Bryan Singer's neo-noir classic The Usual Suspects follows the interrogation of seemingly
helpless Roger "Verbal" Kint, one of only two survivors of a devastating fire on a ship
docked at the Port of Los Angeles.
Kevin Spacey's character spins the detectives and viewers a long and twisted tale of drugs,
deceit and death, explaining that everything comes back to a mysterious mob boss by the
name of Keyser Söze.
The twist?
Kint was Keyser Söze all along, which the officers realize only a few moments too late.
As Kint exits the police station and shuffles off down the street, his awkward gait starts
to straighten out - and we realize we've been had.
Quentin Tarantino's gleefully inaccurate take on the World War Two thriller was nominated
for eight Academy Awards, with Christoph Waltz taking home the Oscar for his portrayal of
the film's unforgettable villain: Hans Landa.
Inglourious Basterds follows Lieutenant Aldo "The Apache" Raine and his Basterds as they
go on the hunt for Nazi scalps, finally machine-gunning Hitler himself - although Landa is the the
one German who Raine cannot kill.
“Ooh, that’s a bingo!
Is that the way you say it, ‘that’s a bingo?’”
“You just say bingo.”
After striking a deal with the top brass, the notorious villain is afforded his freedom
in the States, though Aldo doesn't let him slide that easily.
With the film all but wrapped up, Lt. Raine pulls out his knife and proceeds to carve
a Swastika into Landa's forehead in a shockingly gory close-up.
Loosely based on French author Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel La Planète des Singes, 1968's
Planet of the Apes was included in Empire's Greatest Movies of All Time list and contains
one of the most iconic examples of a twist ending.
Astronaut George Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, leads a group of astronauts stranded
on a strange and seemingly deserted planet after their spaceship crash lands there - but
the crew soon come to realize that they are not alone.
Apes with human-like intelligence dominate this world, and they don't take kindly to
the arrival of their otherworldly guests, though it ultimately turns out Taylor and
his team are far from alien.
As he escapes the apes and makes his way along the shoreline, he comes across the sandy remains
of the Statue of Liberty - and discovers he's been on Earth the whole time, trapped in a
future devastated by nuclear war.
Orphan follows a couple trying to move on with their lives after the death of their
unborn child.
In an attempt to save their marriage, the pair decide to go ahead with their plans for
a third child, adopting a quiet 9-year-old Russian girl named Esther.
At least, they're lead to believe she's nine.
In truth, Esther is a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer, a psychopath with a growth
disorder who's spent the majority of her life posing as a pigtailed child and being repeatedly
adopted.
Why does she need to keep finding new families?
Because she keeps trying to get it on with the dads.
Audiences watch in sheer horror as Esther sets about seducing her new father - and finally
kills him when he refuses her.
The first Star Wars sequel picked up three years after the destruction of the Death Star.
Luke Skywalker and the Rebel assault squadron bearing down on the super-weapon's weak spot
remains a memorable enough finale for that first film, but it pales in comparison to
the closing stages of The Empire Strikes Back.
Han Solo being frozen alive in carbonite and carted off was a shock for fans of the dashing
pilot, though the real jaw-dropper comes when Luke arrives at Cloud City, spurred on by
a premonition of Han and Leia in pain.
The young Jedi falls right into Vader's trap, losing his hand during the lightsaber battle
that ensues.
In a moment that would be quoted, referenced and parodied countless times over the years
that followed, Vader makes cinema’s most notorious parental declaration.
“No, I am your father.”
David Fincher's gory thriller Seven is crammed full of shocking moments, but one scene in
particular sticks long in the memory: the film's haunting finale.
After veteran detective William Somerset and his new partner David Mills finally manage
to corner the killer, they discover a box containing the head of Mills' pregnant wife
Tracy.
Despite it being exactly what the killer wants, the heartbroken detective guns down the skin-headed
madman in a heartbreaking climax that, unlike many of the movie’s other scenes, doesn’t
need to rely on gore to be shocking.
A loose remake of 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs, Martin Scorsese's Best Picture
winner The Departed moves the action out of Asia and brings it to Boston, home of notorious
Irish mob boss Whitey Bulger - the inspiration behind Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello.
The veteran gangster relies on his police mole Colin Sullivan to stay ahead of the game,
though he doesn't realize he also has a double agent in his ranks: Billy Costigan.
But after finally exposing Sullivan, Costigan is unceremoniously shot in the head by another
of Costello's moles.
Even more unexpected to audiences, however, was the double-blow which followed: Staff
Sergeant Dignam showing up right at the final moment to put a bullet in Sullivan's temple.
Another Scorsese-DiCaprio collaboration with an unexpected ending, psychological thriller
Shutter Island follows U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner Chuck.
They visit Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane to investigate the disappearance of
a woman incarcerated there for drowning her children.
Scorsese delivers a gripping mystery that leads viewers down a winding path with a stunning
end.
Just as Teddy believes he's about to solve the puzzle of the missing woman, he discovers
that his real name is Andrew Laeddis and he's actually a patient at the hospital, sent there
for killing his wife - who had previously killed their children.
The whole investigation was actually a ruse by the head of the facility, designed as a
last-ditch effort to snap Laeddis out of his conspiracy-obsessed insanity.
Based on the life and travels of American hiker Christopher McCandless, Sean Penn's
Into The Wild is a biographical survival film that spends 148 minutes building up to a happy
ending that never comes.
The audience gets to know McCandless as he lives in complete isolation in the Alaskan
wilderness, intercut with scenes depicting the long road he took to get there.
As the film draws to an end, McCandless begins to realize that true happiness can only be
shared with others, and plans to return home to his family - but the river he crossed four
months earlier has become impassible.
On the point of starvation, the young backpacker is forced to gather roots and plants to eat,
accidentally consuming a poisonous one in the process.
The film ends with McCandless crawling into his sleeping bag to die.
Writer/director Stephen Chbosky wasn't just aiming to make another teen-centric indie
flick when he decided to adapt his own novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, for the big
screen.
He also wanted to make his story, which tackled mental health issues among young people, a
more "communal experience" - in the hope of reaching more of those affected by its themes.
The film itself is very well acted by its leads, though it's hard to put your finger
on what was so good about their performances when all you can think about is the ending.
By the end of the movie, troubled protagonist Charlie has been through the ringer and is
about to finally get the girl - but when she touches his leg, he has a flashback of his
late Aunt Helen.
The film comes to a grim close with Charlie admitting to a psychiatrist that he's been
repressing memories of the sexual abuse he suffered from his Aunt.
Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King novella The Mist caused controversy before
it was even released, after the director chose to go with a different ending from the book.
King fans were put at ease when the author gave his approval of the changes, though only
a man who has spent a lifetime delving into the bleak could ever claim to have enjoyed
it.
The film follows a group of people trapped in a supermarket by a deadly mist full of
tentacled creatures.
In the end, protagonist David and his young son manage to escape in a car, though when
they run out of gas David is forced to use his remaining four bullets on his child and
passengers.
After shooting them all, he steps out of the car to accept his gruesome fate at the hands
of the monsters, only for the mist to clear and the U.S. Army to appear.
If there's one director known for his mastery of the twist ending, it's M. Night Shyamalan
- a man who enjoys nothing more than lulling his audience into a false sense of security,
only to flip the world he's created on its head.
He did it to great effect in 2000's Unbreakable and 2004's The Village, but his most famous
shock ending came in his first major success: The Sixth Sense.
“I see dead people.”
The story follows a kid named Cole as he tries to talk through his ability to see ghosts
with a troubled child psychologist.
Unless you've been living under a rock, of course, you’ll know that Willis' character
was actually dead the whole time - and when the film first came out, news of its shocking
finale spread like wildfire.
Arguably, it was the power of that twist which helped this small-scale supernatural horror
bag six Oscar nominations and a staggering worldwide box office total of $673 million.
brand of suspense earned him a well-deserved reputation as “the Master of Suspense”
- something he delivered consistently over a distinguished, five-decade career.
Perhaps his most famous shock ending is the one he conceived for Psycho, the story of
Norman Bates and his family's motel.
While Janet Leigh being slashed in the shower is undoubtedly the movie's best-known scene,
the most shocking moment of all comes in the closing stage; we finally realize Norman's
mother has been dead all along and he's been committing murders dressed in her clothing.
Hitchcock went to great lengths to keep the twist a secret, swearing the cast and crew
to an oath of secrecy and imploring the public to keep quiet about Bates via the film's advertisements.
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