5 More Movie Twists That Were Obvious From the Beginning

Although a great plot twist can truly elevate an otherwise middling movie, the inverse is sadly also true, as proven by these predictable twists that dragged down their respective movies. Plot twists are inherently risky. The more invested the viewer is in a movie’s story, the more likely it is that a huge, plot-redefining twist runs the risk of ruining their immersion. This is why some of the best movie plot twists ever take place near the end of stories that, until that point, were otherwise only serviceable.

For most of their runtimes, The Usual Suspects is a perfectly adequate crime mystery, and The Sixth Sense is a fine, if unmemorable, supernatural horror movie. It is their endings that make these movies truly great since, unlike Arrival, The Mist, or Fight Club, the plots of these two classics aren’t all that inventive or surprising until after the big twist has been revealed. In contrast, plenty of movies that do a good job of telling an immersive story, setting up memorable characters, and getting viewers invested in their plots can be ruined by a predictable twist ending, as was the case with Thanksgiving, The Dark Knight Rises, and No Time To Die.

Thanksgiving

Based on his fake movie trailer from 2007’s Grindhouse, director Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is an affectionate homage to ‘90s teen slashers like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, and Valentine. While some of its kills are memorable and the plot moves at a clip, this 2023 effort is badly let down by a twist that is blatantly telegraphed as early as the opening scene.

From the moment that Thanksgiving’s opening scene conspicuously lingers on one particular character’s reaction to a tragic Black Friday stampede, it’s pretty obvious that this supporting star will be the movie’s vengeance-fuelled killer. Indeed, the rapidly dwindling cast list only serves to make the killer’s identity increasingly obvious, until the most famous person on the cast list and one of the only surviving main characters is unsurprisingly unmasked at the end.

Cobweb

Never let it be said that a predictable twist ending always ruins a movie. The wild 2023 horror movie Cobweb tells the fairy tale-esque story of a quiet boy whose abusive parents have seemingly trapped his sister inside the walls of their home. Genre-savvy readers can almost certainly guess the movie’s big twist from that one-sentence summary alone. That said, Cobweb’s gory, gleefully gross third act and a pair of superb turns from Lizzy Caplan and Anthony Starr manage to ensure that director Samuel Bodin’s blackly comic horror is still well worth watching.

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan knows his way around a twist ending, as evidenced by everything from The Prestige to Memento. However, it is worth noting that both of those earlier efforts hinged their entire complex storylines on a big final twist, something 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises failed to do. Instead, this sequel to The Dark Knight introduces a suspicious supporting character and then effectively forgets all about them for an hour of screen time. As such, no viewers will win any prizes for guessing that this character is, obviously, revealed to be a secret villain in the movie’s final stretch.

No Time To Die

Unfortunately for the creators of the James Bond franchise, simply titling star Daniel Craig’s final 007 movie No Time To Die wasn’t enough to throw viewers off the scent. For years, Craig’s James Bond movies had made a point of deconstructing the franchise’s familiar tropes, from killing off and replacing Judi Dench’s version of M in Skyfall to finally revealing Bond’s origin story in Casino Royale. As such, when it came time for No Time To Die’s climax, everyone knew what big final “surprise” the last Craig movie was setting up, not that this made the tear-jerking moment any less tragic.

Scream 3

None of the Scream sequels have ever been able to replicate the elegant simplicity of the original movie’s killer reveal, although Scream 4 came close with a clever motive and one genuinely unexpected culprit. However, while 2026’s Scream 7 earned worse reviews, 2000’s Scream 3 remains the franchise’s nadir when it comes to whodunit plotting. Not only does Scream 3’s story rely heavily on magical plot elements like a voice changer that can inexplicably mimic anyone’s voice, but the killer reveal is also painfully obvious from the start.

Scream 3 has only one major character who the movie’s plot repeatedly sidelines, minimising their screen time in an attempt to deflect attention from them. Although their motive is an absurd twist that no one could have seen coming, the identity of this sequel’s Ghostface killer is obvious from the moment that Scream 3 starts portraying this character as a completely inauspicious, utterly harmless background presence.

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