If you love movies, then I’m willing to bet that you loveeeeee a good twist! What’s better? A well-executed reveal in a movie can turn a good film into a GREAT one.Recently, Reddit user arnoldsomen asked people to share their favorite twists, posting, “What is the greatest reveal in cinematic history?” Of course, you have your usual suspects (pun intended), but there were more than a few responses that didn’t immediately come to mind, and they gave me the itch to rewatch some of these masterpieces. Here’s what everyone had to say:
Note: SPOILERS ABOUND!!!!!
1. “The Wizard of Oz — when Dorothy lands in Oz and opens the front door to a world of Technicolor.”
MGM courtesy Everett Collection
—u/ice-lollies
“People today have no memory of a time when all visual media was black and white. My mom and her sister went to see it in the theater when it was released. She told me about the audible gasp that the entire audience let out as the Technicolor began.”
—u/wordstogetherrandom
2. “The Matrix. Neo waking up in the tub of goo in the real world was a real mind-fuck for me at the time. It’s easy to take for granted now because the idea of the Matrix is so ingrained in our society, but in the lead-up to the release, we had no idea what was actually going on. Seeing Neo wake up, naked, hairless, and full of plugs, in a cyber hellscape full of horrifying and cold machine monsters, with ZERO ideas of what just happened, was an experience I’ll never forget. It’s sad that for the most part, people today cannot really ever have that same experience.”
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/eternallylearning
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3. “Crazy, Stupid, Love. It’s the only rom-com with a full-on twist that you do not see coming.”
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Informal-Pear-5272
“I think about that reveal at least once a week. It came so far from left field I never saw it coming.”
—u/FluffyWalrusFTW
4. “Atonement gets me upset just thinking about it.”
©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/i_like_pretzels
“I have never forgiven that girl, and I never will. Her motivations were so dumb, and she ruined everything.”
—u/ireneadler7
“Great movie! I never wanna see it again!”
—u/MiIllIin
5. “The killer being face down in the room with the guys the entire movie in Saw was pretty cool.”
©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Reaper621
“I watched it in the theater when I was in high school. I was talking to someone about it in class, and they said, ‘It was obvious from the beginning.’ Well, not to me! The biggest ‘OH SHIT!’ moment was in that ending sequence when you see that the key was attached to that light. I audibly said, ‘Ohhhhh SHHHHHIT!!!'”
—u/chxnkybxtfxnky
6. “Clarice and the FBI raid being at different houses in The Silence of the Lambs.”
©Orion Pictures Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection / ©Orion Pictures Corp
—u/hoju72
“Jodie nails that look of dread as she realizes, after she sees the moths fluttering.”
—u/mousesnight
7. “I’m going to throw out the three different endings in Clue.”
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/RhondaTheHonda
“To me, the one with Mrs. White’s rambling revenge monologue (apparently improvised by Madeline Kahn) is the only true ending.”
—u/Number127
“‘Now I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife!’ This is, hands down, the greatest last line in any movie.”
—u/PunchBeard
8. “The end of the original Planet of the Apes — the Statue of Liberty scene. 😳”
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection / 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merchandising / Everett Collection
—u/gsp137
9. “‘Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.’ ‘He told me enough! He told me you killed him.’ ‘No, I am your father.'”
©20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, TM & Copyright / courtesy Everett Collection
—u/PepperidgeFarmMembas
“This has become so much a part of the cultural awareness that people don’t remember what a huge reveal it was. Like mainstream magazine articles debating about whether it was true or not.”
—u/crazy-diam0nd
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10. “The tanks in The Mist.”
©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/collinse90
“Yeah, the ending of that movie is devastating. I actually just saw it for the first time a couple of years ago, and I somehow managed to avoid any spoilers for it beforehand.”
—u/No_Comfortable_3183
“Even Stephen King said it was a better ending than the one he wrote.”
—u/ChickenCurryandChips
11. “I liked the big reveal in Memento, I thought that was pretty unexpected.”
©Newmarket Releasing/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Reaper621
“I wrote a film class exam paper about Memento, focusing on how much the movie implies without actually telling you. IMO, the whole movie was a master stroke.”
—u/DJhedgehog
12. “It’s all common knowledge now, but Drew Barrymore dying in the opening scene of Scream was a big twist. And having two killers was bonkers.”
©Dimension Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/EinsteinDisguised
13. “The Game. When he fell through the glass and landed in a party for him, my teenage jaw was on the ground. I can’t recall another twist that blew me away quite like that one did.”
© Polygram Filmed Entertainment / courtesy Everett Collection
—u/eternallylearning
14. “Vertigo floored me. First, there’s the apparent death of Madeline halfway through, when I assumed the entire story would be about them falling in love. Then this random girl named Judy shows up, and why is he following her and fixating on her? Holy fucking SHIT.”
Universal Pictures courtesy Everett Collection
—u/dauntless91
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15. “Not the greatest in history, but I loved rewatching The Book of Eli after knowing he is blind. There are many hints throughout the movie.”
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/wallace-longshanks
16. “I made it to college having never seen theThe Usual Suspects, or knowing the twist. My buddy got very excited when he found this out and demanded we watch it that night. Fast forward to us sitting down to watch, popcorn is out, we each have a beer, and the opening scene is just starting when my friend’s roommate comes in. ‘You’re watching Usual Suspects? Oh, I love this movie! Isn’t it so crazy that you can’t tell—’ He immediately spoils the twist. I somehow made it 21 years without getting spoiled, only to miss the mark by 1 hour and 43 minutes.”
©Gramercy Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/F0LEY
17. “What’s so well done about Primal Fear is that Richard Gere is set up to be this incredibly intelligent and competent protagonist. Decades of movie tropes set us up for him to be the one to discover something and reveal it. Which he sort of does, so we, as an audience, let our guard down and go, ‘Oh, OK, that was it…’ So to be in the denouement and have Ed Norton come out of nowhere and hit our super-intelligent protagonist with a massive left hook out of nowhere and realize even HE could be fooled was just a brilliant setup and pacing.”
Paramount/courtesy Evertt Collection
—u/IDrinkUrMilksteak
18. “The plot twist in The Others.”
©Dimension Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Alternative-Care6923
“The kids screaming, ‘We’re not dead!’ was such a freaking gut punch.”
—u/dickonajunebug
19. “Captain America being worthy of Mjolnir”
Null / ©Walt Disney Co./courtesy Everett / Everett Collection
—u/kajex1UP
“I went BANANAS in the theatre. My wife was simultaneously entertained and embarrassed as hell. 😆”
—u/kalud12
20. “‘Soylent Green is people!'”
Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/phoenix14830
“I remember my dad saying that he saw Soylent Green in theaters before the twist was common knowledge. I already knew the twist before I saw it, but I was surprised by how good the rest of the movie was, too. Some movies are only as good as their twist, but Soylent Green is just a legitimately good dystopian sci-fi movie. Great, gritty world, and I love old man Edward G. Robinson.”
—u/gotenks1114
21. “The Prestige. Borden and Fallon being identical twins and swapping personalities to keep up the ruse — the reveal is perfect. There are so many clues and hints throughout the movie that lead up to it. The whole movie is a magic trick.”
©Touchstone Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/ijustwannalurksobye
“Honestly, I do believe this is Nolan’s best twist ending. The Prestige deserves more recognition.”
—u/thanosthumb
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22. “The Vulture being revealed to be Liz’s dad in Spider-Man: Homecoming made everyone in the theater gasp so loud.”
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection / ©Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Co / Everett Collection
—u/radikraze
23. “The reveal in Fight Club that Brad Pitt’s character is not real and just an extension of Norton’s fractured personality.”
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Tapdance_Epidemic
24. “Shutter Island – you’re the patient, not the detective. Everything you believed was a lie from the start.”
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
—u/Start2Mine
“That one is especially crazy for me, too. When Leo first found that out, I didn’t want to believe it just as much as he didn’t. It’s really well set up for the viewer to sympathize with him.”
—u/elbowedelbow
25. “Norman Bates at the end of Psycho.”
Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
—u/psyko-sid
26. And finally, “It was surprising at the time that the ending of The Sixth Sense wasn’t ruined for everyone, even without social media being what it is today. People intentionally kept their mouths shut just to watch everyone else’s heads explode after the reveal.”
(c) Buena Vista Pictures/ Courtesy: Everett Collection
—u/Sargonnax
What other big movie twists blew your mind? Tell me in the comments or use the anonymous form below. Your response may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
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