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 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 incorporateunanswered questionsthroughout 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. Twists are tricky, as they can either make or break a film.
However, they don’t always work. 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.Many twists redefine a movie’s legacyand help it endure even after the actual ending is known. 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.
Updated on August 20, 2025:This article has been updated by Federico Furzan with additional content to keep the discussion fresh and relevant with even more information and new entries.
Beware - Spoilers Ahead
30The Village (2004)
The Village
The Villagetells the story of a community living in a remote village in 19th-century Pennsylvania. The elders and leaders are very cautious about humanoid creatures that appear to be violent and cause extreme fear in the youngest. However, one of the villagers dies, and Lucius Hunt asks the elders to be allowed to travel outside the community to look for medicine. This will be the beginning of the end for the integrity of a town that’s always relied on pure fear to remain unadulterated.
The Village Is a Bold and Extremely Divisive Move
One of M. Night Shyamalan’smost successful and underrated filmsis also one of his most divisive. There’s no middle ground when it comes toThe Village,and yes, part of this is due to its twist at the end. Ivy becomes the protagonist after Lucius gets attacked, and she decides to step up and face the monsters living in the woods. Eventually, she reaches the “limits” of the village, and when she jumps over a wall, it’s revealed that the film takes place in modern times, and it was the elders' decision to live in isolation, as they feared the dangers of the modern world would stop their community from being safe. It’s an extraordinary twist that works, and regardless of what you may think about the movie, you got goosebumps when Ivy jumped over the wall and landed on the road.
29Inside Man (2006)
Inside Man
Spike Lee teams up with Denzel Washington to deliver a thrilling heist movie where nothing is as it seems.Inside Manbegins with Dalton Russel breaking the fourth wall to speak with the audience and narrate how he committed the perfect bank robbery. Dalton and his team infiltrate a specific branch of a Manhattan bank and quickly make everyone present wear matching outfits. Detectives Keith Frazier and Bill Mitchell are on the case trying to figure out the kidnapper’s game, but he is swept off his feet at every turn, while the bank owner hires fixer Madeleine White to protect his interest.
Spike Lee’s Action Endeavor Is One of His Best Movies
It turns out Daltondid indeed pull the perfect hit, as his play involved hiding inside the bank after taking the targeted loot: the contents of deposit box N°392. He emerges from the bank precisely as he told Frazier he would do: by walking right out of the front door. Considering how well-written the movie is, it’s a shame that the film’s writer, Russell Gewirtz, fell off the radar and only participated in another film that will remain in the dark because it’s not as good.
28Moon (2009)
Duncan Jones has a varied filmography, but he certainly took us for a ride withMoon. In the story,Sam Rockwell playsSam Bell, the sole human operator of a highly automated mine processing operation extracting a mineral named helium-3, which can only be obtained on the moon’s surface. Sam is nearing his three-year contract when he suddenly begins feeling ill in the middle of a massive communication problem. After Sam goes out to fix a piece of machinery, he blacks out, only to find himself lying on the base table again.
Science Fiction Rules on Steroids in Moon
As it turns out, Sam is a clone set in place to operate the facility, one of many with a single lifespan of three years. His life has been turned into a cutting-cost measure for a corporation, and it’s up to him to escape the cycle by any means he can. But can you imagine trying to fight yourself for survival? This is one of modern sci-fi’s most underrated films.
27Shutter Island (2010)
Shutter Island
Shutter Islandis another classic Martin Scorcese and Leonardo de Caprio team-up. In the movie, US Marshall Teddy Daniels takes on the case of an escapee from the Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like asylum for the mentally insane located on a remote island. The high-profile murderess seems to have vanished from a locked room without clues about her escape. Teddy constantly discusses each new tip on the case with his partner Chuck Aule, but a series of supernatural events are taking a toll on Teddy’s mind.
Shutter Island Is Scorsese’s Closest Approach to Horror
By the time the plot unfolds,we learn Teddy is actually Andrew Laeddis, a former US Marshall suffering from dissociative disorder after his manic-depressive wife murdered their three children by drowning them. The whole plot is actually part of his therapy to deal with his internal demons and everyone is participating in a kind of sick role game in the most inhospitable mental institution ever.
26Identity (2003)
James Mangold certainly proved to be a master storyteller from his very early efforts. InIdentity, we get two stories seemingly unrelated at first sight. On one side, we have serial killer Malcolm Rivers under the care of psychiatrist Doctor Mallick, who is set to have a midnight hearing on a rainy night, just hours before his execution. On the other hand, a group of ten people are stranded in a motel in the middle of nowhere while a storm pours over them. The guests try to be on their way only to find themselves unable to escape until they begin to be taken out by an unseen killer.
Identity Has a Great Premise and Conclusion
In the film’s third act, it’s revealed Malcolm suffers from dissociative disorder and has ten different personalities living in his head. Dr. Mallick is exposing his patient to an experimental treatment to weed out all the other personalities, so only one remains, with a second twist coming at the very end when the murdering personality is revealed to be the only child in the group who also is the last personality inside Malcolm to prevail. This is one ofMangold’s most underrated features.
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25Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Anyone could be easily fooled into thinkingOnce Upon a Time… in Hollywoodis a film telling the story of Rick Dalton, as the movie is more about telling the story of the end of the golden age of Hollywood and the event that brought down the illusion. In the story, we follow a washed-up Dalton who spends his days trying to find meaningful work in an industry he no longer recognizes. Along for the ride is Cliff Booth, his stunt double and longtime friend. Parallel to the story, we see the rise to fame of Sharon Tate and the shenanigans of the Manson family.
Tarantino Changes Hollywood History. Literally
The plot twist revealed at the end of the film lets us know that Tarantinohas chosen to create an alternate realityjust as he did inInglorious Basterds. Members of the Family attack Rick’s house instead of Sharon Tate’s, only to get dominated with extreme caution by Rick and Cliff. A great ending to a great film that reflects Tarantino’s occasional idealistic version of Hollywood.
24Old (2021)
A vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach where they’re relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.
Oldis one of many twists by filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. The story focuses on a group of people on vacation who find themselves trapped on a beach. On this beach, theybegin to agerapidly without any explanation. This, of course, sends these people into a frenzy to survive and find a way off this beach as they see what should be pivotal birthdays for their younger loved ones arrive and with the elders knocking at death’s door. They get old… fast.
Perhaps the Only Thing People Remember About It
At the end of the film, it is revealed that the beach is an orchestrated experiment to see how the strange minerals found on the beach would affect human subjects. This poses some ethical questions about scientific research on sentient beings and how immoral it can become if left unchecked. Not many questions are answered, but Shyamalan’s narrative weapon works andOldends up being a notable attempt.
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23Barbarian (2022)
InBarbarian, Tess Marshall heads over to Detroit for a promising job interview. To verify she arrives on time the next day, she rents a house to stay in the night before. The house sits in a shaded neighborhood, devoid of any human presence. When she tries to get a key, there’s nothing there. As she knocks, a stranger opens the door and says he also booked the house. Contrary to horror logic, Tess decides to give Keith a chance, and she stays that night. This would be the beginning of Tess' nightmare.
Barbarian Has a Risky Shift Halfway Through the Nightmare
But as it turns out,Barbariandoesn’t go for the usual “nice-looking guy ends up being a creep” trope. The next day, Tess goes to her interview, and things seem to be great. Wait, wasn’t this a horror movie? When she discovers a door in the basement, she opens it only to discover a tunnel that heads over to the inside of a conspiracy. Keith can be heard in the distance, and when he gets brutally mauled,Barbarianturns into a whole other movie that shows the house’s owner discovering the reality of the thing that lives below ground andalso finds Tess fighting for her life.
22Chinatown (1974)
Originally released in 1974, Chinatown is an American neo-noir mystery movie starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. Its story was inspired by the California water wars, a series of conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and the people of Owen’s Valley around the beginning of the twentieth century. The movie received 11 Academy Award nominations in total, with Robert Towne winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Chinatownstarts like any other detective story: Evelyn Milwray, a beautiful married woman, hires detective JJ Gittes to find out if her husband is having an affair. What Gittes discovers is much more sordid and frightening, as the man might be trying to get rich with the water supply of Los Angeles. In his investigations, Gittes finds a young woman who could be the key to the whole case, as she’s of interest to both Evelyn and her father, Noah Cross.
Chinatown Has a Different Kind of Family Structure
The big twist in this'70s crime epiccomes 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.
21Citizen Kane (1941)
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kaneis 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 about its significance. This incredible movie by first-timer Orson Welles shows us the rise and fall of this important man, who is a clear analog of William Randolph Hearst.
The Legacy of the Powerful
At the end of what is widely considered to bethe best film of all time, the audience discovers what his last words mean. Rosebud was a sled he had in his childhood, when he was really happy, before all the money and fame we’d seen him get during the film. This revelation beautifully explains the thesis ofCitizen Kane:the most remembered and cherished things in life don’t come from money and power.
