The Greatest Movie Plot Twists Of All Time

With few exceptions, movies are told in chronological order. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But "Arrival" is unmoored by time, much like its protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams). In the movie's opening, we watch Louise lose her beloved daughter to disease. Naturally, we assume this is happening early in her life, before the renowned linguist is asked by the military to communicate with the heptapods — mysterious aliens who've landed on Earth. Her job is to translate their complex language so humans can talk with these otherworldly visitors. 

But as she delves deeper into their circular alphabet, the heptapod language changes her perspective of time, literally allowing her to experience the past, present, and future at once. And as we soon discover, Louise actually hasn't had her child yet. Those flashbacks are visions of what's to come, courtesy of the alien language. Louise now exists outside of time, or more accurately, throughout every moment all at once. As a result, Louise's perspective on concepts like love are radically altered by the heptapods' gift. Sure, she now knows that heartbreak is coming, but she heads into the future anyway, because she knows there's a lot of joy waiting there too. It's maybe the most emotional twist in all of science fiction, and one that will leave you both thinking and wiping away a few tears.

Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, "Colossal" is one of the wackiest movies ever made. This fantasy flick finds the alcoholic Gloria (Anne Hathaway) recently single and moving back to her hometown. But as the self-destructive drunk soon discovers, her problems are a lot bigger than just the bottle. Gloria is psychically linked to a Godzilla-like monster, and whenever she stumbles across a particular playground at a specific time, the kaiju mysteriously appears in the city of Seoul.

Fortunately, Gloria has a good friend to help with all the booze and oversized beasts: her childhood buddy Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). The moment Gloria comes back to town, Oscar does everything he can to help her feel at home. But Gloria soon realizes there's a lot of darkness behind Oscar's winning smile. 

For one, he's also linked to a giant creature that appears in the South Korean capital. And while he pretends to be a good dude, we quickly learn he's a violent, manipulative control freak, more monstrous than any kaiju. And when Gloria tries to get away from this creep, he threatens to murder countless Koreans with his robot avatar. This turn from best friend to abuser is pretty shocking, largely thanks to Sudeikis' affable persona ... although there are probably a lot of women who saw this coming, well aware that the real world is full of Oscars.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

It's no surprise that the Armitage family are the bad guys in "Get Out." When Missy Armitage (Catherine Keener) and her husband (Bradley Whitford) first meet our hero, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), they're way too friendly and polite. That's never a good sign in a horror movie. Then there's their super creepy son, Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones), who's oozing with menace. Yet his girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) seems totally on his side. She sticks by Chris when he's getting harassed by a cop, so she'll definitely help him escape her racist family's clutches ... right?

Unfortunately, Rose is probably the most evil Armitage of the bunch. After finding a box of incriminating photos, Chris starts to realize he's the victim of some really cruel catfishing. But even after he decides to run, he desperately hopes Rose is still on his side. He begs Rose to give him the car keys so he can escape, and for a moment, it seems like she might pick her boyfriend over her own flesh and blood ... but then she just smiles and says no way.

The casting here is what makes the twist work so well. According to both Allison Williams and director Jordan Peele, Williams was cast because audiences would associate her with far less evil roles, like Marnie Michaels from "Girls." And she does indeed seem pretty harmless, right until she starts drinking milk like a Droog and blasting at her boyfriend with a rifle.

On its surface, "Lone Star" is a dust-bitten mystery set in a small Texas town. The skeleton of a corrupt sheriff is found out in the desert, and everybody wonders if his deputy put a bullet in his brain. But the movie also works as an exploration of U.S. history, an analysis of American race relations, and a look at multi-generational family conflicts.

It also has a whole lot of incest. Okay, we're not talking "Game of Thrones" levels of incest, but it's a lot for a film starring Matthew McConaughey. The native Texan plays Sheriff Buddy Deeds, a larger-than-life lawman who disapproves of his son's love life. His boy, Sam, is crushing hard on a girl named Pilar, but Buddy stops their relationship before it gets off first base. 

Years later, after Buddy's death, grown-up Sam (Chris Cooper) and Pilar (Elizabeth Pena) finally hook up, but the two soon discover why Buddy was dead-set on keeping them apart. As it turns out, Buddy had an affair with Pilar's mom... so yeah, Pilar is Sam's half-sister. But despite the fact that they're related, Sam and Pilar decide to stay together. Pilar can't have any kids, so there's no worries there, and while it's obviously a controversial decision, the movie also kind of leaves you rooting for their twisted romance.

Every slasher villain has their own special skill. Freddy Krueger can control your dreams. Jason Voorhees can take anything you throw his way and just keeps on coming. And then there's Ghostface, who's got the uncanny ability to pop up anywhere at a moment's notice. When the masked killer first arrives in the opening scene of "Scream" — terrorizing poor Drew Barrymore — he seems to be lurking around every single corner. There's no way anyone can move this quickly, but as victim after victim learns, there's no getting away from Ghostface. This dude is everywhere.  

In the big climax of Wes Craven's horror classic, we discover the secret behind Ghostface's teleporting powers. Final girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is running for her life. The masked murderer has shown up at a high school party, and he's slicing people left and right. Sidney has no clue who's under the mask, and the movie has offered us a whole bunch of possibilities. Ghostface could be boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich), weirdo Randy (Jamie Kennedy), goofball Stu (Matthew Lillard), or even Sidney's own dad (Lawrence Hecht). There are so many suspects, and we don't know who to trust.

And that's when Sidney makes a horrific discovery — her boyfriend Billy is Ghostface ... and so is his best bud Stu. These two psychos are working together, Columbine-style, for a maximum kill count. And with two guys running around wearing Ghostface masks, it's no wonder this bad guy was making such good time.

Everybody knows the twist from "The Empire Strikes Back." Even moviegoers who've never seen a single "Star Wars" movie know Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad. The twist has permeated the pop culture consciousness, and the line "No, I am your father" has become one of the most memorable (and misquoted) lines of all time.

But back in 1980, the Luke-Vader revelation absolutely floored "Star Wars" fans. Most of the cast and crew didn't even know the truth about Luke's family tree. According to Mark Hamill, the original script read that Obi-Wan Kenobi had murdered old Anakin. Famously, only Hamill, James Earl Jones, George Lucas, and director Irvin Kershner were aware of the twist. So when Vader finally pronounced his parentage, everybody was gasping — from audiences to the actors themselves.

And this shocking moment did a whole lot more than elicit gasps. The Dad Vader reveal sent the series in a completely new direction, and that one line laid the groundwork for seven additional "Star Wars" films. Has any other movie twist had such an enormous impact? Well, as Luke Skywalker might say, nooooooooooooo.

If Terry Gilliam, Karl Marx, Spike Lee, and Rod Serling all teamed up to make a movie, it might look like "Sorry to Bother You." Written and directed by Boots Riley, this movie is absolutely insane in all the right ways, and no description can do it justice. It's without a doubt the most anti-capitalist film to ever come out of Hollywood, and it features perhaps the most deranged twist of the 21st century so far.

The plot follows a promising young telemarketer named Cassius "Cash" Green (Lakeith Stanfield) who finds success in sales by using a "white voice" to smooth-talk customers. Soon, Cash is promoted to the big-time, which involves selling slaves to giant companies, and eventually, he crosses paths with a psycho billionaire (Armie Hammer) with big plans for the future of business. Up until this point, the movie has been incredibly weird — for example, Cash's David Cross impersonation is spot-on — but when Cash discovers the billionaire's plans, that's when the movie loses its mind. As it turns out, the billionaire is turning people into half-human, half-horse monsters so he can create a powerful but malleable workforce. 

That's right. Armie Hammer is turning people into horses. And if that wasn't wild enough, the movie ends with Cash suddenly turning into an "equisapien" himself. It's totally bonkers, and no matter how good you are at guessing twists, you'll never see this nightmare coming.

Two years after terrifying audiences with "Get Out," Jordan Peele frightened everyone again with "Us," a freakish horror film with a genuinely shocking ending. The film opens in 1986, when a young Adelaide Thomas (Madison Curry) wanders into a hall of mirrors and meets her diabolical doppelganger. Flash forward a couple of decades and adult Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) is confronting her evil twin yet again. Only this time, the doppelganger — known as Red — has brought an army of scissor-wielding clones up from their underground lair, with each assigned to kill their real-world counterpart.

Throughout the film, Adelaide and her family manage to outwit and defeat their doubles, and in the climactic sequence, our hero finally confronts her twisted doppelganger. But in a stunning flashback, we suddenly realize we might be rooting for the wrong person. As it turns out, Adelaide is actually the grinning doppelganger from the opening scene. She's the result of a science experiment gone wrong, and when she encountered the real Adelaide in the fun house, she strangled the girl unconscious, dragged her down into an underworld of mute monsters, and then took the real Adelaide's place.

So Adelaide is really Red, and Red is the real Adelaide, and this whole creepy scheme has been about getting revenge for having her life taken away. Ultimately, the twist works as commentary on issues like privilege and nature vs. nurture, but in the moment, all you can really think about is picking your jaw up off the floor.

Even with hits like "Memories of Murder" and "Snowpiercer" already under his belt, Bong Joon-Ho stunned audiences with "Parasite," a subtle examination of the relationship between one family that has nothing (the Kims) and another that has everything (the Parks). After a friend of the young Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) invites him to lie his way into the wealthy Park home to act as a tutor, Ki-Woo goes one step further by getting his entire family jobs. This quickly spins a web of deception that we sense won't end well, but it's the carefully calculated deterioration of everyone's lives that makes this film the wild ride it is.

"Parasite" is full of commentary on the toxicity of the super-rich, but the societal con that sees underprivileged people fighting each other for scraps is the glue that holds the whole mess together. When the Kims begin feeling confident in the Park family's dependency, they have an audacious living room gathering while the family is away. While we expect them to be found out by the Parks, what actually happens is even more jarring. 

Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun), whose life they ruined by getting her fired to protect their own deceit, returns, begging to be let inside. We discover she's been keeping her husband in the basement of the Park family home for years, unknown to the Parks. This is just one of the developments that signifies imminent disaster for all, one of the most surprising moments in a film full of reveals.

"Friday the 13th" has a unique place in film history, being an independent production that gained major distribution at a time when that was essentially unheard of. Not only spawning a huge franchise in its own right but also helping to herald in a new era of slashers, "Friday the 13th" is sometimes referred to as a surface-level response to "Halloween," but there is a fair amount of social commentary at play in the script. Though it would be a stretch to call it nuanced, the lack of accountability at summer camps during the time is a catalyst for much of what occurs, as is the cruelty and neglect toward a disabled boy named Jason Voorhees (Ari Lehman) that it allows.

Though we are told that Jason drowned in the lake, the heavy boots and bulky jacket of the masked killer lead us to believe that he continues to stalk the campgrounds, killing the new teen counselors. However, it turns out that Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) is in fact the killer, seeking vengeance for her son's horrible death. Even if this is seldom mentioned in the franchise's many sequels, it is nonetheless a part of horror history. Years down the line, this twist was used as a "gotcha" in the opening sequence of "Scream," in which the doomed Casey Becker desperately insists that the killer in "Friday the 13th" was Jason, only to be rudely corrected that it was in fact Mrs. Voorhees in the first film.

There are many films you should watch at least once in your life, and "Citizen Kane" sits right around the top of that list. Widely regarded as one of the most game-changing films ever created, it remains not just strikingly relevant in a political and philosophical sense, but it also happens to be stunningly beautiful. Tapping into inventive camera angles while telling the story of an unknowable man through the eyes of the people around him, this movie might have flopped on its release, but it also cemented Orson Welles's legacy as one of the greatest filmmakers of his era. Today, it wouldn't be nearly as controversial to assert that there is something foul at the heart of an American Dream that allows corrupt men like Kane to rocket up the ladder of success, but "Citizen Kane" was shocking for its time. 

The story follows a reporter attempting to get to the heart of the man behind the myth after he passes away, whispering a final word: "Rosebud." Kane's (Orson Welles) story begins with his childhood as he attempts to strike the legal guardian that would dictate the direction of his life with a sled. It ends with this same sled, engraved with the word "Rosebud," burning in an incinerator. Whoever Kane was deep down, he died longing for his final moment of childlike innocence before he was set on the path of becoming a "great man."

Taking place in what was then the far-flung futuristic year of 2022, "Soylent Green" has a twist so well-known that, even if you haven't seen the film, chances are that you know its most famous line. At first, we are only told that Soylent is a cheap, nutritious food staple that comes in several flavorful varieties, such as Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the new Soylent Green. The narrative predicts a world on the verge of climate collapse that we assure you in no way resembles the actual Earth of 2022. Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is investigating the murder of a Soylent board member who appears to have been assassinated. Spoiler alert: it really does not work out great for him.

Thorn's elderly friend Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) uncovers that Soylent Green, once made of plankton, is no longer possible to manufacture due to the effect of pollution and global warming on the ocean. Naturally, the Soylent board opts for the next best thing to plankton, human corpses. Roth dies by assisted suicide, using his last words to tell Thorn the truth. This leads to the famous final scene of Thorn — badly wounded by a Soylent assassin — screaming, "Soylent Green is people!" although it seems questionable what effect this has in a completely fictional world in which climate change directly caused by rampant corporate greed threatens the future of humanity.

It's easy to take for granted what a huge deal "Saw" was for horror fans when it was first released. That is due in no small part to the twist ending, but the set-up is where all the magic happens. It opens on a photographer named Adam (Leigh Whannell) and a doctor named Gordon (Cary Elwes), each chained to pipes in a room with a dead body lying facedown between them. Each has a microcassette in their pockets, with Adam's urging him to survive while Gordon's orders him to kill Adam by 6 o'clock. This leads Gordon to realize that they are in the hands of the so-called "Jigsaw killer," known for kidnapping victims and forcing them to participate in elaborate "games."

It turns out that Gordon is a major suspect in the Jigsaw case, having attracted the attention of Detective Tapp (Danny Glover), who sent Adam to spy on him. This leads to a series of reveals that has the audience believing that just about every character in the film could possibly be the real Jigsaw at one point or another. Ultimately, a desperate Gordon frees himself, but only by sawing off his own foot. This in turn comes with the realization that they got everything about Jigsaw's true identity wrong. Adam looks on in horror as the corpse on the floor rises to its feet, revealing himself to be Gordon's patient, John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the real Jigsaw. "Game over," he says, leaving Adam to die a slow death.

This sleek neo-noir takes a dive back into 1950s America, introducing us to Detective Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). Together, they are investigating a psychiatric institute located on, you guessed it, Shutter Island. An inmate, Rachel Solando (different characters with the same name, played by Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson), who had drowned her three children, has gone missing, and the hospital staff is unhelpful. Daniels becomes convinced that everyone on the grounds is part of a plot to misdirect the investigation, including Chuck. This is all made worse by his constant migraines and blackouts, possibly caused by his memories of serving in the military and witnessing the atrocities at Dachau.

When Rachel Solando reappears, she asserts that she's actually a psychiatrist working to develop mind control. Meanwhile, senior psychiatrist Cawley (Ben Kingsley) tells Daniels that he never arrived with a partner at all. Eventually, the man we knew as Chuck introduces himself as another doctor at the facility, Doctor Sheehan, informing us that Daniels is actually Andrew, a patient under their care. After Andrew failed to seek treatment for his manic-depressive wife Dolores (Michelle Williams), she killed their children, and he killed her. This left him with overwhelming guilt, and his delusions have, as such, made him a prime candidate for lobotomization. Yet even as Sheehan gives the order, he is left to wonder how powerful Andrew's delusions truly are, as he calls him by the name Teddy and Andrew does not respond.

"Barbarian" writer and director Zach Cregger apparently loves twists so much that he decided to make a whole movie of them. The story begins with the nightmare scenario of hero Tess (Georgina Campbell) showing up to an Airbnb only to discover that a stranger named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there. This makes it seem like we're in for a fairly straightforward horror movie, yet the danger that Keith might pose goes on the back burner as Tess discovers a literal torture dungeon downstairs. When Keith is brutally killed by a naked, screaming woman covered in grime, it's clear that "Barbarian" is not going to follow the story we expect it to.

The story flips over to the homeowner, an actor named AJ (Justin Long), whose career is derailed when his costar comes forward with rape allegations. Though he denies this, it's clear that he did something very wrong. Returning to his property in hopes of rebuilding, he comically fails to see the danger he's in and ends up trapped in the basement with Tess. Taking a trip back in time, we see that the standard stoic conservative man who previously owned the house still lives in the tunnels below. He spent decades dragging women into the basement to torture them, with the naked woman being his offspring. There are actually still more twists in this film, but we're running out of breath, so we'll just say that "Barbarian" is a great reason to skip the apps and book a hotel room.

Criminal ringleader Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) announces that he's pulled off the perfect heist in the beginning moments of "Inside Man," leaving the story to explain exactly what he means by that. Detectives Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are put in charge of negotiations during the seizure of a Manhattan bank. This is anything but straightforward, as the robbers have forced the hostages into similar coveralls and masks, intentionally blurring the line between victim and perpetrator. Though Frazier and Mitchell pull out all the stops, including bugging pizza boxes they send into the bank, the robbers seem two steps ahead of their every move.

Frazier is convinced that Russell may be a criminal but he isn't a killer, which Russell responds to with a mock execution. However, at all moments, there is a lot more than meets the eye at play in "Inside Man." Though it benefits Russell to have Frazier believe he is capable of murder, he has a surprising level of morality behind his decisions. With the police unable to distinguish the difference between hostages and robbers even after their release, we see that Russell actually stays hidden and calmly walks out a week later. To make matters even wilder, he hands Frazier documents proving that the bank owner directly profited from and helped enable the Nazi regime. It really was the perfect heist.

Director Henri-Georges Clouzot has often been referred to as the "French Hitchcock," which should tell you what to expect from his most famous films. A pioneer in the realm of the thriller, Clouzot's masterwork may very well be "Les Diaboliques." Christina, a Venezuelan immigrant, is the owner of a troubled boarding school that's run by her tyrannical husband, Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse). Christina (Véra Clouzot) suffers from a heart condition that leaves her physically somewhat frail, making it difficult for her to manage either with or without her husband. Enter Nicole (Simone Signoret), a teacher with whom Michel is having an affair, who bonds with Christina due to their mutual abuse at his hands.

Together, they decide that the only way to rid themselves of Michel is to kill him. However, when his body goes missing, Christina begins to suspect that Michel is still alive, haunting the grounds and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. This ends in a startling conclusion as we realize that Christina's ally Nicole truly never intended to kill Michel. Indeed, they wanted to shock Christina into a fatal heart attack, which is just what happens when Michel comes lumbering toward her one night. This doesn't work out for Nicole and Michel either, but it's impossible not to feel Christina's horror in her last moments. The finale tells us that it's possible that Christina has survived, or is at least haunting the school grounds herself.

Twins Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) await their mother's (Susanne Wuest) return from cosmetic surgery, but they are unnerved to see her face is covered in bandages. As time goes on, they increasingly suspect that she isn't actually their mother, but has been replaced by an imposter. This is made worse by her generally distant behavior and the fact that she seems to completely ignore Lukas. The two attempt to figure out how to get this doppelganger to confess and tell them where their real mother is. This leads to them taking her hostage and torturing her as she desperately tries to convince them that she is in fact their mom.

As their abuse of the woman escalates, we discover that Lukas has been dead all along. Unable to cope with the loss of his twin, Elias finds it easier to believe his mother is a doppelganger than to consider that his brother isn't real. As tense as the entire film is, the final scenes are nothing short of terrifying as the mother begs her son to free her from a boobytrap he has sprung on her as the house burns around them. Filmmaking duo Veronika Franz and Severin Flala followed this tense piece of work with "The Lodge" (2019), and that one could just as easily have a place on this list as well. Long-held family resentment and their cataclysmic conclusions are the bread and butter of both films.

The original 1973 "The Wicker Man" is a true icon of British folk horror, and a big part of that legendary status is in the twist ending. Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), a devout Christian, visits the isolated island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan (Gerry Cowper). Disturbed by the paganism and cult behaviors of the island's residents, Howie is a man who believes he has total control at the outset only to be methodically stripped of any power whatsoever by the end of the film. The horror of the story is Howie's firm belief in his own authority and the realization that he has been nothing more than a pawn in a game that he doesn't realize is being played until it's far too late.

The islanders insist that Rowan never even existed, but Howie believes that this is all part of an elaborate cover-up. Believing that she will eventually become the "sacrifice" of the pending May Day celebration, he finds himself increasingly at odds with the residents of Summerisle. Discovering only the body of a rabbit in Rowan's supposed grave, he eventually tracks her down. Yet we discover that she is completely in on the ruse, and there's one little detail that Howie never anticipated. Rowan isn't the intended sacrifice for the mythical "Wicker Man" ... he is.

In the landmark 1968 sci-fi film "Planet of the Apes," Charlton Heston stars as Taylor, an astronaut who joins a deep space mission not just to explore the galaxy, but to get away from the fellow humans he's come to despise. A time warp sends Taylor and his crew barreling 2,000 years into the future, and they crash-land on a planet where evolution has flipped: intelligent, talking apes are the dominant species and humans are mute savages.

Forced to defend his species and aided by sympathetic chimpanzees who discover evidence of a human civilization that existed before that of the apes, Taylor escapes death at the hands of the sinister Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) — only to have his worst fears confirmed: he's been on Earth all along, with the apes ascending after humankind wiped itself out in a nuclear war. The image of Heston falling to his knees in front of a half-buried Statue of Liberty, screaming "God damn you all to hell!" to the skies, is one of the most powerful in cinematic history — and is easily one of its greatest twist endings.