagle eyed viewers have noticed that Cobb isn’t always wearing his wedding ring in certain scenes, which has led many to believe that his ring is actually his real totem, not the spinning top, which is why it’s one of the movies better understood after the second viewing. Viewers will never know if Cobb is still stuck in a dream, but the speculation and debates will go one forever.
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January 16, 2021 at 08:30AM
Labels: ScreenRant - Feed
posted by Puram arjun @ January 16, 2021
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