10 Unanswered Questions From Famous Movies That Are Still Killing Us

4. Was It All A Dream? - Total Recall

The Departed Ending
TriStar Pictures

When it released in 2010, Inception took the world by storm with its cliffhanger ending teasing whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio's Dom Cobb was dreaming in the final scene or not. However, while this question has been answered in the years since, Total Recall posed a similar question that has gone unanswered for over three decades.

The 1990 Paul Verhoeven film saw Arnold Schwarzenegger play Douglas Quaid, a construction worker living in a dystopian future who pays for fake memories to be implanted in his head. He wanted to believe that he was a spy on Mars, and though the rest of the movie plays out to this narrative, it is never made clear whether or not the memories were truly implanted, or if the events were taking place in real life.

Certain clues at different points in the film suggested both potential answers, but during the two-hour runtime there was no clear answer given. Was Quaid really a Martian spy or not?

This was the big question of the story, but it was essentially designed to not have a definitive answer. Ultimately it didn't matter whether his experiences were real or manufactured, which leaves those looking for closure out of luck.

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