Plot twists are heaps of fun, and that is something we can all agree on. Although not following the original plan that was set at the beginning of the movie and adding new information to a plot mid-film is risky business (and definitely not always a good idea), a wild turn of events, when executed effectively, is just what a movie needs to subvert expectations and make it more interesting.
Taking Alfred Hitchcock's prized Psycho (1960) and Orson Welles' timeless classic Citizen Kane (1941) as examples, throughout the years, countless motion pictures have proven to be full of surprises, cementing their compelling plot twists in film history. There are some jaw-dropping twists that absolutely blew audiences' minds in recent times.
This article contains spoilers for the mentioned movies.
'Coco' (2017)
2017's Coco, directed by Adrian Molina and Lee Unkrich, is possibly one of Disney's most beloved tales, and for extremely good reasons. This Mexican love letter that celebrates the Day of the Dead revolves around Miguel and his love for music, the only thing stopping him from pursuing it being his family's ancestral ban. That is, of course, until he enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, an accomplished and legendary musician.
Miguel meets Héctor among the dead while trying to find his great-great-grandfather Ernesto. However, it turns out that Ernesto is just a fraud who murdered Héctor, and that Héctor was in fact the one Miguel was looking for. We also learn that Ernesto's daughter Coco (Miguel's great-grandmother) was the only reason he wanted to cross back to the living world.
'Us' (2019)
Jordan Peele is a master of his craft when it comes to mindblowing plot twists — 2019 thriller Us, starring crazy talented Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke, is proof of that. The movie follows a suburban family's vacation trip that takes a wild turn of events when the characters realize they're being stalked by weird doppelgangers.
In a jaw-dropping ending, it is revealed that Red is the real Adelaide, and Adelaide has been keeping this secret her whole life. This plot twist obviously explains why Red is the only Tethered who was capable to lead the riot. It also demonstrates how she is the only one capable of thinking straight. Decades before the current events, Adelaide was switched when she wandered away from her parents at a fairground. When she came face-to-face with her Shadow, Red took her place in the world.
'Atonement' (2007)
In this Oscar-winning Joe Wright romantic war drama, Saoirse Ronan brings Briony Tallis to life in an impressive performance that earned the actor an Academy Award nomination at the mere age of thirteen. Tallis changes the course of many lives when she witnesses the son of her family's housekeeper, on whom she has a gigantic crush, having sex with her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley).
Atonement takes its viewers on a ride from the very beginning. However, what makes its plot stand out is its unforeseen twist and all the frustrations that come with it: In the final moments of the film, audiences learn that Cecilia and Robbie (James McAvoy) never shared a life together. Instead, Robbie lost his life in the war, and Cecilia drowned in a subway station. They never saw each other again after he was arrested. Ultimately, not only is Briony an unreliable narrator, but she also is an unreliable author.
'Gone Girl' (2014)
In what may be Rosamund Pike's most memorable role, Gone Girl delivers a puzzling storyline about a girl that goes missing on the occasion of her fifth wedding anniversary. Her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) reports her disappearance, and among lies and odd behavior, both the police and a growing media frenzy begin to question whether or not he had something to do with her vanishing.
In a series of flabbergasting plot twists, Amy meticulously plans her disappearance after learning that her husband cheated, making it look like it was Nick's doing. Post-staging her death (and displaying a lot of horrific behavior throughout the film), Pike's character returns home and reveals that she impregnated herself with Nick's semen (without his consent), which ensures that he will stay with her forever.
'Arrival' (2016)
Dennis Villeneuve's gorgeous piece of science fiction Arrival centers around alien lifeforms, and it follows an esteemed linguist played by Amy Adams who is recruited to work along with the military to communicate with twelve mysterious spacecraft that have appeared all around the world.
In a very clever but complex twist, audiences learn that the flashbacks Louise is having of a daughter are actually experiences from her future. We also learn that she knows that her baby will die young and decides to have her anyway. When Dr. Banks cracks the heptapods’ language, it is revealed that their means of communicating aren’t linear; they know the ending as they’re writing the beginning.
'The Prestige' (2006)
Christopher Nolan's best to some fans, The Prestige follows two famous stage magicians after a tragic accident. The two rivals take part in a battle in order to create the ultimate illusion while sabotaging the performance of the other on the stage.
The ending twist reveals both Angier's and Bordon's secret to their “Transported Man” trick: Bordon (Christian Bale) was actually two people — not one person, but a pair of identical twins, which explains how he pulled off so many tricks. On the other hand, Angier (Hugh Jackman) was using the machine to clone himself, killing it after each trick.
'Shutter Island' (2010)
This Martin Scorsese movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo follows a U.S. Marshal that is recruited to investigate the disappearance of a murderer who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane in 1954.
Shutter Island is a mind-bending incredible thriller that explores love, grief and mental illness, and it ends with the investigation taking a wild turn of events. Near the end, the audience realizes that Teddy isn't actually Teddy, nor is he a U.S. Marshal. Instead, Teddy is a demented killer and patient in the mental hospital he's “investigating," encouraged by his psychiatrist to act out his delusions.
'Knives Out' (2019)
Agatha Christie stan Rian Johnson has stunned worldwide audiences with the murder mystery Knives Out — thankfully, there is another installment for fans to devour coming out on Netflix December this year. The 2019 hit follows Daniel Craig's character Benoit Blanc, a detective on a quest to decipher the mysterious cause of the death of the patriarch of an eccentric family.
Everyone is a suspect in Johnson's film. And while at the beginning you would think that Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) was definitely a murder victim, the movie takes a gigantic turn and reveals the true tragedy behind the death of the famous author: After Marta gives Harlan his nighttime injections, she realizes that she switched the vials and accidentally gave him a lethal dose of morphine. The antidote was missing from her bag, so he slit his own throat to make his death look like a suicide. To make things worse, we later learn that Martha actually gave him the correct dose on instinct because of how familiar she was with the consistency of the liquids.
'The Sixth Sense' (1999)
After a home invasion, Dr. Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis) returns to work and attempts to help a frightened and reserved Philadelphia boy who sees the dead and communicates with spirits.
While Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense makes for a really good ghost story for the majority of its runtime, it ultimately delivers one of the most memorable plot twists in movie history by shockingly revealing that Dr. Crowe has actually been dead all along and is one of the many ghosts young Cole (Haley Joel Osment) sees.
'Parasite' (2019)
Bong Joon-ho's groundbreaking Best Picture foreign language movie revolves around a Korean family who struggles to keep food on the table. After the son's friend asks him to fake qualifications and takes his tutor role to a rich teenage girl, the Kims decide to infiltrate, one by one, into the wealthy upper-class family.
Parasite is a clever satire that tackles greed and inequality and never once fails to surprise viewers with its enthralling twists. Nevertheless, its ending is the most surprising thing about the film: After the Kims learn that the former housekeeper is also keeping a secret, a massive massacre plays out at the Parks’ son’s birthday party. Kims’ patriarch kills the Parks’ patriarch, and Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) vanishes then. Towards the end, the film reveals he's taken up shop in the Parks’ now-vacant basement, and his son is in hopes to buy the house someday.