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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 7 |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 7 |
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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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D.O.A. (1950)
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This classic noir detective story opened with an unlikely and innovative shocking premise -- the protagonist hero accountant-notary public Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) was already dead; he had been "murdered" by having his drink in a San Francisco jazz club doctored by a lethal dose of glow-in-the-dark "luminous toxin" (radiation poisoning by iridium); he entered a police station where he told the captain in charge: "I want to report a murder" - and when asked about who was murdered, he replied: "I was"; the remainder of the film was the investigation of the doomed and dying man into why he was murdered -- it was learned that he was killed because he inadvertently and innocently notarized a bill of sale for stolen iridium: ("All I did was notarize a bill of sale, but that piece of paper could have proven that Phillips didn't commit suicide - he was murdered; and that's why Halliday poisoned me") - if the bill of sale surfaced, it could discredit an apparent suicide and convict Mrs. Phillips (Lynn Baggett) and her lover Halliday (William Ching) of having actually killed her husband Stanley Phillips (Henry Hart) by pushing him off a balcony to his death: (Mrs. Phillips: "you could have proved there was a bill of sale, that my husband had no reason to commit suicide"); the film ended with Bigelow falling dead to the floor in the police station after solving his own murder case, with the police captain responding to a question about making out a report: "Better make it 'dead on arrival'" |
  
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Don't Look Now (1973)
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Although foreshadowed by earlier events, it was still a shocking death scene when art restoration expert John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) had his neck slashed by a murderous, red-raincoated dwarf in a dark Venetian alleyway - he had mistakenly believed that she was his recently-drowned daughter |
 
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In the conclusion of Kubrick's apocalyptic dark comedy, mad German scientist Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) became ecstatic over the total annihilation of the Earth and his 100 Year Plan (including his mine-shaft proposal that suggested having 10 fertile women for every male survivor), as the Doomsday Machine was triggered - he "resurrected" himself, miraculously regaining his ability to walk when his mechanical, robot-like body rose out of his wheelchair, and he cried exultantly in the War Room: "Sir! I have a plan. Heh! (He realized he was standing up amidst everyone) Mein Fuehrer, I can walk!" A climactic chorus of H-bomb mushroom clouds spread as multiple explosions detonated around the world, annihilating and causing oblivion by bringing radioactive fallout to millions of people, as the popular, comforting WW II tune We'll Meet Again Some Sunny Day played in incongruous juxtaposition |
 
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Dream Lover (1994)
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Upon meeting the beautiful and sensual Lena Mathers (Madchen Amick), successful architect and recent divorcee Ray Reardon (James Spader) was spellbound by her beauty after sex and dream dates and soon married her after a storybook romance; however, soon afterwards, his mysterious wife's past became questionable and suspicious - and he realized that he had been duped by the femme fatale; she had deliberately gotten close to him to hastily marry him and acquire his money; the increasingly-paranoid and distrustful Ray was soon accusing her of being a perpetual and deceitful liar ("If the things you tell me aren't true, then what is true?") regarding her identity, her friends, the bruises on her leg, her afternoon disappearances to conduct an affair with friend Larry (Frederic Lehne), and her past; he accused her of stealing his house, his children, and of being a psychopath; after he slapped her, she was able to have him committed in an institution - where he faked insanity and sedation, while he was scheming with Larry's wife Elaine (Bess Armstrong) to find revenge; in the film's twist ending, he strangled Lena while she visited him at the institution, claiming that since he had been declared insane, he couldn't be held accountable for her death |
  
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Dressed to Kill (1980)
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In this film's early horrific murder sequence in Brian DePalma's ripoff/homage of Psycho (1960), sexually-unfulfilled Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) was slashed to death in the enclosed space of an elevator of a high-rise apartment building (where she has just had adulterous sex and forgotten her wedding ring and panties, and probably contracted VD); she was presumably murdered by a mysterious black-coated woman wielding a sharp razor (seen in the elevator's convex mirror); later, the killer also threatened to kill blonde prostitute Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) - a witness to Kate's murder; it was revealed that Kate's trans-sexual psychologist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) was the homicidal murderer with a split personality - he literally was 'dressed to kill' as "Bobbi" by wearing a blonde wig and dark glasses; the film ended with another nightmarish sequence in which Liz dreamed that the insane and vengeful doctor had escaped from a mental hospital after strangling a nurse, and wore the nurse's shoes as disguise; he killed her with a sharp razor blade after she had stepped out of a shower -- similar to a violent rape/sex fantasy scene in the film's opening - however, Liz woke up screaming to end the film |
     
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One of the first unexpected events in this film was the bludgeoning death of drunken lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) in his sleeping bag during the dark of night by unknown attackers; this foreshadowed the completely unexpected, anti-climactic and quick ending -- the shotgun-blast deaths of cross-country bikers Billy (Dennis Hopper) and then Captain America/Wyatt (Peter Fonda) by a redneck in a truck on a country road; Wyatt's American flag-decorated bike exploded in flames (metaphorically?), but his body didn't appear in the scene; the film ended with the pull-back helicopter view of the winding river alongside the highway |
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Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)
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By film's end, it was revealed that The Cruisers own band manager Doc Robbins (Joe Pantoliano) was the one who was hunting for the missing master tapes (of the Cruisers' unheard second album titled A Season In Hell after the record company refused to release it and the band broke up in 1964) performed by charismatic lead band singer Eddie Wilson (Michael Paré); the famous twist ending revealed that long-lost Eddie was still alive (he had faked his own suicidal death by driving his Chevy convertible over the side of the South Jersey Raritan Bridge almost two decades earlier, although his body was never found) - he was seen in a TV store window display's reflection (bearded) as the last spectator left watching the credits roll in a documentary tribute to himself on a bank of TV sets |
  
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Electra Glide in Blue (1973)
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In this mid-70s counter-culturally themed action/crime film representative of the New Hollywood of the 70s, Robert Blake starred as John Wintergreen - a short-statured, virile, honorable and tactful rookie motorcycle patrolman (and ex-Vietnam Vet) on the desert roads of Northern Arizona riding an Electra Glide Harley Davidson bike; both his small-minded, laid-back and dishonest partner "Zipper" Davis (Billy "Green" Bush) and egomaniacal homicide Detective Harve Poole (Mitch Ryan) enjoyed harrassing, framing (with planted drugs) and busting hippies during the film's major murder mystery; in the film's unpredictable, abrupt and surprise ending (reminiscent of Easy Rider (1969), although a reversal), Wintergreen shot an intoxicated "Zipper" in self-defense, and then lost his own life to a hippie driving a VW van; in the scene, the vehicle was stopped for a minor infraction (a missing front bumper), but when Wintergreen let the driver go and forgot to return his driver's license, the hippies feared that they were to be arrested when Wintergreen chased after them -- they shot him to death and let him die on the road |
 
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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 
