For me it depends how the cliffhanger is executed. If it is a "You'll have to buy the next book to find out, folks
", then you can shove your conclusion where the sun don't shine.
One of the best films I have seen in recent years,
Inception, ended with a really clever cliffhanger. For those who don't know the plot, it revolves around a team of thieves who infiltrate the subconscious of a target (to extract valuable information) whilst said target is in a dream state. Because the illusion is so real even the thieves themselves do not know when they are, or as the case may be, are not in the dream state. Therefore, each thief carries a totem, a small object the behavior of which is only predictable to its owner, used to determine whether a dreamer is in someone else's dream. The main characters totem is a spinning top that perpetually spins in the dream state.
At the end of the film the main character is reunited with his children, which has been his ambition and purpose throughout the film, but wants to be sure that he is definitely
not still in a dream. He spins his top one last time (and turns to finally embrace his children, walking into the garden with them) but the film cuts to the closing credits from a shot of the top beginning to wobble (but not falling), inviting speculation about whether the final sequence was reality or another dream.
That, for me, was brilliant and had me on the edge of my seat. Director Christopher Nolan later said: "The real point of the scene – and this is what I tell people – is that Cobb isn't looking at the top. He's looking at his kids. He's left it behind. That's the emotional significance of the thing."
That kind of cliffhanger, I can accept wholeheartedly.
