There’s a reason movies are one of the most consistently popular forms of media, and why their appeal has endured across the many decades since they were first conceived. Stories that unfold on the big screen engage their audience in a way that others can rarely emulate, as they have to be gripping, fast-paced, and with enough depth to keep viewers thinking even after the credits have rolled. There are fewer narrative ideas that better encompass those qualities than the unpredictable movie twist. A stinger that completely redefines everything that came before it is a great way to increase a movie’s rewatch potential, especially if it’s achieved organically without being obvious ahead of time.
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Just as a bad plot twist can ruin a movie, a good one can enhance the experience for the viewer. If written and executed well, a good twist can make a movie’s story so much more exciting, especially when the audience had no idea it was coming. The very best twists surprise the audience without seeming far-fetched or overly contrived, creating a narrative flourish that can make a movie truly unforgettable.
7) Amy’s Alive – Gone Girl (2014)
Based on Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name, Gone Girl captivated audiences with its plausible look at a missing persons case. Starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, much of the movie’s story revolves around the disappearance of Amy (Pike), with her husband (Affleck) suspected of murdering her. However, the movie’s mid-point revelation that Amy is actually alive only adds a whole new layer of mystery to Gone Girl‘s story, and completely shifts the audience’s perspective of its main characters in a twist that was unexpected to everyone who hadn’t read the book.
6) Leonard Killed His Wife – Memento (2000)
Where Memento stands in comparison to other Christopher Nolan movies may be subjective, but the movie’s final twist is one of cinema’s best. Its non-linear story explored the day-to-day existence of its protagonist, who is living with short-term memory loss while attempting to get revenge on his wife’s murderer. A series of tattoos, handwritten notes, and polaroids are his only clues, and just as he seems to have unwrapped the mystery, he learns that he was responsible for his wife’s death all along. It’s a tragic twist that reframes most of Memento‘s story, and completely flips the script on its main character.
5) Tyler Durden Isn’t Real – Fight Club (1999)
Sometimes, attempting to foreshadow a plot twist makes it obvious, but when done correctly, it only makes the reveal better. This is the case in Fight Club, which saw Edward Norton’s unnamed insomniac protagonist taken under the wing of confident anarchist Tyler Durden. After finding himself trapped in a spiral of destruction, the protagonist learns that he has been Durden all along, as subtly hinted at by subliminal imagery and scenes that only begin to make sense when watched the second time around.
4) Kramer Is Alive – Saw (2004)
There have been many great horror movie twists, but few proved as unexpected as Saw‘s final stinger. The movie’s plot focuses on two men who wake up trapped in a room with a corpse and are given a deadly ultimatum. The movie’s final moments see them learn that the corpse in the room wasn’t dead at all, and that he was actually their captor, the Jigsaw Killer. Considering the tension built by the movie, the twist puts a final shocking note on Saw‘s climactic crescendo, delivering an unexpected development that helped spawn a major franchise.
3) The Stool Incident – Million Dollar Baby (2004)
2004’s Million Dollar Baby begins like a classic underdog boxing movie. Starring Hilary Swank as the scrappy young female boxer named Maggie, whose toughness and determination allow her to climb to the top. It seems to weave a classic sports drama story, until the shocking and unexpected twist that stunned audiences: Maggie is sucker-punched by a frustrated opponent, falls onto her own stool, and breaks her neck, suffering brain damage. Million Dollar Baby then pivots from a hard-hitting boxing movie to a heart-rending emotional drama that touches on difficult themes before coming to an incredibly sad end.
2) The Flashbacks Aren’t Flashbacks – Arrival (2016)
When it comes to the best sci-fi movie twists of all time, Arrival deserves to be way up there. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Ted Chiang’s short story sees Amy Adams’ linguist working to decipher the language of alien visitors to Earth, with the movie’s story interspersed with flashback scenes showing the terminal illness and death of her daughter. The final twist is tied to the nature of the alien language, which allows those who speak it to perceive time differently. It’s an unexpected but logical twist that reveals the flashbacks were actually the future all along, ending Arrival on a poignant and complex note.
1) Crowe Was Dead All Along – The Sixth Sense (1999)
Some claim that The Sixth Sense‘s twist was obvious from the beginning, while others hail it as one of the best unexpected plot developments of all time. Watching the movie on its release in 1999, the majority of audiences would have said the latter, as the reveal that Crowe had been dead since the beginning of the movie was fairly groundbreaking. Though it has since become so iconic as to essentially be a cliche, The Sixth Sense‘s twist was, at one point, one of the least obvious plot twists in cinematic history.
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Image courtesy of Stage 6 Films
