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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 23 |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 23 |
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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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Time Bandits (1981, UK)
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In this Terry Gilliam fantasy film, young protagonist hero Kevin (Craig Warnock) journeyed through time and space with six dwarf thieves (who appeared in his bedroom closet with a stolen master map showing magical time portals), allowing them to visit different time periods in history as "time bandits" acquiring riches; they were in competition with the tyrannical Source of All Evil (David Warner) for the map but were aided by the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) to defeat the Evil Genius, although the satanic figure was vanquished, a smoldering remnant of "concentrated evil" was left over; once back in his own home, Kevin realized that his adventures weren't a dream, and that the remaining part of Evil was in his burning house! -- he yelled a warning at his self-centered, materialistic parents (David Daker and Sheila Fearn) to not touch the chunk of evil: "Mom! Dad! Don't touch it. It's evil!", but they didn't heed his warning and exploded; Kevin was left alone, softly asking himself: "Mom? Dad?" as the camera pulled back into space to reveal The Map (of the Known Universe) - which was rolled up and pulled away |
 
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To Die For (1995)
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In this thriller and media satire, icy blonde TV weathercaster Suzanne Stone Maretto (Nicole Kidman) seduced dim-witted infatuated loser teen Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix) to kill her sweet-natured but obstructive Italian-American bartender husband Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon) on their first anniversary; later, Suzanne was killed (off-screen) by a "Hollywood producer" (a cameo by director David Cronenberg) who was hired by her husband's father Joe (Dan Hedaya) (with Mafia connections); she was later seen dead in a lingering closeup under the ice of a frozen pond where she was deposited; ironically, Jimmy's unassuming friend Lydia Mertz (Alison Folland), whom Suzanne always criticized as trailer trash, acquired fleeting fame for telling her side of the story on TV talk shows such as Oprah and Phil Donahue (in her own words: "But it's really somethin' when you think that I'm the one who's gonna be famous - Suzanne would die if she knew"); in an ironic scene immediately before the credits, Larry's sister Janice (Illeana Douglas) practiced her ice skating on the frozen lake (above the location of the frozen body) to the tune of Donovan's "The Season of the Witch" |
  
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Total Recall (1990)
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This violent science-fiction action thriller's premise was that a construction worker Doug Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) took a vacation with a strange travel agency named Rekall, Inc. - a 'virtual' trip to the planet of Mars; in the film's ambiguous ending when evil mercenary Vilos Colhaagen (Ronny Cox), Quaid, and beautiful love interest Melina (Rachel Ticotin) were spewed out into the airless atmosphere of the reddish planet of Mars - and their eyes bulged and faces swelled due to the lack of oxygen; the scene faded to a brilliant white as Melina and Quaid kissed -- was everything a psychotic delusion, a dream, the result of psychological trauma, or an implant - or did Quaid get lobotomized? |
 
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Trois Couleurs: Rouge (1994, Fr./Pol.)
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The last film of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy told of the emerging soulmate friendship and connectedness between a fresh-faced, melancholy, delicate young Geneva Switzerland model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) and a cynically-indifferent, lonely, retired, unnamed Judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant); in the surprise ending, Kieslowski attempted to provide witty closure and harmony to his entire trilogy -- a news report on the Judge's television announced that there was a ferry disaster in the English Channel; surprisingly, the apparent survivors were characters from all three films, including Valentine and her young aspiring judge neighbor Auguste (Jean- Pierre Lorit) (a mirror character to the older judge in this film) - this karmic conclusion appeared to reinforce how things usually happen for a reason |
 
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12 Monkeys (1995)
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In this circular time travel story, time-traveling convict James Cole (Bruce Willis) was sent back in time from 2035 to 1996 to find a cure for a horrible virus that had killed billions of people and forced humanity to live underground (the surface of the Earth was unlivable); when his time travel went awry and he ended up in 1990, he was placed in a mental institution where he met eccentric, insane environmental activist Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), son of prominent virologist Dr. Goines (Christopher Plummer); by film's end, it was revealed that Goines and his underground organization called the "Army of the 12 Monkeys" were never the cause of the worldwide plague - it was instead just "a bunch of dumb kids playing revolutionaries"; in the repeated dreams/memories of Cole as a young boy (Joseph Melito), he saw red pony-tailed bio-terrorist Dr. Goines' assistant Dr. Peters (David Morse) gunned down by airport police; however, it was revealed that Cole was actually witnessing his own death (as he tried to stop red-haired, "apocalyptic nut" Dr. Peters with his sticker-covered carry-on suitcase containing the virus from boarding an airplane), and the grieving woman was Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) - his newfound lover from the 1990s; the film ended with Dr. Peters on an airplane seated next to a female scientist of the future (who introduced herself as Jones (Carol Florence) "in insurance" - this was interpreted as 'insurance' for the future if James failed to collect a pure sample of the virus) |
  
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The Two Jakes (1990)
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The main plot device in this convoluted sequel to Chinatown (1974) directed by actor Jack Nicholson, and set in post-war Los Angeles, was an incriminating wire recording of a tryst that wasn't supposed to be fatal. It was recorded by LA private detective J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) for his client: real estate developer of B&B Homes "Jake" Berman (Harvey Keitel), to 'incriminate' Berman's 'unfaithful' wife Kitty (Meg Tilly) who was having an affair in the Bird of Paradise Motel in Redondo Beach with Berman's own real-estate business associate Bodine. In the opening scene, Berman shot Mark Bodine (John Hackett) in cold-blood as he fled into the motel's bathroom. In the tape recording, a mysterious reference to Katherine Mulwray during the two adulterers stirred up memories of the past for Gittes. [Katherine Mulwray, the blonde teenaged daughter of the earlier film's tragically-killed heroine Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) - Jake's former client and lover, was sired by incestuous rape by her tycoon father Noah Cross (John Huston).] By film's end, it was revealed that Gittes had been set up in the murder-for-profit scheme. The murder could not be considered justifiable homicide because Berman had deliberately killed his partner - he had a gun conveniently planted under a chair delivered to the room - in order to commit pre-meditated murder of Bodine, a capital crime. For business reasons, partner Bodine's will excluded his sexpot widowed wife, Lillian Bodine (Madeleine Stowe) and named "surviving partner" Berman the sole beneficiary of B&B Homes' enormously profitable real estate business (tract housing in San Fernando Valley). Her attorney Chuck Newty (Frederic Forrest) stated that she was entitled to her husband's wealth if the murder could be proven to be pre-meditated. Did Berman plan the murder with his wife Kitty in order to collect money from the deceased partner's share? - if true, this would also make Gittes an unwitting accomplice to murder. During convoluted developments in the plot, Gittes discovered that Berman's tract housing subdevelopment, located in an orange grove (the same irrigated location that Gittes visited in the original film), was also being surreptitiously drilled for its vast underground resources by greedy oil baron Earl Rawley (Richard Farnsworth), Bodine's business associate. In a preliminary court public hearing regarding the recording, the tape was played, but the evidence was obviously tampered with by Gittes to hide Berman's cold-blooded guilt and to protect Mrs. Berman ("splashing Katherine Mulwray's past all over the LA Times wouldn't do anybody any good"); red-haired Kitty was actually the elusive blonde Katherine Mulwray - which Gittes figured out when he realized that she dyed her hair red; through various legal and title documents Katherine was shown to be the original owner of the orange grove and of the mineral rights to the subdivision land, but was forced to sign over a quit-claim deed to the land only to criminal nightclub owner Michael 'Mickey Nice' Weisskopf (Rubén Blades), Berman's gangster associate, on July 17, 1946. Bodine was blackmailing Berman about the real identity of his wife, threatening to expose her if she didn't sign over the mineral rights - and Bodine was also, as Berman jealously admitted, engaged in a real affair: "He was f--king my wife". That was the real motivation in killing Bodine. Gittes perjured himself in court to protect the daughter of the woman that he was unable to protect in the first film. Berman also divulged to Gittes that he was terminally ill (with advanced syphilis viewed on X-rays and under a microscope, unsuccessfully treated with radium implants which were also causing cancer) - but had not told his wife Kitty about his condition. To ensure that she would definitely inherit his real-estate fortune (his intention all along) - he deliberately and suicidally blew himself up and ended his life in one of the development's tract homes by lighting a cigarette in the volatile, natural gas-filled environment after a shaky earthquake. In the film's final scene, Gittes spoke to Kitty/Katherine about their mutual pasts as she left his office, in the final line of dialogue: "It [the past] never goes away" (Jake's belated answer to her earlier question: "Does it ever go away, the past?") |
          
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Unbreakable (2000)
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In writer/producer/director M. Night Shyamalan's suspense thriller, security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) was approached by the mysterious and fragile Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), aka "Mr. Glass" (because of his bone disorder), after miraculously walking away unhurt and the only survivor from a train wreck; Dunn was told a far-fetched theory by Price - an eccentric comic-book collector/dealer - that he was, in reality, an incarnation of a modern-day invincible super-hero with special supernatural powers and paranormal crime-fighting abilities; in the film's surprise, preposterous twist ending, it was revealed in Price's Limited Edition comic store, that the mad genius Price was responsible for the massive train wreck (as well as a hotel fire and plane crash) -- he had arranged for these disasters in the hopes of finding someone who was "unbreakable" and could survive the catastrophes; although Price appeared to be vulnerable, he was instead an insane super-villain and Dunn's arch-nemesis; the film ended with Dunn notifying police who arrested Price and committed him to an institution (revealed in a caption) |
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The Usual Suspects (1995)
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The secret identity of manipulative, crippled con-man Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey) was revealed in the clever twist ending: during a lengthy interrogation by US Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), the two-bit crook Kint told a convoluted story about his involvement regarding a fire and massacre on a docked ship at an LA harbor during a heist of a Turkish drug shipment, as he was the sole survivor of the botched raid among a group of misfit criminals; as the crippled Kint was released (after receiving 'Keyser Soze's' gold watch and gold lighter --another clue!) and limped away from the police station, his hand deformity and his limp suddenly disappeared from his stride; Kujan simultaneously realized - upon breaking a coffee cup and other trivial clues - that Kint was, in fact, the greatly-feared, legendary criminal mastermind and kingpin Keyser Soze of Kint's own extraordinarily-fabricated story; to his stunned amazement, Kujan noticed that many of the elements of Kint's preposterous story were found on the bulletin board behind his desk: (i.e., the coffee mug logo for Kobayashi was the same name as a blackmailing lawyer in Kint's account; the bulletin board was made by Quartet in Skokie, Illinois, referred to in Kint's story as a "barbershop quartet"; there was a picture of a wanted lady who was "orca fat" - with a list of her alias names on a wanted sheet - one of which was the name "REDFOOT" - one of Kint's fabricated characters, and there was a flyer for something in "Guatemala") |
  
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The Vanishing (1988, Neth./Fr.) (aka
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This was the original film masterpiece from director George Sluizer; in the shocking ending regarding a Dutch couple, Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) shared the gruesome fate of his lover Saski Wagter (Johanna ter Steege) - he was buried alive after being kidnapped by evil chemistry teacher Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) |
 
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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 
