10 Movie Endings You Can Only Work Out For Yourself

4. Burning

Burning Steven Yeun
Pinehouse Film

Lee Chang-dong's mesmerising thriller Burning follows a young man, Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), who runs into a childhood friend, Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), with whom he becomes infatuated.

Hae-mi soon enough heads off on a trip and returns with Ben (Steven Yeun), a man she met on her journey, an initially affable yet mysterious man who may or may not harbour a dark secret.

Ben eventually confides in Jong-su that he periodically burns down abandoned greenhouses in order to feel alive, with the implication being that Ben may or may not be using "burning greenhouses" as a euphemism for murdering young, lonely women.

Thereafter Hae-mi goes missing and Jong-su comes to believe that Ben is the culprit, resulting in him murdering Ben at the very end of the movie.

And yet, Chang-dong never commits to Ben's potential guilt one way or another, leaving the matter teetering so brilliantly on a razor's edge.

Audiences are free to read into Ben's apparent euphemism and his possibly sociopathic tells - like yawning while in social settings, because he's secretly bored of all the normality - or not.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.