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Greatest Movie Twists Part 1 |
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Greatest Movie Twists Part 1 |
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are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films". |
(alphabetical by film title) - Part 1 Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 |
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| Film Title | Brief Scene Description | Example |
Adaptation (2002) |
In Spike Jonz' brilliant but often bewildering, twisting and turning comedy/drama, struggling screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) pursued and spied on the New Yorker author Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) of the book The Orchard Thief while working on its movie adaptation, discovering her snorting lines of mind-altering, ghost-orchid green extract and committing adultery in an extra-marital affair with the real Florida orchid thief John Laroche (Chris Cooper); the film's conclusion counteracted his earlier assertion to his studio contact Valerie Thomas (Tilda Swinton): "I don't want to cram in sex or, uh, guns or car chases, you know, or characters, you know, learning profound life lessons, or growing, or coming to like each other, or overcoming obstacles - succeeding in the end...life isn't like that, it just isn't"; escaping with his alter-ego twin brother Donald (Cage in a dual role) into the Florida Everglades swamp (where Charlie received profound advice from Donald: "You are what you love, not what loves you" during the night), they were hotly pursued by Laroche and Susan after she madly wanted to kill him for witnessing her drug habit and extra-marital affair; Donald was 'killed' when thrown through Charlie's car windshield (extinguishing his alter-ego forever, and giving him new confidence), and Laroche was attacked and killed by an alligator, after which Susan madly exclaimed: "I want my life back. I want it back before it all got f--ked up. I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW"; upon his return home, Charlie met with pretty ex-dating partner Amelia Kavan (Cara Seymour) and openly admitted his affection for her by kissing her (with her own confession: "I love you, too, you know"); he simultaneously discovered how to finally end his script: ("I have to go right home. I know how to finish the script now. It ends with Kaufman driving home after his lunch with Amelia, thinking he knows how to finish the script... Anyway, it's done. And that's something. So: 'Kaufman drives off from his encounter with Amelia, filled for the first time with hope.' I like this. This is good"), with the playing of the Turtles' song "Happy Together" - and a sped-up time lapse photograph of flowers and an LA street over a period of several days |    
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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) |
This entire Terry Gilliam adventure was a tale told by elderly Baron Karl Frederich Hieronymous von Munchausen (John Neville) about his alleged marvelous exploits to a group of theater-goers attending a play (about his own life) while the city was under siege from Turkish hordes; the tale ended with the Baron's shooting "death"- assassination by city official "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson" (Jonathan Pryce) during a victory parade and the taking of his soul by the Grim Reaper 'doctor' -- the twist was that the Baron's tale was only a "story within a story"; it was the final scene of another tall-tale staged story the fabulist was telling the audience as he appeared back on stage: ("And that was only one of the many occasions on which I met my death, an experience which I don't hesitate strongly to recommend!"); Sally Salt (Sarah Polley) - the young daughter of the theater company's leader, remarked incredulously: "It wasn't just a story, was it?"; in the finale, the Baron rode off onto a faraway hillside, saluted the town, and then cryptically disappeared |
   
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Aeon Flux (2005) |
In the post-apocalyptic year of 2415, inhabitants were forced to live in the walled city of Bregna ruled by the totalitarian Goodchild dynasty of genetic scientists, following a devastating lethal virus in 2011 which killed 99% of the population and caused everyone else who survived to be sterile. [However, nature was beginning to find a way to overcome the sterility issue and women were again becoming pregnant naturally. This was the main reason for the murder of Aeon's sister Una (Amelia Warner).] Mastermind scientist and Chairman Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) revealed to assassin-rebel Monican agent Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) that the original population had been cloned over seven generations - at a certain age, everyone in Bregna was cloned and would begin again at infancy, thereby destabilizing the human race. Aeon also learned from Trevor and the 400 year old hologramic Keeper (Pete Postlethwaite) that she was the clone of Trevor's wife from 400 years earlier, and was named Catherine. [In a subplot, Trevor's younger brother Oren (Jonny Lee Miller) was staging a coup - he wanted to destroy Trevor's lab work to cure the sterility, and to kill Aeon.] The "Relic" - a giant blimp that circled around the city and held the DNA library, was destroyed in the finale. It crashed into the outer wall and exposed the population to the outside jungle world | 
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After the Thin Man (1936) |
The most surprising "whodunit" of the Thin Man series ended with the murderer being the least likely suspect -- spurned former fiancee David Graham (James Stewart); the film was also famous for its surprise ending that was undetected by detective Nick Charles (William Powell) - his socialite wife Nora (Myrna Loy) disclosed her impending maternity on a train as she knitted baby socks -- Nora gently chided him: "And you call yourself a detective" when he finally, after a few moments, realized the significance |
  
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This Ridley Scott film has become famous for its genuinely shocking and memorable "chestburster" scene during a mess table meal aboard the spacefaring freighter Nostromo; when crew-member Kane (John Hurt) experienced a seizure - coughing and choking on green, spaghetti-like strands of food, crewmate Parker (Yaphet Kotto) asked: "What's the matter, man? The food ain't that bad, maybe! What's wrong?"; after Kane was turned around, laid on the table, and held down by the crew, they forced a spoon into his mouth to prevent him from choking on his tongue; then, in a terrifying moment, blood graphically exploded out of the front of his white T-shirt - as he moaned, jerked violently, quivered, and died, the Alien burst from the bloody spot on his chest - the hissing, razor sharp-toothed monster/lizard was literally "born" from the guts of the first infected crewman; a secondary shocking moment was when the crew discovered Science Officer Ash's (Ian Holm) true nature when Parker literally knocked his head off with a fire extinguisher and exclaimed: "It's a robot! Ash is a god-damned robot!" |
 
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All That Jazz (1979) |
The spectacular finale - the film's most outstanding dance/musical number - featured wild, imaginatively-surreal hallucinations that were experienced by near-death, drug-addicted, egotistical New York choreographer-director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) after a heart-attack, as he underwent open-heart cardiac surgery; flirtatious angel of Death Angelique (Jessica Lange) tempted him to leave the world of the living; chorus girls danced around his bed (while he and television host O'Connor Flood (Ben Vereen) sang Bye Bye Life to a heavenly studio audience); this dark finale ended with Gideon in a body bag being zipped up |
 
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American Beauty (1999) |
Although the film opened with voice-over narration of mid-life crisis-suffering suburbanite Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) revealing: "in less than a year, I will be dead", the film's ending was still a shock - when he was shot in the back of the head - not by his real estate agent wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) (who at the same time removed a gun out of the car's glove box and said to herself: "Lester, I refuse to be a victim") - but by his shamed and latent homosexual neighbor, retired Marine Col. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) who had earlier kissed him in the garage (after he thought he had witnessed his son performing oral sex on Lester); the gun slowly appeared on the right side of the frame, and the kitchen wall to the left of the frame was splattered with blood and brains following the gunshot - in his own home, Fitts was shown with blood on his shirt as he put away his gun |
  
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American Psycho (2000) |
Speculation arose over the numerous bloody murders in this film - did they really happen, or were they only the murderous impulses and cocaine-induced fantasies confessed by loathsome 27 year-old narrator/yuppie Wall Street broker and psychopath Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale)? - in his own words, he clearly declared his psychosis amidst the shallow and empty aspects of competitive and consumeristic corporate culture: ("Did you know I'm utterly insane?" and "I think my mask of sanity is about to slip"); the film's twist, in a blatant confession scene, called into question what Bateman had actually committed - as he surrendered to the insanity around him |
  
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Android (1982) |
In the year 2036, obsessed and eccentric, Frankensteinish research scientist Dr. Daniel (Klaus Kinski) in a satellite laboratory on a remote space station in deep space, worked with his 5 year-old shy, assistant prototypical android Max 404 (scriptwriter Don Keith Opper) carrying out illegal research (androids were outlawed on Earth); in his spare time, coming-of-age Max engaged in learning about 20th century humans by playing computer games, watching old movies, reading sex manuals, and listening to rock 'n' roll and soul music; in order to activate and complete a perfect, upgraded blonde-haired female android named Cassandra-1 (Kendra Kirchner) that would render Max obsolete, Dr. Daniel needed the life essence of a real female; when a runaway spaceship with three fugitives including escaped female convict Maggie (Brie Howard) docked at the space station, Daniel wanted to use Maggie as a model and sex-electrical power source; when the sexual chemistry from Maggie and Max sparked life into Cassandra, she came alive and in the film's twist ending, it was revealed that Dr. Daniel was also a robotic android when his head was ripped off by Max and Cassandra during a struggle; then the film concluded with Max and Cassandra returning to Earth posing as Dr. Daniel and his assistant |   
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And Then There Were None (1945) |
In this most-popular of Agatha Christie's detective film adaptations, a mysterious "Mr. U.N. Owen" (read as "Mr. Unknown") had created a remote Indian Island deathtrap; he had invited ten guests (eight strangers and the butler and cook Mr. and Mrs. Rogers) there - all accused of having caused the death of others while escaping punishment; one by one, the guests started dying (off-screen) - by poisoning, drug overdose, stabbing, axing, by a hypodermic needle, a shot to the head, death by a crushing load of bricks, etc. [Note: all of the murders were inspired by the children's song Ten Little Indians, aka Ten Little Niggers in the 1939 novel ("Ten little nigger boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine...")]; Judge Francis J. Quinncannon (Barry Fitzgerald), one of the guests, was revealed as the perpetrator of the killings - and identified as the enigmatic Mr. Owen; Quinncannon had faked his own death (bullet hole in the head) with the help of one of the unsuspecting victims, Dr. Edward Armstrong (Walter Huston); at film's end, Quinncannon offered surviving guest Vera Claythorne (June Duprez) the option of hanging herself with a noose rather than waiting to be hanged publically, and then committed suicide by swallowing poison; only two guests managed to survive: Vera (who had confessed to a crime committed by her sister) and Philip Lombard (actually Charles Morley) (Louis Hayward) who had attended in place of his friend Lombard who had committed suicide when threatened by Owen |
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Angel Heart (1987) |
In this twisting, metaphysically-confusing film, seedy private detective Harold Angel (Mickey Rourke) was hired by the mysterious and enigmatic Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) in the mid-50s to find the whereabouts of missing singer/bandleader Johnny Favourite (nee Liebling) who was a "disappearing act" after signing a contract; Favourite had skipped out without paying - he had actually promised his soul to the Devil in exchange for worldly success, but then tried to renege, cheat the Devil, and hide his identity in someone else; the twist or revelation in the film was that Favourite had transferred his soul through a Satanic ritual into the original Harry Angel's body twelve years earlier (Favourite had randomly picked WWII GI Angel off the street, and assumed Angel's identity, and because of the war was traumatically brain-injured, hospitalized, had extensive facial surgery, and also suffered amnesia so that he was unrecognizable and couldn't remember who he was); Angel was actually Johnny Favourite, the evil man he was being paid to find; and Louis Cyphre was a gloating and knowing 'Lucifer' - waiting for Angel to realize or remember that his true identity was Favourite, and guiding him to commit numerous murders: ("The flesh is weak, Johnny. Only the soul is immortal... and yours belongs to ME!"); during his investigations in New Orleans and delvings into the black arts of voodoo, Angel's witnesses were brutally murdered; Harry was convinced that Johnny was trying to cover his tracks and was framing Harry for the murders - actually, Harry was the murderer of all the people he discovered dead - all people who were involved in Johnny Favourite's coverup; in the shocking ending, it was also revealed that Angel probably killed his own daughter Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet), the daughter of Evangeline Proudfood - a black woman who was rumored to be Johnny's lover (but now dead), after having incestuous (unintentionally) sex with her, by firing his gun into her groin area: (Cop: "You're gonna burn for this, Angel." Harry: "I know. In Hell") - he was then convicted of the murder and doomed to the electric chair; the final scene strongly hinted that Epiphany's toddler son, Harry's grandson, had glowing eyes - hinting that the boy was fathered by 'Lucifer' |
    
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(alphabetical by film title)
Intro
| Part 1 | Part
2 | Part 3 | Part
4 | Part 5 | Part
6 | Part 7 | Part
8 | Part 9 | Part
10 | Part 11 | Part
12 | Part 13
Part 14 | Part
15 | Part 16 | Part
17 | Part 18 | Part
19 | Part 20 | Part
21 | Part 22 | Part
23 | Part 24 | Part
25
Greatest
Movie Twists, Spoilers, and Surprise Endings: Avid filmgoers often
speak about seeking rare movie surprises in the movie-going experience,
such as discovering films that have cunning plot twists, a shocking
surprise ending, a surprise revelation about a particular character,
or some other unknown or unsuspected narrative element. Compiled here
in this comprehensive collection is a detailed set of films with the
greatest movie twists, spoilers, and surprise endings.