15 Greatest Movie Endings Of The Decade

7. Inception (2010)

Inception is right up there with the best sci-fi movies of all time and not just the decade and a large part of the film's notoriety - though not necessarily its success - comes down to the final question posed by one of the most provocative final images in cinema.

Much like The Shining's mysterious ending, the image of Cobb's totem spinning as the audience waits on tenter-hooks to find out if he was dreaming all along is the crowning deception of a film obsessed with the idea of appearance and reality at war. We're constantly told to question things - including things as traditionally sacred as character archetypes and the fallibility of the narrator - while offered the chance to find a stabiliser (in the totems mostly), and then right at the end, that stability is whipped away.

That's truly confident film-making for you.