3. Give Your Audience Something To Chew Over
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvtJ_XC2bz8 Christopher Nolan is pretty good at this generally, though it's kind of a no brainer that you should leave your audience with something to ponder and think about once a movie has finished - you should set out to do that anyway, regardless of the ending. In the case of Inception, another film directed by Christopher Nolan, I'd say that the director's ending of choice is ambiguous for the sake of being ambiguous, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - it's a blockbuster, after all, not some serious psychological examination, and it provokes a fun debate. Nolan employs a similar trick in The Dark Knight Rises, which might've been more effective had the movie that proceeded it been a bit more satisfying. Still, Nolan was probably wise to leave the movie on a cliffhanger, with Bruce Wayne - having faked his own death - living in Florence with Selina Kyle. Whether or not you think that's an effective ending for this trilogy is down to a matter of opinion, but the point is that - at least - the movie gives audiences something to ponder. In my humble opinion, it's actually an extremely unsatisfying ending and somewhat of a cop out. After three movies, do we really want to leave the fate of an iconic character to unnecessary speculation? When writing your own screenplay, though, it's important to consider an ending that you feel would leave you feeling intrigued, but not short changed. If you can get the person reading your script to feel both satisfied and wanting more on the last page in equal measure, you're certainly on the right track.