When it comes to making a good film, you have to start with a good story. Most films follow a three-act structure that sets the story up, sends your characters on a mission, and concludes with a resolution. This structure has worked for years and is the blueprint for most of the films you watch today. With that said, a good screenwriter can incorporate their own techniques to make their story unique to them. The point of a film is to keep the audience engaged from beginning to end. A good way to do that is to incorporate unanswered questions throughout the story to keep the audience guessing until everything is concluded. The twist ending is a satisfying way to shock the audience by turning the tables and showing them something they never saw coming. Filmmakers have been incorporating this method into their films for all of cinematic history, and it can either make or break a good film.
Updated November 2022 by Rafa Boladeras: If you love plot twists in movies, you’ll be happy to know we’ve updated this article with additional content and entries.
Some directors like M. Night Shyamalan are known for their twist endings. Shyamalan’s endings have satisfied his viewers, while others, such as The Village, have enraged them. It all depends on the context of the twist and if it makes sense to the rest of the story. As a story technique, this has to be handled delicately. Some twist endings like Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects, per CinemaBlend, define the movie and make them memorable for years to come. No matter what, the audience must stay engaged to make the film memorable, and a twist ending could be the way to do it. Here are the greatest plot twists of all time, ranked. (Naturally, spoilers ahead)
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20 Chinatown (1974)
Paramount Pictures
Chinatown starts like any other detective story: Evelyn Milwray (Faye Dunaway), a beautiful married woman, hires detective JJ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) to find out if her husband, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), is having an affair. What Gittes discovers is much more sordid and frightening, as Mulwray might be trying to get rich with the water supply of Los Angeles. In his investigations, Gittes finds a young woman that could be the key to the whole case, as she’s of interest to both Evelyn, and also his father, Noah Cross (John Huston). The big twist comes when Evelyn tells Gittes her biggest secret, the one that solves the whole case: this woman is both Evelyn’s sister and daughter, as her father sexually assaulted her when she was fifteen. It’s a surprising ending for this noir movie, where nothing is what it looks like, and in the end, there’s no justice.
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19 Citizen Kane (1941)
RKO Radio Pictures
Citizen Kane is a masterful movie that is still being taught in cinema classes. The film tells the story of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, starting with his death and the last words he’ll ever utter: “Rosebud”, as every reporter is wondering its significance. This incredible movie by first-timer Orson Welles, shows us the rise and fall of this important man, who some say is an alter ego for William Randolph Hearst, and at the end, we discover what his last words meant. Rosebud was a sled he had in his childhood, when he was really happy, before all the money and fame we’ve seen him get during the film. This revelation explains beautifully the thesis of Citizen Kane: the most remembered and cherished things in life don’t come from money and power.
18 Gone Girl (2014)
20th Century Fox
Gone Girl was adapted from a book by Gillian Flynn (she also wrote the script) by the one and only David Fincher, becoming one of his best movies ever. The movie starts when Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) disappears, and looks like she might’ve been killed by her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck). The spotlight is turned on him, as every minute, it looks more and more like he killed her. The twist happens in the middle of the movie, and it’s a big one: not only is Amy not dead, but she orchestrated everything, so Nick would go to jail for killing her after she found out he was cheating on her. It’s a twist that changes everything we’ve seen before, and one that helps us understand Amy’s twisted mind and her motivations. From there on, the movie follows both stories until they intertwine again in a surprising and sickening ending. All these ingredients make it the perfect film for the talents of Fincher.
17 Primal Fear (1996)
Primal Fear tells the story of Martin Vail (Richard Gere), a defense attorney defending altar boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton), who has been charged with killing an archbishop. Aaron is a shy boy with a stutter that looks innocent, and that’s what Vail is trying to prove. After a long trial, Aaron is found not guilty as he has multiple personality disorder, and it was one of his alter egos, Roy, who killed the archbishop. The big twist comes at the end, after the trial, when Aaron confesses to Martin that he doesn’t have a multiple disorder personality; he is just the sociopathic Roy. This is one of the best performances by Edward Norton, and also the movie that put him on the map, as his dual performance is incredible. Especially in that final twist when he reveals to Gere what he’s been doing all along.
16 Atonement (2007)
Relativity Media
Atonement is based on a book by Ian McEwan, and tells the story of Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan). After finding her crush, the housekeeper’s son Robbie (James McAvoy) having sex with her sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), Briony accuses him of assaulting her cousin, Lola. Robbie goes to jail and is later freed to enlist in World War II. In the meantime, her real love, Cecilia, becomes a nurse in the war, and they eventually rekindle their romance having a happy ever after. Except that’s not what happens, as both died during the war. This happy version is what Briony writes in a book years later, as she still feels guilty for everything that happened. In her fiction, they ended up together and happy. It’s a surprising and bittersweet ending for a beautiful period movie with incredible performances, one that has made the movie still resonate all these years later.
15 Parasite (2019)
CJ Entertainment
In Bong Joon Ho’s social commentary on classism and Best Picture-winning film Parasite, a poor family swindles their way into working various jobs for a rich family, who have no clue the workers are all related. In the film, the family sets up the rich family’s current workers to be fired from their positions to take them over. What the infiltrators don’t know is that the previous housekeeper was hiding her husband from loan sharks in a secret basement that the owners forgot about, set up as a survival bunker. After the old housekeeper and new family figure out each other’s secrets, a bloody turn of events has the new family’s patriarch on the run from the law. As the months go by, it is revealed to the audience that he hasn’t been on the run, but staying in the secret basement bunker at the house where the crimes took place.
14 The Prestige (2006)
Touchstone Pictures
Christopher Nolan’s movies are often laced with clever twists, and one of his best comes at the end of The Prestige. The thrilling drama follows two magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) in a cutthroat competition for London’s recognition as being the best. It is pure entertainment watching their ongoing duel play out as they each sabotage not just themselves, but their relationships with those they truly love. Co-starring a routinely all-star cast — it is, after all, a Nolan film — that includes Michael Caine and even David Bowie, our hearts are racing up until that epic reveal as to how exactly Bale’s character has been pulling off his “magic.” We can’t wait to see what twists and turns come with the release of Nolan’s highly anticipated next project, Oppenheimer.
13 The Others (2001)
StudioCanal
The Others is a creepy ghost story that will have you guessing until the very end. The story follows Grace (Nicole Kidman) and her two children awaiting the return of her husband towards the end of WWII. The old and drab mansion that they live in, as well as the need to keep sunlight out at all times due to a condition that the children have, all add to the perfect setting for a ghost story. The family’s lives are turned upside down due to unexplained spirits terrorizing them. In the terrifying climax, Grace and her children learn that it is actually them who are the ghosts, and they are haunting the new family who now lives in their house.
12 Oldboy (2003)
Park Chan-Wook’s crime thriller masterpiece has possibly one of the most disturbing twists in cinematic history. The film follows Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) on a gory quest to find the person who imprisoned him for fifteen years. Along the way, Dae-Su forms a romantic relationship with a young chef named Mi-Do (Kang Hye-Jeong) who becomes involved with Dae-Su’s mission. In the end, Dae-Su discovers that Mi-Do is his daughter and he was the center of an evil revenge plot from a wealthy man that he wronged in the past. Oldboy is a perfect showcase of the brilliance of South Korean cinema.
11 Scream (1996)
Dimension Films
In Wes Craven’s meta slasher flick from 1996, a costumed killer roams through Woodsboro, CA, picking off helpless teens one by one. The audience believes throughout the film that Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), the boyfriend of the main character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is probably the killer. Toward the end of the film, the audience sees Billy get murdered by the killer, only to return a couple of scenes later, revealing that the kill was a set-up, and the murders had been done not by just him, but his best friend Stu (Matthew Lillard) as well. This particular shock ending of multiple people being one killer was new to the horror genre, and Scream has since spawned four sequels, with the newest release in January 2022.
10 Coco (2017)
Pixar Animation Studios
In Coco, the most beautiful-looking film Pixar has released, aspiring musician Miguel is forbidden to play music by his grandmother, as it is well-known throughout the family that Miguel’s great-great-grandfather abandoned his family to play music, never to return. Miguel takes the guitar of his great-great-grandfather and musical inspiration, Ernesto de la Cruz, and is transported to the land of the dead. There, Miguel meets up with Héctor, and the two try to find Ernesto to grant him his blessing to play music. After finding Ernesto, the audience learns that it is Héctor who is actually Miguel’s great-great-grandfather, and in life, not only was Héctor murdered by Ernesto, but he was the one who wrote all the songs Ernesto became famous for. Coco won two Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Original Song for “Remember Me”.
9 Planet of the Apes (1968)
Planet of the Apes is a timeless story that has launched several sequels and remakes. Franklin J. Schaffner’s original classic, based on the novel by Pierre Boulle and starring Charlton Heston, could be considered the best of the series. After a crash landing on an unknown planet, astronaut George Taylor (Heston) finds himself up against a race of apes who are highly evolved and keep humans as slaves. After returning to Earth, Taylor sees a destroyed Statue of Liberty along the coast, discovering that the planet he was on was actually Earth after a nuclear apocalypse.
8 Se7en (1995)
New Line Cinema
David Fincher’s classic film Se7en follows two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) trying to catch a serial killer who is carrying out seven murders based on the Bible’s seven deadly sins. The script, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, is pitch-perfect from start to finish. In the unforgettable climax, we learn that the killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), has murdered Detective Mill’s (Pitt) wife and delivered her head in a box in an attempt to get Mills to murder Doe, making Mills and Doe the sixth and seventh deadly sins.
7 Saw (2004)
Lionsgate Films
James Wan’s horror classic was on a small budget and mostly took place in one room. That didn’t stop it from becoming one of the biggest horror franchises of all time. The story of Saw follows two men being held captive in a deadly game to stay alive. After a rollercoaster ride of gore and torment, the two captives realize that the man responsible for their kidnappings had been lying in the middle of the room the entire time disguised as a corpse.
6 Arrival (2016)
FilmNation Entertainment
In Denis Villeneuve’s gorgeous and heart-breaking film Arrival, a professional linguist, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), is recruited by the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after 12 strange spaceships appear around the globe. Throughout the film, the audience believes they are seeing flashbacks between Banks and her daughter, before her daughter’s death. As the film unfolds, and Banks is shown the future by the alien lifeforms, the audience is shown that the flashbacks were actually glimpses of the future, that Banks proceeded with, knowing what would happen. Arrival won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing, and continues to be one of the most emotionally deep and under-seen science fiction films of all time.
5 Fight Club (1999)
Fox 2000 Pictures
Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club follows a group of outcasts forming a “fight club” that eventually turns into a terrorist plot to bring down corporate America. The club’s leaders are the Narrator (Edward Norton) and the violent and manipulative Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). After a series of escalating events, Norton’s character realizes that he has actually been Durden all along. David Fincher’s film has gone down as a cult classic, and it is beloved by many.
4 The Usual Suspects (1995)
Bad Hat Harry Films
Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects will go down as one of the most famous twist endings of all time. The story starts with the interrogation of Roger Kint (Keven Spacey), who is a survivor of a heist gone wrong. The film is told through a series of flashbacks as we watch how a group of criminals led by their mysterious leader, Keyser Soze, were brought together to carry out the heist. In the end, we learn that Kint is actually the criminal mastermind Soze, and he created the story by piecing together items he saw in the interrogation room.
3 Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock will forever be known as the master of suspense. His 1960 classic Psycho shocked audiences around the globe. The film introduced audiences to the psychopathic Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). When the story begins, we are to believe that Bate’s mother slaughters Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in the infamous shower scene. When her daughter Lila (Vera Miles) investigates her mother’s disappearance, more blood is shed, and we learn that the killer is actually Norman, who has taken the persona as his mother.
2 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The line from this infamous Star Wars scene will go down in history as one of the all-time best twists in history. Through the intergalactic wars, we learn that Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) arch-nemesis Darth Vader is actually his father. It is a scene with depth and emotion, and it shocked audiences around the globe. Star Wars is a global phenomenon that has engaged fans for decades.
1 The Sixth Sense (1999)
Buena Vista Pictures
M. Night Shyamalan will forever be known as the king of twist endings. His 1999 masterpiece tells the story of a boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who sees dead people and seeks help from psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis). Through an emotional series of creepy events, the audience finds out that Crow himself is actually a ghost, who didn’t know he was dead. The ending shocked audiences around the globe and proved Shyamalan’s capabilities as a storyteller. The Sixth Sense was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing.
