Movies love to tie up loose ends. They tell a story, progress the characters, and give an ending that addresses all the issues that the characters have faced. In the end, there’s little to complain about and few things left to ponder. Those that are still hanging on cliffs are caught up with in sequels. Everyone eats popcorn. Everyone wins.

Sometimes, though, tying up loose ends leaves others open. For many of these movies, the mysteries left to wonder about are considered “MacGuffins,” a film term for an undefined object meant to progress the story. For others, they are simple oversights that take a few years to pick up on. The following list is a mixture of the two. The only thing they have in common is that they are movie mysteries that we’ll never get answers to.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

7 What’s in the briefcase from Pulp Fiction?

     Miramax Films  

This was the first on the list because anyone reading this has already thought of it. Perhaps the biggest MacGuffin in movie history is the contents of the magical briefcase Jules and Vincent search for in Pulp Fiction. With its magical golden glow, illuminating the faces of all who see it, the case has long been the subject of debate. Could it be Marcellus Wallace’s soul? The Band-Aid on the back of his head seems to imply it might be, as Chinese culture states that is where a person’s soul can be removed from. Other theories include diamonds and even an Academy Award.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Turns out that it is none of those things…and all of them. Director Quentin Tarantino has gone on record as saying that, “I like that idea that you open up the briefcase in Pulp Fiction and I don’t tell you what’s in there. But it’s up to you to figure out what’s in there and now that’s your movie.”

6 Where did young Josh Baskin tell police he had been after Big ended?

     20th Century Fox  

It has to be said: Big makes no sense. With so many supernatural side stories, one would think that the real-world ramifications would be grounded in reality. That’s not the case in this bizarre tale, which most likely destroyed a town following the final scene. Josh Baskin asks a magic arcade game to make him “big,” and it does. That part most people are alright with. Perhaps it’s the fact that Baskin, just around ten years old, never changes his name when he suddenly becomes an adult.

Take that in for a moment. He never changes his name. There’s an entire community looking for young Josh. He was most likely abducted by the insane man (Baskin himself as an adult) that his mother sees in the house. He then lives under the same name in a nearby city and the police never questioned this man? There was no, “Sir, the boy’s mother found you in her home. You’re using her son’s name. We have no record of you ever existing before you became a high-level executive last week. Please come with us. You’re acting like a child. It’s weird.”

That never happened and, at the end of the movie, he turns little again. There’s no mention of what he told his mother, the police, the news, or the toy company that he worked at in the city. How did he spin a story anyone believed? Did he pretend to have amnesia? What happens when he grows up and his mother recognizes him again from that day at the house? It’s wild. The only adult who has any idea of what happened was Elizabeth Perkins, but she hooked up with a kid, so she’s not saying anything.

5 Who was the Zodiac Killer?

     Paramount Pictures  

The issue with making a film about an unsolved crime is that you can’t name a culprit. There’s no satisfying ending for an audience. Had the screenwriter solved the case, the world would have known about it before the first patron was in the theater. You don’t keep that stuff secret so that you can win an award.

That was the issue withZodiac. The movie tried valiantly to make it work, though. They even ended with authorities coming for Arthur Leigh Allen. Allen was the one person of interest named by investigators. However, fingerprint evidence and handwriting samples seemed to exclude him. So, there’s that. It left many to search the Internet for information, only to learn that the crime remains unsolved. It left them hoping for Zodiac 2…but then again, maybe not.

4 What does the Blair Witch look like?

     Haxan Films  

Mary Brown claims to be a ballerina, a historian writing a book about American history, and a scientist who does research at the department of energy. Mike, Heather, and Josh, however, think she’s a lunatic. All of that might be true, but she’s also the only apparent eyewitness account for their Blair Witch Project. With wild eyes and a shaky voice, old Mary Brown describes the woman through Heather’s badgering questions. She was covered in hair like a horse. Also, she hovered. It was just as the trio was told earlier about “an old woman whose feet never touched the ground.”

In the end, what did the Witch look like? We don’t know. There was no reveal other than Mike, standing in the corner of the cabin’s upstairs room. The visual of Mike stoically standing was chilling because, as we learned at the start of the movie, the witch would force one child to stand while she killed the other. In this case, the other was Heather. After a generation of Freddies and Jasons, fans were used to seeing the monsters. It is part of the issue that has divided people over this movie since its release in 1999. Some feel that the mystery of her appearance only adds to the mystique. Others feel it only adds to the frustration.

The 2016 “sequel” saw Heather’s brother head into the hills searching for his own answers. This movie, just like the earlier one, never showed the actual witch. Today, the Blair Witch is still best described by Mary Brown. That’s troublesome.

3 How many Back to the Future DeLoreans were in 1885?

For anyone who has ever been down a Back to the Future rabbit hole, this has come up. When Marty McFly arrives in 1885, he takes the time-traveling DeLorean to get there. However, that DeLorean is the exact same one that is sitting, broken, in an 1885 mine. It remained there since Doc took it to get to the old West himself. While we were there to witness duplicate versions of Marty, Jennifer, Biff, and Doc encountering each other all throughout the space-time-continuum-destroying second movie, this was the first time we saw an object duplicated. Yet, there it was. Double DeLoreans. Great Scott.

Or course, Marty was still stranded. His version of the time machine was out of gasoline. In 1885, that wasn’t a common fuel to find. You’d have to have another car somewhere, sitting broken, with gas still inside in order to…wait a minute.

2 What was in the unopened FedEx Package in Cast Away?

Tom Hanks created his own solo utopia on Cast Away Island. With Wilson, his volleyball friend, Hanks still held on to certain virtues. One of them is reliability. Despite being stranded for ages and surrounded by undelivered packages, Hanks’ Chuck Noland leaves one of them unopened. It is this one package that he saves as a beacon of hope. He tells himself and Bettina, the woman he eventually delivers it to, that it saved his life. He then delivers it as the film comes to a close. We never learn what’s inside.

Although, in an earlier draft of the film, he opens it to find two bottles of salsa (via Screen Rant). Seriously. Thankfully, this was left out of the final film. Rather, it became a treasured MacGuffin. During a USC Q&A, director Robert Zemeckis, when asked about the box, joked it was a satellite phone.

1 Was Kobayashi made up or real in The Usual Suspects?

     Bad Hat Harry Productions  

The Usual Suspects has a twist ending so twisted that it has inspired countless imitations. The untrusted storyteller concept is taken to a new level as Kevin Spacey, still pretending to be “Verbal Kint,” lies about the entire backstory. In the movie’s final moment, Spacey is revealed as the evil Keyser Soze and his tale is told by perusing the items in the interrogation room. It’s all there. Redfoot. Bricks Marlin. Orcas. Even the evil attorney, Kobayashi, is made up by Spacey. As a punctuation to the point, we see a closeup of the name “Kobayashi Porcelain” on the bottom of Agent Kujan’s mug. It is the same mug we watch as Spacey looks up to read throughout the movie.

The problem? Kobayashi isn’t made up. They mention his real-life presence at court proceedings. In fact, it was Kujan himself who says it. Upon learning that the murder in the harbor was retaliation for ratting the criminal mastermind out, Sgt. Rabin tells Kujan that Edie Finneran was called in to advice. Edie, girlfriend to Dean Keaton, was a central part of the storyline. Who was she called in to advise?

To this, Kujan says, “Kobayashi.” There’s a nod and even documentation. Rabin says he called New York County and had a copy of the testimony faxed over. Unless the testimony had coffee stains on it or the nod was meant to say, “Yes, Agent, I too have heard of Kobayashi Porcelain mugs,” it makes little sense. If there is a lawyer named Kobayashi associated with Keyser Soze, then what relevance was the name on the mug? Apparently, it was so big that it became the big close up of the iconic scene. Did it even matter? We could ask Keyser himself, but our guess is that you’ll never hear from him again. And like that — poof — he’s gone.