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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 2 |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 2 |
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Note: The films that are marked
with a yellow star |
| Greatest
Movie Twists, Spoilers and Surprise Endings |
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| Film Title | Brief Scene Description | Example |
| Arlington Road (1999)
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Widowed college history professor Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) became convinced that his nine year-old son Grant (Spencer Treat Clark) had been kidnapped by his white supremacist, structural engineer surburban Virginia neighbor Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins) - a dangerous extremist; when he saw the boy in a van heading towards FBI headquarters, he drove his car through the barricades and into the underground parking lot of the FBI building; he discovered - too late - that his neighbor had set him up and duped him with a destructive bomb planted in the trunk -- which exploded and killed him, and wounded and killed many others; the resultant news coverage blamed him as the criminal, although the real criminal was his terrorist psychotic neighbor; this film's twist ending was similar to the one in The Parallax View (1974) |  |
| Audition (1999, Jp.)
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A shocking transformation and character reversal was the almost-unbelievable plot twist in this film: seemingly-demure, virginal and dutifully-humble 24 year-old 'auditioned' bride-to-be Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) turned into a vengeful, sadistic torturer who exacted her revenge on middle-aged, lonely widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi); she first drugged and temporarily paralyzed him (with a syringe), and then terrorized him with acupuncture needles (stuck into his eyelids) and piano wire (used to amputate or wire-saw off his left foot), before she herself broke her neck (and became paralyzed from the neck down) after a fall down stairs |   |
Back to the Future (1985)
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The funny twist ending when a panicked Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) suddenly returned from the future year of 2015 in his De Lorean time machine vehicle, shouting: "Marty! You've gotta come back with me!" and forced reunited teenagers Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and girlfriend Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) into his car, as Marty asked: "Wait a minute, Doc. What are you talking about? What happens to us in the future? What do we become, assholes or something?" Doc responded with his worries about their future children: "No, no, no, no, no, Marty, both you and Jennifer turn out fine. It's your kids, Marty. Something has gotta be done about your kids!" As Doc charged up the De Lorean, Marty noted: "Hey, Doc, we better back up, we don't have enough road to get up to 88." Doc smugly replied with a famous line: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!" The De Lorean unexpectedly levitated into the air, then zoomed down the street, turned, and flew directly into the camera |   
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| Bad Education (2004, Sp.) (aka La Mala Educacion)
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Pedro Almodovar's noirish drama-thriller included a Hitchcock-like, Vertigo (1958)-inspired twisting identity plot in its 'story within a script' in the film; the major plot line was that successful Spanish filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) was visited by his first-love interest -- his grammar school friend who had become a present-day writer named Ignacio Rodriguez (Gael García Bernal) (a cross-dressing transvestite with stage name Angel - a 'femme fatale' and pre-operative trans-sexual for sex reassignment surgery); Ignacio had brought him a short story/script called "The Visit" about when they were in school and had been abused by pedophilic Catholic School headmaster-priest Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho); a dark secret (and double-identity) was then revealed: "Ignacio" - who had been killed four years earlier - was being impersonated by his younger heterosexual brother Juan; Juan was assuming Ignacio's identity in order to seduce Enrique into having him star in his new film based on Ignacio's story; during filming on the set, another double-identity was revealed -- Senor Manuel Berenguer (Lluís Homar) -- actually Father Manolo with a new name/identity, described how he and Juan had teamed up to murder the real Ignacio (played by real-life trans-sexual Francisco "Fran" Boira in flashbacks), a harsh, unlikeable "femme" fatale who was blackmailing the priest about his molestation, by providing him with pure heroin for an overdose; in the coda to the film, Father Manolo was killed by a car driven by Juan |   |
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In the film's final scene, prime suspect novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) made love to police detective/lover Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) - in the midst of their coupling, she suddenly came down on top of him - her whole body stretched across his - he was motionless. The film teased the audience: was he still alive? had he been pierced with an icepick? When she rolled to the outer side of the bed, she half-turned and twisted around - was there something in her hand? As they kissed more passionately as she pulled him down to her body, the camera slowly descended down her side of the bed; when it lowered to the floor, the camera came to rest on a close-up of the murder weapon - a thin, steel-handled icepick; the finale of the ambiguous film arbitrarily left the inexplicable question of the guilt and/or innocence of the main character still up in the air --? |   |
| Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
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The plot twist/spoiler in this animated version of the Batman tale was that the vigilante villain Phantasm was not Carl Beaumont (voice of Stacy Keach), but his red-haired, blue-eyed daughter Andrea (voice of Dana Delany) - using his voice and assuming his identity to exact revenge on mob bosses and The Joker (voice of Mark Hamill) who were responsible for her father's death; she also shockingly rejected lover Bruce Wayne/Batman's (voice of Kevin Conroy) plea to forsake revenge and start a life with him |  |
| Being John Malkovich (1999)
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In this inventive and original film's surprise twist ending, it was discovered that desperate puppeteer and file clerk Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) had used the mysterious portal to try to "re-enter" John Malkovich's (Himself) body in an effort to win back sexy former lover and co-worker Maxine Lund (Catherine Keener); (earlier, both Craig and his wife Lotte Schwartz (Cameron Diaz) had used the portal to have sex with Maxine via Malkovich); Craig became trapped in the mind/body of Emily - Malkovich's daughter, the new host, who was conceived by his former dowdy bisexual wife Lotte when she was "inside" Malkovich; Craig was unable to leave Emily's subconscious because he entered after midnight, and he found himself powerless watching (through the eyes of Emily) as Maxine lived happily ever after with her new partner - Lotte; he kept repeating to Maxine: "Maxine! Maxine! I love you, Maxine! Oh, look away! Look away! Look away...look away...look away...look away..." | 
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The film ended with a mystical, incongruous conclusion (accompanied by off/on-screen voices) at the memorial funeral of Benjamin Turnbull Rand (Melvyn Douglas), with one of the pallbearers discussing the protagonist's bid for the Presidency: "I do believe, gentlemen, if we want to hold on to the Presidency, our one and only chance is Chauncey Gardiner") when totally innocent idiot Chance-Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers) blithely stepped onto a pond and literally walked on the water - he tested the depth of the water with the length of his umbrella - and then continued walking away from the camera; the final words of the film, delivered by the President (Jack Warden) at the funeral, were: "Life is a state of mind" |  |
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
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In this first sequel to the long-running series, in the final shocking concluding scene among telepathic, post-apocalyptic mutants (with radiation-scarred faces) who worshipped an atomic bomb on an altar in St. Patrick's Cathedral, a gunshot wounded and dying Taylor (Charlton Heston) destroyed the planet Earth (with a blinding white explosion) by activating the 'Bomb Almighty' - the ICMB nuclear missile - a doomsday Alpha/Omega bomb - with his outstretched hand hitting the trigger/control switch (similar to the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)); the film closed with the following voice-over narration (uncredited Paul Frees): "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead" | 
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The Big Clock (1948)
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After the murder of blonde mistress Pauline York (Rita Johnson) of clock-obsessed, ruthless, possibly homosexual, detestable New York Crimeways Magazine boss Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton) by jealously striking her on the head with a phallic-shaped, heavy metal sundial, his media executive and magazine journalist George Stroud (Ray Milland) (identified elusively by Pauline as "Jefferson Randolph" to protect him) was framed with the help of Janoth's right-hand man Steve Hagen (George Macready). In the ensuing cat-and-mouse game to find the killer (who was witnessed accompanying Pauline during the evening by many individuals), Stroud realized that all the clues pointed to him as the prime suspect although he attempted to steer the manhunt away from himself - with additional revelations, he was able to accuse Hagen as the killer in order to smoke out Janoth - this caused a raging Janoth to shoot Hagen (after he confessed: "Janoth killed Pauline") and then fall to his own death down the building's elevator shaft in his attempted escape |
  
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The finale to the twisted plot with multiple murders tied up many loose ends; hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) correctly laid out his suspicions to gambler Eddie Mars (John Ridgely) that unstable, nymphomaniac Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) had killed her father General Sternwood's (Charles Waldron) missing companion Regan, out of jealousy over an imaginary relationship between Regan and Mrs. Mona Mars (Peggy Knudsen); Carmen's loyal sister Vivian (Lauren Bacall) chose to turn to her gambling acquaintance Mars to have him cover up the matter and "protect" her sister Carmen from guilt - and to prevent her sick father from any further suffering; with Mars' cold-blooded hired killer Canino (Bob Steele), Regan's body was hidden and the deception was set up; however, high-class blackmailer Mars also forced an overly-protective, well-intentioned Vivian to part with her gambling winnings and possibly offer sexual favors - and to keep police from learning the truth and investigating, he went even further by hiding his wife Mrs. Mars at Huck's Garage, to make it look like she had run away with Regan during their entirely conceivable affair; the uncovering of the web of secrets was followed by the murder of Mars by his own henchmen when Marlowe forced him to run outside Geiger's house (as he shouted vainly: "Don't shoot! It's me, Mars!") where his own men were laying in wait for Marlowe; Mars' death - signaled by bullet holes across the door and his collapse at the door, allowed Marlowe to protect Carmen (who was sent "away" to an institution) and Vivian by pinning the murder of Regan on Mars; and Marlowe was able to end up with Vivian |     |
(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 
