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Greatest Movie Twists Part 25 |
Note: The films that are marked
with a yellow star |
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 
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Greatest Movie Twists Part 25 |
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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Wild Things (1998) |
This erotic crime film had many twists and turns -- by film's end, it had been revealed that three of the schemers were in cahoots during a fabricated rape case that led to a huge money settlement extorted from Kelly's wealthy mother Sandra (Theresa Russell): they were high school guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) and goth trailer inhabitant Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), as well as a fourth character, the duplicitous police sergeant Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon); one by one, suspicion and distrust led to various double-crossing murders and unexpected events: (1) Suzie was bludgeoned by Sam with a wine bottle (off-screen), but her death was faked (shown later, pliers were used to remove her own teeth to be left as evidence) - and subsequently blamed on Kelly, (2) Ray murdered Kelly arguing that he killed her in self-defense (shown later, he shot her with two rounds and inflicted a shoulder wound on himself with a third shot), (3) Sam and Ray were revealed to be collaborating together, (4) Ray, tossed overboard by double-crossing Sam, was killed by Suzie (now with blonde hair) with a spear gun - later explained as revenge for Ray killing Kelly and Suzie's boyfriend Davie years earlier in the Everglades, and (5) double-crossing Suzie poisoned Sam with a doctored drink and the mast knocked him overboard; Suzie was revealed as the plot's mastermind with a high IQ ("that girl could do just about anything she put her mind to") - the end credits showed off-screen sequences that hadn't been shown in the film to further explain the plot, and concluded with Sam's unscrupulous free-lance lawyer Kenneth Bowden (Bill Murray) handing Suzie the payoff - a case loaded with cash ("Cash is just walkin'-around money. The check is the balance of the numbered account minus the million we set aside for Ruby and Walter, less my usual fee") |
     
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Witness for the Prosecution (1957) |
The ultimate revelation in this convoluted courtroom drama was that acquitted American Leonard Vole was actually guilty of the murder of a wealthy widow in order to inherit 80,000 pounds; Vole was defended by the crafty, weak-hearted barrister/attorney Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) in a challenging case; Vole attempted to use his only alibi -- his wife/lover Christine Helm (Marlene Dietrich) to defend him, but she was called as a surprise witness for the prosecution; on the stand, she admitted that (1) she wasn't really married to Leonard (and could therefore testify against him), (2) she was forced by him to provide a false alibi, and (3) her husband had admitted the murder to her; in the meantime, the barrister was called to meet a mysterious Cockney woman who offered to supply him with fake love letters that Christine had written to a mysterious lover; when the trial resumed, Sir Wilfrid confronted Christine with the letters to prove that she had lied (so she could get rid of Leonard and be with another man); having proven Christine to be a liar, Leonard was declared 'not guilty'; after the case was closed, Christine revealed that she had masqueraded as the Cockney woman by repeating her accent to Sir Wilfrid, and explained to him that it was the only way to guarantee her husband's acquittal; in the shocking ending, Christine then stabbed Leonard in the courtroom for his lying when he admitted two things: (1) the murder of the elderly woman, and (2) infidelity and philandering with Diana (Ruta Lee) -- this climactic murder was followed by Sir Wilfrid's classic line when he corrected his nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lancester) about the killing: "Killed him? She executed him"; the studio's publicity campaign requested that viewers not reveal the stunning plot twist in this film although it was one of Agatha Christie's most famous, well-known short stories/plays (first published as a four-character short story in 1933) [Note: There was a TV remake in 1982 with Ralph Richardson and Deborah Kerr] |
 
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| In this classic film's ending, it was discovered that Dorothy Gale's (Judy Garland) adventures in the Wonderful land of Oz were only imagined in a fanciful dream, after she suffered a concussion during a Kansas tornado-twister; although Dorothy insisted that her journey was real and not just a "bad dream": ("It was a place, and you [Hunk] and you [Hickory] and you [Zeke] and you [Professor Marvel] were there. (Everyone laughs) But you couldn't have been, could you?") she was reassured at her bedside when she was surrounded by the anxious faces of her three familiar farmhands, and relatives - grateful to be back in her familiar home: "There's no place like home" |
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The Woman in the Window (1944) |
In this dark noir masterpiece, mild-mannered, middle-aged and married psychology Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) risked his future with femme fatale painting model Alice Reed (Joan Bennett) by stabbing to death (with a pair of scissors) her burly boyfriend Frank Howard (Arthur Loft) when he was jealously attacked; Wanley was marked as the killer and blackmailed by Howard's bodyguard Heidt (Dan Duryea) with evidence of a scratch on his hand and a case of poison ivy while dumping the body in the woods - however, in the comic ending, he woke to find that everything had been a dream! |
 
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Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001, Mex.) (aka And Your Mother Too) |
This unrated tale of sexual discovery told about a road trip by two sexually-active 17 year-old Mexican boys (Gael Garcia Bernal as Julio Zapata, and Diego Luna as Tenoch Iturbide) with sexy and wise 28 year-old Spanish beauty and estranged wife Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdu) of Tenoch's cousin Alejandro, to find a make-believe, idyllic beach named Heaven's Mouth (Boca Del Cielo); after a journey of self- and sexual discovery with Luisa who often displayed intermittent tears, the two left her at the beach with a fisherman's family, with her last words to them: "Life is like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea"; one year later, the two met for coffee and their conversation revealed that Luisa had been terminally ill with cancer during their trip; although she had visited the doctor about some tests, it wasn't known until the final minutes that she left her unfaithful husband for an end-of-life experience |
 
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Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) |
At the end of this film about the young schoolboy sleuth, the villainous schoolmaster Professor Rathe/Ehtar (Anthony Higgins), who was also Sherlock Holmes' (Nicholas Rowe) mentor and teacher, killed Holmes' love interest Elizabeth Hardy (Sophie Ward) and she died in his arms; in the surprising end credits, Ehtar was revealed to still be alive after their to-the-death swordfight despite his tumbling through the surface of an iced-over Thames River; he signed his name in a guestbook "Moriarty", as the camera closed on his devilish raised eyebrow -- he would live to become Holmes' future literary arch-nemesis and arch-enemy |
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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.
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