The Shining

Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece, The Shining, is an extraordinary film, not necessarily because of what we are shown, but perhaps what we are not shown.  Many aspects of the film, big and small, are not fully explained.  The biggest one, to me, is the appearance of what we assume to be either ghosts or figments of the imagination in the hotel.  At first, this only happens with Jack, during his visits to the bar and talking with Lloyd.  But near the end, we see it with Wendy, as she sees the "couple" in that infamous scene, as well as Delbert Grady.  As far as I know, it is completely ambiguous whether the hotel is supposed to be haunted or if Jack (and Wendy to an extent) are just insane at that point.  There are definitely some supernatural elements in the film, like the "shine," so it doesn't have to be completely logical.  I think Kubrick played around with the movie a lot and just tried to have fun with it.  Another great mystery is the photo at the end.  We were all left wondering why Jack was in that photo from 1921 and why it was significant in any way (like the man in the bear costume).  I did a little research, and it turns out Kubrick was playing with opposites; in the novel, it is a picture of Jesus, and in the film, Jesus is replaced by Jack who is posing like the devil (credit to frequentlyaskedquestions2.blogspot.com/).  The Shining is great because it is so mysterious, and with proper investigation, I think many more secrets and intricacies could be uncovered, just like that photo.