No show on television evokes the phrase “twist ending” more than The Twilight Zone. From scary to funny to just plain bizarre, Rod Serling’s anthology series often ended with the kind of mind-blowing “WTF?” moment that would make you rethink everything you just watched. The best plot twists are shocking but predictable in hindsight. They have the power to recontextualize the entire episode with one or two short scenes. It’s important to note that the Twilight Zone episodes with the biggest twist endings aren’t necessarily the most famous, but the ones with the most impactful finale.
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The twist endings on this list — with one notable exception — are all gut punches. These are the twists that stay with you, the ones you still think about years after you first see them. Without further ado, here are 10 of the biggest twist endings from the Twilight Zone ranked in descending order.
10) It’s Opposite Day in “The Midnight Sun”
Norma and Mrs. Bronson are two of the last women in New York as the Earth slowly spirals closer to a fiery death. In true Twilight Zone fashion, something has caused the Earth to fall off its axis and drift slowly towards the sun. The Twilight Zone often featured above-average effects for a ’60s TV show, and “The Midnight Sun” was no exception. Thermometers shatter and paintings melt in a horrifyingly realistic manner as the temperature climbs north of 130°F.
Then, when things seem bleakest, the scene cuts to a dark, snowy night. It was just a dream, but real life isn’t any better because — surprise! — the Earth is actually drifting away from the sun. The ending to “The Midnight Sun” might come out of nowhere, but you have to admit, it’s one heck of a twist.
9) “The Invaders” Aren’t What They Appear to Be
Subject: a solitary old woman. Location: a remote cabin with no electricity or running water. The Invaders: a pair of small humanoid figures in containment suits. The result: Pure terror. From the setup, “The Invaders” is a classic alien invasion story until it isn’t. The entire episode plays out with almost no dialogue whatsoever as the elderly protagonist attempts to catch and dispose of a couple of aliens who have infiltrated her cabin.
When it’s revealed that the intruder’s craft is marked U.S. Air Force Space Probe No. 1 the episode does a complete one-eighty. What started out as a terrified woman being stalked by two creepy intruders suddenly mutates into a tale of two astronauts fighting for their lives on an alien planet full of giants.
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8) The Tragedy of “The Silence” Speaks For Itself
If there’s an episode of The Twilight Zone that feels inspired by the horror comic books of the time, like Tales From the Crypt, it’s “The Silence.” The episode contains no sci-fi or fantasy elements, just a friendly gentleman’s wager with gruesome consequences. The premise is simple: Archie Taylor bets Jamie Tennyson that he can’t go an entire year without talking. Should Tennyson succeed, he will win $500,000 — over $5 million in 2025 dollars.
When the year passes without Jamie uttering a single sound, Taylor is forced to confess that he is actually broke. The horrible twist? Tennyson had his vocal cords severed in order to win the bet. You can almost hear the Crypt Keeper cackling with amusement.
7) “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air” Was a Test Run For Planet of the Apes
The original Planet of the Apes ends with one of the biggest twists in cinema. A horrified Charlton Heston discovers the simian-ruled planet he’s on is actually a post-apocalyptic future Earth complete with a broken-down Statue of Liberty. It’s a classic twist ending cooked up by none other than The Twilight Zone‘s own Rod Serling.
So it should come as no surprise that before penning Apes, Serling tried out the “it was Earth all along” schtick on an episode of The Twilight Zone. Four astronauts crash-land on a desert planet and come to blows over supplies. One thing leads to another until only one man is left alive to discover the crew crashed just outside of Reno, Nevada.
6) “Escape Clause” Proves There Are Fates Worse Than Death
A hypochondriac sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. Thus begins “Escape Clause,” one of the darkest premises for a Twilight Zone episode in the series’ five-season run. Were that the extent of the deal, the episode’s ending — the man confesses to murder in hopes of experiencing the electric chair but is sentenced to life in prison instead — would still be a classic Twilight Zone twist. What earns this episode a spot on the list, however, is the titular escape clause.
At the beginning of the story, Satan gives the man the option to end his life at any time by summoning the Prince of Darkness to do the deed. That little addition provides the episode with an added layer of depth. Did Beelzebub manipulate the man’s trial in hopes he would beg for death rather than spend eternity in jail, or was it just bad luck? The answer lies somewhere in the Twilight Zone.
5) “Nothing in the Dark” Proves Twist Endings Don’t Have To Be Dark
When an old woman, who spends her life hiding from death, accidentally invites the Grim Reaper into her house, her biggest fear becomes a reality. “Nothing in the Dark” could have ended in the typically bleak Twilight Zone fashion, but the episode’s real twist is that death is presented in a positive light.
Played to perfection by a young Robert Redford, this version of death isn’t scary in the slightest. He exists not to drag the woman kicking and screaming into the underworld but instead to take her hand and lead her gently into the light. It’s one of the rare times that an episode of The Twilight Zone leaves the viewer with more hope for the future instead of less.
4) A Woman Discovers She Isn’t Who She Thinks She Is in “The After Hours”
Nothing is scarier than forgetting who you are, especially if who you are is a lifeless mannequin. Marsha White just wants to get a gold thimble for her mother, but when her journey takes her to the mysterious ninth floor of an eight-story department store, she’s forced to face some harsh truths about her identity. Not only does she not have a mother, but she’s not even really human. She’s a mannequin.
Marsha turning back into a lifeless doll at the end of “The After Hours” is not only one of the biggest twists The Twilight Zone ever threw at its fans, but also the creepiest.
3) “A Stop at Willoughby” Is The Last Stop You’ll Ever Make
We’ve all had days when we dream about escaping the hustle and bustle of the modern rat race, and Gart Williams is no different. A browbeaten Madison Avenue adman trapped in a loveless marriage, Williams is thoroughly fed up with his life. One day he falls asleep during his morning commute and dreams that his train has stopped in an idyllic 19th-century town named Willoughby.
The worse his real life gets, the more Williams longs for Willoughby’s small town charms. During one fateful daydream, Gart makes up his mind to exit the train and become a permanent resident of Willoughby. The twist? Williams, “getting off the train in Willoughby,” was actually him jumping from the moving train to his death. To be honest, Gart’s corpse being loaded into a hearse, reading from the Willoughby & Son funeral home, feels like a hat on a hat, but the initial twist is such a shock to the system you’ll hardly even notice.
2) “To Serve Man” Is The Perfect Recipe For Existential Dread
On Earth, humans are the top of the food chain, but “To Serve Man” introduces fans to a corner of The Twilight Zone where that’s not the case. When the nine-foot-tall Kanamits come to Earth with solutions for all of humankind’s problems, they aren’t doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, they’re doing it out of the emptiness of their stomachs. There isn’t much we can say about “To Serve Man” that hasn’t been said before, so we won’t even try. Just know that there’s a reason why this episode is at the top of every Twilight Zone best-of list, and that’s because it’s near perfect from start to twisted finish.
Say it with us now, “It’s a cookbook!”
1) It Turns Out The Monsters Were Already There
All it takes for peaceful, suburban Maple Street to go from porch swings and lemonade to full-on Lord of the Flies is a couple of flickering lights and the mere suggestion of extraterrestrial involvement. On the surface, the twist ending of “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is that aliens are behind the chaos and have figured out that using humans’ paranoia to get them to turn on each other is a much more efficient way to take over the planet than using force.
The deeper and more chilling “twist,” however, is the revelation that humans are a bigger danger to themselves than any nuclear bomb or alien invasion. In the decades since “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” first aired, countless other TV shows and films have taken the premise of humans being the scariest monsters of all and run with it, but none have done a better job than this Twilight Zone classic.
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