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Greatest Movie Twists Part 14 |
 are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films". |
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.
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Greatest Movie Twists Part 14 |
are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films". |
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(alphabetical by film title) - Part 14 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 |
| This melodramatic, film-noirish murder mystery opened with the killing of thin-mustached Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) in his shadowy, dark beach house at night; a gun was heard being fired six times in rhythmic tempo as the victim muttered the film's first word: "Mildred!"; the murderer was unseen - a missing action shot in the film that was not revealed until the end; it was eventually learned that the killer was not prime suspect Mildred Pierce-Beragon (Joan Crawford) who was thoroughly questioned at the police station, but her crazed and impassioned daughter Veda Pierce (Ann Blyth) who was having a long-term, surreptitious affair with her own mother's husband - but became enraged when Monte called her a "rotten little tramp" and denied loving her; Veda was booked in the police station as her mother looked on, in the film's conclusion |
  
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Million Dollar Baby (2004) |
31 year-old white trash waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) was trained to become a boxer by the reluctant gym owner of LA's The Hit Pit Frankie Dunn (director Clint Eastwood), who was estranged from his own daughter; in the film's conclusion - one that contained a controversial and dramatic plot twist, she was winning a middleweight championship title bout when she was sabotaged by foul play -- her opponent Billie the Blue Bear (real-life boxer Lucia Rijker) struck her with an illegal blow when the referee wasn't looking -- sending her into a corner stool and breaking her neck; left with a spinal neck injury that made her a quadriplegic, she was bedridden and had to have her legs amputated due to muscle atrophy and bed sores; knowing that she wanted to die (she tried killing herself by biting her tongue and bleeding to death), her irascible but caring trainer Frankie entered her room and told her the meaning of the Gaelic phrase on her green fight robe: "Mo chuisle" ("Pulse of my heart") that crowds had chanted; after having reflected deeply over the issue of her mercy-killing, and having prayed and sought advice from a Catholic priest, he then decided to assist her in suicide -- he removed her breathing tube and injected her with adrenaline to cause her instant death; the entire film was a 'narrated' letter Frank's friend, colleague and ex-boxer Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman) - the film's narrator - was writing to Frankie's estranged daughter about her father's character |
  
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Minority Report (2003) |
In this mystery-thriller's conclusion, it was discovered that the Department of Pre-Crime's boss Lamar Burgess (Max Von Sydow) had killed Anne Lively (Jessica Harper), but in such a deceptive way that the psychic pre-cogs (who forecasted/envisioned future crimes) weren't able to report that he was the murderer; the motive for the killing was that Anne had wanted to remove her fragile pre-cog daughter Agatha (Samantha Morton) from the Pre-Crime flotation tanks, and Burgess wanted to prevent that from shutting down his sinister, futuristic law enforcement organization; Burgess revealed that he was the guilty murderer by abruptly shooting his dedicated federal oversight Justice Department detective Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) who knew too much - to set up and imprison Pre-Crime cop Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) by using his gun, and by telling Anderton's ex-wife Lara (Kathryn Morris) that Lively had died by drowning - something that he shouldn't have known if he had no knowledge of her death as he claimed; when imprisoned Anderton told Burgess that he knew about the killing - using as proof Agatha's pre-vision of Burgess killing Ann Lively - Burgess committed suicide; the film ended with Anderton's voice-over about the demise of the 'experiment': "In 2054, the six-year Pre-Crime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, although police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location, a place where they could find relief from their gifts, a place where they could live out their lives in peace"; and Anderton and his ex-wife were reunited and she was expecting; another twist in the film was possible -- the earlier line of dialogue by prison guard Gideon (Tim Blake Nelson) to imprisoned cop Anderton hinted that the final favorable resolution of events in the film were just a dream and wish-fulfillment on Anderton's part, or that the entire film before had been Anderton's dream: "They say you have visions, that your life flashes before your eyes, that all your dreams come true" |
     
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Mission: Impossible (1996) |
In this Brian De Palma action thriller, American agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) was sent in a mission to Prague to stop a traitor from stealing the Non-Official Cover (NOC) list (of all the agents in Eastern Europe), accompanied by an IMG spy squad composed of leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), and others including Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez) and Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott-Thomas); Ethan was the sole survivor of the failed mission, and therefore accused of being the rogue double agent - the real target of the mission, so he went on the run with Phelps' widow Claire (Emmanuelle Beart) to find the identity of the real mole and clear his name; the plot twist was that Phelps - who was actually alive - was the rogue agent; Ethan was able to record Phelps confessing to his duplicity, causing an enraged Phelps to shoot Claire dead (who had revealed herself to also be in on her husband's plot when Ethan fooled her by wearing a Phelps mask), although Phelps met his end when his getaway helicopter was blown up with explosive chewing gum and he died in the falling wreckage that crushed him into the train tracks |
 
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The Mist (2007) (aka Stephen King's The Mist) |
The controversial ending in which a group of five survivors were in a car that ran out of gas in the midst of a monster-ridden mist on a winding forested road; in the film's final few minutes - a sadistic, tacked-on, bleak and sacrificial ending (not in the Stephen King novella), widowed artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) realized that there were only four bullets left, so he opted to mercy kill (with bullet shots to the head) his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble), newfound love interest Amanda Dunfrey (Laurie Holden) and two elderly survivors Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) and Irene (Frances Sternhagen), leaving himself alive; he then stepped out of the car and screamed in anguish for one of the unseen blood-thirsty creatures to kill him -- but then a military caravan of tanks and trucks pulled up, in a deus ex machina moment, torching the remaining creatures and helping any survivors, causing David to collapse in dazed disbelief at the pointlessness of his inane sacrifice |  
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Mulholland Dr. (2001) |
The confusing aspect of this David Lynch film was that roughly 115 minutes of the film (the first part) was an idealistically-portrayed and romanticized dream by Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts), imagining herself as Betty Elms (also Watts) -- a perky, strongly-willed, blonde ingenue and wannabe newcomer to Los Angeles (the city of dreams) from Canada, who won a jitterbug contest (during the credits) that allowed her to travel to Hollywood: ("Oh! I can't believe it!...and now I'm in this dream-place"); in the first part of the film - her dream, she took charge of a relationship with amnesiac brunette 'Rita' (Laura Elena Harring); then the dream ended when a blue box found in Betty's purse was opened with a blue key that a now-blonde Rita found in her purse (after Betty disappeared) -- a clue that the two identities of Betty and Rita were somehow inter-connected; when Diane was commanded by the Cowboy (Monty Montgomery) to wake up from her dream, the remainder of the story in the film's second part was told in flashback; it was revealed that Diane was actually a jaded, would-be actress/groupie who was having a lesbian affair with bi-sexual 'Rita'; Diane was jilted when a blonde named Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George), the real up-and-coming star in Hollywood, chose to be with the casting Director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) who had chosen her for a part (due to mobster pressures); jealously, Diane hired a hitman at Winkie's diner to kill Camilla (now played by Harring) - and then fantasized how life could have been better; when she saw a blue key signifying that the "done deal" was accomplished, the guilt-ridden Diane went into her apartment's bedroom and suicidally shot herself in the head; interpretations may vary, but it's entirely possible that the parallel characters of Diane/Betty and Rita/Camilla were really aspects of the same person - and that Diane's death also meant the death of Rita |
     
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Murder by Death (1976) |
In this plot-twisting, comedic 'who-dun-it' tale, five famous literary detectives all with slightly different names -- Catalina Island Police Inspector Sidney Wang (Charlie Chan) (Peter Sellers) and No. 3 son Willie ((Richard Narita), New York detectives Dick and Dora Charleston (Nick and Nora Charles) (David Niven and Maggie Smith), Belgian Inspector Milo Perrier (Hercule Poirot) (James Coco) with his chauffeur Marcel (James Cromwell), amateur sleuth Miss Jessie Marbles (Miss Marple) (Elsa Lanchester) with her nurse Miss Withers (Estelle Winwood), and hard-nosed PI Sam Diamond (Sam Spade) (Peter Falk) and "dame" secretary Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan) -- were summoned to an old mansion for dinner and to win $1,000,000 by eccentric millionaire mastermind/host Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) if they could solve a murder to be committed within 24 hours; each came up with a completely ridiculous solution to the stabbing murder of Twain himself that was told to the blind butler Jamesir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness) - originally thought to have been dead; by film's end, it was revealed that there was no murder and no Twain; the butler removed his mask to reveal that he was Twain -- and then Twain removed his mask to reveal that he was Yetta - the "deaf/dumb" maid/cook (Nancy Walker) who was behind the entire scheme to make the detectives look like fools; she sought reader's revenge for the outlandish contrived plot endings in their novels - and laughed maniacally at the end after they had all left -- [Note: One might ask if Yetta was just another mask, or if Yetta had actually murdered both the butler and Twain] |
 
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Murder, My Sweet (1944) |
In this great Raymond Chandler detective thriller told mostly in flashback, flirtatious and slinky femme fatale blonde Mrs. Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor), who was married to elderly millionaire Mr. Grayle (Miles Mander), was revealed to be the mysterious Velma Valento - the object of private detective Philip Marlowe's (Dick Powell) film-long search that he was conducting for love-struck ex-con Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki); she was involved with the murder of effeminate gigolo Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) in a plot surrounding an allegedly stolen jade necklace; the film ended with a violent conclusion in a beach house when Helen was shot to death by her husband; shortly afterwards, both Moose and Mr. Grayle exchanged lethal shots as well - scorching and blinding Marlowe's eyes in the process |
  
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Murder on the Orient Express (1974) |
Famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) delivered his findings at the film's end to the assembled group of suspects aboard the Orient Express: no one person had killed callous, millionaire American businessman/Mafioso Mr. Samuel Edward Ratchett/Cassetti (Richard Widmark) - everyone was guilty ("A repulsive murderer has been murdered repulsively, and, perhaps, deservedly"); all twelve suspects had taken a turn at stabbing him in his train berth between midnight and 2AM (there were right-handed and left-handed stabbings, some lethal and some not, and he had also been poisoned) -- each to avenge his notorious, unpunished 1930 murder of an American baby in the Armstrong family five years earlier; each of the murderers was associated in some way with the Armstrong family; the girl named Daisy Armstrong had been kidnapped from her home in Long Island NY, held for $200,000 ransom, and then was found dead; as a result of her death, her mother died, prematurely giving birth to a stillborn child; her husband Colonel Hamish Armstrong shot himself, and their suspected French maid Paulette also committed suicide; rather than charge all of the suspects with murder, Poirot provided another simpler solution although false -- that the murderer was a rival Mafioso, who killed Ratchett before leaving the train |
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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
