One of the finest parts of the film experience is the well-executed, didn’t-see-it-coming plot twist. Many memorable twists occur in a movie’s final scenes to maximize the impact of the reveal. Good twists are a surprise at the time, but upon further reflection, or watching the movie again, are often hiding in plain sight. I didn’t intend to spread my favorites throughout the years, but it turned out to be so – the following list covers every decade from the 1940s to the 2010s, with the exception of the 1950s. Once again, the order and narrowing it down to 10 were difficult, so I made it a top 11. Needless to say, this post is one big spoiler so if you still plan to watch one of these films, beware.
11. Atonement (2007): The lives of Robbie (James McAvoy) and Cecilia (Keira Knightley) never happened. They both died during the war – Robbie in Dunkirk and Cecilia during the London bombing. Briony (Saoirse Ronan) had been narrating the movie from her perspective as she wrote her autobiography later in life. She re-united them in her book as a way of compensating for falsely accusing Robbie of raping her cousin and denying them a life together.
10. Arrival (2016): The film opens with Louise (Amy Adams) grieving the death of her young daughter. She is actually envisioning her future, not remembering her past. As a linguist, she immersed herself in the language of the friendly aliens who arrived on Earth in a group of 12 spaceships. The aliens perceived time in a circle, a nonlinear state of the past, present, and future simultaneously. Amy’s communications with the aliens rewired her brain and she embraced her future despite knowing its inevitable pain.
9. Shutter Island (2010): Edward Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is not an investigator at Shutter Island, but actually Andrew Laeddis, a patient there undergoing a role-playing treatment to shake him out of his delusion. The film ends as he regresses back to character as he still can’t live with the knowledge that he was responsible for the death of his family. (He had killed his wife after she murdered their children.) He is taken away to be lobotomized.
8. The Sixth Sense (1999): Malcolm (Bruce Willis) was dead the whole time. Malcolm died in the first scene as a former patient broke into his home and shot him. The movie cuts to a year later when it seems like the incident was a life-altering event for him to help young Cole (Haley Joel Osment). In retrospect, the most familiar and obvious clue to Malcolm’s fate was Cole’s famous line, “I see dead people.” Director M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are filled with big twists, but his third film and first breakthrough, is still a standout.
7. Get Out (2017): Rose (Allison Williams) is taking boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her parents. Aaah, how nice. Rose is actually continuing her longtime selection of young black men to be subjects for her parents to implant the minds of upper-class whites into their supposedly physically superior bodies. While Chris is being prepped for the operation, he escapes by killing his way out, lastly seen crouching over a dying Rose. What follows next is simply priceless: instead of being a cop pulling up, it’s Rod (Lil Rel Howery), friend of Chris and TSA agent. He has one of the best placed f-ings ever, “I’m TS-mother-fuckin’ A. We handle shit. That’s what we do. Consider your situation fuckin’ handled!” (Rod had previously been to the Police trying to buddy up with them as fellow law enforcement while they laughed him out the building with his theory that Chris had been kidnapped for mind control purposes.)
6. Citizen Kane (1941): Charles Foster Kane’s dying last word was “Rosebud.” This mysterious word motivates a journalist to investigate Kane’s life. In a film of flashbacks from the perspectives of friends and associates, the life of a wealthy newspaper tycoon is unveiled. Rosebud is revealed to be the name of his childhood sled: a sign of yearning for happier times as a kid despite his money and fame. The film closes with the sled being tossed into a bonfire with the rest of Kane’s belongings. (For more about this landmark film, often considered the greatest of all time, check out the Netflix film Mank; a 2020 black-and-white biographical film of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane.)
5. Soylent Green (1973): It’s 2022 and NYC has 40 million people, and only the elite can afford apartments, food, and water. Their homes are heavily secured, while the poor live on the streets, drink water from spigots, and eat processed wafers: Soylent Red, Yellow, and the new and improved Green variety. Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) discovers the true source of the wafers and utters one of cinema’s classic exclamations, “Soylent Green is people!”
4. Psycho (1960): Alfred Hitchcock presents the mother of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) as the killer complete with the dutiful son covering up for her. However, Norman has an entire second persona and becomes his mother. He dresses up as her, kills people, and truly believes he is his mother. “Mother takes over.” The film, bolstered by the image of his mummified mother, and of course, the Marion (Janet Leigh) shower scene is an indelible piece of film history.
3. Gone Girl (2014): I’ve discovered in writing this post that some complicated plot twists are not easy to briefly explain, none more so than Gone Girl. Amy (Rosamund Pike) is simply one of the most conniving, manipulative, and ruthless characters you’ll ever meet. Husband Nick (Ben Affleck) is no Saint either. Amy disappears, stages her death, and becomes pregnant using Nick’s sperm from a fertility clinic. The film ends with the couple back together and pretending to be happily married. Yes, there’s a lot going on in between there. Amy’s master plan is evil, yet fascinating in its complexity, calculations, and audacity.
2. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980): Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s biological father! Enough said.
1. The Planet of the Apes (1968): George Taylor (Charlton Heston) is on the beach next to the Statue of Liberty, half buried under the sand. “I’m back home. We finally really did it. You maniacs, you blew it up. God Damn you, God Damn you all to hell.” The planet with talking apes as the intelligent, dominant species was Earth all along. His spaceship never left Earth but accelerated about two millennia ahead in time.
Trivia: Whose life story is Citizen Kane primarily based on?
Answer: William Randolph Hearst
Trivia: Although he didn’t quite make my list, this director of Inception and Momento is known for these and other intricate twists?
Answer: Christopher Nolan