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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 17 |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 17 |
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Note: The films that are marked
with a yellow star |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Spoilers and
Surprise Endings |
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| Film Title | Brief Scene Description | Example |
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The Player (1992)
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The subtle opening and closing shots of this film revealed the underlying joke of the premise -- the movie was a 'film-within-a-film' about how the film came to be (the murder and cover-up of a disgruntled screenwriter by a callous, insincere, back-stabbing, shallow, and egotistical film producer); the opening provided a clue with the shot of a movie set getting ready to shoot the film, and the clack of the slate signaling the start; it told about how Hollywood producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) was being harrassed and blackmailed by a mysterious and abusive screenwriter whose script he had rejected; during an altercation in a movie theatre parking lot alley with the alleged scripter named David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), Griffin accidentally killed him, and then fell in love with Kahane's erotic and artistic Icelandic girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Sacchi) -- but he killed the wrong man!; the film's plot about murder was the story that was pitched by Griffin; in the film's clever and happy ending, Griffin drove home while hearing a pitch by a mysterious psychotic writer of a movie called The Player - about the movie just seen ("It's a Hollywood ending, Griff. He marries the dead writer's girl and they live happily ever after"); he went home to his pregnant wife -- June (was she real or Griffin's fantasy?) and literally got away with murder - with a mocking of the audience with a subtle and faintly-heard: "Nyah, nyah, nyah-NYAH-nyah" sung by an infant in the score |
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The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
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This noir's shock ending occurred when reconciled lovers Frank Chambers (John Garfield) and Cora Smith (Lana Turner) were struck by tragedy; Frank, distracted during a 'kiss that comes from life' while he was driving, ran off the road, killing Cora ('with a kiss that comes from death') in a fatal auto accident; Cora's lifeless arm fell off the seat, and a tube of lipstick slowly dropped to the floor of the car and onto the ground; Frank was charged and convicted with the murder (a newspaper headline screamed: "GRAND JURY INDICTS CHAMBERS AS SLAYER: Killed Wife In Bogus Auto Accident, Charged to Face Murder Trial - Sensational Cora Smith Case Has Aftermath in Action against Husband"), and sentenced to death; when Frank protested his innocence in killing Cora: ("I didn't do it, I didn't do it...I'm not going to go in the gas chamber for killing her!), DA Kyle Sackett (Leon Ames) informed him that evidence of Frank's complicity in the murder of Cora's husband Nick (Cecil Kellaway) was discovered, and that being acquitted of Cora's murder would be futile; Frank was relieved, although he faced execution for a crime he didn't commit: "Father, you were right. It all works out. I guess God knows more about these things than we do. Somehow or other, Cora paid for Nick's life with hers. And now I'm going to. Father, would you send up a prayer for me and Cora, and if you could find it in your heart, make it that we're together, wherever it is?" |
  
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Predator 2 (1990)
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In this futuristic sequel film's surprise ending, a group or clan of other predators unexpectedly materialized out of thin air to confront Los Angeles Lieutenant cop Michael Harrigan (Danny Glover), after he had killed the brutal Predator who had been engaged in a final bloody battle; outnumbered, Harrigan dropped his weapon and muttered: "Okay, who's next?", but these predators did not attack; instead, the eldest rewarded Harrigan with a prize -- an antique pistol from the 18th century; they let him live, while carrying off Harrigan's slain foe, and then left in their spaceship |
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Presumed Innocent (1990)
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In the film's final minutes, wife
Barbara (Bonnie Bedelia) delivered a shocking revelation to accused (and
acquitted) deputy DA Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) that she had killed
his assistant Carolyn Polhemus (Greta Sacchi), due to jealousy regarding
their clandestine affair; she admitted her guilt to him when he discovered
one of his hammers (the murder weapon) covered in dried blood and blonde
hair; she confessed: ("...You understand what happened had
to happen. It couldn't turn out any other way. A woman's depressed with
herself, with life, with her husband who made life possible for her 'til
he was bewitched by another woman. A destroyer. Abandoned, like someone
left for dead, she plans her suicide. Until the dream begins. In the dream,
the destroyer is destroyed. That's a dream worth living for...")
- she described how she had committed the murder and made it look like
a rape; Rusty's voice-over ended the film: "The murder of Carolyn
Polhemus remains unsolved. It is a practical impossibility to try two
people for the same crime. Even if it wasn't, I couldn't take his mother
from my son. I am a prosecutor. I have spent my life in the assignment
of blame. With all deliberation and intent, I reached for Carolyn. I cannot
pretend it was an accident. I reached for Carolyn, and set off that insane
mix of rage and lunacy that led one human being to kill another. There
was a crime. There was a victim. And there is punishment" |
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Primal Fear (1996)
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In this legal thriller, ambitious, slick high-profile defense lawyer Martin Vail (Richard Gere) was hired (pro bono) to defend stuttering Kentucky altar boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) who was accused of viciously murdering Chicago's Archbishop Richard Rushman (Stanley Anderson) (later revealed to be involved in sexual abuse and corruption) in his own residence; during one intense cross-examination in the seemingly impossible case, Stampler revealed that he suffered from multiple personality disorder - and his psychotic alter-ego (named Roy) erupted and attacked the Assistant District Attorney prosecutor Janet Venable (Laura Linney), Vail's ex-girlfriend; eventually, Vail was able to clear his client on the grounds of insanity; the shocking twist of the film was revealed after the trial's conclusion -- as Aaron congratulated his lawyer, he unwittingly revealed that he was only pretending to be insane and had actually premeditatively murdered the priest ("...cuttin' up that son of a bitch Rushman? That was just a f--kin' work of art!"); also, he admitted that Roy was his real personality (and in charge) and that "there never was an Aaron, counselor" |
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The Professionals (1966)
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After the four-man mercenary team (Lee Marvin as munitions expert Henry "Rico" Fardan, Woody Strode as tracker and bow/arrow expert Jake Sharp, Robert Ryan as horse specialist Hans Ehrengard, and Burt Lancaster as dynamiter Bill Dolworth) completed their duty to rescue the kidnapped wife Maria (Claudia Cardinale) of Texas railroad tycoon/millionaire Joe Grant (Ralph Bellamy) from Mexican revolutionaries led by the guerrilla leader Jesus Raza (Jack Palance), a character reversal was revealed - Maria actually loved the Mexican outlaw and the "professionals' abandoned their "bad deal" mission as Rico explained to Grant: "We made a contract to save a lady from a nasty old kidnapper. Who turns out to be you" - they allowed Maria to return to Raza |
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This film had a stunning and unexpected (and terrifying) murder of the presumed heroine Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) only 48 minutes into the film; after settling into her Bates Motel (Room 1) following her theft of money from her Phoenix real estate office, Marion decided to rectify her crime by returning the funds; to cleanse herself, she stepped into the shower where she was brutally stabbed by a silhouetted figure brandishing a long knife; in the famous shocking finale, it was revealed that effeminate, shy motel manager Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) was actually the murderous "Mother" who dressed in his mother's clothes; the police psychiatrist Dr. Richmond (Simon Oakland) explained how a "disturbed" Norman had an incestuously possessive and jealous love for his mother, so he poisoned both her and her lover after he discovered them in bed together ten years earlier; to wipe clean and obliterate the unbearable, intolerable crime of matricide from his conscience and consciousness, a remorseful, devoted and loyal Norman developed a split personality; he also dug up and stole her body, and used his taxidermist skills to preserve and stuff her corpse (she was revealed in a chair as a dessicated skeleton), keep her 'alive,' and then he would ease his loneliness by lying with her in bed ("A boy's best friend is his mother..."); when attracted to Marion , Norman completely was transformed into his mother and became jealously and pathologically mad -- his "mother" side, which was escalated to full reality, stabbed Marion to death; by film's end, Norman's two personalities fused and he became his dominant mother's final victim -- completely still, he stared into space within his box-like jail cell, wrapped and insulated from the world and huddled in a blanket; a grinning smile slowly crept over his face - subliminally superimposed by and dissolving into the grinning skull of his mother's mummified corpse, as his voice-over intoned: "I'm not even gonna swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They'll see. They'll see and they'll know and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly'"; the last image was the dredging of the swamp - Marion's car with her body and the almost-$40,000 in the trunk was hauled trunk-first from the muck by a heavy clanking chain on a winch |
    
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A Pure Formality (1994, It/Fr) (aka (Una Pura Formalità or Une Pure Formalite)
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In this tense battle of wills psycho-drama about the questioning of a murder suspect regarding a mysterious gunshot-killing of an unnamed and unidentified victim in the nearby, a muddied, memory-impaired and mentally-deranged Blaise February (Gerard Depardieu) was cross-examined by a local police Inspector (Roman Polanski) on a rainy night in rural France; confusing flashbacks, disconnected images in montage, and other inconsistences in the suspect's ever-changing story were revealed during the questioner's attempts to learn the truth and confirm the man's claim that he was a celebrated novelist/playwright named Onoff; in the ambiguous, existentialist, Twilight Zone-like ending, it was hinted that the suspect was experiencing an after-life nightmare - trying to forget that he had committed suicide |
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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
Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
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.
are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 
