A well-done plot twist can take a movie from "good" to "great", but once in a while, a
mind-blowing plot twist can really make a movie legendary.
Here are a few that made moviegoers question everything.
Two years after terrifying audiences with Get Out, Jordan Peele frightened everyone
again with Us, a freakish horror film with a genuinely shocking ending.
The film opens in 1986, when a young Adelaide Thomas wanders into a hall of mirrors and
meets her diabolical doppelganger.
Flash forward a couple of decades and adult Adelaide is confronting her evil twin yet
again.
Only this time, the doppelganger, known as Red, has brought an army of scissor-wielding
clones up from their underground lair, with each one assigned to kill their real-world
counterpart.
Throughout the film, Adelaide and her family manage to outwit and defeat their doubles,
and in the climactic sequence, our hero finally confronts her twisted doppelganger.
But in a stunning flashback, we suddenly realize we might be rooting for the wrong person.
As it turns out, the Adelaide we've been cheering for is actually the grinning doppelganger
from the opening scene.
She's the result of a science experiment gone wrong, and when she encountered the real Adelaide
in the fun house, she strangled the girl unconscious, dragged her down into an underworld of mute
monsters, and then took the real Adelaide's place.
So Adelaide is really Red, and Red is the real Adelaide, and this whole creepy scheme
has been about getting revenge for having her life taken away.
Ultimately, the twist works as commentary on issues like privilege and nature vs. nurture,
but in the moment, all you can really think about is picking your jaw up off the floor.
The ending of The Usual Suspects has been referenced in everything from Key & Peele
to The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
It's a twist almost more famous than the movie itself.
The entire film is narrated by Verbal Kint, the sole survivor of a heist-gone-wrong.
Verbal is a timid thug who suffers from cerebral palsy, and as he's being interrogated by Customs
agent Dave Kujan, Verbal spins a story of how he and his crew were drafted by the world's
most notorious criminal, an underworld bogeyman named Keyser Soze.
As Verbal tells his crazy story, Kujan suspects Verbal's BFF, Dean Keaton, was secretly Soze,
and that he betrayed all his buddies during their bloody caper.
"Because he was my friend."
"No Verbal.
He wasn't your friend.
Keaton didn't have friends."
Convinced he's solved the crime, he lets Verbal walk and takes a minute to revel in his detective
skills.
And that's when he notices the bulletin board.
Shocked, Kujan realizes that Verbal's story was complete nonsense, and that he assembled
his wild tale by pulling keywords and details from the papers and wanted posters tacked
on the wall.
And as Kujan figures out he let a guilty man walk free, we see Verbal Kint morph into a
new man.
His limp disappears, his gnarled hand straightens out, and he starts walking with the confidence
of a crook who beat the system for the millionth time.
This little nobody is actually Keyser Soze, and then, like that, he's gone.
It might be the greatest trick a movie's ever pulled, and it's the kind of twist that will
make you drop your coffee mug in shock.
From the Mandarin reveal to the Thanos snap, the MCU has its fair share of shocking twists.
"I wouldn't go in there for twenty minutes."
But maybe the most jaw-dropping moment comes in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Peter Parker
discovers his love life is about to get really complicated.
Throughout this superhero flick, the wall-crawler is trying to find a balance between homework
and crime fighting, hanging out with friends and trading blows with bad guys.
You can't really go to parties or participate in the academic decathlon when you've got
an entire neighborhood to protect.
The guy can't even impress his high school crush, Liz, without having to deal with a
supervillain.
It's hard to get a date when you're constantly trying to fight the Vulture.
Eventually, Peter puts his crime-fighting on pause and takes Liz out to the homecoming
dance.
He gets his suit, learns to dance, buys Liz a nice corsage, and shows up at her house,
ready for a fun evening.
And that's when the door opens to reveal, well...
"You must be Peter."
As it turns out, the villainous Vulture just so happens to be Liz's father.
Suddenly, Peter isn't worried about making a good impression.
He's just worried about making it through the night alive.
After all, nothing ruins a date like a great big superbattle.
Written and directed by Boots Riley, this movie is absolutely insane in all the right
ways, and no description can do it justice.
It's without a doubt the most anti-capitalist film to ever come out of Hollywood, and it
features perhaps the most deranged twist of the 21st century so far.
The plot follows a promising young telemarketer named Cassius "Cash" Green who finds success
in sales by using a, quote, "white voice" to smooth-talk customers.
"Mr. Son, Cassius Green at Worry Free calling, sorry to bother you.
I'm calling about who is assembling your phone."
Soon, Cash is promoted to the big-time, which involves selling slaves to giant companies,
and eventually, he crosses paths with a psycho billionaire with big plans for the future
of business.
Up until this point, the movie has been incredibly weird, but when Cash discovers the billionaire's
plans, that's when the movie loses its mind.
As it turns out, the billionaire is turning people into half-human, half-horse monsters
so he can create a powerful but malleable workforce.
That's right.
Armie Hammer is turning people into horses.
And if that wasn't wild enough, the movie ends with Cash suddenly turning into a horse
person himself.
It's totally bonkers, and no matter how good you are at guessing twists, you'll never see
this nightmare coming.
Everybody knows the twist from The Empire Strikes Back.
Even moviegoers who've never seen a single Star Wars movie know Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's
dad.
The twist has permeated the pop culture consciousness, and the line "I am your father" has become
one of the most memorable lines of all time.
But back in 1980, the Luke-Vader revelation absolutely floored Star Wars fans.
Most of the cast and crew didn't even know the truth about Luke's family tree.
According to Mark Hamill, the original script read that Obi-Wan Kenobi had killed old Anakin.
Famously, only Hamill, James Earl Jones, George Lucas, and director Irvin Kershner were aware
of the twist.
So when Vader finally pronounced Luke's parentage, everybody was gasping, from audiences to the
actors themselves.
And this shocking moment did a whole lot more than elicit gasps.
The Dad Vader reveal sent the series in a completely new direction, and that one line
helped lay the groundwork for seven additional Star Wars films.
Has any other movie twist had such an enormous impact?
M. Night Shyamalan has a really weird filmography, but no matter where his career goes, he'll
always have one thing to fall back on; he made The Sixth Sense, an all-time great suspense
movie with possibly the most famous twist in cinematic history.
The film finds Bruce Willis playing Dr. Malcolm Crowe, an award-winning child psychologist,
and in the opening scene, he's shot by a disturbed patient he couldn't save.
But a couple of months later, Crowe is walking around and seems perfectly okay.
Well, his marriage is falling apart, and his wife won't acknowledge his existence, so that
isn't great.
But at least he gets a chance at redemption by helping Cole Sear, a troubled boy who can
see dead people.
However, Cole isn't the only one who can see spirits.
Moviegoers have been looking at a dead guy pretty much since the start of the movie.
After trying so hard to talk to his wife, Crowe finally realizes why she won't respond:
"Bruce Willis is a ghost.
He's been dead the entire time.
All the best."
"Nooo.
Noooo!"
That gunshot in the beginning of the film?
Yeah, Crowe didn't make it, and he's been a dead man walking ever since.
It was an ending that sent shockwaves through Hollywood, and Shyamalan has been trying to
recapture that glory ever since.
But while a film or two has come close, The Sixth Sense still stands supreme as the perfect
Shyamalan twist.
Every slasher villain has their own special skill.
Freddy Krueger can control your dreams.
Jason Voorhees can take anything you throw his way and just keeps on coming.
And then there's Ghostface, who's got the uncanny ability to pop up anywhere at a moment's
notice.
When the masked killer first arrives in the opening scene of Scream to terrorize Drew
Barrymore, he seems to be lurking around every single corner.
There's no way anyone can move this quickly, but as victim after victim learns, there's
no getting away from Ghostface.
This dude is everywhere.
In the big climax of Wes Craven's horror classic, we discover the secret behind Ghostface's
teleporting powers.
Final girl Sidney Prescott is running for her life.
Sidney has no clue who's under the mask, and the movie has offered us a whole bunch of
possibilities.
Ghostface could be boyfriend Billy, weirdo Randy, goofball Stu, or even Sidney's own
dad.
There are so many suspects, and we don't know who to trust.
And that's when Sidney makes a horrific discovery, her boyfriend Billy is Ghostface…and so
is his best friend Stu.
These two psychos are working together for a maximum kill count.
And with two guys running around wearing Ghostface masks, it's no wonder this bad guy was making
such good time.
Bong Joon-ho's Mother has a pretty standard plot for a murder mystery.
A mentally challenged young man is accused of murdering a teenage girl.
The police don't have any solid evidence against him, but they need to make an arrest, so they
toss the disabled man in jail and trick him into confessing.
Needless to say, his devoted mother knows her son is innocent, and she goes from a mild-mannered
widow to South Korea's Sherlock Holmes, chasing down leads, interrogating suspects, and putting
together a case to free her son from jail.
Now, in your typical murder mystery, the mom would discover the killer's true identity
and clear her kid's name.
However, Mother subverts all those expectations when the titular mom makes a simple but shocking
discovery: her son really did it.
Yeah, he's a sweet kid, but that didn't stop him from caving in a girl's head.
It's a smart twist that gets even twistier when the mom murders an eyewitness.
Mother spins every thriller trope on its head, but it also goes to show that nobody loves
you like your mother.
It's no surprise that the Armitage family are the bad guys in Get Out.
When Missy Armitage and her husband first meet our everyman hero, Chris Washington,
they're way too friendly and far too polite.
That's never a good sign in a horror movie.
Then there's their super creepy son, Jeremy, who's oozing with menace whenever he comes
slinking onto the screen.
But with all these racists surrounding poor Chris, his girlfriend Rose Armitage seems
totally on his side.
She stuck by Chris when he was getting harassed by a cop, so she'll definitely help him escape
her family's clutches, right?
Unfortunately, Rose is probably the most evil Armitage of the bunch.
After finding a box of incriminating photos, Chris starts to realize he's the victim of
some really cruel catfishing.
But even after he decides to run, he desperately hopes Rose is still on his side when the Armitage
clan blocks his path.
He begs Rose to give him the car keys so he can escape, and for a moment, it seems like
she might pick her boyfriend over her own flesh and blood…but then she reveals that
she's been against him from the start.
The casting here is what makes the twist work so well.
According to both Allison Williams and director Jordan Peele, Williams was cast because audiences
would associate her with far less evil roles, like Peter Pan or Marnie Michaels from Girls.
And she does indeed seem pretty harmless, right until she starts drinking milk like
a Droog and blasting at her boyfriend with a rifle.
"Get him, grandpa."
One of the most unsettling sci-fi movies ever made, Ex Machina finds mild-mannered computer
programmer Caleb winning the contest of a lifetime.
He's been picked to spend a week conducting a bizarre Turing test with his billionaire
boss, Nathan.
A brilliant inventor, Nathan has created an artificial intelligence named Ava, and he
wants to see if his creation can convince Caleb she's a sentient being.
Caleb quickly falls under Ava's spell, and soon, the programmer plans to free his crush
from Nathan's grasp.
After all, the tech tycoon has her locked up and plans on essentially killing her.
"He's gonna reprogram your AI, which is the same as killing you."
"Caleb, you have to help me."
"I'm going to."
Plus, Nathan's interest in Ava isn't just scientific; this guy has a thing for building
female robots that he can imprison and control.
Using his own tech savvy, Caleb sets Ava free, and seconds later, the liberated android attacks
Nathan.
If this were your typical sci-fi flick, Ava and Caleb would probably run off together,
but in Ex Machina, things take a hard left turn when Ava locks up Caleb and leaves the
screaming programmer to die of starvation.
It's a gut punch of an ending, especially since Caleb seems so sympathetic.
But really, he only decided to help Ava once he found her worthy of his affections, and
chances are good he would've jeopardized her shot at freedom in the outside world.
So when it comes to dealing with a "nicer" version of Nathan or leaving the dude to die,
well, there's nothing stopping Ava from finally getting her freedom.
Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Colossal is one of the wackiest movies ever made.
This fantasy flick finds the alcoholic Gloria, played by Anne Hathaway, recently single and
moving back to her hometown.
But as the self-destructive lead character soon discovers, her problems are a lot bigger
than just the bottle.
Gloria is psychically linked to a Godzilla-like monster, and whenever she stumbles across
a particular playground at a specific time, the kaiju mysteriously appears in the South
Korean city of Seoul.
Fortunately, Gloria has a good friend to help with all the booze and oversized beasts.
He's a nice guy named Oscar, played by Jason Sudeikis.
The moment Gloria comes back to town, Oscar does everything he can to help her feel at
home.
He gives her furniture for her empty house, builds her up with all sorts of compliments,
and even gives her a job working at his bar.
But Gloria soon realizes there's a lot of darkness behind Oscar's winning smile.
For one, he's also linked to a giant creature that appears in the South Korean capital.
And while he pretends to be a good dude, we quickly learn he's a violent, manipulative
control freak, more monstrous than any kaiju.
And when Gloria tries to get away from this creep, he threatens to murder countless Koreans
with his robot avatar.
This turn from best friend to abuser is pretty shocking, largely thanks to Sudeikis' affable
persona…although there are probably a lot of women who saw this coming, well aware that
the real world is full of guys like Oscar.
A Beautiful Mind finds an Oscar-nominated Russell Crowe playing John Nash, a Nobel Prize-winning
mathematician who lived a rather unusual life.
Early in the film, Nash is drafted by Department of Defense Agent William Parcher to analyze
magazines and newspapers for hidden Russian codes.
It's an intense assignment, but when he's not engaged in high-stakes espionage, John
seems to lead a normal life.
He's got a supportive wife and an incredibly close BFF, Charles.
And whenever Charles shows up to visit, he brings along his adorable niece, Marcee, who
always brings a smile to John's face.
Unfortunately, of the four most important people in John's life, only one of them is
actually a living, breathing human being.
As it turns out, John is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and the incredibly creepy Parcher
is just a hallucination.
There are no secret messages, no Soviet spies lurking in the shadows, and no radium diode
implanted in his arm.
But the real blow is that Charles and Marcee are also products of his imagination.
All those memories of Charles and John palling around Princeton?
None of it's real.
And unless you know the true story the twist comes as a devastating surprise and sends
this Oscar-winning film in a disturbing direction.
With few exceptions, movies are presented in chronological order.
There's a beginning, a middle, and an end.
But Arrival is unmoored by time, much like its protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks.
In the movie's opening, Louise loses her beloved daughter to an unspecified disease.
Naturally, we assume this is happening early in her life, before the renowned linguist
is asked by the military to communicate with the heptapods, mysterious aliens who've landed
on Earth.
Her job is to translate their complex language so humans can talk with these otherworldly
visitors.
But as she delves deeper into their circular alphabet, the heptapod language changes her
perspective of time, literally allowing her to experience the past, present, and future
at once.
And as we soon discover, Louise actually hasn't had her child yet.
Those flashbacks are visions of what's to come, courtesy of the alien language.
Louise now exists outside of time, or more accurately, throughout every moment all at
once.
As a result, Louise's perspective on concepts like love are radically altered by the heptapods'
gift.
Sure, she now knows that heartbreak is coming, but she heads into the future anyway, because
she knows there's a lot of joy waiting there too.
It's maybe the most emotional twist in all of science fiction, and one that will leave
you both thinking and wiping away a few tears.
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