10 Movie Characters Whose Fates Are Never Resolved

1. The Joker - The Dark Knight Rises

And while he's far more of a major character than anyone else on this list, the specifically tragic circumstances of The Joker's (Heath Ledger) unexpected exit from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Saga make it one of the most agonising character cliffhangers in movie history.

The supervillain of course appeared in scene-stealing fashion in The Dark Knight, and ended up captured by the authorities at film's end, with the clear implication that he'd be sent to Arkham Asylum.

However, Ledger's untimely death made the character unavailable for the sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, with Nolan (quite rightly) adamant that, without Ledger, the character wouldn't be referenced at all.

Still, it's hardly a leap to suggest that an antagonist as iconic as the Clown Prince of Crime would've returned for the sequel had Ledger lived, and some have even speculated that he may have taken the cameo role ultimately given to Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) in the final film, of a kangaroo court judge.

But given that The Dark Knight Rises is centered on a Gotham deprived of its infrastructure by Bane (Tom Hardy), The Joker's lack of presence is definitely a bit odd narratively speaking, given the high likelihood he would be sprung from Arkham.

The film's novelisation suggests that he's Akrham's only inmate, though also hints at the prospect that he may have been freed, not that this is definitively canon to the movie at all.

All things considered, Nolan probably made the shrewdest choice possible under the circumstances - a recast would've been criminal - but it doesn't change the fact that, in-universe, The Joker's absence is very strange indeed.