There are a ton of movies out there that try to hoodwink the audience. From the works of Alfred Hitchcock to M. Night Shyamalan and James Wan, there are quite a few directors who have kept the concept of a twist popular throughout various eras of film history. Naturally, some of them don’t work at all, and they’re remembered as such. For instance, those seen in The Devil Inside, Hancock, Serenity, The Village, The Happening, the remake of Planet of the Apes, and the imagined battle scene in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. But inversely, there are just as many if not even more twist endings that are remembered for effectively adding a new layer to an already good film.
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What follows are 10 twists that are so iconic that there’s a good chance that, even if you’ve never seen the film itself, you know where it leads. Perhaps that’s what has kept you from watching them. But you should, because even if you know the twist these 10 rides are well worth taking.
10) “Teddy” Is Actually a Patient on Shutter Island
The vast majority of Shutter Island makes us believe we’re watching U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), attempting to solve the mystery of a missing patient of a mental health hospital. But it turns out the whole investigation is a ruse.
Edward Daniels is just an anagram for Andrew Laeddis, who hasn’t recently arrived at the island but is actually a patient himself. He was a U.S. Marshal in the past, but he killed his wife after she drowned their three kids. Edwards Daniels is nothing more than a concoction he’s crafted to distance himself from the memories of the incident and his guilt surrounding said incident.
Stream Shutter Island on Paramount+.
9) Norman Bates, Not His Mother, Was the Killer in Psycho
Really, there are two all-timer iconic twists in Psycho. First is the fact that Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane, who is firmly positioned as the film’s protagonist, really isn’t. She is stabbed in the shower of the Bates Motel less than halfway through the runtime.
The other big twist is just who did the stabbing. We’re led to believe that it was the mother of the motel’s proprietor, Norman Bates, but it turns out she’s dead and rotted in a basement and he’s been dressing up as her. His mother has become a part of his split personality that he crafted to deal with the guilt he feels over killing her when she took a lover.
Stream Psycho on TCM.
8) The Contents of the Box in Seven
It’s hard to not know the ending of Seven (frequently stylized as Se7en) when the line “What’s in the box?!” is so famous. Just hearing that you can remember the various ways Brad Pitt’s Detective David Mills yells it.
The scene is also so memorable because the answer to his query is as horrifying as it could be. In the words of Kevin Spacey’s John Doe, it’s Mills’ wife’s “pretty head.”
7) There Were Two Killers in Scream
The first Scream is still the best Scream and a big part of that is just how well-drawn the characters are. We fall in love with them, even if we know that one of them is going to end up being the one wearing the mask and holding the knife.
Or, rather, two of them are the ones wearing the masks and holding the knives, because not only is it Billy Loomis, who the movie goes out of its way to position as the killer, but also Matthew Lillard’s Stu Macher. Their dynamic is perhaps the most interesting of the film. Billy is the top banana, and Stu is his lapdog. Stu seems to be enjoying the awful things they’ve done, as if he lacks both any empathy and the ability to analyze risk realistically. Billy, however, is all about revenge. This was his idea (until you get to the baffling extra layer established in Scream 3), Stu’s just there to help get the spree done. And one gets the feeling that Billy is planning to make Stu the patsy, even though it’s clear Stu holds genuine affection for his friend.
Stream Scream on Paramount+.
6) The Narrator Is Tyler Durden in Fight Club
We never learn the Narrator’s (Edward Norton) name in Fight Club. But we sure do learn Tyler Durden’s (Brad Pitt). People can’t go a few minutes without bringing up Tyler.
Together, the Narrator and Tyler establish Fight Club, which lets grown men find a release, but before long Tyler takes what they have established and turns it into a terrorist organization. But it’s all the Narrator. Tyler is nothing more than a part of himself, a personality he developed to yank himself from the imposing boredom of his own life.
5) Jason’s Mom Was the Killer in Friday the 13th
To be fair to those who saw Friday the 13th in theaters back in 1980, there was genuinely no chance of them guessing Mrs. Voorhees was the killer because Mrs. Voorhees isn’t even established as a person who lives until the third act. And yet, even though it kind of flies in the face of how a twist should come to be in a film, it works.
Is Jason Voorhees the most iconic aspect of the Friday the 13th movies? Undoubtedly, but Mrs. Voorhees was by far its most interesting character. Unlike her somehow resurrected son, her killing spree had a firm motive. She wants revenge for the negligence-caused death of her only child. That’s memorable, but Friday the 13th‘s finale is also memorable because of its mention during the iconic opening of the aforementioned Scream.
Stream Friday the 13th for free on Kanopy.
4) Verbal Kint Was Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects
It was a great idea to frame the whole narrative of The Usual Suspects as the story a timid man is telling a U.S. Customs interrogator. As he’s being questioned, we truly believe that this Verbal Kint was on the lowest rung of a great caper’s ladder.
But the whole time he’s telling an entirely fabricated version of events that actually transpired. He’s fooled not only the man he’s being questioned by, but all of us as well. The Keyser Söze of Kint’s story, this big bad wolf of a man, is actually sitting in the chair of the interrogator’s office. It’s only once he leaves that office that we see his limp disappear and, where was once an ultra-timid man is now a super-confident fella with a cigarette in his mouth.
Stream The Usual Suspects on fuboTV.
3) The Planet of the Apes Is Actually Earth in the Future
Throughout Planet of the Apes, we think that the astronauts, including Charlton Heston’s George Taylor, have landed on a planet somewhere out in the depths of space. After all, this planet is overrun by apes that can speak and walk on two legs. It has to be a different planet.
But, nope, it’s Earth, and one that is far in the future from the time with which the astronauts are acquainted. Apes have taken over, evolved, and now the humans are their mute slaves.
Stream Planet of the Apes on IndieFlix.
2) Darth Vader Is Luke Skywalker’s Father in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The parental twist of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is the most important part of the original trilogy’s overarching narrative, so of course it’s known by just about everyone. After all, we just watched 1.9 movies where Darth Vader showed himself to be a cold monster capable of great evil only to learn he’s the dad of the protagonist we’ve just watched being the very definition of good for 1.9 movies.
Then there’s the Mandela Effect factor. In this case, people would swear up and down that the line is “Luke, I am your father,” which is a misremembering that only further ingratiates the specificity of Vader and Luke’s connection in the back of people’s minds, be they Star Wars fans are not. Of course, the line is actually “No, I am your father.”
Stream Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on Disney+.
1) Bruce Willis Was a Ghost the Whole Time in The Sixth Sense
There’s an argument to be made that The Sixth Sense‘s ending dings its rewatch potential. And, considering it is the first twist ending that comes to mind when many people think of twist endings, it very well could stop people who weren’t alive when it first came out from ever giving it a shot.
That would be a shame, because it’s still a moving work and undoubtedly the best entry on M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography. And, thanks to Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, and career best work by Bruce Willis, it’s sublimely acted as well.
Stream The Sixth Sense on Hulu.
What movie twist do you know about even though you haven’t seen the movie itself? Let us know in the comments.
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