People love twist endings. Anyone who says otherwise is full of crap. But there are good twist endings and there are bad twist endings, and sometimes it’s a fine line between the two. Having looked at other “Best Twist Ending” lists and pulling from my own memory, I have compiled this list of the best twist endings in movie history – and the worst. Of course, there are some movies I haven’t seen and others I just plain forgot about, but these are the ones you have to see – or avoid.
NOTE: Major spoiler alerts.
The Best Twist Endings
- The Sixth Sense
These top several twists are hard to rank in any clean order, but I still remember the day I sat in theaters watching M. Night Shyalaman’s masterpiece. The movie was pretty decent but didn’t have much of a plot, and I was wondering where the movie was going to go. And then – bam! Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time. Not only is it an amazingly good twist ending, but it also saves the movie from being just a decent ghost story – and, on a second viewing, Shyalaman throws the truth in your face repeatedly. - Primal Fear
Ed Norton jumped into his career in a big way with this courtroom thriller, where Richard Gere comes to the defense of a seemingly innocent and kind altar boy accused of brutally murdering a priest. Not only is the movie extremely good and offers a first glimpse at the exceptional acting talent stored within Norton, but as it turns out, Norton’s character was faking split personality the entire time. - The Usual Suspects
Considered the best twist ending by many people, it was hard to put this so far down at #3. I’ve seen a couple people put this crime thriller starring Kevin Spacey on “Worst Twist Endings” lists, but those people are just idiots wanting to sound smarter and more sophisticated than everyone else. - Oldboy
Probably the best f-ed up twist ending on the list, this film starts out with a guy waking up in a suitcase on a rooftop after years of mysterious captivity. As he seeks out the truth, he teams up and falls in love with a younger woman. He has sex with her. Then, as we learn, he’s been hypnotized to fall in love with his own daughter – and thus he has unwillingly had sex with her. A second twist comes when the guy decides to erase his memories so he can continue to love and have sex with his daughter. - Seven
This exciting and intriguing thriller has a great cast and a creepy villain, who remains elusive through most of the movie until he conveniently decides to show up for one of the most disturbing twist endings ever. Spacey, the killer, leads the detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) out into the middle of nowhere to find the final victim, only to reveal that he is the one who will be killed by Pitt. Why? Because Spacey killed Pitt’s wife, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, to drive him over the deep end. Nice! - Angel Heart
OK, Oldboy is pretty screwed up, but this one isn’t exactly innocent, either. In this movie, a much younger Mickey Rourke starts investigating murders in New Orleans, only to discover that he himself made a deal with the Devil himself and is responsible for much of what has happened. Wow. [this entry has been edited since the original post] - The Prestige
The inspiration for writing this post, the Christopher Nolan drama about magicians has several small twist endings that aren’t fully appreciated until repeated viewings. For one, Christian Bale’s character tricks Hugh Jackman into thinking that he got a hold of his journal full of secrets – until Jackman reads that it was all planned. Jackman pulls a similar trick on Bale, revealing to his adversary that he intended to frame him. Then, it is revealed that Jackman’s character is still alive, a result of cloning himself and murdering himself every night. If that’s not f-ed up enough, Bale actually has a twin brother and the two having been living a single life, sharing both a wife and a mistress. - Les Diabolique [this film was added after the original post]
In this 1955 French thriller, a wife conspires with her husband’s mistress to murder the husband. They devise an intelligent plan to make the murder look like an accident, but then the body disappears. The wife begins to freak out as more and more clues seem to suggest that either the husband is alive or that someone else knows and is toying with them, to the point where she starts having panic attacks. Ultimately, she ends up dying of a heart attack when the truth is revealed… but since the director actually asks us before the credits to not reveal the ending, I won’t say what the cause is. - The Others
An elegantly simple and creepy ghost story turns out to be a lot more when it is revealed that Nicole Kidman and her two children, who are allergic to sunlight, have in fact been dead the entire movie, and the ghosts they’ve been seeing are living people attempting to drive them out of the house. - Unbreakable
This is a love-it-or-hate-it film, but M. Night Shyalaman’s follow-up to The Sixth Sense, which also stars Bruce Willis, is one of my favorite movies. There’s not a lot of plot to the film, but once again Shyalaman throws a zinger at us by revealing that Samuel L. Jackson, who has befriended Willis and helped him realize his potential, is in fact a psychopathic killer who has been committing mass murder just to find someone who is “unbreakable.” - Arlington Road
This fast-paced suburban thriller has Jeffrey Bridges suspecting that his neighbor (Tim Robbins) is a domestic terrorist. As it turns out, he’s right, but he unfortunately drives the bomb into the federal building himself, and is ultimately blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people. - The Devil’s Advocate
The title isn’t as metaphorical as one would suspect: Al Pacino really is the Devil, and he wants Keanu Reeves to have sex with what turns out to be his sister to have a Devil grandbaby. When Reeves refuses, the Devil just starts trying all over again. - The Game
This movie is full of coincidences and conveniences, but there are so many little twists in the film that it’s hard not to be entertained. Is everything a game, or is it reality? Sure, it’s pretty unbelievable that Michael Douglas would choose to commit suicide through the exact window (and avoid all of the rafters) where a big balloon is waiting to catch him for his birthday party, but you didn’t see it coming, did you? - Scream
A lot of slasher films have “twists” in regards to who the villains are, but few have pulled it off as well as Wes Craven’s classic. I remember sitting in the theater (sadly, with my mom) when Skeet Ulrich – who had been sliced up quite heavily a few minutes before, hence proving his innocence – licks his fingers and declares that his blood is in fact corn syrup. And there’s not one killer, but two. - Psycho (1960)
I knew the ending before I ever saw the film, so the impact of the big twist was rather lessened, but you still have to respect the fact that Norman Bates dresses up like his mother to kill unsuspecting innocents. That’s just disturbing. Oh, and the “star” of the movie, Janet Leigh, gets killed off early on in the infamous shower scene. [this entry has been edited since the original post] - Planet of the Apes (1968)
Another movie where I had seen shots of the ending before I actually saw the movie, the realization that Charlton Heston was never going to make it back home because… he’s already on Earth! - American Psycho
I still don’t fully understand the ending, but I believe Christian Bale’s psychopathic tendencies are all, actually, in his mind. The great thing about this movie is that even if the entire film may “be a lie,” the actual events are up for debate. Did he or didn’t he? Everyone has their own opinion. [this entry has been edited since the original post] - Donnie Darko
With more of a strange ending than a twist one, it turns out that Donnie’s sleepwalking – which saved him from being crushed by a jet engine at the beginning of the film – has put his mother and sister in peril, as a month later, they are on the plane that will eventually crash into their home a month earlier. Donnie decides to sacrifice himself and die so that his family wouldn’t a month later. Or something like that. - Stephen’s King The Mist
I just watched this movie the other night, and wow, what an ending. This movie shouldn’t have been that good, with mediocre special effects and overblown acting (not to mention it’s a film about random monsters from another dimension), but it is. And the capper: an utterly depressing ending. Thomas Jane’s truck runs out of gas, leaving the five survivors, including his son, stranded in the middle of the mist, which has apparently taken over the entire world. With no chance of survivor, he turns to his gun, which only has four bullets left. He kills the other four people, including his own son, and then steps outside. A minute later, the army shows up and the mist begins to clear. Had he waited a minute longer, he wouldn’t have had to murder his only child! Ouch! - Soylent Green
They’re people! They’re people! The movie is a bit dated now, but if I hadn’t known the ending ahead of time, this would have been a pretty damn good twist ending. - Chinatown
Pretty common nowadays (just watch an episode of Law and Order: SVU), this Jack Nicholson film featured a twist that revealed that 1) Faye Dunaway was not who she first appeared to be and 2) that she had an incestuous relationship with her own father. - Night of the Living Dead
It’s a bit of a stretch to call this a twist ending, but it’s still a shocking one. Zombies are everywhere, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Militias have moved in to clean out the walking dead, and it looks like our hero (an African American) is safe. But, then, one shooter takes him to be one of the bad guys and shoots him in the head. Not a cheerful ending, but a memorable one. - The Ring
The Naomi Watts horror-thriller that took cinema by storm has a couple twist endings, even if you don’t recognize them as such. In most horror movies, once the protagonist discovers the dead body of the mean ghost, the spirit is usually set free and the movie ends. In The Ring, after Watts saves herself and her son by pulling Tamara’s body from the well, she things all are good. Wrong! Tamara is evil, and she’s just released her spirit to kill at will. And, to ultimately save themselves, Watts decides that she and her son will pass the video onto someone else (I believe a relative). - Memento
Guy Pearce, suffering from severe short term memory, goes through life searching for his wife’s killer and not trusting people. Since the film works in backwards order, we slowly discover that his wife killed herself by tricking Pearce into giving her multiple insulin shots; furthermore, Pearce tricks himself by writing notes about people that aren’t true, so that in the future he won’t listen to their “lies,” which are actually truths. - The Descent
If you’ve seen the original, European version, you’ll know what I mean; if you’ve only seen the American version, where the main character escapes from the monster-filled caves, you won’t. While we get to see the woman escape from the cave, drive away and so on and so forth, that escape is actually in her head – she’s still miles underground, surrounded by the creatures that are going to kill her. - Minority Report
Not really a twist ending, but another one that makes you think. After Tom Cruise is accused of murder, he sets out to clear his name. Since the whole criminal system is based on a predictive, psychic machine that is never wrong, his only way to do that is to prove that the system, which he has believed in for years, is wrong. How does he do it? He sets out to kill the creator of the program, thus triggering the system to alert the authorities. But, since he knows the truth about the creator, the creator wants to kill him, too. If Cruise succeeds, the system fails. If the creator succeeds, the system fails. Bam! - Mulholland Drive
No one really knows what David Lynch’s movie is about, but that doesn’t stop me from being intrigued by the completely weird ending to Mulholland Dr., the movie that put Naomi Watts on the map. There’s something about Pandora’s box, about two leading women being the same person, Watts masturbating and making out with herself, etc. - 12 Monkeys
I didn’t love this Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt movie, but it does have a disturbing ending. After Bruce Willis is sent back in time to stop a virus from wiping out most of mankind, you expect him to find the solution and save humanity. Instead, he fails, and his child-self gets to watch him get killed by security guards in an airport. Cheerful.
So-So or Overrated Twist Endings
The following list contains several movies with endings that I have liked, but haven’t loved. #1 on the list should evoke some emotion, but I stand by it. The twist endings in this list neither made the movies better or worse.
- Fight Club
This is the one movie that will cause people to complain about this list. Many would rank this ending as one of the best endings in cinema history, as it is revealed that Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are, in fact, the same person. While I’m sure it worked in the book, I think this is a bit of a cop-out. Fight Club is still a pretty good and imaginative movie, but the fact that everything we saw was a lie – and that it really never makes complete sense – doesn’t have me drooling over the ending like it causes some people to do. - Swimming Pool
This great thriller starring Charlotte Rampling has an aging author staying at a French villa only to discover that a sexy younger woman has shown up to share space. Intrigued by her sexuality, a subtle erotic thriller and ultimately murder mystery ensue… but then we discover that everything is all in her head and that we simply saw her imagination at work as she developed her story. Normally I don’t like endings where it turns out everything is a dream, but Swimming Pool pulled it off. Still, some would see it as a cop-out. - Vanilla Sky/Open Your Eyes [this film was added after the original post]
In these movies (remake and the original, both of which star Penelope Cruz – in different roles), the leading man (we’ll call him Tom Cruise) starts to go out of his mind as an ex-flame comes back from the dead, his ravaged face turns out to be not-so-ravaged and other weird things happen. As it turns out, most of the movie is a corporate-controlled dream due to the fact that he has been cryogenically frozen. The movie is weird and not for everyone, but the ending works. - Signs
I have mixed emotions about the “twist” ending here. When I first saw Signs, I liked it a lot. It was creepy, suspenseful, and had an ending that at least wrapped things up. Still, it seems like M. Night Shylaman threw a twist ending into the film for the sake of not letting his fans down, and a lot of people didn’t buy into the “Swing away” line. I don’t hate the ending, but it’s rather unnecessary. - No Way Out
In this spy thriller, it turns out that Kevin Costner, who has been searching for a Russian mole, is, in fact, the Russian mole. It’s sort of a silly ending that seems thrown in there at the last moment, but I certainly didn’t see it coming. - Citizen Kane
Does this movie have a twist ending? No, not really. But it has shown up on other “twist” listings so I just included it here to say so. [this entry has been edited since the original post] - Eastern Promises
In this decent thriller from David Cronenber, it is revealed that the ruthless Russian mobster played by Viggo Mortensen, who took it upon himself to protect Naomi Watts from his own people, is actually an undercover detective. The surprise really doesn’t make the movie any better, and in many ways it takes the emotional impact of the movie out of the story. After all, Mortensen never really had to make a choice between his people and Watts; he was against them from the start. - The Village
Another M. Night Shyalaman film, The Village is a pretty decent drama. I wasn’t crazy about the film because it was marketed as a horror movie, even though it isn’t, and maybe that distracted me from a pretty good twist ending. It’s not the direction I wanted the film to take, but the ramifications are huge: as it turns out, there are no monsters in the woods. The monsters were devised by the elders of the village to keep the younger people from venturing away, which would lead them to the wall: on the other side, a paved road and modern civilization. - Identity
John Cusack and others find themselves being picked off one by one by an unknown killer. What starts out as a reasonable thriller develops into a supernatural one, and from that somethinge entirely different: all of the characters, including Cusack, are all in the mind of a psychotic killer who is sitting in prison. No one saw this ending coming, though I can’t say it’s an amazing one: once the ending is revealed, the thriller loses any suspense it had going for it. - Fallen
In this supernatural thriller, Denzel Washington hunts a killer that moves from body to body, possessing people to carry out its evil will. Denzel figures out a way to trap and kill the demon – by luring it into the woods away from bodies to transfer to. As he becomes possessed, he inhales poison to kill the demon; but doesn’t take into account that the demon can also possess animals such as cats. So, at the end of the movie, evil wins and Denzel is possessed by a demon. Not a horrible ending – and many people love it – but it just didn’t click for me. [this entry has been edited since the original post] - High Tension
An ending that is so good it’s bad, High Tension, which could have been one of the most memorable and disturbing slasher films in recent memory, ends with a whimper when it is revealed that the sexually charged killer, played by a man, is actually the female protagonist, who, driven by jealousy, has gone insane. The twist, while shocking, really never makes sense, especially considering the fact that in the first scene the killer is shown jerking himself off with a decapitated head. I go back and forth on this one… - Lucky Number Slevin
Josh Hartnett gets confused for someone else and winds up getting involved in a deadly plot between an assassin named The Cat and a couple mobster-type guys. He plays it innocent until it is revealed that he and The Cat are partners and that Hartnett is himself a master assassin. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t have enough space to explain everything. The twist is a shocker, and yet it takes away something from the film. Handled a bit differently, it could have really worked, but I found it a bit underwhelming.
The Worst Twist Endings
Below is a list of the worst twist endings known to man:
- The Forgotten
What could have been a really good movie turns out to be a film about aliens experimenting on people. Aliens? Come on. This movie has the worst twist ending ever, and due to some scenes shown in the previews, you actually could see it coming. - The Number 23
This thriller was supposed to put Jim Carrey on the map as a truly serious actor, but it failed miserably. Not only was his acting terrible, but the movie features one of the most disappointing endings ever. Having been seduced and driven to obsessed madness by a book that seems to parallel his life, giving us hints at Satan and other disturbing ramifications, it is revealed that Carrey himself wrote the book while he was in a psychiatric hospital that he no longer remembers. So the twist is: he actually is crazy and he wrote the book himself. Wow. Stupid. - Secret Window
This Johnny Depp film had potential, but it has a strangely predictable ending, and one that was not particularly good. After it is revealed that he himself is off his rocker and has killed every victim, Depp never gets punished but does decide to get braces. Huh? - Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek features another predictable ending. In fact, it is so bad that when I realized it in the first 30 minutes of the movie, I prayed for the next hour that I was wrong. As it turns out, Dakota Fanning doesn’t have an imaginary friend who kills people, but instead it’s her father – the main character, played by Robert DeNiro – who has a split personality. The split personality twist ending is almost always a deal killer, and Hide and Seek proves it. - Saw
I only put this on the list because I’ve seen Saw mentioned on other Best Twist Ending lists. It’s not much of a twist ending, but after the protagonists do themselves in, it is revealed that the corpse in the middle of the room is in fact the killer – and that he’s just been lying still for the last two hours. It just doesn’t make much sense, nor is it very exciting. - Perfect Stranger
This Halle Berry thriller is about as bad as it looks. I lost interest halfway through and thus was only paying attention at half staff when the twist ending is revealed, but the fact that the main character – Berry – is in fact the unknown killer she’s been hunting is just downright stupid. - Never Talk to Strangers
Like Hide and Seek and Perfect Stranger, here’s another movie that ends with the revelation and the main protagonist is actually the bad guy. - The Life of David Gale
Kevin Spacey is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit… or did he? As it turns out, he faked murder to get convicted and sentenced to death, so he could prove that the death sentence is inhumane. Uh… OK. - Planet of the Apes (2001)
In this pointless remake directed by Tim Burton, Mark Wahlberg finally escapes from Ape World to land back on Earth… only to find that the Lincoln Memorial has the face of an ape. Unlike in the original, where there’s a lot less tacky and much more iconic view of the Statue of Liberty – implying that Heston is on Earth and is simply far in the future – this ending implies that there’s an alternate dimension or something like that. It’s just cheesy, and a stupid way to lead the audience into the ending credits. - No Country for Old Men
The Oscar-winning drama-thriller really doesn’t have a twist ending, unless you allow the fact that the Coen brothers kill the protagonist off screen, never explain how he died and that the movie has switched gears to a pointless and rambling speech by Tommy Lee Jones. It’s one of the most disappointing endings to an otherwise excellent film. Should the ending be different? No. That’s how the film ends in the book by Cormac McCarthy (and no one should mess with McCarthy’s works), but the film is so suspenseful and exciting for the first 80% that it’s just a major letdown when the movie takes a pure dramatic turn. [this entry has been edited since the original post]
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July 1st, 2008 at 4:59 am
Nicely done!
I have to agree immensley with some of your loser endings- Perfect Stranger was a huge mistake. DeNiro should be ashamed of Hide and Seek. I am glad that you included Arlington Road in the top 10 best. That one had a huge punch!
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 am
Fight Club must have to be one of the best ending?
how come it became overrated?!?!?!?
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I definitely agree with you about “Seven”, not only is one of the truly scariest movies of all-time, but the ending is even more disturbing than the entire movie itself.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Hi David, I may just have to watch Seven this weekend.
And Don, I am amazed more people haven’t complained about Fight Club yet! It’s a good twist ending, but I think it’s not nearly as good as people make it out to be.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Hi Wes, glad you agree. The first time I saw Arlington Road, I remember being amazed by the ending.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I think we forgot just how amazing the ending of the Sixth Sense was. The collective gasp I heard in the theater has never been duplicated.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
you forgot the sopranos ending but thats a series it was terrible
July 4th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Hey Kerri,
I absolutely loved the ending to The Sopranos, though it’s a TV show so it doesn’t qualify. It’s a love it or hate it ending, and I didn’t like it at first, but after thinking about it for a few days, I don’t know if they could have ended that show any better.
Erik
July 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Ralh, yeah, every once in a while I hear people diss The Sixth Sense – I think people try to sound more intellectual than other people by putting down smart films. I unfortunately saw the movie in a nearly empty theater, but I remember gasping myself.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
How about “The Crying Game”? Overrated, or unexpected?
July 5th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I especially agree that Citizen Kane is overrated, and The Number 23 is so lame!
July 5th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Hi Ian,
Yes, I considered putting The Crying Game on there. Not sure why I didn’t, other than that I really didn’t like the movie, but the twist is by no means good. While this shouldn’t necessarily exclude it as I included other films similar in nature, I always regarding the she’s-not-a-she-baby moment as a major twist in the film, but not a twist ending. But that’s not why it’s not in the list… not quite sure, actually… ;o)
Erik
July 5th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Hi Tim,
Glad to hear you agree on Citizen Kane. I will have to watch a movie again to see whether it’s worth a full-on attack; I probably would appreciate it more now, but who knows.
As for Number 23… yeah, that was just bad.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Hi, Agree with most things you say, however, I am one of those droolers of Fight Club and wondered how exactly you thought it didnt make sense?
July 6th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Hi KC, I was just arguing with my brother and best friend last night about Fight Club, and came to the conclusion that I don’t really have a good reason for the Fight Club ending. I like it, I just don’t love it; it just doesn’t resonate with me for some reason. Beyond that, there’s no good explanation other than that I put it in the “Overrated” category simply because so many people love it and I needed to put it in its place. ;o)
July 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who was scratching their head at the eding of No Country. Highly anti-climatic. Also, High Tension is a rip-off of a Dean Konntz book: they used the first half of his novel Intensity and changed the rest. I think Koontz actually sued them; I hope he put these people out of business, this movie was horible.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Hi Dawn, interesting, I hadn’t hear that! I think I’ve even read that book, too.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:30 am
what about “The Shawshank Redemption”. Not in the list, but maybe deserves a mention. i thought tim robbins was gonna hang himself to death when he asked for a rope from morgan freeman. and then, somethin i didn’t think of happened.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
@nijji – I considered putting Shawshank on the list, as that is a spectacular ending. For some reason I’ve never regarded it as a twist ending, though I suppose it is. It’s probably one of the few “feel good” twist endings in existence.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 am
Two things:
1. The Night of the Living Dead is dripping with social commentary. The militia guy didn’t just “mistaken” the black guy for a zombie. He used the zombie scare as a pretense for just plain shooting him. Maybe he thought he was a zombie, maybe he didn’t. That’s really the whole point: this is the 60s, so one way or another in all this ruckus that black guy is getting shot.
2. The guy in American Psycho DID commit the murders. That’s the whole theme of the movie: yuppies don’t have enough individuality to be serial killers or murder victims. No one can tell them apart. The characters are constantly calling each other the wrong names, thus alibis and missing person reports disappear in a cloud of confusion. Also, everyone’s too rich to care: when he went to dispose of the bodies, he found that the owners of the condo where he was storing them beat him to it. The bodies were gone, it was freshly painted, and she asked him to leave as if she knew exactly why he was there. Not even his lawyer knew who he was — nor who his victim was, which is why the lawyer claimed to have had lunch with Paul Allen (the victim) twice in London. The killer wants to break free from yuppy-hood, but he never will. As he says in the movie, he’s “simply not there.”
August 5th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Hi Ray, thanks. Yes, Night of the Living Dead is dripping with commentary. I’ll have to watch it again.
As for American Psycho, I will definitely have to watch it again. Your description makes sense, but I definitely missed pieces of it according to you.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Wow, this guy knows nothing about films. I dont even know where to begin to start, so ill just point out a few things:
Although I admit, I dont have much love for the apes remake – especially since im such a fan of the first one. the thing is, why do so many people have a hard time understanding the ending??? Think along the lines of back to the future 2. The earth he went back to at the end of the movie wasnt an “alternate dimension” as you so put it – it was the same earth it was before he got lost and went to the ape planet. the reason it was different is because thade used one of the spacecrafts and went to earth too – he just go there before the main character did. he mustve led some kind of revolution and thats why it was like that when wahlbergs character got back.
and why do people say high tension doesnt make sense? what you are seeing throughout the film didnt actually happen the way it was presented. thats just the killers version of what happened because shes crazy and actually thought there was a guy killer after them. if you remember the film was told as a flashback from the killers point of view.
August 10th, 2008 at 12:01 am
@Jack, how does pointing out those two items out imply I know nothing about films? Your explanation of the Apes remake is not very accurate, and regardless, it’s overthinking what was just a really cheesy ending. Compared to the original, it’s just silly.
As for High Tension, sure, you’re right, but it has an ending that is both highly imaginative and a major cop-out at the same time, for those looking for just a really exciting horror movie.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Great list but why not include Vanilla Sky.I could understand it being a candidate for either of your 3 lists.You include the other Cruise film Minority Report but why not this one?
August 12th, 2008 at 8:19 am
What about Lucky Number Slevin?
August 12th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@Paul – yes, good suggestion. Here is how I decided the twist ending to that film: “The plot twist is a big one and a well done one at that, but it changes the theme of the movie so much that it feels like there are two separate films packaged together. Handled a little more graciously it might have worked, but the change seemed a bit jarring to me.”
August 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
@Dave, another good point. Vanilla Sky (or its predecessor Open Your Eyes) should be added to the list, though I’ll have to watch the film again to remember exactly how powerful the ending is. That was definitely one strange movie.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Thanks Eric for your response.On first viewing,I thought that it was a load of rubbish.But on seeing it again, the “twist” was evident with Cruise choosing a suicidal leap back to “reality” from the unreal world he had initially chosen/bought. Keep up the good work.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Hi Dave, you could potentially take it a step further and question whether any of it was actually real. I forgot… is the voice at the end potentially Penelope Cruz’s? I can’t recall, but I remember thinking at the time that maybe everything was in his head while he was unconscious from the car accident.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Hi i Eric trust!
December 10th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
That’s not what happened in the ending of Fallen. Denzel kills himself to kill the demon, but it escapes into a cat. The post makes it seem as if Denzel’s character was too stupid to think of the last stage of the plan.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Hi Mooby, yes, you’re right. Still, Denzel dies and the villain lives. At the time, I didn’t like the ending much at all.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
In fallen, Denzel Washington gets possessed by the devil and kills himself by smoking a laced cigarette and the Devil finds a cat to posess
January 24th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Nice list. I especially agree with you about The Others. It was a good twist that had been right in front of the audience the whole time like Sixth Sense. The twist was simple yet effective and it showed that twists don’t have to be ridiculous and over the top.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Thanks, Manny. Some of these movies I wish I could go back and watch for the first time again.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
You are correct in your thinking for American Psycho. I think the film is less obvious about it than the book is), but he is indeed crazy, and hasn’t killed anyone. The film is a little more open to interpretations, but if you watch it again with the idea of him not actually killing anyone in your mind, it makes sense.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:45 am
HEy,,,… what about DEAD AGAIN….it was having a good twist…right.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
I’m glad you completely missed the point of Citizen Kane. You honestly thought him saying “rosebud” meant that the love of his life was his sled?
No, you dumbass, it symbolizes his remembrance of the best part of his life, before all his money and fame, and that was his childhood, which was immortalized by his sled.
March 24th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Hi ktreat, my definition of the ending was a gross summarization and I think it reads as such. I still stand by that it’s a little overrated.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
No country for old men wasen’t supposed to have a twist and Saw’s and Fight Club’s twist were awesome.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Okay…that was an alright list, but how could you put SAW as one of the worst? The twist was amazing, and to fully understand it you need to watch the others. Saying it was the worst just shows that you don’t know good movie twists. It was exciting and unexpected. But other than that the list was okay.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Thanks for your input, Vic. But I’d hardly say the ending of Saw was even a twist – I guess it was just a capper to an awful movie (good concept, horrible execution).
May 5th, 2009 at 7:46 am
My litmus test for whether a ‘twist movie’ is good or not is this: “Once you know what the twist is, can you still enjoy watching the film?”
The Sixth Sense fails that test horribly.
Fight Club does not. (Even if the twist in FC isn’t the greatest twist ever, the film itself is still amazing, and can be viewed multiple times. Not so with 6th Sense)
Oh, and Citizen Kane is absolute horrid garbage, so I’m in complete agreement with you there.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I thought the Fight Club twist was awesome. And still do to this day. However, since it came out a few months after The Sixth Sense, the twist got a drubbing from the critics.
But overall, Fight Club is an all time classic, and through the years the Sixth Sense is reduced to an okay movie with a spectacular twist ending.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I wouldn’t say that my litmus test is “Once you know what the twist is, can you still enjoy watching the film?” After all, very good endings can make an otherwise decent film great. Of course, I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the Sixth Sense – I’ve watched that movie 10 times and it’s still great (though I’d kill to go back and watch it for the first time).
I’d say a better litmus test is whether, after you know the ending, can you go back a second time and accept that the writer didn’t throw a curveball at you.
Glad you agree on Citizen Kane.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
WOAH! Sorry, but I fogot to metion before that I totally agree with “The Descent.” That movie was awsome and has a terrifing and perfect twist. And I agree with “The Village.” It was a good movie but I saw the ending coming, and it was not pulled off as well as I’d hoped. Good list.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Thanks, Vic!
May 8th, 2009 at 3:21 am
I agree…I would absolutely KILL to see Sixth Sense again the first time. I knew there was a twist but after the restaurant scene I stopped suspecting Willis and was tricked every time…every scene can be taken 2 ways…just brilliant. I have to say if it had taken me till the end to be beaten over the head with the truth it would not have been as fun…during the \”I\’m not going to see you again am I\” scene (2 before the last one) my mind clicked and in an INSTANT I knew and every damn clue came to me at once, I wasnt even trying to figure out the twist but my mind was working on it anyway…just WOW!! My mom saw it later and figured it out from the start and saw all the clues as they happened…I cursed her…lol.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Your dismissal of “Fight Club” based on your assessment that “everything we saw was a lie” cannot be reconciled with your praise for the “Usual Suspects.”
Also, if what you take away from the ending of “Citizen Kane” “that the love of the main character’s life turns out to be a sled,” I think you missed the point.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:31 am
- I disagree with the above poster that Patrick Bateman did commit those murders; the whole thing occurs in Bateman’s head, which is the point of the movie.
Notice also how he makes us complicit in his worldview when he’s talking to the girl in the nightclub. He says that he’s into murders and executions; she hears mergers and acquisitions. Of course she does; she’s stupid and hateful. But he didn’t say that. We see the world through his lens of misogyny and hatred without realizing it, the same way that we watch John Nash talk to people who aren’t there without realizing it ourselves.
- In “No Country For Old Men”, Llewelyn is killed by the Mexican gang that’s been pursuing him, by gunfire to the chest; you hear it as Tommy Lee Jones is approaching the motel where Llewelyn is staying. Remember the conversation that the Mexican has with Llewelyn’s mother-in-law, which is how they figure out where he is.
The ending speech by Tommy Lee Jones is how the book actually ends; the “climax” is actually Anton Chigurh’s conversation with Llewelyn’s wife, where she forces him to admit that he’s not a supernatural force of evil but just a man. And that’s perhaps what makes him vulnerable to what happens later.
I agree that Tommy’s speech is rambling and pointless – it’s the recounting of a dream – but it’s the themes of the dream that are important.
As I’m to understand it, Tommy’s character has seen the world change from what he expected it to be to something entirely strange and different; he feels that he’s somehow betrayed his father (losing his money) but that his father is still carrying the fire (of civilization?) and is waiting for him. It’s a pretty abstract bit of writing, but it seems to be par for the course for McCarthy.
-Darren MacLennan
May 8th, 2009 at 10:46 am
All in all, not a bad job. . . except for “No Country for Old Men.” The ending is deliberately contrived NOT to be exciting. That’s the whole point. It isn’t a genre movie. Well, it is, but it’s not a conventional one. The ending isn’t supposed to be exciting.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
A better ending for seven would’ve had Pitt shoot himself.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Mulholland Drive exists in two parts: The first half being a failed actress’ dream and dreamt explanation of her own failings (see camera sink into pillow in first scene); and the second half being her sad, true reality.
No Country for Old Men’s ending is perfect.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
There’s an even bigger twist in psycho than the ending. Before its original release, the previews gave the impression that Janet Leigh was the real star of the movie. The first ten minutes set up a plot where she has stolen money from her boss and is on the run when she stops at the Bates Motel. Audiences were shocked when just ten minutes into the movie she is suddenly killed. That was a serious WTF moment where suddenly they realize that this movie is not about what they thought it was about.
In the trailers for Psycho, there was a fleeting glimpse of the shower scene. But those shots in the trailer actually featured Vera Miles, the actress who plays Janet Leigh’s sister in the movie. So if anything, audiences expected a totally different character to die in a shower.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Mathieu Kassovitz’s “La haine” (Hate) is a little-known French film that has a spectacular twist ending that should be on the list of the best.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/
May 8th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
“but the fact that everything we saw was a lie – and that it really never makes complete sense – doesn’t have me drooling over the ending like it causes some people to do.’
You mean, like American Psycho? Which you liked?
That your list makes no logical sense doesn’t surprise me as not getting the ending to NCFOM pretty much paints you as an idiot.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Another one I nearly forgot is Daniel Craig (aka the new James Bond) starring in “Layer Cake”:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375912/
May 8th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Arlington Road is, alas, a not particularly good movie that stole its ending from a classic paranoia movie with, indeed, an awesome twist. I’d tell you what it is, but, you know, that would ruin the ending. It’s a ’70s movie from a director known for making great thrillers and an actor known at the time for his choice in roles.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Thanks for the list!
@ Darren & Jamie
I also think No Country’s ending was perfect. The whole movie is beautifully paced, and distills the narrative to its essential thematic elements. One of the best movies of the last ten years.
Also, I kind of enjoyed Fallen as a supernatural thriller. The ending, while not a huge twist, was satisfying and especially interesting when you realize the narrator at the beginning of the film wasn’t Denzel’s character, but in fact the spirit.
And finally, what makes Citizen Kane such a notable film in history is the influence it had on future filmmakers. The use of flashback and a broken timeline, and having the climax be recognition on the part of the audience rather than one of the characters, were all unprecedented techniques at the time.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
What about Shattered: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102900/
Man recovers from car accident/amnesia trying to find who tried to kill him, eventually finding the body of HIMSELF, and figures out he’s really the killer and the reconstruction surgery after the accident reconstructed him as the victim.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Bah on “The Usual Suspects”… People think it’s a great twist because they’re so confused. The reason its ending is so lame is there really isn’t any twist at all: you’re basically told that everything you’ve just watched is made up and nothing you thought “happened” actually “happened.” Only the couple of moments where the detective was actually in the scene wasn’t just a story.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Don’t be ridiculous, the sled itself isn’t the love of his life. The sled represents everything he lost since he was taken from home (with the best intentions).
May 8th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Nice list. I would add the fantastic and underrated Frailty. Great twist ending.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Ok, to start with I need to say overall, good list. Just a few points I feel I need to make.
I have to defend Saw: You don’t see the end coming (if you say you do you’re lying) and it shows that Jigsaw is THAT dedicated to his cause.
American Psycho – I would have agreed with the general consensus that Bateman did NOT kill anyone until I saw American Psycho II (don’t waste your time, William Shatner has a large role in it if that tells you anything). The sequel hinges on the fact that Batemen DID commit the murders and the new killer actually killed him years ago.
Unbreakable – I am a HUGE Bruce Willis fan, but I wish he never made this movie. The twist wasn’t enough to save the movie, and for me that’s a deal breaker.
Signs – No, just no. Aliens invade a planet 70% covered in water and what kills them? Yeah, biggest plot hole in cinema history.
The Others – Even the twist ending (which I ruined for my wife by guessing at the 15 minute mark) didn’t save this horridly boring movie.
Identity – Great movie, great twist.
Fallen – A REALLY good movie with a killer twist. Ok, tough to call it a twist, but if you’re going to call it on (it’s on the list) then it needs to get the credit it’s due. And the song the demon sings throughout the movie gets stuck in my head ALL the time
May 8th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
You didn’t post The Sting! A travesty!! That movie definitely deserves to be on the best endings list, at the expense of at least one of these other movies.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
He kills all those people in American Psycho, it’s just that he and his ilk are so interchangeable in society that no one realizes it. The kicker is when he goes to the apartment and the real estate agent knows full well who he is and what they had to clean up to make the place salable … but won’t risk the commission by drawing attention to him or what he did in the apartment.
So, not really a twist ending, huh?
May 8th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Does No Country For Old Men belong on this list? Where is the twist? There is more of a twist in Shawshank Redemption.
And Citizen Kane? Where is the twist? And the Fight Club twist deserves to be in better company.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
In Citizen Kane, Rosebud was not supposed to be the twist that explained it all. It was more of a device to lead to the exploration of Kane’s life. It really shouldn’t even be called a twist ending along with movies like Sixth Sense and Planet of the Apes (a great movie in its own right). Other than that, great rankings.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I’m surprised you haven’t put the original European version of the The Vanishing in your list. I won’t spoil it for anyone but the ending is spine-chilling, unlike the American remake which changed the ending.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I’d also like to add a very good French film called He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not to one of the best twist endings. It stars Audrey Tautou who is most famous for the movie Amelie. The movie starts out as a typical romantic comedy, but halfway through the film is a huge revelation that you will not see coming. The ending is also quite good and a bit comical.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I disagree about the movie Fallen, and even the people who pointed out that you missed the twist still didn’t get the entire thing down. At the very beginning of the movie, Denzel Washington’s character is narrating and he says something to the effect of “This is a story about the time I almost died.” In theory, it kind of gives away the ending because you figure as the movie goes along that he figures out how to kill the demon (involving luring the demon out away from civilization and anyone that it can possess before smoking poisoned cigarettes, thereby killing the last potential host for the demon with no substitute, the only way to truly kill the demon) and is telling that story. The plan did work, except that the demon escaped by possessing a stray cat after possessing Denzel. The twist is that the narrator at the start of the movie is actually the demon, speaking while possessing Denzel’s character, rather than Denzel’s character. I personally think it’s a well done twist but I can understand if other people don’t care for it. I just wanted to make sure the actual twist was explained properly.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I’m a huge fan of both “Fight Club” and “The Usual Suspects” — I have to watch them both from time to time, as I consider them both classics.
That’s not the only reason I have to disagree with the decision to put “Fight Club” in the So-So/Overrated category. I don’t think the ending qualifies as a “twist” at all, since we find out well before the movie’s end that the narrator and Tyler Durden are one and the same. (And ya gotta love the post-revelation fight sequence captured by the closed-circuit cameras, which catches Edward Norton in a knock-down, drag-out battle with … no one. Very cool.)
May 8th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Signs wasn’t really a twist ending. It was more of a bunch of revelations in the end.
Spoilers:
With the kid having asthma so the poison didn’t get in, and the girl leaving glasses of water around, which is the aliens kryptonite. Didn’t make sense if the aliens can’t handle water why go to a planet made of mainly water. But good movie none the less.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
You are a bit wrong on the Fallen ending. You said his plan was to lure it away from people but by mistake he was possessed. That’s half right, except he planned on being the last person around forcing the Azazel to posses his body but only after he smoked cigarettes laced with rat poison to kill himself. The demon only could travel I believe the distance of someone holding their breath(like 200 feet or so) before he faded off and died. Hobbs plan was to kill himself leaving the demon with no way out in the middle of the woods except he managed to hop into a little barn cat and make his way back to the city. The beginning of the movie he says “This is the story of how I almost died” but you forget about that 2 hours later.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
THANK YOU! For years, I’ve been trying to tell my friends that the “twist” to “Saw” was absolutely retarded and implausible. I’m glad there is an intelligent person out there that agrees with me. Another movie with a retarded twist is “Frailty” with Matthew McConaughey and Bill Paxton. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it (though I’m certain you have), I’ll let the twist itself spoil it for you.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Just one thing; I think you’re mistaken about how the Pearce’swife dies in Momento. His wife is killed by the same intruders who hit him in the head and causing his memory loss. The woman who dies from the insulin overdose was another woman testing if her husband’s memory was really gone who the insurance man was talking about.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Just a quick note about No Country for Old Men: regardless of what you think about the ending in film-making terms, it is pitch-perfect to the book. There’s a nihilism in Cormack McCarthy’s work that is 100% portrayed in the film which is why I loved it so much (both the film and the novel). When they arrive to the shootout and the main character is dead in the book, I literally screamed out loud, it was that emotionally charged.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
OK, yeah, mad about Fight Club….But every Shamalayn movie past unbreakable I totally figured out within the 10 minutes. He is the most predictable director ever!!! And as for Saw, it surprised the hell out of me when I first saw it, and loved it, but yes did find it odd until I saw the second or third where they explain how it was done, and made sense. Other than that, great list!
May 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I think you should give Kane and No Country for Old Men a second look. You have some very perceptive views on the other films but those two I think you missed the point. Rosebud is a symbol for the youth that Kane lost. And even that is not really the main point of the story. Even Welles later admited that it was sort of a dime psychology solution. No Country for Old Men is about the irrationality of violence as a force, the last monologue is about this. It’s about a man that can’t understand the motivarions for this kind of obsessive blinding violence. That’s why the killing at the end is so abrupt.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
How can Sixth Sense be one of the best twists? It really doesn’t make sense at all. He walks around with zero human interaction except for a little boy for over a year. That is just ridiculous and incredibly hard to believe. In Fight Club, at least the main character has some type of mental illness that makes it easier to believe.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Agree with P López and alternatekev about No Country for Old Men. If you haven’t read the book, do so. If you have, reread the sheriff’s soliloquy and think about it. Besides being moving as hell, it shows the extent of the character’s feeling of utter isolation in a world gone mad: the only possible hope is that something awaits “on the other side” — our loved ones.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I have never understood the affection for The Usual Suspects. I had it figured out in ten minutes, much to the chagrin of the others watching it with me.
Haute Tension, on the other hand, is all or nothing in liking it, and it all depends on whether or not you accept and realize who is telling the story.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
on the contrary…your rating of fight club makes this list worth reading. it was such a cop-out. i felt cheated. i never understood the fascination with that film.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The Sixth Sense’s twist ending was mediocre, and hardly original. It was ripped off (Shyamalan admits this) from an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark — a children’s television show on Nickelodeon.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
i enjoyed reading this post, even if i don’t agree 100%, so thanks.
i might suggest you check out the film Un Pura Formalite (A Pure Formality) with Gerard Depardieu and Roman Polanski. the less i say about it, the better.
i’m not sure why you put No Country on this list. regardless of how you feel about the ending, it’s not a twist.
the Usual Suspects is on my worst twist list, i think for a good reason. since it’s all made up in the end (and cleverly, for sure), i’m left wondering WHY. souze goes through this huge rigmarole to keep his identity secret. but by telling this particular lie, he fails to do so in a spectacular way. sure, he gets away with this crime, but only by spoiling his anonymity forever. it’s been a while since i’ve seen it, and i do like the film, i just think it’s overrated.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
the twist ending of the Planet of the Apes is actually direct from the original novel.
http://slate.msn.com/id/112598
May 8th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Ha, wow, where to start. First, I appreciate all the feedback, positive or negative (except the guy who called me an idiot). It’s impossible for anyone to agree 100%, and that’s clearly the case. Here are some of my responses:
No Country for Old Men – I only included this film on the list because some other lists out there had it, and it was my response to those lists. I agree, not a twist ending. But I’ll stand by that it’s not a satisfying ending. Sure, that may be how McCarthy did it (great writer, btw) and I’m not saying they should have changed it, but No Country was on pace to be one of the best thrillers of the decade – and then it shifted gear and was not.
Fight Club – a very good movie, but the twist just doesn’t fully do it for me for whatever reason. When comparing to Usual Suspects, the difference between the ways the films lie are:
1. Usual Suspects – the movie is from the detective’s perspective, and he is being lied to by another character. We’re just taken along for the ride.
2. Fight Club – the lie is more from the director’s point of view; the director is lying to the audience.
I’ll concede that Fight Club and American Psycho aren’t that different in how they trick the audience, however. One just clicked for me and one didn’t.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
@David – you’re right, the bigger twist in Psycho is that Janet Leigh gets killed. Having not been born until the 80’s, I grew up knowing about her death (and not about how big of an actress she was) before I saw the flick.
@Michael – wow, thanks for your opinion. Glad that because you disagree you consider me an idiot, when I can all but guarantee I’m smarter than you.
@Sean Weitner – can’t recall what movie you’re referring to but it sounds familiar. Either way, I really like Arlington Road – perhaps a guilty pleasure.
@ everyone who remarked about Citizen Kane. Clearly my simplistic comment rubbed people the wrong way. This is another film that was added to the list simply in response to other lists that included the film, even if the ending isn’t a twist.
@waldo – how is it not a twist when you find out, at the end, that everything you saw didn’t actually happen? I don’t think there’s anything confusing about it.
@taj – what happens at the end of Frailty again? I’ve seen it but forget. He murders everyone or something, right?
@Aaron in Gardner – great breakdown, though I don’t agree. America Psycho should never have had a sequel… I love Unbreakable and The Others, though – bummer you found them boring.
@Damien Ivan – I’ll have to watch my copy of The Sting again in the coming weeks. You’re right, it probably should be on here.
@Dave – thanks for the recommendation for The Vanishing. Will add it to Netflix.
@Sam – thanks for the recommendation
@Jason – thanks for your support on my stance on Saw
@Chandler – I’ve been meaning to watch Memento again for a year now. My memory of the film needs to be refreshed.
@P Lopez – I do plan on watching Kane again; it’s been a while, and I may appreciate it more. As for No Country, I realize what the ending’s intention is – I just don’t like it. If the rest of the film hadn’t been so damned suspenseful, I would have bought into it, but as is, it is a kick-ass thriller with an unsatisfying thriller ending.
@BJenkins – Sixth Sense is regarded by most people to be one of the best twist endings. Did you figure it out at the beginning? I think you’re taking a ghost story WAY too literally.
@ Mike and others – I do plan on reading No Country for Old Men. I’m sure I’ll like it as McCarthy is a brilliant writer. I just read The Road and loved it.
@smallerdemon – how’d you figure The Usual Suspects out in 10 minutes? Did others tell you there was a twist?
@lisa – thanks!
@Alan – Sixth Sense’s ending was mediocre? Really? Even if it’s a rip-off, it’s a damn fine rip-off. Did you see it coming? Did it not make the movie?
@Zack – thanks for the recommendation. As for Usual Suspects, valid points.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Interesting fact: the novel for Fight Club came out after to movie. The book is based on the screenplay.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
“Dead of Night” (the British release, not the US-distribution) should be added to this list; one of the great unexpected endings of all time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037635/
May 8th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I have to disagree with you about Fallen; it seems like you’ve forgotten the end of the movie. Denzel Washington didn’t think he could trap and kill the demon without being possessed himself. That’s the point, he was going to sacrifice himself to save the world. The twist was that after Denzel committed suicide the demon found another body… a stray cat.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
And of course after saying that I finally find where someone else made the same point… >.> You can go ahead and ignore me. =)
May 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Hi. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the thought you put into your list. I’m so tired of slapped-together movie lists where the writer doesn’t even seem to enjoy movies, but wrote it just for the sake of snarky comments, that I hardly even check them out anymore. I only linked off Gorilla Mask because I saw the photo from ‘Usual Suspects,’ one of my favorites. Super job!
Regards,
Mark
May 8th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
To Ray. You are a fucking idiot. How you could so miss the point of film is beside me. “yuppies don’t have enough individuality to be serial killers or murder victims.” What the fuck does that even mean?? If I am a person without individuality I am immune to being killed? And, even more interestingly, I can not be a killer?
“Also, everyone’s too rich to care.” – You know, you’re right. If I was a rich motherfucker, and I went to look at an apartment or condo and there were dead bodies there, I wouldn’t care, I would just toss them like day old trash. Who gives a fuck? Dead bodies? Meh!
Do everyone a favor and hang yourself from the highest bough, or, at least stop posting your worthless shit.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Not one mention of Jacob’s Ladder on this entire page?
Good fun, otherwise.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
The ending for No Country for Old Men was great! Instead of taking down the bad guy and being a hero, he just quit.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Hah! I was thinking Jacob’s Ladder all the way through reading all of these comments, and ‘not a merkin’ beats me to it.
When I was a kid, Sleepaway Camp scared the bejeezus out of me. The ending doesn’t hold up as well these days, and back then it seems like EVERY horror flick had to have some sort of twist on the killer’s reveal (Friday the 13th, Silent Night Deadly Night, et al–kind of like Scooby Doo for grown ups), but Sleepaway Camp was one of the creepier ones.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Dark City. The ending, in which Kiefer Sutherland injects an artificial life history into Rufus Sewel, providing him with a lifetime of training for his final battle, was a revelation. The movie, which had paced its reveals nicely, came crashing down to reality and everything clicked into place like the last two turns of a Rubic’s Cube.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:34 am
DaveM where the hell did you read that Fight Club the novel was based on the screenplay? The book came out years before the movie and the movie even says that Jim Uhls based the screenplay on the novel. Chuck P wrote the book while taking a writers workshop.
Dark City
Vanishing (French Version)
Jacobs Ladder
Sleepaway Camp
Frailty
all would be good for the list
Oh, in The Devil’s Advocate, I thought that he was the Devil’s son and the devil (pacino) wanted both his son and daughter to have sex to bring forth a new ruler, maybe the antichrist. The ending shows that The Devil will try again to get his son but this time with headlining the lawyer with a conscious across the tv networks. He’ll get him with Vanity.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Ok i think maybe you should go watch the end of Fallen again as Denzel dies in the end not only that at the start the demon says “This is the story of how i almost died” so really you should not be expecting a twist at all.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:42 am
What? No foreign films?
LES DIABOLIQUES has the classic twist ending, a gaping hole in this list.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:17 am
No mention of my worst ending:
A.I.
Not only a poor ending, but an ending that destroys an otherwise great movie.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Oopsie. You got the ending on Angel Heart wrong. Mickey Rourke’s character, Harry Angel, is NOT the Devil incarnate. The Devil, Louis Cypher, is played by Robert DeNiro. Harry Angel is the reincarnation of Johnny Favorite, a missing crooner he’s hired by DeNiro to search for.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:08 am
You clearly didn’t understand the point of “No Country For Old Men”.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:12 am
I didn’t read through your whole list as it was clear from a cursory glance that you didn’t understand a number of the films you’ve written about. You’ve got Angel Heart *completely* wrong and your assessment of Chinatown is way off. Faye Dunaway is exactly who she claims to be (someone else claims to be her) and she is not “having” an incestuous relationship with her father. She had an incestuous relationship with her father.
Your characterization of Citizen Kane is laughable. “The love of his life”!? What are you talking about? It’s not the love of his life–it’s the last time in his life that he was happy. As a child. Being allowed to go outside and play and live with his mom and pop. It has nothing to do with the love of his life. The reason people revere this film is because it’s fantastic and groundbreaking and speaks to the universal theme of loss of innocence.
This list reads like it was written by someone who saw all these movies when they were 12 and then wrote about what they thought they were about 20 years later.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:06 am
I may be wrong but I also thought in Angel Heart a twist was that the main character was Lisa Bonet’s dad too.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:31 am
COMPLETELY agree with you about ‘Fight Club’. The revelation at the end ruined the entire movie. A man who continually talks to himself would have had a hell of time building up such fervent followers. The scene where he is driving the car would have meant he was arguing with himself in front of two followers. The men that saw him fighting with Brad Pitt that weres ome of the first in the Fight Club really saw him fighting with himself, which redefines crazy. At no point did this movie even touch upon a plausible ending, which is required for a good plot twist.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:43 am
What about Jacob’s Ladder? It was a fantastic film with one of the best swerve endings in that it made poetic sense AND was based in part after the incredibly innovative story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
Nailed some of it though, good read!
May 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
What about Dark City? The twist in that movie, with him finding out that they were an alien experiment in space was pretty good.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Dear Erik, I think what you should take from these many comments undermining your recollections of the details of these films, and disagreeing with your assessments, and pointing out your omissions, is that making absolute statements about the quality of films is foolish. You have few or no European films on your list, few older films, few independent or avant-garde or classic films. To me this indicates that you don’t have much background in film history, that your perspective is limited by your taste. Not that this matters, why should you? But I think it should make you a little hesitant about casually dismissing as overrated a movie widely regarded as the most important English-language film ever made. The fact that people put CITIZEN KANE on lists, and that you don’t get why — in my opinion, this should call for you to try to understand why. Not to dismiss it as overrated. Big mistake.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
your listing of No Country For Old Men is wrong. the ending is not pointless, the dreams respond to the theme of the officer and movie.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
On Jacob’s Ladder – yes, that one should be on the list. I’m going to rewatch that one before I include it though.
On Dark City – I absolutely LOVE this film, but I wouldn’t consider the ending a twist. You’re right that the realization that they’re in space is pretty crazy, but it’s alluded to early on that the city is not what it seems – or on Earth.
On A.I. – yes, pretty disastrous ending (or series of endings), but I wouldn’t call any of them twists, just a progression.
On Les Diaboliques – how did I miss that one? @vvvv, you’re right, this one should be on the list.
@Paul R – You’re right, but I am absolutely looking for comments. My direct statements have evoked a great discussion here, whether people agree with me or disagree. Clearly there are a few films that I haven’t seen in a while and that my memory of them is a little off, and I’ve resolved to rewatch some of them. I am only in my 20’s and so working back over the last 100 years of cinema is quite an undertaking that I don’t have the time to do; however, I definitely appreciate all of the suggestions of additions, especially foreign and older films which I do enjoy but don’t naturally seek out. Appreciate your feedback.
@RobertE – I understood the ending, I just didn’t like it.
@Mark Byers – thanks for the link over – it’s driving a lot of passionately minded people to the site, which is great.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
@Dave – it doesn’t look like “Dead of Night” is available on U.S. DVD yet!
May 9th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
The best list is total bullshit, um ever heard of the Crying Game? How could you leave that off, it’s the best twist ending ever. AND the Fightclub ending belongs on the best list, I would say high on that list in fact because NO ONE saw it coming, and when you watch the film again knowing it you see all the little hints that make it completely brilliant. BTW I knew Bruce Willis was dead right away, I think the twist in unbreakable is better than sixth sense.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Nice list and I know its all relative to how you personally viewed the films but I gotta say that I think Usual Suspects deserves to be number 1, firstly it has the same “I should have seen it all along” value on rewatch that 6th sense has, you also get the gasp of disbelief the first time you see Spaceys leg straighten as he walks to the car and dissapears forever
The clincher for me in making it the best twist is the way the movie suckers you in like the cops, to believing that your smarter and that you can see the twist coming, you are so sure its Gabriel Byrne and thats the payoff you dont notice that hes the set up and thats its beauty, it uses your own ego against you. Its cinematic misdirection at its finest and in my humble opinion deserving of the number 1 slot
May 9th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
While I agree that Crying Game had a very surprising twist, was it really a twist *ending*? Didn’t the twist come somewhere in the middle of the movie? I could be wrong. I haven’t seen it in ages.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Hey dipshit, did you even watch memento?
It wasnt Guy’s wife that died from the insulin, it was a guy he was investigating.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Twelve Monkeys is a total rip-off/remake of La Jetee. Much better movie and it was made in France in the early 60’s, so it was way before it’s time.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I saw the Sixth Season with a ruined expectation because my cousin, who is one of those people said tends to try and signal how smart he was, told me he wasn’t at all surprised by the ending because he’d figured it out “in the first 15 minutes.” So going into it, I knew something happened in the first 15 minutes that made sense of the movie’s ending. And of course the only thing of substance that happens in the first 15 minutes is that he’s shot. That made me think, about 45 minutes to an hour in, that he was dead. I can’t believe he screwed me like that! I wish I could’ve gasped with everyone else!
I like your inclusion of _Unbreakable_, btw. It’s not only a pretty good twist ending, but it’s an overall great and underrated movie. I think I love it more than Sixth Sense, actually. It’s the first of the “intelligent superhero” genre, imo.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
It wasnt Guy’s wife that died from the insulin, it was a guy he was investigating.
==
No, I think it’s his own wife that died. That is at least what the cop tells him towards the end, and briefly, Guy Pearce has a memory of it. I think it’s left so the audience is to suspect that Guy may be meshing those memories together – as though that one memory of him killing his wife was registered into his subconscious, and laid over that memory of his investigation of that guy (I remember no names at all from this movie). It was a freudian deal, in other words – the id had held onto the memory, even as the brain damage erased it from whatever lobe keeps the short-term memory. But, because of the damage, and potentially the guilt, it gets stored and constantly brought into the conscious mind via a meshed memory.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
How is Frailty not on this list, way better ending than most of the entrys on this list
May 9th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
the guy who wrote this is an idiot and should not be eriting such things.
Bruce Willis in ‘12 monkeys’ did ‘fail,’ you twat. by his direct actions, involvement, taking back species, and intel, his future peeps avoided the spread of the virus. did you see one of the head ladies at the end shaking hands with david morse at the end, toolbag? THAT MEANS THEY KNOW WHO SPREAD THE VIRUS. they sent her back to fix the problem, or her getting the virus will fix the problem later. they were looking for who did it, and they found him. how, in any possible way, is that failing? by that rationale, clive owen failed to get the girl to the underground in ‘children of men.’
about ‘high tension,’ your feeble quote “The twist, while shocking, really never makes sense, especially considering the fact that in the first scene the killer is shown jerking himself off with a decapitated head.” thats called misdirection, clown. she had a split personality, THAT WAS THE OTHER PERSONALITY. it was in her head. what do u not get? like when she was in the gas station, physically she was the killer; b/c she killed the clerk. her hiding at whatnot was in her head, as was her appearance.
this might b my favorite of your retardedness, in ’secret window,’ you say “Depp never gets punished but does decide to get braces. Huh?” So what? killers need to be punished for a movie to make sense to you? in ‘chinatown’ the killer doesnt get punished, does that make it a bad film?
in ‘no country for old men,’ you say, “he Coen brothers kill the protagonist off screen, never explain how he died and that the movie has switched gears to a pointless and rambling speech by Tommy Lee Jones.” you are a complete dolt. they do explain how he died. The truck for of latinos killed him. did u not see them speed off in the truck with guns? WHY ARE YOU WRITING FOR A FILM SITE?!?!?!?!? DIE please.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
@filmjabber is a moron. Wow, thank you for your almost inspired writings and for twisting what I said. “Doesn’t make sense” doesn’t mean I don’t understand an ending, and “doesn’t explain” doesn’t mean things aren’t explained for 20 seconds. Holy shit, how about you DIE so no one has to put up with your overreacting over some little nitpicks.
However, thanks for reading the entire article. You must have hated it so much to get through that full list and extract three minor complaints.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
@joe neanderthal – That sucks – there’s nothing worse than going into a movie knowing there’s a twist. I could see how Sixth Sense would be quite obvious if you’re looking at it. I went on opening day and had no clue it was anything more than a flick about a boy who sees dead people. I liked the movie but was thinking, Okay, this film has no plot and it’s got to be about over. And then the twist comes, everything clicks into place and it’s now one of my favorites.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
@Jeff Culbertson – that’s why I didn’t include The Crying Game – I believe the twist does come halfway through, so it’s more of a plot changer than an ending.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I suggest you check out “Seconds”, starring Rock Hudson. It has one of the best twist endingds I’ve ever seen. And it’s very disturbing, as well.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I agree about Fight Club–and it is one of my favorite movies. An otherwise spectacular flick with a cop out of an ending. Oh and to that guy that said that the novel was based on the book–wrong.
The Village–I figured it out by watching the previews. I mean, after a friend went to see it, I asked him if it was about a town that wouldn’t let their kids out into the real world under the pretense of superstition, but in the end it is revealed that they live in the future, and the town is merely trying to protect their children from some horror of the future world. My friend said “no” but I was partly right. I watched that piece of garbage to find out that I was mostly right. Just replace “future” with “present-day.” Also, I will never watch another M. Knight movie.
THE Thirteenth Floor–you must watch this. Then add it. It was an independent movie that came out around ‘96 or so. It is a great movie, not only because of the twist.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Check out Frailty. A sleeper for sure, but what a twist!
May 10th, 2009 at 12:46 am
“We didn’t start the flamewar…”
May 10th, 2009 at 3:33 am
Why does everyone keep mentioning “Frailty”? That twist is retarded, pointless, and inconsequential. Sure, it may be a surprise, but it was dumb. Guess what?!?!? I’m the brother!!! So what?
May 10th, 2009 at 6:58 am
It was Guy’s wife in Memento. Nolon proves this. Watch the scene were the guy who killed his wife is in the mental home. The last scene with him someone walks by and there is a frame or 2 where Nolon cut in guy pearse instead of the other actor.
Frailty twist is not only I’m the brother but dad was right, they are demons. Its also cool how all the video of him was garbled because god protected him. Thirteenth Floor was great.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
1. Usual Suspects is an instant classic, I could watch it all day, and still enjoy it. I’m definitely going to watch or rewatch some of these others.
2. Great job on the list – don’t agree with everything, but really enjoyed it.
3. why is there always some ignorant ass, waving his stupidity around like a flag, throwing insults around trying to bring a good conversation / debate down to the level of a monkey throwing sh*t at the zoo?
May 10th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I still can’t believe people are debating whether or not Bateman killed anyone in American Psycho. Both the author and the director made it pretty clear he was killing people. The director went so far as to say she was worried people would think it was all in his kind and in thinking that they would be missing the entire point of the film. And to those who mentioned the book, its even more clear in the novel he is a killer. I don’t think it’s up for debate at all, if the people who created it say he killed than he did. I just don’t believe in making up your own interpretation for something both the director and author said is set in stone. You want to make your own interpretation write your own movie.
May 10th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
*mind (typos make me feel dumb, sorry about that)
May 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
How is it that Ed Tom’s (Tommy Lee Jones) speech at the end of No Country for Old Men was pointless and rambling? I mean, not to be condescending, but maybe you should re-watch the film because it seems that you have completely missed the point, yourself.
Tom’s dream speech was an allegorical ending. The snowy mountains that he enters represents his life as a sheriff in the border regions of Texas (i.e, rugged, forbidding, and dangerous) while the old-man who goes ahead to wait for him represents his fate(i.e, death or worse) that he’ll meet if he chooses to stay on the trail of the killer.
Ed Tom understands (as proven by the Coen brothers in the scene in the motel room where he chooses not to confront Anton Chigurh) that is he over-matched and sure to meet his death if he continues in his pursuit, causing him (as evidenced by his talk with his old friend in the wheelchair)to retire as opposed to continuing to track Anton. Henceforth, we have the closing dream speech and the explanation of the title “No Country for Old Men”.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
about frailty it wasn’t about who he was it was about the fact that they really did see the demons (the cop)!
May 10th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I’ve never seen The Descent, but that ending is precisely the same as Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil.
May 10th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
In 12 monkeys in the final scene, after Bruce sees himself die, the starter of the plauge sits beside a woman who introduces herself as “Insurance”. She is the lead woman scientist from the future. That is the twist. I missed it the first couple of times.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I agree with a lot of the choices on this list, I disagree with a few, but most of them were forgivable. The one that ruined the list for me was Fight Club as it is far and away one of the best endings ever put on film.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
I will say this about the list:
He’s right about Fight Club, the ending was a cop-out. The movie was good by all means, but the ending was always..”eehhhh” to me.
I know after I say this a lot of people will stop reading this comment but, the ending for No Country For Old Men really let me down. Not that I was expecting the bad guy to get caught, but there was nothing there. I have seriously tried to watch that movie at least three more times to see if I missed anything, but no. That ending was a complete letdown.
When it comes to M. Night, the best and worst thing that he could have done was make “The Sixth Sense”. It was the best because no matter what a person tells you, NOBODY knew that outcome. Whenever you see Willis’ character with anyone besides the kid, you simply ASSUME that he was actually interacting with them (in the scene where he meets his wife in the restaurant, he doesn’t move the chair to sit down. M. Night didn’t give anything away). This movie also started a crap-load of twist ending movies by other writers. Everybody wanted to capitalize off of it. It’s the worst because no matter what, after “Sense” nobody could watch one of his movies without trying to figure out his endings. People miss most of the movie itself because they are too busy trying to figure out the endings. Watch “The Village” again and realize the extent that they took in order to keep their illusion of simpler times, it’s great! My advice to people, watch the movie, let everything come to you.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:18 am
I pretty much agree with that list, though there’s some films I haven’t seen yet. Yet I’m surprised not to see “The Departed” on the top-list – the ending twist’s a bit predictable once you’ve understood that every character in the movie is either a double agent, an undercover cop or an informant. But I give it bonus points for the ending itself, where every single character dies. Maybe there’s less suspense if you know the original title beforehand, but in France it was released as “Les Infiltrés” (litt. “the undercovers”), and you didn’t get spoiled that way.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:32 am
I can’t quite believe that “À ma soeur! (2001)” didn’t make this list.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:56 am
There’s quite a few films on here I haven’t seen (”Seconds” sounds very interesting, and lots of foreign ones). Now if I could just unlearn that they have “twist endings” so I won’t be expecting it.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:11 am
I just want to second or third the vote for Frailty. It is one of the moodiest most underrated movies of our time.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Sixth Sense is the most overrated movie. The flick was so damn boring, that the only good thing about the end was, that the damn movie was finaly over! They could’ve made a short-film because the Idea is not clever/interesting enough for 90 minutes.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Great list, I would also like to see Brazil added to the list.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:39 am
While I the original to 1968’s “Planet of the Apes” is a classic, the 2001 version’s ending is actually closer to how the novel ended. In the book, there were two different planets involved and the main character rushes back to Earth to to find that he is too late to prevent an ape takeover. Just a point worth noting.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:29 am
To play devil’s advocate in regards to your problem with Stephen King’s “Secret Window, Secret Garden” (of which Secret Garden was birthed), the story was published in 1990. When I read it in middle school, it was a pretty darn good ending to me because I hadn’t been exposed to the concept before. However, I suppose we could play the chicken and the egg all day (The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde was much earlier, though different in that both personalities were mutually aware). Either way, I feel like calling out a cliche on a work written before there was a cliche is like calling Sam Spade played out.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Vertigo
May 11th, 2009 at 11:04 am
How can anyone say that Dark City has a twist ending? It’s revealed before the opening credits!
And while I hate to use the “you didn’t get it” defense, the people who didn’t like the ending to No Country for Old Men have made the mistake of thinking it’s a movie about a cop chasing a killer. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about exactly what the title says it is. I think the ending is perfect.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I rather liked No Way Out, but it feels a bit dated now. Oddly, it’s credited as based on “The Big Clock” which was made into its own rather good movie (50s I think), though it’s 100% corporate intrigue instead of commies. The link is tenuous, but the whole guy-looking-for-himself thing is indeed core to the story of both.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I wouldn’t really even consider putting the ending to Fight Club on this list. He makes the revelation that he and Tyler are the same person with like 20-25 minutes left of film to watch. The great part is seeing how all the people react to him, because they know him as Tyler Durden and not as the narrator’s real name. The ending is him trying to stop Project Mayhem.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Hey, fun list! Whether you agree with everything the writer said or not, it makes for good discussion.
I have to agree…and I mean TOTALLY…with Dave a few days ago regarding the European version of The Vanishing. The twist ending at conclusion of the movie makes you want to jump right out of your chair. Absolutely superior!
I’m not sure if its been mentioned or not, but how about the finish of The Road Warrior? Mel Gibson had been driving a tanker full of sand–leading the motorcycle gang away from the “civilized” folks who have hidden the gasoline (”the juice!
The Precious juice!”) in the bus.
Jeff
May 12th, 2009 at 9:02 am
No, I’m sorry, but The Sixth Sense had a terrible ending. Why? Because it was predictable from the first scene of the film. Partly this was the blame of marketing (we knew from the constant ads that the kid could see the dead… when this was intended to be a mid-point revelation), but it was also just blindingly obvious. He was shot, everyone acts distant and ignores him… he’s dead. I didn’t even realize until after seeing it that it was supposed to be a twist. I thought the audience was supposed to be in on it, but we were following his slow understanding that he was really dead. It was a thoroughly mediocre film for this reason, as Shyalaman has proven repeatedly since with his insistence on making poor films with obvious twist endings (I didn’t even need to see the Village to guess the twist).
Identity, likewise, deserves to be bumped down to “terrible”. Not only was it a dull film and a rip-off of Agatha Christie’s now rather trite “Ten Little Indians”, but again the twist was pretty obvious from very early in the film. Anyone surprised by that wasn’t paying very much attention or simply hasn’t seen enough “shocking twist endings” to recognize them coming from a mile away (the least likely person always did it, especially if they’re a child, it’s all in their head, there’s a secret twin, etc.).
The Prestige definitely deserves to go further up. Not only does it have enough twists to keep things going even if you pick up on one or two, but they still have meaning and purpose even when they’re revealed. They serve the story and give you something to discuss and ruminate about rather than just a quick “gotcha!” designed to shock the audience.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:57 am
A good list! A couple of others worth considering:
Lone Star – A little slow and pretentious, but I didn’t see that ending coming at all (and come to think of it, there’s a couple of twists).
Sleepaway Camp – Yeah, it’s not a particularly brilliant movie, but that ending…
The Orphanage – Recent ghost story with a pretty good twist at the end (and not a ghost who didn’t realize they were a ghost twist either)…
Empire Strikes Back – Does this count? It’s such common knowledge at this point, but back in the day, this was shocking.
I’m sure there are others (does Black Christmas count? It’s not really a twist to the viewers so much as the characters.)
May 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
If you listen to the directors commentary of American Psycho, the implication is that at least most of the movie was supposed to have been actual events as opposed to Bateman’s inner psycho-ramblings.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The Village, by the way, is a rip-off of a great children’s book called Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson. Only in that book, they’re trying to create a master race of humans that’s immune to disease. Much cooler!
May 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
In “No Country for Old Men”, the protagonist does not die. Not in the book and not in the film.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
@Begland – I think you’re one of the few who saw The Sixth Sense ending coming from the beginning. I agree with you on The Prestige, though.
@Mark – you’re right, The Orphanage does have a pretty good ending. I wouldn’t count Empire Strikes Back or Black Christmas.
@Ed. The literary protagonist may not die, but for those of us watching the movie, Josh Brolin is the protagonist.
@Jeff – Road Warrior ending, I’m not quite so sure it’s a twist. There are so many thrillers and action movies where there are “a-ha” endings it wouldn’t make sense to include all of them. Ocean’s 11 is one that has a great ending that some may consider a twist, but I don’t include it here.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I don’t understand how you felt lied to after the twist in Fight Club.
Watching the film a second time, everything holds up. There are no holes in plot or logic. The twist actually adds more depth to the story, as oppossed to the Sixth Sense, where after a second viewing, once the twist is revealed, it’s like hearing a joke when you already know the punchline.
You said the director is lying to the audience, but you are only lied to in the sense that the narrator lied to himself, you don’t see anything that didn’t actually happen.
Compare that the The Usual Suspects, where you find out the ENTIRE PLOT was fabricated. It’s a great twist, but I don’t understand how you felt “taken along for the ride” with Usual Suspects and decived with Fight Club.
As for No Country for Old Men, I was pretty pissed off and confused with the ending the first time I saw it, but then I thought about why it ended the way it did and what McCarthy and the Coen Brothers were trying to say, and I loved it. You’re supposed to feel let down, that’s the genuis of it.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Shattered should definitely be on the list, in the best section. I also feel Fight Club & High Tension should be in the best section. As for No Country For Old Men, not only did the ending stink, but the whole movie was horrendous.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The Ring entry is incorrect. They make a copy of the tape, just to make a copy. This is discovered to be the way to prevent death. It doesn’t have to be given to anyone else.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
@Miranda, no, the kid has to make a copy and pass it on, which they do.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Another twist ending that comes to my mind is The Machinist (sorry if it’s been said, but didn’t read all the comments)
May 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I LOVED “Life of David Gale”
May 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
How about the Uninvited? That kind of blew me away, but then again I’m easily surprised.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
@mariam67… eh, if anything, I’d put A Tale of Two Sisters on the list, since The Uninvited is a [rather lousy] remake of that movie. I love Two Sisters, but the ending falls a little too much into standard horror for me. Now I’ll get blasted for including some horror movies over others, but oh well…
@Diana… what was the ending to The Machinist again?
May 20th, 2009 at 2:22 am
What about Oliver Twist?
May 20th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Atonement, unlike many of the action/thriller movies in the list , Atonement is a great drama with a very surprising sad ending.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
@Shawn Actually, I agree with you there. Atonement has a great little twist ending. I never really considered it as a twist up until now, but it certainly is a twist.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
In The Machinist it turns out he killed the boy a year ago and the guy (Ivan?, Irvin?) was an invention of his mind. He also invented his relationship with the mother of the boy he killed, out of guilt.
Or something like that? There was something about the fact he hadn’t sleep in a year, since the accident in wich he killed the boy and ran away.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 am
Hey…I agree with most of the endings but putting life of david gale in the worst list is simply atrocious!!…When i saw the movie for the first time, i was truly amazed at its ending…And Secondly, just because a movie which doesnt reveal in the end that the protagonist is dead all throughout or that there’s a case of split personality, doesnt make the movie’s twist any boring!!…Life of David Gale was perhaps the only movie which had a true to life realistic ending….
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
What about the Shawshank Redemption. Not only was it one of the best movies of all time, but I am pretty sure 80 percent of audiences didn’t see that one coming at the end. Oh well your list
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
My fav twist ending of all-time is SLEEPAWAY CAMP. Got to be added to your list!
May 28th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I love twist endings. However, any time a film is deemed a “twist” ending you it’s hard not to see it coming. Only a few films, most on your list, blindside you. As soon as I heard the sixth sense had a twist, before I watched it, it was obvious. For those that didn’t catch it the first time you saw how obvious it was the second.
I wonder how many people like to portray themselves as genuis by predicting the twist, wouldn’t be if they didn’t know a twist was coming. Any time some twit talks about how an ending was obvious ask him if he had been spoiled to expect it. Movies that I didn’t expect twists, that have them even if less ably executed like Shattered, surprise me more. I purposely skipped movies I hadn’t seen or didn’t recognize on
this list.
Speaking of the cop out of split personalities, My Bloody Valentine.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
@Diana – thanks for the reminder on The Machinist.
@Akshat – good comment, I just found Life of David Gale rather lame.
@Dean – I love the ending to Shawshank, but I can’t say I’d call it a twist.
@Fatdjd – I finally watched Sleepaway Camp. Pretty screwed up ending, though I don’t know if I’d rank it all that high. Then again, as @Crzytlk says, twist endings, when you know they’re twist endings, are ruined. I saw it coming for the most part, though the final shot with penis and everything is pretty creepy.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:00 am
While I have some disagreements I enjoyed this list.
My opinion on how great twists or reveals are based and either a second viewing or a reflection backward, the execution of the reveal, and how the reveal reflects the themes tone and characters of that film.
Pretty much every movie I have seen on that list I had figured out within 10-15 minutes. However, I usually am not 100% certain, and it is usually a choice of 3 options I had running in my head.
But I must say the best films, which are also the ones I consider to have the best endings (see my definition of what makes it the best ending above), are the ones which are just as good or even better knowing the reveal.
All of this is why I feel Usual Suspects is definitely in the top 5 of all time. His reveals strengthens his character of Verbal as well as Kaiser Soze. First his name is VERBAL, which has even greater power knowing the end. Second, many here have complained that it is all a lie so that is why it is not as good, however 1) Actually we dont know how much is a lie, mnay parts have to be true, so you are sorely mistaken (and somewhat idiotic) to think it is ALL a lie, because it is obvious that Keaton and the other 4 were not made up, the ship being blown apart is not made up, these things really did happen in “reality” within this story. What is awesome is we dont know where reality and lies begin and end. This is part of what makes this story so great. Thats part of the point. 2) If you felt duped or lied to or cheated, that is part of the genius and effectiveness. That is NOT a knock on the story twist or execution of the story, it is the strength. You SHOULD feel those things. Just as a movie makes you cry or laugh intentionally this film means to make you feel lied to, YOU WERE! duh! However, no one really knows where the lies end or begin.
The manner and execution of the whole thing is such a strength. It is an art to watch and LISTEN to Verbal. The story of Kaiser Soze and his myth as told by Verbal is strengthened when knowing that he was able to deceive the audience and the detectives and Keaton and everyone lying to their face, and making much of it up on the spot. He verbally created the myth or recreated his own myth. The idea of myth is pronounced/enhanced by the ending.
The effectiveness of the execution of the reveal was also one of the best. It didnt just explain or recap the events. It was not just that Verbal is Kaiser Soze, but showing us the elements he used in the lie was even more striking, and the slow morph from crippled walk to one of strength was amazing. By this time even the dumbest person in the audience knew, but the slow reveal of the details was perfection and a treat to see. With almost all the other twists, the reveal is pretty 1-dimensional, a surprise usually told via dialogue and a short recap. Usual Suspects goes much further.
The surprise is the least important aspect, by FAR!
June 7th, 2009 at 10:26 am
@Mike – great analysis. What other ones do you really like? And when you say you guess most of these endings in 10-15 minutes, do you know there’s a twist coming or are you just always assuming a twist ending?
June 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
if you put no country for old men on the worst ending list, you have no business critiquing films, because you obviously have no idea what your watching
June 12th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
if youve seen the wicker man that is the absolute worst ending i have EVER seen in a movie
June 12th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
@Matt Himself – this isn’t a list of the best and worst endings. No Country for Old Men is only included because some people consider it a “twist ending” which it’s not – I just put it on here to say it is not a good twist ending (if it is one at all). Its ending is impressive in its own right.
@James Baker – yes, Wicker Man has a terrible ending; but I wouldn’t call it a twist. Although I guess it sort of is.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
huh…why there is no “The Machinist” in the list???..also no “LA Confidential” ??? hmm!
June 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Gonna have to disagree with you about the ending of Fight Club although it makes parts of the film not make sense it makes others more intresting and although I wouldn’t put it at the top of the first list it definatley should be in there somewhere!! I do agree with Memento and The Prestige (I completley forgot how much I liked Prestige until I read this!!) Good list though!!
June 18th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Thanks GNutt!
June 18th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
BTW, everyone, I’ve watched Sleepaway Camp: creepy ending, I wouldn’t say an amazing one (maybe because I knew there was a twist and it was clearly the shy girl)
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not – a pretty good movie, though the twist really isn’t a twist ending as it happens less than halfway through the film.
The Vanishing – quite good. A little slow in the middle, but the ending is definitely f-ed up.
Thansk for the recommendations!
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Saw should be in the best twist endings along with Fight Club.
Whoever made this list was high on something.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
1. Donnie Darko was an amazing movie, but I don’t think it was necessarily a twist ending. Sure: Nobody would’ve ever guessed the engine originally came from the flight the mother and sister were on, but I see it almost like Shawshank, didn’t see it coming, but not necessarily a twist.
2. The Machinist wasn’t the BEST twist, but it was creepy and could go on the best twist list. I loved that movie and thought it was well done.
3. I don’t see why everybody loved the 12 Monkeys ending. It was also well done and there was a little part in the ending a lot of people overlooked. I found it a little bit underwhelming (just a little bit) that it wasn’t the Army of 12 Monkeys that released it after all. (Note: almost everybody overlooked this, but there’s one part in the ending that, if done right, could’ve changed the whole thing. The lady scientist from the future is sitting next to the real virus guy on the plane and introduces herself. I may be wrong, but this means that they got Cole’s message from the past and could get the cure and stop the virus.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
oh and I’m surprised that nobody said this, but Minority Report isn’t a twist ending
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
@Brook – how does Saw have a good twist ending? The bad guy was lying dead in the middle of the floor? Hardly plausible, necessary or interesting.
@gbaby – when I first saw 12 Monkeys, I thought the same way – I just watched it again and liked it more. And yes, you’re right – I left out a part of the ending in my description.
Valid point on Donnie Darko and Minority Report.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Ok, one. A twist ending has nothing to do with emotions; in fact you should never judge a movie on emotions because they are relative to the individual. A “Twist” ending is meant to mess with the minds of audience: rethink the context of the movie entirely and what they were supposed to get from it. A good twist ending is one that, of course, is not predicted in anyway and makes the audience leave the theater in disbelief. No movie should be judged by how it “made you feel”. This is often the problem with amateurs rating movies and books. For examples there is a lot of hype behind the “Twilight” series; this is because they captivate the reader (the target being adolescent girls), but they are not that well written.
Two. Anybody who says Fight Club is not a good movie nor has a good ending is, by far, ignorant to the film and literature world. It is a good twist because it completely changes the audience minds of what the movie was about. It was a movie about anarchists and eco-terrorism, a revolution of being and society. Then it slowly became darker and darker in its feeling leading to, what nobody would have guessed, the twist. After that the whole context of the movie, which was told from the Narrators point of view, has disbelief to it after seeing the narrator’s psychological problems.
Three. The Mist was the greatest movie disappointment I have personally seen. The ending was completely predictable and it was just a play on the emotions of the audience. Yes he killed his son, yes this is bad, but it did not change the context of the movie and it certainly did not it any better. It was a horrible ending to a horrible movie.
Four. Citizen Kane is a good movie. It is not captivating nor emotionally that involved. However the twist ending is a true twist ending because again it screws the minds of the audience. Rosebud, which became an obsession was a simple sled, it is symbolic and it is original, unlike The Mist.
The Village is a bad movie. However, the twist is not. It messes with the mind…. Blah blah blah. Also in reading you “reviews” I have noticed a lack of observation. Movies are works of art first, entertainment second. You concentrate on the latter, failing to notice that good movies have unique symbolism and overall meanings. This brings me back to my emotions argument earlier. Anyone who judges a movie on how it “brought you in” is ignorant. It’s like going to an art museum to find pictures that make you “feel good”. Paintings, Sculptures, Movies, Books; they are all art, and they are meant to convey a message, a moral, a truth.
I also feel I must correct you on Donnie Darko. The movie takes place in a time when the universe is growing unstable. The events that are happening are not particularly real. He wasn’t supposed to survive. Donnie dies to realign the universe; in fact the whole movie is his journey to do this, not to save his mother and sister.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Pretty good picks, but if “Witness for the Prosecution” isn’t up there, then something’s wrong. One of the best twist endings of all time.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Haven’t read all the posts, but is anyone else missing “The Sting”?
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:06 am
I dont get how Seven is a twist ending, its a good movie but the ending isnt shockingly good,
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 pm
@Chris – great background, and I definitely appreciate the comment. I like your analysis of twist endings and don’t refute your breakdown of what constitutes as a good twist ending.
That being said, I don’t disagree with the comment “you should never judge a movie based on emotions.” Why should I treat a movie like a business deal? And what separates an amateur critic from a professional one? Because an amateur writes how they liked the movie and why and because a professional pretends to himself that he is helping the greater good by being neutral, where he’s injecting just as much personal, emotional reaction as the rest? I am not one of those people who poo-poo the professional critics; in fact, I generally agree with most of them; but what makes their analysis better than someone else’s? No matter who is writing the review, it is their personal opinion – and not everyone is going to agree.
“No movie should be judged by how it ‘made you feel’.” What? Why not? A movie can be well-directed, well-written, well-acted and still be a boring waste of time. Under your definition, wouldn’t this constitute a good movie? Meanwhile, a book like “The Da Vinci Code” can be good even if it isn’t written by Hemingway. Equally, movies can be surprisingly good even if they aren’t perfect in such categories; it certainly helps.
So, bottom line: If that’s how you want to rate movies and define what’s good and what’s not, that’s perfectly fine. Your analysis is great. But to judge someone else’s reaction to films as flawed because it’s not the same of yours is a very snobbish, nose-in-the-air way of going about things. Everyone puts different value into certain factors, and that’s what makes a movie good or not good for individuals.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 pm
@JimiLives – yeah, I need to re-watch Witness for the Prosecution, though. Great movie.
@Bill – yes, The Sting has been mentioned.
@Brad – Did you know what was coming beforehand? The fact that Kevin Spacey is playing the detectives up until the end is pretty shocking and disturbing in my opinion.
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:47 pm
So Kevin Spacey plays a killer who you dont see till the very end, Brad Pitt shoots him at the end becuase he killed his wife whats shocking about that, maybe a little disturbing but not unrealistically disturbing.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thanks for the positive comment on mine. I was actually taking the extreme route on my decisions, so I wouldn’t falter in my in argument, but I do realize, as you pointed out, that my snobbish remarks are no better than a “half-thought” movie review. I understand some people seek enjoyment out of movies, while others deeper meanings.
I still think movies can be good and not necessarily “enjoyable”. Movies like Citizen Kane and The Godfather can be hard to sit through because they are not as highly stylized as, for example, The Matrix or Pride and Prejudice.
I am just imploring that a movie should be judge as something more than just a rainy day activity.
July 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the response – when you put it that way, I definitely agree. When I use the terms “enjoyable” or “entertaining,” I’m using a loose definition of “anything that I like.” I consider The Godfather truly entertaining, as I would films like The Wrestler, 12 Angry Men and countless others that others may deem as “good” but not “enjoyable.” I enjoy dramas and especially depressing ones, for whatever reason, and so my definition of the word is a little skewed.
)
July 7th, 2009 at 2:14 am
simply put. to show that i cant agree with any of your list.
you did not have Star Wars Empire Strikes Back in your top 5. no one expected any of that to happen, Han getting frozen in carbonite, Vader being lukes father, everything opposite of what we couldve thought would happen happened.
i would say the prestige could be a bit higher.
american psycho, well honestly nothing at all is clarified in the ending, its not clarified if he really did kill any of the other people aside from not killing the man who went to london or how crazy he was. to me it wasnt really a good twist at all, yet still a good movie.
i dont understand what peoples problem is with the end of no country for old men. so the bad guy won and got away and tommy lee talked. if you pay attention to his message you’ll get his speech, and the bad guy won which no one saw coming and it was enough to make everyone dislike the movie. hell if you ask me, thats what made it a good twist ending, people were so into it and wanted it to go their way that they disliked the movie after the main character dies.
as for fight club being overrated, that may be, but id have to say the sixth sense is the most overrated twist of all time.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Hey, what about “The Sting” for best (or one of)?
July 10th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
This blog entry is quite popular. It got plagiarised at http://glamour-news.blogspot.com/2009/07/50-best-and-worst-twist-endings-in.html
July 10th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
to the creator of this article,
this guy (http://glamour-news.blogspot.com) has stolen this article, put it on his own blog and given no credit for it whatsoever. He also happens to do it to many other websites, always taking full credit! Take him out!
July 12th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for the heads up, guys.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:46 am
thats all good but putting Saw as a so so is just bullshit its the best modern horror series to date.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Thanks for the list. Helped to show me what I need to rent
July 29th, 2009 at 6:57 am
i watched both Se7en and Saw (loved Se7en, Saw…….not so much) and I didn’t think they were “twist” endings. it surprised you, but a twist ending is supposed to change the whole plot as we know it. Se7en just told us how Jon Doe finished his killings, while Saw basically just told us what happens. Both endings were good but I just don’t consider them “twists.”
July 30th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
why are people getting so angry because Erick created a list? This is a personal list, people, i applaud him for even sharing it with us. Whether you choose to believe it or not…he does have a right to his oppinion, as do you. i’m sure everyone here is smart enough to know that a list of any kind is subjective; nothing is absolute. So instead of dropping insults(which i still don’t understand the purpose of), why not just discuss??
Erick, great list, guy. I disagree with quite a few, but overall, a pretty solid list. Have you ever seen that korean horror flick “A Tale of Two Sisters”? Just wanted to hear ur thoughts on that.
July 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks, dynamix – and yes, A Tale of Two Sisters is one of my favorites – great ending now that you point it out. You can read my review here: http://www.filmjabber.com/movie/preview/1775/
July 31st, 2009 at 2:34 am
Hmm. You have Scream, The Mist, and Unbreakable above Fight Club eh? I thought Scream was just a display of who the actual killers are but still it was good. And I think The Mist should not have been mentioned since it really isn’t a twist to the plot, just the last ten minutes of the movie. And Unbreakable: I guess I just didn’t enjoy the movie to be honest.
I watched Fight Club with my friend recently and told her I thought it was probably the best twist ending I’ve ever seen. At the end she was still astonished and amazed, so I’m glad I didn’t ruin it for her. But I am a Huge Norton, Pitt, Carter fan boy so there is that. But I still think that Fight Club is the best not only Ending, but just best overall as a film.
Although I do not agree with your opinion, I would defend to the death your right to say it. But everything else is good, except I think that Saw was amazing and The Usual Suspects was indeed predictable. And of course, I would put Fight Club above The Sixth Sense. Anyways, just my two cents.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Good analysis and comments – thanks, Fierce.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Erik,
great review on ATOTS. That’s always been one of my personal fav, in term of plot, performance, chills; Just the overall package. I’d like to invite you to my website to do a guest review, whenever you have a chance.
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
How about “The Road Warrior”? The bad guys chased Mad Max and his tanker truck – one of the greatest action sequences ever – only to find that the truck was full of dirt. The precious gasoline was hidden in the vehicles that the “tribe” used in their escape from the refinery.
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
I would also include “A Scanner Darkly” in the best twist endings on my list. Robert Downey Jr. is amazing in it, Keanu Reeves was meant for that role.
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I’m really talking about the books here not the movies, but the Harry Potter movies stay true to the book in plot standards. If you think about it, every movie has a twist:
Harry Potter 1: It was Professor Querrel, not Professor Snape.
Harry Potter 2: Ginny wrote with blood and killed chickens and Tom Riddle is actually Lord Voldemort as a kid.
Harry Potter 3: Peter Petigrew is alive and Serius Black is Harry’s godfather.
Harry Potter 4: Voldemort Returns.
Harry Potter 5: I can’t think of a “real” twist (on my standards) but some may consider Serius Black dying or the prophecy. ( Can’t Remember if they talk about it in the movie)
Harry Potter 6: Haven’t seen it but by the trailers I’m pretty sure they put in Snape being the Half-Blood Prince.
I just wanted to point these out. I’m not expecting them to go on your list though.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Hey..how about the uninvited?
That’s also a best twist ending
August 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I just saw Minority Report again and you made a mistake. I’ll admit, I see why you would call it a twist ending even though on my opinion it’s not really a twist. But Cruise never wanted to kill the creator. He knew that the creator was going to kill him and made him NOT killing and the system failing, or killing Cruise and he gets arrested while the system is a success.
August 6th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
@gbaby – good analysis, it\’s been a while since I watched that.
@san The Uninvited is a poor remake of A Tale of Two Sisters – I recommend you watch that one. Much better.
@gbaby – re: Harry Potter, yes, they\’re twists, but more just mystery twists. I think the only people really shocked by such twists are the characters themselves – if you think about it, Harry generally has very bad instincts as to who is good and who is bad.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
sorry, I never know The Uninvited is a remake one. Maybe, I should watch A Tale of The Two Sisters after this (to compare)
Anyway, thanks for the information and the list
August 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am
i haven’t seen it yet, but apparently the new movie out called “Orphan” has a twist ending. What do you think about it, Good, So-So, or Bad. (like i said, I haven’t seen it yet so don’t ruin it.)
August 10th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I heard the twist ending was pretty ridiculous, but I still want to see the movie.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:41 am
and the final twist of “The 13th floor”?
just great.
And what about comedys in your list? “Greedy” with Michael J.Fox has one of the best endings ever.
And of course the sequels of Saw (2 and 3), forget the 4 and 5.
cheerssss
August 11th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I agree on the mostpart but I still think Mulholland Drive is the most unpredictable.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Lucky Number Slevin- had a good twist in the movie, and you are right it did kinda take away from the film. The reason i really think that is, due to it being such a short film. You start to believe Hartnett but it would have been better if they could of convinced us more. Theres like 2 incidents where he denies the fact that he’s Fisher. idk i just wish it would have been longer.
No Country for Old Men- Def shouldnt be on either list, its didnt have a bad ending or great twist ending, i mean if you say that you cant think of a better ending, or you shouldnt change the authors ending then…you know i wouldnt put it up. Honestly it being the Coen brothers i wasnt expecting them to have some epic ending or to stray from the books. They did a great job on this film hands down.
Fight Club- i really wish people wouldnt put this movie on Twist listings. I mean thats not what the movies for, there is so much more to it, that you really shouldnt give a shit about finding out they’re the same person.
Saw- I do agree its not much of a twist ending. People can say shit like “well you didnt know it was him” blah blah blah. Agreed we dont know who Jigsaw is the whole film, but they never led us to believe the Jigsaw was anybody really, so they they never twisted anything. Yeah we find out its the guy in the room with the two “protagonist” but lets look at this, and old guy, sitting in a room, perfectly still? c’mon id have to atleast fart at sometime, get hungry, something. Really didnt work for me. but it was a different movie.
I mostly do agree with your list, its a good one. But c’mon man The Sixth Sense? dont get me wrong its a good movie and it did have a good twist, but i would take The Usual Suspects or Primal Fear over it any day. But its all about opinion. I wanna know is how did Willis get into the kids house. You know when he plays that game, where he tries to guess things about the kid. Okay yeah he would knock on the door, but he cant talk to anybody, so did he like shove his way through the door or what? idk that part and some others never made sense to me
August 13th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
@Caleb – good analysis, glad you agree for the most part. I think when you start getting into whether one twist ending is better than the next, it’s impossible to get consensus. Lumping things into “great endings, pretty good endings, so-so endings and crappy endings” is where you’ll see more general consensus.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:31 am
@Eric- Yeah that’s very true, and I have read alot of people posting there best and worst twist ending and some really just dont know wtf they are talking about. They had movies up that shouldnt even be thought of when talking about twist. This list is probably the only one i have really ever liked. so you know great job
It really also depends on peoples knowledge (or lack of) or opinion of a twist is. I mean someone could consider A Clockwork Orange having a great twist or something you know. Him faking that he was rehabilitated, i kinda lean towards it being a shocking ending or something like that. I really hope i didnt ruin that for you, i mean i figure you would have already seen it.
thx for not thinking i was trying to like fight with you cuz i disagreed with you on some things. Most ppl tend to get defensive
August 16th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Great List! but im going to have to disagree with SAW being on the ‘worst’ list. when i saw him standing up at the end of the movie, i was crying out of shock and fear.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
just saw Fight Club and I’m gonna have to disagree with you. that WAS one of the best endings in cinema history. oh, and I agree that Slevin’s twist takes something from the film but I love it cuz it ties all the confusing moments together
August 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
if you paid attention in Fight Club you can all the clues that tell you that Norton and Pitt are the same person. his narcolepsy, meat loaf thanking him for fight club, norton getting off the bus with the green folders then later doesnt know wtf they are. sometimes you can even catch Nortons facial expression change, oh and not to mention the subliminal imagery of Pitt in the beginning. Idk it had a good twist dont get me wrong, but they gave you every chance in the world to realize they are the same person.
August 29th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
there’s plenty of clues throughout fight club to suggest the ending before it actually reveals itself, and the fact that it takes three or four watched to grasp them just re-emphasises the genius it took to convert an excellent book (thoug different to the film) into a screenplay.
e.g, when they crash the car on the freeway, norton is pulled from the drivers seat, despite having been a passenger in the car. as caleb said, the green files on the bus are a little giveaway too.
to say that the ending was a cop-out and that everything that preceded it was therefore a lie would go someway to showing that you dont understand the entire story. and saw? though im distinctly not a fan of the sequels, the twist in the original is a great piece of writing, when you consider that a) if you admit it, you did not see it coming a million miles away, and b) this piece of work was his very first, and along with starring in the film, he wrote and directed it. no small feet to complete the filming within 5 days either and on a tiiiiiiny budget.
little bit of trivia here for you too, in the second film, at the end, when we see the bathroom from the original, that set is in fact the one they used in scary movie as they built an ‘exact’ replica for the spoof movie (if it warrants being called a movie).
August 29th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
sorry dude,
i just re-read your comments on the saw ending and realised that you really are quite dumb. exactly how is it that you think ” It just doesn’t make much sense, nor is it very exciting “?
it doesnt make much sense?
i hate it when a good piece of writing is dismissed by someone as not making sense because they arent willing to spend three minutes going through a few things in there own heads to figure it out.
would you rather everything spelled out for you in a movie? perhaps you would prefer a narrator detailing every scene, so as you dont lose your grasp on whats happening. better yet, watch films with the directors commentary on, so that you can listen to the person who wrote it explain it for you. if you\’re not willing to take the time to think about something, or able to summon the intellect needed to understand them, it doesnt make it nonsensical or boring.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
the only problem i have with this list is Fight Club’s spot. If you watch it more than once and actually think about it then it will make perfect sense. Also everything you see isnt a lie it all happens but insead of both of them doing everything its just the narrator and his imagination. The lists were good otherwise.
September 12th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’m just curious to see what people think. I’m totally neutral on this, but it does happen to be one of my favorite movies, so I was just wondering what people thought. Obviously, it’s not advertised as a twist ending movie, but if you look at it from another point of view, would anyone consider The Shawshank Redemption as one of the best twist endings? If you do in fact consider it a twist ending that is.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Hi Fierce,
A few people have mentioned Shawshank Redemption – I love the movie and the ending is fantastic, but I think it’s a stretch to call it a twist ending. Maybe it is, though – I can understand how some people think so.
Erik
September 18th, 2009 at 6:28 am
I think Jacob’s Ladder starring Tim Robbins should have been on the list. The past is the present and the future is just a figment of a dying man’s imagination.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Best in my opinion. Although I’ve never critically thought about it for an extended time.
5) The Illusionist
4) Saw
3) Donnie Darko
2) Sixth Sense
1) Fight club
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
That is a pretty good list but I really do like the fight club twist. I saw Seven today and yes that does have a crazy end to it. I really didnt expect that the killer would get what he wanted the whole time. By the way, a movie you should give thought about is Basic because that had a great twist ending.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Saw is best twist ending in my opinion. No way should it be in the worst ones ever, even if the film isnt brilliant.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
look you are a major douchebag fight club was a good movie with an awsome ending get a life and quit watching so many movies and writting about them on the internet fag go try to get a girlfreind.fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 29th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Primal Fear!!!! The twist in that movie actually made me say what the fuck out loud, you put it in the right place(and Norton was awesome in that movie too).
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I cannot believe no one has mentioned The Skeleton Key, that was one of the biggest twist I can remember…
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:52 am
“STAY” has the worst twist i’ve ever seen. it’s freaking ridiculous. there was no twist. the guy dies. that’s it.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Please explain the ending in Valentine. The girl has on the mask and is carrying the knife, but the guy has a bloody nose. ???
October 8th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Actually, in Donnie Darko, Donnie must die to save the entire plane of existance. I don’t really remember, something about a rift in the space-time continuum that happend when he survived the jet engine falling on him.
It all makes sense when you watch the director’s cut.
October 11th, 2009 at 9:39 am
The Usual Suspects was one of my favorite movies with a with a great twist. With a decent start, the story develops slowly and gets complicated at times. But, with the discovery of the true elusive Keyser Soze you shall be left speechless and wondering how the film achieved its goal. Please do watch it if you haven’t yet.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:28 am
bravo wow…
October 20th, 2009 at 7:58 am
The Village was one of the dumbest movies ever written and produced.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were both very good movies. He has made some stinkers too but his track record is about even so far.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Im surprised you put Saw right there at the bottom ??? …
I mean how many of you guys, who have actually watched the movie, knew that the corpse planned the whole thing ?…
Does’nt the title of this page say Twist Endings ???
October 24th, 2009 at 10:39 am
@Murtaza – I didn’t see it coming, but the fact that it didn’t matter really doesn’t escalate on the list. Who cares if Jigsaw was lying there the whole time? It didn’t do anything to save the movie.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:44 am
@Erik – Buddy, I just want to highlight the fact that this list was made based on the topic Best and Worst Twist Endings in movies … I dont really wanna know how the movie fared on the box office, or what is its ratings on IMDB. The only thing I wanna say is, this movie had a really twisted end and it should’nt lie there at the bottom of the list…
…
Anyways, everyone is entitled to their opinion
October 24th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Hey Murtaza, yep, everyone’s entitled to their opinion – and I appreciate you supplying yours! I guess I didn’t interpret the ending to Saw as all that twisty – sure, we didn’t know that the killer was lying there, but does that change the perception of the story? No. Does it make the movie cooler? No (in my opinion at least). Does it make sense? Sure, I guess someone could lay there completely still for that whole time, but it would be tough.
As is evident from the 250 comments on the post, no one is ever going to agree 100% on what constitutes a good twist ending – Saw doesn’t count in there for me. I actually wouldn’t have even included it on this list had I not seen it mentioned elsewhere.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:15 am
I have to defend Saw yet again from people who do not understand what a “twist” ending is. The “twist” in Saw is not the fact that the killer has been lying on the floor of the bathroom the entire time, the “twist” is the fact that the man that they believe IS the killer (Zepp) turns out to have been playing his own game and is, in fact, NOT the killer. Jigsaw standing up is merely the revelation of who the actual killer is. Whether or not you believe it’s a good twist is aside from the point – get the actual twist right if you’re going to b!tch about it.
Fight Club doesn’t deserve to be on the list of overrated twists, because it’s not overrated and it makes perfect sense on a repeat viewing. This just smacks of wanting to knock it down a peg ‘cuz so many people love it, or of hating something just because other people like it.
And Citizen Kane doesn’t have a twist ending. It is merely a revelation of what we’ve wondered the entire film: what is Rosebud? Finding out what Rosebud is IS NOT A TWIST, it’s a revelation. That said, the film is a landmark and a piece of history. It doesn’t deserve all of this ridiculous bashing it is getting.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
I’d put Saw on the over-rated list… It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, but I think it was blown out of proportion
October 26th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Hey SgtFluffy, thanks for the in-depth comment! Much appreciated.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
have you seen ‘Knowing’ with Nicholas Cage? Definitely one to add to the worst twists of all time. Its starts off like a horror almost, His son finds a list of numbers listing all the disasters in the last 50yrs and he is trying to work out how to prevent them and suddenly there are aliens who take his child and some girl into space and the world explodes and those two have to start the world again on a funny blue glowing planet.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Hi Rach, thanks for the comment. I actually really liked Knowing, though I agree the kids running around on the weird planet was unnecessary.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Ok… this is the worst lineup I’ve ever seen. Actual movie critics would have never done something like that… it makes no sence.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
The ending of Saw DOES make perfect sense actually, perhaps you should watch it again. It is explained and hinted at throughout the movie as to why he’d want front row seats to his game. Not to mention him playing the dead body was a used prop in Dr. Gordon and Adam’s game.
And not exciting? It’s by far the most exciting twist ending I’ve ever seen. I suppose thats just a difference in opinion but I feel if you had paid a little more attention and saw that it makes a lot of sense, you would have found it more enjoyable.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Hey Matt, I appreciate the comment as always. I don’t think I can watch the film again – I’d have to get through the cringe-inducing acting and directing first. In terms of game-changers of a twist ending, it just didn’t strike me as much. I remember when I watching, and he stood up at the end, I was like, “Oh, OK, he was on the floor. At least the movie is over.”
November 12th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I agree with your list in most aspects. “The Number 23″ was just ridiculous, in my opinion. It was a fairly suspensful and inreguing thriller up until a certain point. When it turns out that Jim Carey actually was insane, could play the trumpet, wrote the book, killed the people, etc… it just got awful. I was expecting something much more interesting.
“The Village” was incredulously boring from start to finish. So boring, in fact, that I remember the day I watched it, vividly. I was sick and had nothing better to do.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:21 am
We had it on DVD and I thought, “May aswell watch it”. It was truly a disgraceful movie; although… the twist was actually not bad. It’s a shame that the rest of the movie was so awful, because if it wasn’t, the movie might’ve been half-decent.
“The Ring” ending was okay, but was quite controversial. If you don’t pay very close attention… you will never understand it. I liked the ending in the sense that it was unexpected and all that, but, to be honest, I was expecting someone to die who was of more importance to the storyline e.g. Naomi Watts.
“Saw” is the only one I truly disagree on. It was an amazing movie with a twist that did it justice. I understand your opinion; however, for the other movies to make sense, the first one had to be done this way. It isn’t exactly awfully enticing… but it is a good twist.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Hi Doord, thanks for your feedback.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Erik – Haven’t see some of the movies you have listed but based on the one I’ve seen, you’ve got a decent list.
A few grouses:
1. I find it totally inconsistent that you find the ending of ‘The Mist’ to be a better twist than ‘Saw’. In fact the twist ending of Mist has almost nothing to add to what has happened before (its almost a standalone twist, which is not saying that its bad), whereas in Saw, the two twists (that the guy we think is the killer actually isn’t and that the killer is on the floor) actually help explain parts of what has gone on before. You undermine your judgement by including Saw in the list of worst twists. Surely not.
2. I think ‘Identity’ is seriously underrated in your list. It has more than one twist, none of which is predictable IMO.
3. Secret Window : Does not deserve to be on the worst list. I can understand if you think its overrated, but to suggest its at the bottom of twist endings is wum-ish.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Hi Puneet,
Thanks for your comment. In response:
1. Fair enough. You’re right the ending to The Mist probably isn’t a twist – it just shocked me so tremendously that I had to put it on here. I only put the Saw ending on because it was on other lists – I’ve never really regarded it as a twist ending, either.
2. Fair enough. I probably need to watch that movie again.
3. I just tend to hate endings where the main character ends up being the villain. Very hard to pull off.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Saw should not be in the “worst twist” category. It is an awesome movie!
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 am
Star Wars lol, who would have thought back then, that Darth Vader was his Father, lol.Simpsons Gag.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I have to say that i watched the movie SAW.. and SAW would be number one good twisting movie for the fact, as imagine yourself in that position…there’s no way you wouldn’t be just a little pissed sitting in that room all day cutting eachothers legs off only in the end to find out the killer has been lying there with you in the room the whole time and he’s going to slam the door shut in your face.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
the prestige. glad to see it up there truly the greatest and most unsuspecting twists of our time not to mention it is a excellent movie. great list. great choice. but fight club is not over-rated. rather should be up near the prestige.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Erik-your list is not a perfect one,as i prefer to watch only those movies which having twist in end.From my point of view a great twist movie is not that doing everything just the narrator and his imagination conclude but to shock the audience to sit over edge of the seat till the end from the beginning.u can understand what i mean to say……..
December 13th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Hi Raman, thanks for the comment – so what twist endings do you like?
December 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Hi Erik,I m from India there r lot of bollywood movies having twist ending but generally they copy from hollywood.As I watch all the movies which u have mention above.Twist I like which no one even think about it till the end such as
1.6th sense
2.the usual suspects.
3.seven
4.saw
5.mindhunter
6.oldboy (hindi version ZINDA)
7.the uninvited
8.the Illusionist
9.Frailty
10. primal fear
Thanks for your consideration.
Good job kept it up.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Hi Raman,
Thanks for your list – that’s a pretty good one.
Erik
December 19th, 2009 at 1:53 am
dude mulholland drive does make sense. naomi watts character is dreaming for the first 2 hours of the movie based on what she saw at the party and what she wanted her relationship with camille to be. she hires that guy to kill camille and then feels guilty for it. just thought you should know cause you wrote that it doesn’t make sense.
December 19th, 2009 at 1:54 am
and i completely agree with your lists
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 am
I think you did a nice job on this list, for the most part. Completely agreed that The Forgotten had potential until the utterly disappointing ending.
But Fight Club??!! One of the best twist endings in movie history, in my opinion. Sorry. But that’s the only one I don’t agree with.
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
like the list when i saw seven i was amazed
-do you think the green mile would count as a twist because of who really was responsible for the murders John Coffey was convicted of
-also what about the manchurian candidate(that took me bu surprsie)
-and the davinci code has somewhat of a twist
January 11th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Great list-very helpful. What about these movies though?
Righteous Kill
Orphan
Vantage Point
Mr. Brooks
Skeleton Key
January 11th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Thanks, Daniel. My response:
Righteous Kill – meh. Found it fairly predictable and the movie itself was terrible.
Orphan – Just watched this – I enjoyed the movie and the ending.
Vantage Point – didn’t like any of the twists in this movie.
Mr. Brooks – can’t remember. What happens again?
Skeleton Key – several people have recommended Skeleton Key. I’d say middle of the road, but good suggestion.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Somebody above may have already wrote some of these that weren’t on your list.
The Uninvited was great.
Passengers was middle of the road
While the movies are not nearly as much of a twist as the books, almost all James Patterson stories end with a twist so
Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider (they did mess the movie up from the book by killing off Gary Sonji)
January 15th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
What about Witness For The Prosecution? That was a stunning ending.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Can not stand Vanilla Sky. Loved most of the movies you listed on the good list.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:01 am
Its so sad that Memento is such an unknown movie because it was truly a masterpiece. The way the director unravels the story gives you the feel of what the main character experiences every day. For the record, Pierce’s wife was a diabetic and she is the one from the memory. Sammy Jenkins actually was a conman. The entire film was about him lying to himself in order to create a better reality for himself.
On the sixth sense, truly the only people that “predicted” the ending are the ones that just assumed he was dead and didn’t put it together through the movie. When you watch it without suspecting a twist it really catches you off guard and makes the movie.
Also, unbreakable was a great movie. It was a fresh way to view a super hero movie. Not to mention the ending made the entire story just click. It defined Jackson’s character and showed his purpose in the film which is what the ending should do.
I also understand what you mean when you said the Saw ending wasn’t necessary. I believe a good twist is one that revolutionizes a character or the mindset of the watcher. Once you see a good twist you realize how necessary it is for the movie to become complete. Saw’s ending was pointless and unnecessary, although the twist with Zepp was interesting.
January 24th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Hi Brandon, thanks for your great comment. I’m glad you agree with most of what I said!
January 28th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Hey Erik, good list overall. I’m surprised Memento isn’t getting more love here. I think it should be move up on the list. There are a few twists at the end, not just one. The poster who said the main character “Leonard” didn’t accidentally kill his wife, missed the end of the movie i guess. Sammy Jenkis had no wife, Teddy reveals this at the end. Lenny’s wife survived the attack, and Lenny killed he when she tricked him. Really a suicide by proxy.
That’s a great twist, but perhaps not even the biggest in the movie. The suspect Lenny has been chasing the whole movie, which we are led to believe is Teddy, John G., was actually killed by Lenny a year before the events in the movie take place. The main character couldn’t remember he got his wife’s vengeance. Not only that, He seems to accept that he did kill the real John G a year ago, and decides to continue looking for a fabricated killer, by setting up Teddy as his next John G to chase.
The way this movie is constructed is great. Great movie.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I did not agree with a lot of things on this list. The Life of David Gale, is one of the best movies. To make fun of the ending like you did, shows you have no sense of what a good movie is. Identity is also a great movie and the ending is incredible. Saw’s ending was so shocking and i guarantee you didnt see it coming. Finally, to put No Country For Old Men, on this list is just stupid. First of all, it won best picture of the year, not for its ending (which wasn’t a twist) but for what an incredibe film it is.
February 7th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Michael Douglas does NOT kill himself at the end of The Game. He gets up and goes back to the party after realizing that his brother isn’t actually dead. How could you even think that he dies for a second? Have you even seen the movie or are you just basing this absurd notion on what you’ve read on the internet that was written by overanalyzing fools?
February 7th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Man, you are aggravating. Why does Johnny Depp’s character not being punished in Secret Window matter? Every killer needs to be punished, this is what makes the movie good to you? And why is trying to spread the word that the death penalty is inhumane(which it IS) get an “Uh.okay” response? Do you not understand the concept of fighting for what you believe in? Are you that dim? If the movie’s twist was somehow to say why the death penalty is great would you then love the movie? Stop letting your biases influence your opinions. Or maybe you are just very dimwitted.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Hi Bhjn,
I didn’t say Michael Douglas kills himself – he chooses to commit suicide. The fact that he fails and it’s all for show doesn’t change his intent. Before criticizing me read what I say more carefully.
As for The Life of David Gail and Secret Window, bias has nothing to do with it – neither endings are very good, regardless of which way they go.