Greatest Movie Twists, Spoilers and Surprise Endings

Greatest Movie Twists
Spoilers and
Surprise Endings

Part 6

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 6 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
Dead Again (1991)	In this puzzling and twisting tale composed of two parallel plots in different time periods, 1990s LA police detective Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) took the case of amnesia-suffering mute client 'Grace' (Emma Thompson); she was having nightmares about the murder of a pianist named Margaret Strauss (also Thompson) by her world-famous composer/conductor husband Roman Strauss (also Branagh) in the late 1940s; Margaret had been suspicious that Roman's housekeeper/maid Inga (Hanna Schygulla) and her disturbed, stammering son Frankie (Gregor Hesse) were stealing from her husband; Roman was falsely put to death by electric chair for the murder of his wife Margaret, who was actually stabbed and murdered with a pair of scissors by Frankie, because his mother was in love with Roman; in the present day story, Mike came into contact with hypnotist/antique dealer Franklyn Madson (Derek Jacobi) who believed that Grace had suffered trauma in her past life; under regressive hypnosis, it was revealed that there were remarkable similarities and parallels between the stories of Roman and Margaret in the past, and Mike and Grace in the present; it was discovered that Mike was the reincarnation of murdered pianist wife, Margaret (Emma Thompson); and amnesia-suffering Grace (also Thompson) was the reincarnation of executed composer Roman Strauss (also Branagh); the hypnotist (the murderer from the 40s who was reincarnated) died when impaled on a large scissor sculpture made by 'Grace' - and Mike held his partner 'Grace' and exhaustedly said at film's end: "The door is closed"
Deathtrap (1982)	The many plot twists and triple-cross in this Sidney Lumet film (set in one location, a Long Island home) were witty and complex -- and it paid homage to Les Diaboliques (1955, Fr.); English professor and fading Broadway playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) plotted with his dubious, ailing, naive wife Myra (Dyan Cannon) to murder his young ex-student - a gay fledgling author named Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve) who had supposedly written a brilliant murder/mystery thriller-play titled Deathtrap; Anderson was strangled with a chain and buried (although his death was faked) and he suddenly appeared later that night -- scaring Myra into having a cardiac arrest; in the twist ending, it was revealed that Bruhl and Anderson were really gay lovers (who performed one scandalous homosexual kiss on-screen) and had plotted this elaborate scheme to kill Myra; afterwards, Anderson moved in to be Bruhl's new 'secretary', and now began writing a play called Deathtrap with a plot that resembled the murder of Myra; eventually, the two distrusted and murdered each other (in a scene that included lots of murder weapons, including a gun, an axe, handcuffs, and a crossbow) -- and surviving neighboring Dutch psychic Helga Ten Dorp (Irene Worth) ("In this room, there's pain") was able to incorporate the murderous events into her own play - which went on to become a huge Broadway smash-success after its opening night
Decoy (1946)	This little-known cult B-film noir opened with betrayed and seriously-wounded Dr. Lloyd Craig (Herbert Rudley) washing his soiled and bloody hands and face in a grimy washroom sink (with broken mirror) at a gas station; after hitchhiking to San Francisco 75 miles away, he proceeded to the 6th floor apartment of femme fatale Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie) (who was preparing to flee town), fatally shot her for revenge, and then dropped dead; hard-nosed, tough-guy detective Sgt. Joseph "Jo Jo" Portugal (Sheldon Leonard) arrived too late to save her; as she died, she begged for a money chest to be brought to her ("Give it to me. I want it...It's mine. It's all mine now"), and explained what had happened in the lengthy flashback, beginning with: "I wanted money. Frankie Olins had it. He took it from a shiny red bank truck two days before Christmas. $400,000. Only, before he could take it, he had to kill the driver. Frankie was in jail now. The people of the state of California said he had to die. But only Frankie knew where the money was hidden"; in the film, she schemed with gangster pal Jim Vincent (Edward Norris) and idealistic prison doctor Dr. Craig to resurrect convict Frankie Olins (Robert Armstrong) after he was executed in the gas chamber, and force him to reveal the dough's whereabouts; their preposterous plan succeeded and Olins drew them a map, after which he was shot dead by Vincent; during their late-night drive to the location of the money, Vincent was deliberately run over by the sadistic Margot; and then as Dr. Craig dug up the strongbox in a eucalyptus grove, she told him: "All our hopes, all our plans...," but then shot him twice and laughed hysterically and maniacally as he lay on the ground, and then ran off with the box in her arms, cackling: "It's mine. It's all mine now!"; the film ended with a return to the present - the treasure box was opened as Margot died on her apartment's couch - it was revealed as a decoy - with only $1 and a note from Frankie: "To you who double-crossed me, I leave this dollar for your trouble. The rest of the dough I leave to the worms"
Deep Blue Sea (1999)	The surprise in this film was that it killed off much of its cast - only partway into the film, Chimera Pharmaceuticals' corporate financier Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson), with a goatee and glasses, delivered a stirring "let's pull together" motivational speech to the group that was working on a super-intelligent shark program in a top-secret island location called Aquatica; he spoke about a previous brush with death that he had experienced during a mountaineering-avalanche disaster (where there were seven survivors and only five made it out alive, due to inhumane cannibalism); in the middle of his exhortations ("Now you've seen how bad things can get and how quick they can get that way. Well, they can get a whole lot worse! So we're not going to fight anymore! We're going to pull together and we're going to find a way to get outta here! First, we're gonna seal off this--") -- he was abruptly grabbed by an enormous shark that erupted out of the water behind him, chewed him and then tore his body in half
Deep Red/Profondo Rosso (1975, It.) (aka The Hatchet Murders)	In Dario Argento's gripping murder mystery with a plot twist at the end, there were a number of murders: (1) a flashback to a stabbing murder shown from the perspective of a child while an eerie child's nursery rhyme lullaby was playing; (2) the brutal murder in Rome of psychic Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril) with a meat cleaver and the severing of her nearly-decapitated neck on broken window glass; (3) the murder of book author Amanda Righetti (Giuliana Calandra) by head-dunking in a bathtub of scorching water; and (4) the neck-knifing murder of paranormal expert Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri), after repeatedly breaking his teeth on a table and mantelpiece; a clue revealed in a painting of what appeared to be a child stabbing an adult (the opening murder) led to the discovery of a secret room in an abandoned house holding the skeleton remains of a corpse; clues also revealed that troubled, depressed artist Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) was not the murderer - (5) he died a grisly death by being dragged from a truck and having his head run over - a flashback showed that his own black-haired, off-kilter, insane mother Martha (Clara Calamai) with heavy black eye-liner was the hatchet murderer in all the present crimes and in the stabbing years earlier (during the holidays when music was playing, she had stabbed and killed her husband (Aldo Bonamano) in the back with a carving knife in front of a young Carlo (Jacopo Mariani)) - the boy picked up the knife and then had repeatedly drawn the disturbing image and covered up for his mother's crime; the film ended with Martha's necklace caught in a descending elevator shaft - (6) both strangling and decapitating her
The Departed (2006)	Best Director-winning Martin Scorsese's viciously-violent Best Picture tale (an adaptation of Siu Fai Mak's Infernal Affairs (2002, HK)) was about reciprocally-planted 'moles' (or rats) within both the South Boston Irish-American mob and the Massachusetts State Police Department; it concluded with a bloody denouement in which almost all of the leading big-name cast members were killed (mostly by a single-gunblast to the head) - some abruptly and by complete surprise; Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) was thrown over the side of a six-story warehouse building, decadently-evil gangland chief Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) was shot a few times in the chest by syndicate informant and 'mole' in the Special Investigation Unit Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) during a botched cocaine-deal in Sheffield, and Costello's right-hand man Mr. French (Ray Winstone) committed suicide with a gunblast beneath his chin when also caught in the sting and trapped in a burning car; after a rooftop confrontational scene in which he arrested Sullivan, police 'mole' Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) was killed by the second mole in the police force Barrigan (James Badge Dale) as he emerged from an elevator; Sullivan joined 'the departed' as he entered his Beacon Hill apartment by a gunshot from Queenan's assistant Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) - the film ended with a view of a real rat scurrying on the outdoor balcony railing of Sullivan's apartment against the backdrop of the gold-domed Massachusetts State House
The Descent (2005, UK)	Neil Marshall's claustrophobic horror thriller told about a group of six, extremely-athletic female spelunkers (six unknown actresses, including Shauna MacDonald as Scottish protagonist Sarah and Natalie Mendoza as macho expedition leader Juno) trapped deep underground in the dark after a cave-in in an Appalachian cavern; they faced various horrors including predatory, sharp-toothed, pale, carnivorous humanoid underground beasts called "crawlers" in the thick darkness, who attacked them relentlessly in the maze-like, entrapping lair; in the ending, Juno died (off-screen) when she was surrounded by the creatures, but Sarah survived after escaping and fell down a chute where she fell unconscious; when she awoke, she crawled up a long pile of skeletal bones into daylight, where she emerged from the ground, took a deep breath of air, and then ran hysterically through the woods to her vehicle and drove away; after she stopped by the side of the road to puke, she turned and saw Juno (with a blood-streaked face) in the passenger seat - screamed - and then the trauma of the vision caused her to awaken underground, where she realized that her escape was only an hallucination; she imagined her tragically-killed daughter Jessica's birthday (and a candle-covered birthday cake) as she stared into her torch's flame, and the camera drew backward into the darkness as her flame began to dim; the credits played atop a black and white group photo of the six cave-explorers. [In the North American release, the film ended a minute earlier, at the point where Sarah saw Juno; the UK version was considered too dark for American audiences and was modified]
Detour (1946)	In this gritty Edgar Ulmer B-film noir told in flashback, fatalistic, self-pitying, down-and-out Al Roberts (Tom Neal) was seated in a tawdry Reno diner where he told about recent events and imagined his pending arrest; when Roberts found himself as a hitchhiker in the car of businessman Charles Haskell, Jr. (Edmund MacDonald) on the way to LA - and Haskell died from a heart attack - he feared he would be arrested for murder so he dumped Haskell along the side of the Arizona road and stole his identity (wallet, clothes, and car); in California, he picked up vulturous and despicable hitchhiker Vera (Ann Savage) - who suspected that he had deliberately 'killed' Haskell ("You're a cheap crook and you killed him"), so she blackmailed him for money; during an argument one night in a San Bernardino hotel, he accidentally killed the castrating and exploitative Vera by a telephone cord through a closed door - a second disastrous twist of fate! the film ended with Roberts being picked up by a patrol car for the murder of Vera
Devil's Advocate (1997)	During a particularly difficult trial, young Florida defense attorney Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) sold his soul (selling his soul to the devil was part of an elaborate daydream in which he fantasized that he was about to compromise his integrity by representing a guilty client in the case of a child-molester schoolteacher named Mr. Gettys (Chris Bauer)) - in his fantastic daydream, he chose to go into the corrupted service of Satanic John Milton (Al Pacino) (deliberately named to imply his "Paradise Lost") at a law firm in New York; he fantasized that his distressed wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) was raped and then committed suicide, and that Milton was his father; when Milton temptingly offered him his nude half-sister Christabella Andreoli (Connie Nielsen) for sex - to father the Anti-Christ - Lomax committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, citing his use of 'free will', as Milton cried "No!" and burst into raging flames (and was converted into angelic form), while a naked Christabella was age-withered and died; after this climactic series of events, in the first of two major plot twists, Lomax was returned to the Gettys case courtroom during a recess period - where he then announced in the courtroom (as part of doing "the right thing") that he would no longer represent his guilty client - thus threatening his own disbarment; a press newsman named Larry (Neal Jones) who was covering the case summed up Lomax' decision as a future sensational media story: ("A lawyer with a crisis of conscience?...It's huge!...You've gotta give me an exclusive. This is wire service. This is 60 Minutes! This is a story that needs to be told. It's you! You're a star!"); after tempting the couple to agree to a news story, the newsman morphed into Milton as they left, gloating with a devilish grin: "Vanity - definitely my favorite sin!" - insinuating that the Devil still had plans to intervene in the Lomax's lives; Milton dissolved into flames as The Rolling Stones' Paint It, Black played
Les Diaboliques (1955, Fr.) (aka Diaboliques)	In the film's famous shocking twist ending after following a curving plotline, the despicable and abusive Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) was never killed by his downtrodden, humiliated, frail and ailing wife/headmistress Christine (V�ra Clouzot) and schoolteacher-mistress Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret) -- Michel faked his death with help from Nicole so he could kill Christine by causing her (and the audience) to have a fright-induced heart attack when he rose zombie-like out of a bathtub with all-white eyes; after the film's resolution and the two females were arrested and taken away the next day - there was another possible twist regarding the fate of Nicole; confused, truth-telling or lying (?) schoolboy Moinet (Yves-Marie Maurin) declared that he was just given his confiscated slingshot by Nicole. This film was one of the first to actually contain an end-credits anti-spoilers director's statement that advised viewers to keep the film's ending a secret: "Don't be devils. Don't ruin the interest your friends could take in this film. Don't tell them what you saw. Thank you for them"