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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 8 |
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Greatest Movie Twists, Part 8 |
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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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The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
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One of the most startling and stunning plot twists ever devised appeared in this second film in the second trilogy -- it was a moment of paternal revelation when Darth Vader (David Prowse, voice of James Earl Jones) emotionlessly admitted a surprise relationship to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), after cutting off Luke's hand: "No, Luke, I am your father"; Luke gave a horrified reaction: "NOOOOO!"; Darth Vader also urged Luke to join him: "Together we'll rule the galaxy as father and son!" |
 
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Elvira Madigan (1967, Swe.)
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At the suicidal conclusion of this beautiful romantic melodrama based on a true but tragic love affair in the 19th century between two doomed lovers during one summer, young runaway tightrope walker Elvira Madigan (Pia Degermark) was shot in the head (off-screen) by married lover and Swedish Army deserter Lieut. Sixten Sparre (Thommy Berggren) who then killed himself (over a blank screen) with his revolver | |
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Equus (1977)
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This film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's play uncovered the reason that 17 year-old working class English stable boy Alan Strang (Peter Firth) had inexplicably and horrifically blinded six horses with a steel spike; after he had his first emotionally-exposed human sexual experience with Jill Mason (Jenny Agutter) in the stable in front of the horses that he worshipped and deified as God (Equus was the god of horses), he proved to be impotent; this led him to plead forgiveness from Equus and then commit a bloody and disturbing crime due to temporary insanity -- he blinded the horses out of desperation and shame; it was explained that when he was a boy, a picture of a tortured Christ on his wall was replaced by a picture of a horse's head, and his twisted religiosity and pathological-sexual fascination and fixation with horses led to his outrageous behavior |
 
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eXistenZ (1999)
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During the spate of multiple-reality films with the theme 'what's authentic and what's not real?', this David Cronenberg film was another entry; eXistenZ was the name of the latest bio-engineered video game by brilliant inventor/creator Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the near-future, that was played and interfaced by plugging a living game control unit (or pod) directly into one's central nervous system; the player inserted a fleshy umbilical cord like tube into a 'bio-port,' a small orifice carved in the small of the player's back; when engaged, the game took the player into a virtual world of the future ("a wild ride"); when the game was debuted, there was an assassination attempt on Geller by a fanatical terrorist (armed with a "gristle gun" made of a chicken's carcass that shot human teeth), but she escaped with novice game marketer/security guard Ted Pikul (Jude Law) for Antenna Research; however, her game pod with the only copy of the game was damaged, so the two had to replay the game to determine the extent of the damage - and became fugitives on the run from killers in an old trout farm and filthy Chinese restaurant, including avoiding the malevolent Kiri Vinokur (Ian Holm); the film's climactic ending contained an expected twist -- the entire film was a game within another computer game, called transCendenZ, which game-tester Allegra won by 'killing' Ted; the game was already in progress when the film began, and all of the characters in the film were additional players from a sample audience who were testing the game; when the game ended, Allegra and Ted -- who were actually assassins, killed the game's creator and designer Yevgeny Nourish (Don McKellar); the film's last line, spoken by a game-tester, revealed the film's central twist: "Tell me the truth; are we still in the game?", as Allegra had revealed earlier: "You have to PLAY the game, to find out WHY you're playing the game" |
  
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Exterminating Angel (1962, Mex.) (aka El Angel Exterminador)
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During this surrealistic and macabre Luis Bunuel comedy, all twenty of the privileged class, bourgeois dinner guests (after attending a religious play about a naive virgin) hesitated to leave the Mexican estate on "Calle de la Providencia" - held in for days by an inexplicable force, a psychological barrier, sheep-like behavior, or by rueful acceptance or suggestion; eventually the desperate party guests, no longer attended by proletariat workers (the cook and other servants had left), barbarically turned against their aristocrat host Edmundo Nobilé (Enrique Rambal) for feeling self-entrapped and insulated; they slaughtered sheep for food, broke through the walls to access water in the pipes, burned the furniture, and two lovers killed themselves; when they finally left the house in the film's twist ending, they again became confined as parishioners inside a Catholic church after the morning service - with another herd of sheep wandering toward the church |
 
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After the solving of multiple homicides, this Coen Brothers' classic ended with a satisfying epilogue between pregnant local Chief of Police Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and her loving husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch) as they watched TV in bed; she congratulated him on being the winner of the USPS oil painting competition (of a mallard duck) for the 3-cent stamp, a necessity when the postal rate is increased; they were anticipating a hopeful future, thinking about their new prospective life as a family after the birth of their child: "We're doing pretty good...Two more months..." |
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Fatal Attraction (1987)
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The film ended with a few terrorizing scenes of scorned lover Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) seeking revenge after experiencing a short fling with errant husband and successful New York publishing lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) - she made "hare stew" of his daughter Ellen's pet rabbit (named Whitly), and in the shocking and violent conclusion, Dan (seen struggling in closeup) held the hysterical woman under the water in the bathtub after she had attacked his wife Beth (Anne Archer) with a large kitchen knife in the bathroom of their home -- he apparently drowned her - but then she suddenly emerged still alive to repeatedly slash at him - but Beth shot her in the chest to finally end her terroristic advances |
 
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Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
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Malingering high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), after skipping school to attend the Von Steuben Day parade in downtown Chicago, rushed home to get into bed to escape detection by his parents; his suspicious Dean of Students Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) entered the Bueller house and was attacked by the family Rotweiler, and then humiliated when wandering in the street and picked up by a schoolbus driver (and offered a warmed-up Gummi bear); after the credits rolled, a surprised Ferris emerged from the bathroom, addressed the "fourth wall" (or movie audience) and ordered everyone to go home: "You're still here? It's over! Go home. Go!" |
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This mystical sports film ended with the revelation that all the strange and compelling 'voices' that Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) had heard (i.e., "If you build it, he will come," "Ease his pain," and "Go the distance") were not (1) to summon the ghost of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and fellow banned Chicago White Sox ballplayers, (2) to renew the spirit of disillusioned author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), or (3) to give Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster) a chance to play in the majors; instead, the voices were actually Ray's own internalized desire (Ray: "It was you" Joe: "No, Ray. It was you") to allow his estranged ghostly father John (Dwier Brown) to meet his granddaughter Karin (Gaby Hoffman), and to enjoy a game of catch between father and son one more time as the sun set; the film ended with a stream of cars (and headlights) approaching the ballfield in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, signaling that Ray wouldn't lose his farm after all |
  
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Fight Club (1999)
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An unnamed "Narrator" (Edward Norton), a bored, self-help addicted, and disillusioned corporate worker, found excitement (and a cure for his insomnia) in the twilight world of a macho "Fight Club" that featured bare-knuckle boxing; there, he met violent yet charismatic rebel and soap salesman named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt); by the film's end, it was revealed that Durden was actually one side of the split personality-psyche of his own imagination; during the explosive finale as terrorist violence escalated through activities called "Project Mayhem," Tyler threatened to blow up the buildings of various major credit card companies and couldn't be subdued by the Narrator; the only way he could destroy, stop or kill "Durden" in his mind was by shooting himself in the jaw/face - he barely survived his own 'enlightenment' |
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Frailty (2001)
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In this haunting horror-thriller, a person claiming to be Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) confessed to Dallas FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) that his brother Adam (Levi Kreis) (whose body was in an ambulance after he committed suicide) was the likely, self-proclaimed "God's Hand" serial killer; it was later revealed that both Adam (Jeremy Sumpter as young Adam) and Fenton (Matt O'Leary as young Fenton) had been brought up in a strictly-religious household with a delusional widowed father (Bill Paxton) who had religious visions of "God's will" that led him to enact divine retribution - to kill 'demons' that he saw in various individuals ("They may look like people on the outside, but inside...", and "We don't kill people, we destroy demons"); in the upending, contrived twist ending, there was an abrupt change in the identity of the film's narrator - it was Adam, not Fenton, who had been narrating; Adam had killed his brother Fenton, and then posing as Fenton to frame him, killed Doyle (who was justifiably regarded as a real 'demon' - a mother-murderer - and deserved to be killed) - since everyone thought that the confessor in Doyle's office was Fenton (and not Adam), Adam was able to get away with the murder (and the fuzzy security camera pictures also helped); Fenton (actually Adam) also told Doyle that after his father was killed by his brother, the job of killing demons was passed on to him |
 
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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
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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 
