A good movie twist is a great way to end an engaging film. The best twists are the ones we never see coming but still make sense. We can pick up the clues on subsequent rewatches, but we still miss them coming.
Sometimes, a twist works so well that nobody can guess it, no matter what they say. We didn’t see these movie twists coming from a mile away.
Warning: spoilers below!
The Others
The 2001 Nicole Kidman film spends its time building up a mystery as Kidman’s character is protecting her children from supernatural forces.
Eventually, Kidman realizes that they’re not being haunted by ghosts. The truth is that she and her children are the supernatural spirits, and the “Others” they’ve been afraid of are the people who live in the house.
The Sixth Sense
Before M. Night Shyamalan earned a reputation as a director featuring surprise twists, he impressed audiences with The Sixth Sense.
I don’t care what anybody says. No one could have predicted that Bruce Willis was a ghost the entire time. This is a perfect example of how subtle hints can be dropped along the way, resulting in the twist making sense and not coming out of left field.
The Prestige
“Are you watching closely?”
Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece, starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians, asks its viewers to pay close attention, but even they are left asking, “How’d they do that?”
The reveal of Bale’s character being a twin is a wonderful surprise I never saw coming.
Follow us on MSN for more of the content you love.
Identity
The 2003 film went under the radar, which is an accomplishment considering the amount of talent involved: James Mangold, director of Logan, Girl, Interrupted, and 3:10 to Yuma, and a cast featuring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Alfred Molina, Jake Busey, Rebecca De Mornay, and Amanda Peet.
Revealing that little Timmy is behind the mass murders, including faking his death, is the kind of twist that makes you drop your jaw and rewatch the movie again so you can catch all of the clues.
Frailty
Another under the radar movie, this time from 2001 and starring Bil Paxton and an early-in-his-career Matthew McConaughey.
The twist here works because Frality doubles as a grounded thriller and a supernatural horror film. Come for the twist ending, but stay for McConaughey’s acting chops.
No Way Out
Is the revelation that Kevin Costner’s Tom Farrell is actually the deep cover spy “Yuri” shocking? Yes. Does it seemingly come out of left field? Also yes. Did you see it coming? No, stop lying to yourself.
The twist is meant to be shocking because now we can rethink Costner’s motives throughout the film. He wasn’t sad about Susan Atwell’s death; he was nervous that he would be caught.
Gone Girl
Of course, if you read the book, you knew what was coming. But for those like me who were going in blind, where do we begin?
Honestly, given the nature of Rosamund Pike’s Amy Dunne, we all had a hunch she’d return home. The mid-movie twist that she was not online alive but framing her husband, though? Yeah, there’s no way I saw that coming.
Planet of the Apes
The Apes franchise wouldn’t be what it is today without the original 1968 film starring Charlton Heston.
Throughout the movie, we are led to believe it takes place on an alien planet where apes evolved beyond humans. The final reveal of the Statue of Liberty and Heston’s reaction remains as iconic today as they were in the day.
Soylent Green
Let’s go back-to-back with Charlton Heston.
The dystopian thriller paints a bleak picture of 2022 back in 1973. While it’s been pretty rough out here in the real world, we’re not dealing with food shortages like in Soylent Green…yet.
What better way to kill two birds with one stone and unwillingly feed humans Soylent Green?
Get Out
Part of what makes Get Out so great is how it subverts our expectations.
Director Jordan Peele knows what we expect from a horror movie and goes all in on typical tropes to distract us from what’s happening.
The elderly people at the Armitage house aren’t monsters; they’re the grandparents inside of someone else’s bodies.
Knives Out
Rian Johnson’s murder mystery is an excellent homage to the Agatha Christie stories for the modern audience.
The way Johnson expertly throws in misdirections to keep us guessing and trusts the audience to pick up on the true nature of the Trombey family helps keep what is, in hindsight, an obvious twist hidden in plain sight.
Follow us on MSN for more of the content you love.
Read More:
Leave a Reply