Greatest Movie Twists, Spoilers and Surprise Endings

Greatest Movie Twists
Spoilers and
Surprise Endings

Part 3

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.

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star

are the films that
"The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films".

Greatest Movie Twists, Spoilers and Surprise Endings (alphabetical by film title) - Part 3 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
Film Title	Brief Scene Description	Example
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970, It.) (aka L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo)	This Dario Argento murder mystery (his directorial debut) with many red herrings and a twist ending revealed that the opening scene (with POV shots from the victim's perspective) was misleading - although it appeared like an attempted murder on Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), the beautiful wife of art gallery owner Alberto Ranieri (Umberto Raho), by an unidentified assailant; it was actually the other way around -- "victim" Monica was actually a deranged, cackling serial killer (a mysterious black-gloved assailant dressed in a black trenchcoat) - revealed in the shock ending - who was trying to kill Alberto; he subsequently tried to cover for his wife's killing, and appear as the murderer himself (he confessed to the killing before dying)
The Birds (1963)	In Hitchcock's unsettling film about unexplained attacks by birds on the inhabitants of a California coastal town, dawn had arrived and Mitch (Rod Taylor) went outside his house where he found thousands of birds gathered and seated - surrounding, watching and tyrannically claiming the house; after everyone was able to get to the car, the beleaguered survivors drove away from the house toward an uncertain future, surrounded on the left by the barn, in the foreground by threatening birds amassing for their next attack, and on the right by a tree; the triumphant, menacing birds appeared to chatter and applaud their conquest; the unsettling, apocalyptic ending - an open-ended one of continuing terror - was not accompanied by a customary "THE END" title
Bitter Moon (1992)	This ultra-kinky, voyeuristic drama/thriller from Roman Polanski told about the sado-masochistic, increasingly-torturous relationship between sultry, mysterious French femme fatale wife Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner, the director's own 27 year-old wife) with crippled, sexually-deviant, wheelchair-bound, self-loathing writer Oscar (Peter Coyote); by the film's conclusion, it was revealed that Mimi sought revenge against the embittered, self-loathing, paralyzed and dependent Oscar (after a Parisian amour fou affair that had disintegrated into kinky sex, torture, heartlessness, infidelity and abuse), who begged of his cruel caretaker: "Why don't you just finish me off? Why don't you OD me, or push me down the stairs, or something?"; she presented Oscar with a birthday present of a gun, which he used to commit suicide, as he told her: "You were just too greedy, baby, that was all"
Black Christmas (1974) (aka Silent Night, Evil Night)	This Canadian, low-budget exploitative cult horror/slasher film from director Bob Clark starred Olivia Hussey as sorority sister heroine Jess Bradford, accompanied by pre-fame Margot Kidder as caustically-rude Barb Coard, and Andrea Martin as Phyllis "Phyl" Carlson; they were residents of Pi Kappa Sig sorority house that began to receive strange, threatening, creepy and sometimes obscene phone calls around Christmas time, calling them "Pigs" and warning: "Let me lick your pretty pink c--t"; these calls were followed by slayings - presumably from a Killer hiding out in the attic ("It's me, Billy"); the first to die was Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin) from suffocation with a plastic bag, and then house mother Mrs. "Mac" MacHenry (Marian Waldman) by a curved crane hook swung into her neck that dragged her up the trap door ladder into the attic, Barb stabbed numerous times with a glass unicorn (and its long spike) (while carolers were singing at the front door), and then Phyllis; many years before the film When a Stranger Calls (1979), this film offered the premise that the caller was inside the house ("The caller is in the house. The calls are coming from the house. Jess, Jess - GET OUT! And don't go up there!"); Jess was confronted and pursued by the Killer through the house and into the basement - where she killed her upset aspiring pianist/student boyfriend Peter Smythe (Keir Dullea) with a fireplace poker, suspecting that he was the murderer (the film's 'red herring'); the film's final twist was that the killer was still in the attic - footsteps were heard as he climbed down the ladder from the trap door into the house, and the phone began to continuously ring during the final credits; the film was remade as the flawed Black Christmas (2006) (aka Black X-Mas) with Andrea Martin in the role of Mrs. MacHenry!
Blade Runner (1992)	The noted 1992 Director's Cut re-release of the classic science-fiction film strongly implied that replicant-hunting "bladerunner" cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) was also a replicant (artificial human), with implanted memories of his own, demonstrated by the celebrated "unicorn reverie" daydream; at the conclusion, fellow cop Gaff (Edward James Olmos) apparently knew of the implanted memories and pre-programmed short lifespan when he left a silver, tin-foil origami of a unicorn outside Deckard's apartment and spared replicant Rachael's (Sean Young) life when he had the chance to kill her; he had often reminded Deckard that he must kill Rachael; Gaff's words about her short time to live were recalled to Deckard: "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"; Deckard joined love interest Rachael in the elevator as they left to escape the law into an uninhabited wilderness; however, in a tacked-0n ending found in the 1982 theatrical version, a final voice-over narration explained that Rachael was a special replicant without a pre-set or fixed termination date
The Blair Witch Project (1999)	The closing scene involved a chase in the darkened woods by Heather (Heather Donahue) and Michael (Michael Williams) for their missing friend Josh (Josh Leonard) - and then through the seemingly-abandoned house and into the cellar - where Josh, in a final ambiguous shot, was seen standing motionless and facing a wall in a corner of the basement (was he drugged, semi-conscious, or propped up dead, in order to distract the next victim?); the film's final ambiguous POV shot was accompanied by the sounds of "thwack", "thump", and "crash" as Heather's camcorder hit the ground (after she was attacked and killed?); the camera was broken, but was still running -- before the end credits appeared
Blown Away (1992)	This erotic thriller was advertised with the tagline: "She'll charm you. Seduce you. She might even kill you"; the femme fatale was blonde, wild-living, pill-popping rich 17 year-old teenager Megan Bower (Nicole Eggert), who eventually romanced two brothers with long-standing sibling rivalry - and deadly consequences: Rich Gardner (Corey Haim) and his older brother Wes (Corey Feldman); in the film's opening scene a year earlier, her mother had been mysteriously 'blown away' by a ticking car bomb planted under her gas tank that exploded and sent her car into a gas station causing another explosive fireball; a year later, the conniving sexpot was plotting, during a torrid affair with Rich, to have him help her further her own ends - to kill her tyrannical, overprotective father Cy (Jean Le Clerc) and acquire the family's inheritance; Megan's father died when an explosive time bomb secretly planted in his motorbike's gas tank exploded near a cliffside and resulted in a fall to his death; afterwards, she told Rich: "I think we actually got away with it..The bomb was designed to burn away. No trace...This wasn't only about the money. You knew that. I couldn't run away, it was him or me. Trust me, Rich, this will all work out just like you said it would"; Rich was skeptical and wondered whether he should turn her in to the authorities: "Sooner or later, they're gonna figure out that it wasn't an electrical problem"; he was placed in jail, where Megan visited him and assured him of her love: "I want to feel you inside of me right now"; she suggested that he become a fugitive and she would join him later with the money; she then provided bail money for him, gave him the keys to her pink Targa Porsche sports car (with Colorado plates: GOTCHA), and told him to meet her at her house where she had made "all the arrangements"; although he was wary of her and looked for another car bomb, he didn't find any, until his car spun out and he spotted the detonator with only 4 seconds to spare - enough to save his life; it was then revealed that Wes was in cahoots with Megan and was also sleeping with her, sarcastically calling her "a lying, murdering bitch" - he had helped her in the double cross to kill his brother with the car bomb ("I can't believe we got away with it"); as the two made love, the camera panned to the right to disclose that Rich had silently entered the bedroom and was watching them from the side, commenting: "Wes and his amazing penis"; as Wes went to pull the trigger on his brother, he was shot in the back by Megan and killed; Megan rationalized to Rich that it was all Wes' fault: "He was gonna kill you. He's the one that beat me. He killed Darla...All this was his idea. He was making me do it," but Rich knew better: "It was all you"; while Megan admitted: "I really did love you," she began shooting at Rich with a gun in each hand, as state police (tipped off by Rich after the failed attempt on his life) entered her bedroom, blasted her with a shotgun, and propelled her out of the second-story window to her death on the pavement below; as the film concluded, Rich handed back a concealed wire to the chief of police
The Blue Dahlia (1946)	The who-dun-it from a Raymond Chandler novel (and screenplay) had a different conclusion than the one offered in this Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake film regarding the identity of the murderer - the murderer was changed by demands from the military to have a less politically-sensitive killer; returning discharged WWII veteran and naval flier Johnny Morrison (Ladd) found that his boozing, unfaithful estranged wife Helen (Doris Dowling) had been promiscuous with LA's The Blue Dahlia nightclub owner Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva) during his absence; when he confronted the couple kissing in his own home during a house party, he quipped to Harwood: "You've got the wrong lipstick on, Mister!" and then punched him in the chin; Helen also laughingly confessed to Johnny that she had killed their young son Dickie in a DUI accident while she was driving, causing him to angrily walk out on her while leaving his gun in her bungalow; he would soon be accused of the crime of her murder, as would Harwood, Johnny's slightly crazy war buddy Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix) who had amnesia and a steel plate in his head (his motive to kill was because Helen had two-timed his pal), and Harwood's separated long blonde-haired wife Joyce (Lake); Buzz was the novel's killer, but in the film, the blackmailing, disgruntled Beverly Hills bungalow motel house detective 'Dad' Newell (Will Wright) was the killer
Body Double (1984)	In this Brian De Palma film (a virtual remake of Vertigo with its theme of double identity) that featured a triple-flip ending, one revelation (Rear Window-style) to claustrophobia-suffering, struggling actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) was that the auto-erotic, exhibitionist dancer-neighbor that he was ogling through a telescope night after night was not rich, tormented wife Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton), but porn queen Holly Body (Melanie Griffith); with a clue already provided in the film's title, she was paid by Revelle's disgruntled, abusive husband Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry) to dance in the house for a few nights and impersonate his wife; then Gloria was murdered by a pony-tailed Indian with an erect power drill; Jake realized that he was set-up by Gloria's husband (a fellow actor) to be a convenient witness/alibi to her murder; it was also revealed at the reservoir/burial site that Sam was the killer-Indian (with latex face-makeup, who admitted angrily: "You ruined my surprise ending") - he ended up getting pushed backward to his death in the churning reservoir water below; Jake became a full-time porn star - during the end credits, Jake was engaged in the filming of a Psycho-like shower scene with a 'body double'
Body Heat (1981)	In the end of this Double Indemnity-like thriller, "Matty Walker" (Kathleen Turner) was killed in a booby-trapped boathouse explosion (her body was identified by dental records) and her lover/dupe Ned Racine (William Hurt) was charged with the murder and imprisoned in a Florida state penitentiary; believing that "Matty" was somehow still alive, Ned looked in Matty's high school yearbook; in the climactic plot twist, he found evidence there that she had swapped identities with Mary Ann Simpson (Kim Zimmer) (a look-alike seen earlier in the film); under her yearbook picture, her ambition was described as: "To be rich and live in an exotic land" - a wish that was fulfilled in the last image of "Matty" lying on a beach somewhere in an exotic land
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)	Although their fates were inevitable after a series of small-time stickups and murders, the shocking and tense "ballet of blood" finale of the ultra-violent deaths of the doomed lovers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty) during a country backroads ambush by police was still a shock! Their frenzied corpses writhed in slow-motion as they were gunned down and riddled with bullets; they were re-animated by gunfire - into involuntary dances of death
Boogie Nights (1997)	In the unexpected, surprise conclusion of this fact-based film about the LA adult film industry in the late 70s and early 80s, well-endowed ex-busboy and fading porn star Eddie/'Dirk Diggler' (Mark Wahlberg) revealed - in an impressive full-frontal screen view - his main (and pathetic) claim to fame: his 13" penis (a prosthetic), as he repeated to himself: "I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star. I am a big, bright, shining star. That's right"