That's an interesting list.
I don't agree that Black Swan, Memento or Lost In Translation' are open ended. The plots of those films all end.
The only questions left are trivial.
Did she survive? Was he Sammy? What Did He Whisper?
Thats different to leaving an unresolved plot.
Compare Black Swan with The Wrestler.
Same director I believe, similar story. Artists obsessed with their art.
In Black Swan, she realises the hallucinations are her own, performs final dance etc. only question left is her survival but the plot has ended.
The Wrestler, OTOH, he's lining up on the turnbuckle, he's been warned about his health, he crouches and jumps.. the plot hasn't ended, not really, he hasn't totally resolved any of the issues of the film, not fully, but the film has cut to black and the audience are left to wonder if he got back with his daughter or not or if the match broke him or not etc. almost like there was an another 10 minutes of film, but they chopped the last bit off to leave it ambiguous for no real reason.
I think that's the key term, Ambiguous.
I watched a film recently, 'No One Will Save You' that film had a solid start, middle and an end... But some people found the ending ambiguous and therefore unsatisfying. I didn't, I thought the end was fantastic and capped the plot off beautifully. (I won't spoil it here)
"No Country For Old Men" some say that movie just ends, but I don't think so, it had a begining, middle, end. The plot finishes. Okay we don't see exactly.what happens to Chigur (sp?) But in the context of the movie, it doesn't really matter as much, the main plot is resolved.
There's a film called 'How It Ends'
In that movie a man leaves his girlfriend to fly out and see his girlfriends dad and ask permission to propose etc. whilst he's away, something happens, a catastrophic event.
The two men decide they have to get to the woman and get her to safety as she's pregnant. So they drive across country, heading for Seattle. They fight, they get injured, they meet others etc.
The keep on going they have to get to this woman and get her to safety. Eventually they reach Seattle, they meet up with the woman, but a storm hits and there's sand and winds and millions are dying and they have to flee to get this pregnant woman safe. They're on a road in the car and the storm is right behind them, like literally almost touching their car...they're racing to stay ahead of the storm, he's got his foot down and the storm is getting closer and closer and then ... The film ends. Cut to black.
It was almost like it was the first episode of a TV show and the second episode never got made.
Left open to interpretation.
Too often it's used as short hand by film makers instead of them saying,
"We didn't know how to end it, so there you go, have a cut to black and you fill in the bits we couldn't be bothered to film"
I don't think that's always about someone understanding a film or not, sometimes it's just ambiguous for no other reason than pretentious asshattery.