11 Film Endings That Didn't Solve Anything

9. American Psycho

Seriously, what actually happened in American Psycho? Living up to the chaotic, rambling structure of Brett Easton Ellis's book - though thankfully sparing us its excesses - any semblance of plotting is thrown out the window early on. Arguably, the bones on which Patrick Bateman's parade of murder and narcissism rest are something resembling a murder-mystery plot, albeit from the perspective of the murderer.

To recap, Bateman murders Paul Allen, a colleague who had the temerity to pick up restaurant reservations easier, and possess a mildly snazzier business card. Willem Dafoe then turns up to creepy-face his way through proceedings as a private investigator tasked by Allen's wife with finding him. And that... that's sort of it.

The incident serves as the jumping off point for Bateman's insanity, with director Mary Harron deftly skewering the male ego by taking everything up to the next level. So while normal folk would sit and stew, Bateman butchers women in response. However, we're then blindsided by the twist: it's all in his head. Or is it? Hell, who knows?

But the finale's twist does make one thing apparent: all that's gone before has been pretty much irrelevant, because as the twist so deftly shows, the entire animus of the plot is actually a lie. Bateman has merely been applying his fantasies to already-occurring events, meaning that where we thought we were watching a film, we were in the minds-eye of a man doodling foul things in his monogrammed notebook.