20 Movies Where The Hero Winning DIDN'T Matter

2. Inception

Has there ever been a final movie scene as hotly debated as that of Inception? Even with the likes of Total Recall, Lost in Translation, and the aforementioned The Graduate to name but a few offering frustratingly ambiguous endings, the short answer is no, there hasn't.

There is of course the theory of Dom Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) wedding ring being his true totem, and the fact that Michael Caine has claimed Christopher Nolan spelled out the exact ending to him, but regardless, the question of whether the final moments where Dom finally reunited with his children were real or not is one that feels as though it will always be relevant.

Forced to go into hiding away from his children, Dom was promised by Saito (Ken Watanabe) that if he helped convince Cillian Murphy's Robert Fischer to dissolve his father's company, then his name would be cleared and he could return home. At the end of the story, he finally saw his children again, but since the line between dreams and reality had blurred to the point of no distinction, it was impossible to tell if he was in reality or not.

The truth is that it didn't matter. Even Nolan himself has said as much, and so although Cobb and Arthur's (Joseph Gordon Levitt) plan of inception was successful, the character himself was beyond caring whether he was in reality or not. It was simply inconsequential.