A staple in multiple movie genres, and several prominent directors, movie twists have been used with mixed success over the years. Admittedly this entire list could just be M. Night Shyalaman, who himself is a good microcosm of good, bad, and terrible movie twists, but there’s a wider range of just him included. Full disclosure, spoilers ahead…
Shutter Island (2010)
Leonardo Di Caprio stars as detective Teddy Daniels, sent to an asylum on a remote island to investigate a crime. Anyone that paid real attention to the trailers would have guessed the twist a mile off, but it didn’t make it any less fun.
The Twist: Teddy Daniels isn’t a detective whatsoever. He’s the 67th inmate on the island, sent there after murdering his wife. In a more unique method of rehabilitation, the staff of the island play along in a sort of game with the detective side of things in the hope it snaps Daniels out of his insanity, otherwise, he’ll be lobotomized.
Saw (2004)
A movie twist that’s not hinted at or with any foreshadowing is rare, but this definitely ticks those boxes. Set in a room with a dead man between them, two men supposedly complete strangers to one another fight to escape.
The Twist: The man in the room isn’t dead, in fact, he’s the man who’s incapacitated and locked them up for his own twisted lessons to them.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The film that started the trend of movie twists from M. Night Shyalaman and definitely his best one. Starring Bruce Willis as Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist whose new patient believes he can see dead people.
The Twist: Malcolm is dead. In fact, we saw him die in an earlier altercation with a home invader we thought he’d fought off. On multiple re-watches you’ll catch so many hints towards this twist you won’t believe you missed the first time.
Related: Bruce Willis Spotted for First Time Hanging Out With Friends After Aphasia Tanked His Career
Fight Club (1999)
A movie with an ever-evolving script, the film starts off with a man without an aim who finds himself starting a fight club for like-minded men, with a new friend of his. The group then takes it upon themselves to fight the capitalist and consumerist ideas the world has based itself on, becoming terrorists in the process.
The Twist: Edward Norton as The Narrator and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden are one and the same. A figment of his imagination, Tyler Durden is everything The Narrator wanted to be, and whenever we’ve been seeing Tyler, it’s actually The Narrator in his place.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s second feature film, Us follows a family of four on their vacation. As per most of the films in this list, that doesn’t go to plan and things begin to unravel, first with a home Invasion, and then with a shocking revelation.
The Twist: The home invaders are the family’s doppelgangers from an underground world where everyone has their own clone of sorts. The real twist is that when she was a kid, Lupita Nyongo’s doppelganger swapped places with her, and the original little girl spent decades underground planning her revenge.
American Psycho (2000)
In a cult classic, Christian Bale stars as the charismatic and horrifying Patrick Bateman. A stockbroker with a penchant for prostitutes, skincare routines, and business cards, we follow his descent into madness and murder.
The Twist: At the end of the film after killing four police officers and evading capture, we find Bateman in his office admitting his crimes to his lawyer… except the lawyer thinks it’s one big joke as one of Bateman’s supposed victims had dinner with him a few days prior. So did Bateman commit those murders or not?
Read also: I Had a Pact With Nolan: Christian Bale Reveals Secret Dark Knight 4 Deal With Christopher Nolan
Memento (2000)
Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough feature film, Memento is peak Nolan. A unique film with a great premise and fantastic storytelling device, Memento tells the story of a man played by Guy Pearce with no short-term memory, constantly reminding himself of his story as he follows his own clues in a bid to find his wife’s killer.
The Twist: Guy Pearce’s character was to blame for his wife’s death, overdosing her with insulin. He was also being manipulated by an undercover cop who’d been using him to kill other criminals, pretending that was the person responsible for his wife’s death. Setting himself on the path we see come to a culmination at the start of the film, he ensures he doesn’t continue trusting this cop and therefore will kill him too, thinking the cop is his wife’s killer.
There are many more movies with movie twists that you can appreciate and leave you open-mouthed, so what other movie twists did I miss?
hopefully, you watch the show a little more in the know!
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