10 Most Infuriating Movie Cliffhangers

source// Warner Bros.

Movie cliffhangers can be the best or the worst thing about a film - they can leave us on tenterhooks, thinking deeply about what we've just seen, or they can be maddeningly vague, a cheap cop-out that feels like a lazy writer deciding they don't want to give us the answers we so desperately crave. 

With even their most clever, entertaining use, cliffhangers can be infuriating, leaving us wanting to know more, even if we really recognise the genius of what we've just seen...

10. A Real Cliffhanger - The Italian Job

We'll start with a literal example in what is easily the most famous movie cliffhanger of all time; the finale of The Italian Job sees the intrepid rogues make off with the money and pose as a gang of English football fans in a van. 

In Switzerland, it seems as if all is well, when the van skids on an icy road and ends up precariously balanced on the edge of a cliff, with the gold sliding towards the back of the bus. Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) crawls towards the gold and utters to his friends, "Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea", with the film leaving us to ponder the fates of both the men and the gold.

It's unquestionably a brilliant climax to the film that's perfectly in tonal step with what's come before, but on first viewing, it's incredibly frustrating to digest. On reflection, our desperation to know what happened is the genius of the film in the first place.

This hilariously iconic exclamation point is a whole lot more satisfying - if also a little annoying - than our heroes getting away with the gold would ever have been.

9. To Be Continued - The Matrix Reloaded

We all knew that The Matrix Reloaded was going to leave us on some sort of a cliffhanger given that The Matrix Revolutions was due for release just 6 months later - the problem is that this cliffhanger set up something that The Wachowski's just couldn't manage to live up to. 

The final scene of Reloaded features Neo discovering that he has powers outside of The Matrix, and we then find out that Agent Smith has managed to come aboard the ship via the body of one of Zion's resistance fighters, Bane.

This is an interesting enough cliffhanger that is extremely annoying in retrospect because Revolutions just didn't engage with the questions it raises in a satisfying way; firstly, we never really find out why Neo has powers outside of the Matrix (the twist should have been that Zion is just another Matrix), and the Bane angle doesn't play out in particularly exciting fashion - it's hardly a major point of the film.

Cue mass groans at the "to be continued" message that popped up at the end of The Matrix Reloaded and the damage to the franchise was massive and costly.

The excitement for The Matrix Reloaded saw the film take a gigantic $742 million worldwide but just over half of those fans were enticed enough by the ending to come back six months later, taking home just $427 million worldwide in comparison.

8. Phoenix Rises - X2

X-Men 2 ends on a fantastic climax as Dr. Jean Grey saves the other mutants by building a telekinetic wall to shield them against a torrent of water that she eventually unleashes upon herself, presumably dying as a result. 

However, what follows had just about every comic book geek clapping their hands with glee; the final shot of the film floats over the Alkali Lake, and what can we make out? Why, the shape of the Phoenix - which in comic book lore, Jean Grey will turn into - flying away.

And why did this make us so mad? Well it didn't at the time, it's the perfect tease...but it's only because it's so perfect and what came after it wasn't, that in retrospect, it does nothing but infuriate us today. 

After Bryan Singer bailed on X2 to make Superman Returns, his hastily found replacement director Brett Ratner then completely screwed up X-Men: The Last Stand. None of the promise was fulfilled; instead we got a meek comic book film from someone who clearly didn't know a whole lot about comics.

Thus Jean Grey's full potential as the Phoenix wasn't realised, and even casual comic book fans were left mostly scratching their heads.

7. Sequel Teased... Then Doesn't Happen - Super Mario Bros.

Here's a cliffhanger that was infuriating at the time because of what it promised. The notoriously awful video game adaptation starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo ends with King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) being defeated and the brothers head home, only to have Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) come a-knocking. 

Looking disheveled and rocking a gun, she asks for their help, suggesting that Super Mario Bros 2 was well on the way.

Given how terrible this film was, it was last thing anyone really wanted, though the thought that it might actually make some money as one of first video-game adaptations was infuriating, as then we'd have a sequel pushed on us. 

Thankfully the film tanked critically and commercially, so in the end we were saved.

6. Who Was The Alien? - The Thing

1982's The Thing is one of the rare remakes that manages to outdo its source material; it's a completely taut, suspenseful, horrifying film that boasts state of the art visual effects as well as excellent performances across the board. Its inconclusive ending is the brilliantly infuriating capper to what preceded it; the two remaining men, Childs (Keith David) and MacReady (Kurt Russell) end up coming across each other, but each believes that the other is, in fact, the shape-shifting alien creature.

With the base exploded and neither sure which is The Thing, they simply sit out in the cold, sipping from a hipflask, awaiting a mutual death from exposure that will at least ensure that the alien does not escape the base. It's among the most fantastically bleak endings in all of cinema, albeit one that has kept cinemagoers guessing for decades as to who the alien was after all.

The Thing video game released in 2002 does offer an explanation - that Childs froze to death and MacReady somehow made it out alive - but it's by no means the canonical answer, and moreover, it's really damn stupid.

5. He's Not Really Dead - Every Horror Movie Ever Made (Almost)

These sorts of cliffhangers are infuriating because they're so damn predictable and lazy. Pretty much every horror film - especially if it's a sequel - will pose some sort of tease like this in its final shot; the murderer will be "killed", the good guys will get taken away in an ambulance, then we cut back to the killer and...they're gone. Or better yet, their eyes open, or they kill another person and disappear into the night.

The Halloween films were especially bad for this, and it quickly got to the point where filmmakers were just insulting their audience, already planning the next sequel before the first one has had time to percolate. 

After all, isn't it a lot less exciting watching these films if the studio heads have already ruined the ending by letting us know that Michael Myers, Freddy Kreuger or Jason Voorhees are going to be back for Round 26?

4. Does He Remember? - Oldboy

Oldboy is without question Chan wook-park's masterpiece, a dark, gritty, gripping thriller that is difficult to look away from even as it broaches difficult, brutal subject matter.

The film revolves around a businessman named Oh Dae-su, who is imprisoned for 15 years before being released, at which point he seeks about getting revenge. He ends up falling for, Mi-do, a chef at a local restaurant, only to discover at the end of the film - and this is a mega spoiler alert - that she is, in fact, his daughter who was taken away from him once he was imprisoned.

In Oldboy's final scene, Oh Dae-su has himself hypnotised to forget that Mi-do was ever his daughter, and upon meeting up with her, gives her an embrace, and the camera closes in on Oh Dae-su's face, which changes from joy to anguish, leaving us unsure as to whether the hypnosis ever worked. 

Though it's undeniably brilliant, it's also one of those crushingly inconclusive endings that just makes you want to know once and for all what happened.

3. What Happened Next? - 300

Here's one cliffhanger that's absolutely shameless and seems like it's so eagerly setting up a sequel, even though one never materialised. 

After The Battle of Thermopylae concludes at the end of the film, we then get Dilios rallying the troops for a follow-up battle, The Battle of Plataea, which actually ended Persia's invasion of Greece. The final shot of the film is the Spartans running towards the camera, prepped for battle.

It's the ultimate slap in the face to viewers; get us excited about another battle and then...the film just ends. Zack Snyder could have really given us some extra bang for our buck, but instead we're teased with awesome action beyond the bounds of the film that didn't even end up appearing in sequel form.

2. 28 Months Later? - 28 Weeks Later

Here's another film that promises a follow-up in its cliffhanger yet to date just hasn't delivered upon it. Once the protagonists escape the rage-infected invasion in the UK, they escape to France, where we find out that things aren't a whole lot better. 

The final shot is of a French accent asking for help through a helicopter radio, as we see a group of rage-infected folk running through a train station out into the open, revealing the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

This was obviously to set up 28 Months Later, the finale in the trilogy that Danny Boyle still claims is going to happen. However, given that it's been almost 10 years since it came out, I think it's safe to say that the prospect of it actually getting made is unlikely, meaning this is nothing more than a frustrating tease.

1. Inception

Here's a cliffhanger that got everyone talking; I fondly remember sitting in the cinema watching Inception for the first time, and as Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) placed his totem on the table, people in the audience began to lean forward in anticipation, clearly realising that something epic was about to happen. Would the totem continue to spin, suggesting that Cobb was still in the dream world, or would it fall over, letting us know that, indeed, he finally made it back to his kids?

In a classic moment of flipping the bird at the audience, we never find out; the totem wavers as though it's about to fall (which some believe to be proof enough that he isn't dreaming), but we never see it fall - Nolan instead cuts to black and leaves us all left to ponder for eternity what happened.

However, it's of course important to remember that whether it fell over or not really isn't the point of the film; the point is that Dom didn't care anymore and just accepted the reality with which he was presented. Still, it's one of the most annoyingly fascinating mysteries in recent cinema history.

Which movie cliffhanger annoyed you the most? Let us know in the comments below.