People 'can't sleep' after seeing Interstellar fan theory that could completely change entire movie

A theory on the emotional ending scene of Interstellar has been doing the rounds online, with fans unable to agree on it.

The 2014 sci-fi epic stars Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and even a young Timothée Chalamet among others.

Directed by Christopher Nolan, the mind-bending flick features some of the most iconic scenes in movie history, with McConaughey in particular putting in one of his most memorable acting performances to date.

But here we are, 11 years on, still arguing about theories to do with its ending. Spoilers ahead, if you hadn't guessed.

The attention to detail in Interstellar is unmatched, from Nolan growing his own 500-acre corn field for a scene, to the ticks on Miller's planet equating to a day on Earth, and even ensuring that animations of a black hole were as accurate as possible.

The animation took 100 hours per frame to render, with the help of a seasoned physicist.

But in the final scene, NASA pilot Joseph Cooper (McConaughey) completes his mission to find a new planet for humans to live on after Earth is ruined. He then manages to communicate with his daughter, Murph (Chastain), back on Earth while in 'the tesseract', using Morse code on the wristwatch he gave her before leaving for his mission.

She is then able to complete Dr Brand's (Michael Caine) solution, and when he escapes the tesseract, he wakes up in a station orbiting Saturn and is reunited with Murph who is now on her deathbed.

The ending scene might not be real, apparently (Paramount Pictures)

With the iconic score playing in the background, the old Murph claims that she knew he would return 'because my dad promised me', in one of the more emotional scenes in the film.

But according to one YouTube user, the scene never happened as they claimed: "Coop never made it back. Murph never saw her dad again. It's all there."

They suggested that it was a figment of Coop's imagination as he instead dies floating around in space.

The user explained: "What do we hear on the soundtrack as he is left floating in space after the tesseract collapses? The high-pitched beep of a life support machine registering death. (We also hear it when Professor Brand dies.)

"What do we see when Coop wakes up in hospital? That he is in a long tunnel with a light at the end. People who have come back from near-death experiences report seeing a light at the end of a tunnel."

They also recalled that Dr Mann told Coop that your children is 'the last thing you see before you die'.

Don't give up hope yet though, because not everyone is on board with this idea.

Was Coop really imagining all of this? (Paramount Pictures)

In reply, another user wrote: "Did his ghost steal the ship at the end too which he used to travel towards Amelia? The people at the station is people he doesn't know. Why see them in his 'tunnel of light and death'?"

They continued: "Just because you believe something, doesn't make it true. It is CANON that he made it back, and what you said is not, even if it was interesting and compelling, it is not fact."

This user then said that the suggestion was 'simplistic and shallow', as we were showed the real ending.

A third simply responded: "Damn now I can't sleep in peace."

I personally believe the ending I was shown and will sleep well tonight.