10 Movies With Annoyingly Abrupt Endings

2. No Resolution - The Castle

Based on the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka, The Castle is a movie written and directed by Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke (which means its inclusion on this list is nothing short of surprising). The story concerns a man known only as "K," who arrives at a unnamed village and comes up against its troubling bureaucracy.

Watching this, anyone already familiar with Kafka's novel would have probably been able to predict what the ending of this movie had in store, but for the uninitiated The Castle must have made for a rather irritating viewing experience. Kafka's novel is famous for ending halfway through the story, you see, because he died before he could finish it.

Haneke adapts the story faithfully (because of course he does) which means that, yes, the film just ends. The main character, K., walks through the snow as the narration is cut off mid-sentence, followed by a brief line of text explaining that Kafka didn't write any more.

There's a sense that with this film, Haneke mounted the entire project because it gave him a legitimate reason to abruptly cut to black at an unexpected point, as if to say: "Ha! How does that feel, viewer? What does that teach you about audience expectations? Doesn't it just irk the hell out of you that the narrative just stopped at a random place?"

Yes, Michael. Yes, it does.