#10: Identity: In this crime-thriller/horror/mystery film, a group of ten strangers get stranded in the middle of the Nevada desert during a freak storm. Taking refuge at a nearby motel, they are taken out one by one by a serial killer. The strangers become paranoid, and try to figure out who to trust and who in their midst is the true killer. Meanwhile, in a subplot: several political officials and a psychiatrist are deciding the fate of serial killer Malcolm Rivers, who was to be executed for his crimes, but the doctor assigned to him has set the meeting up because he believes he's discovered some evidence to prove Malcolm's innocence. There's a double twist here: The events at the motel are all taking place inside Malcolm's mind, and each stranger is a dissociated personality living inside his head, as Malcolm created the personalities after a traumatic event in his childhood, and they all reflect parts of his personality. One of the personalities is murderous, and that's the part that made Malcolm into a serial killer. The psychiatrist explains to Malcolm that the events happening in his head are an elaborate way his mind has constructed to kill off the excess personalities, including the killer. After one personality is left standing, a female prostitute who wants to move to Florida to live a peaceful life. The authorities believe the murderous personality, a corrupt cop, has been taken out. Malcolm, now a peaceful and calm man, is transported to a medical facility, accompanied by his friendly and understanding psychiatrist. Malcolm and the psychiatrist are now being driven to the facility in a van. But, here comes twist #2: another personality has survived, Timmy York, a young, innocent, mute child, who was traveling with his friendly parents. Timmy, believed to be dead, is revealed to be the actual killer and a sadistic and evil psychopath. Malcolm begins to have a panic attack in the back seat, and the psychiatrist, with the driver's permission, attempts to calm Malcolm down. He opens the small gate that separates Malcolm from the passenger's seat, and attempts to help him. The sweet woman personality is killed by Timmy, and Timmy, now the only personality left, takes over Malcolm's mind for good. Malcolm uses his cuffs to strangle his psychiatrist, before evilly grinning at the driver. The van they are all in swerves off the side of the road, and stops dead in its tracks. It is unknown what happens to the three after this point, so the film ends open-endedly.
#9: The Crying Game: In this thriller-drama, Fergus (Stephen Rea), a member of the IRA, holds Jody (Forest Whitaker), hostage. They becomes friends, and Fergus promises Jody he will protects his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson). After starting a romantic relationship with her, Fergus makes a shocking and, for him and the viewer, somewhat disgusting discovery: Dil is a chick with a dick. Director Neil Jordan reportedly got the inspiration fro this twist from the 1980's slasher film Sleepaway Camp.
#8: Psycho: In Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror-thriller, based on Robert Bloch's novel, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is skipping town after stealing money from her job, and her car breaks down in the countryside. Luckily, she comes across the Bates Motel, owned by the handsome but awkward Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and his overbearing, elderly mother. Despite not seeing the mother, Marion can tell she and Norman are close, a bit too close. When Marion decides to step into the bathroom for a nice shower, she doesn't expect the first twist coming: she is brutally stabbed to death by the psychotic mother with a kitchen knife. This twist inspired films like Scream to kill their leads off early, and Hitchcock made a point for audiences not to arrive late, so they wouldn't miss it, despite the fact this happens nearly an hour in. As Marion's sister and her boyfriend investigate, they discover an even more shocking twist: the mother has been dead and rotting for years on end, and Norman is the killer, and has three different personalities: Norman, the scared young boy; Norma, his psychotic and murderous mother; and Normal, the face he shows his guests before he kills them. He is now stuck in the mother personality, and may never snap out of it. Norman, now stuck in the mother personality, is sitting in the interrogation room, thinking the thoughts of a sweet old lady. This twist alone tops the terrible 1998 remake with Vince Vaughn.
#7: Fight Club: In this dark comedy/drama, Edward Norton plays The Narrator, a lonely, bored man with a laundry list of problems. After meeting the care-free and charismatic Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman, on a plane, the two decide to start a "Fight Club", where men can fight each other in brutal combat to relieve stress and anger. But, as the Club spreads, the more the situation spirals out of control. The Narrator realizes he needs to stop the Club, now called Project Mayhem, a domestic terrorist group, and attempts to track down Tyler, before realizing something shocking: Tyler is an alternate personality he created to change his life, a personality that has basically gotten a mind of its own that's trying to take over his life. In fact, the director put Durden in single frames throughout the first act of the film, to subconsciously put his presence in the viewer's head before he arrives on camera.
#6: Primal Fear: Another great Ed Norton film, this time his first film ever. In this courtroom drama-thriller, a headline chasing lawyer (Richard Gere) decides to defend Aaron Stampler, a shy, stuttering, Southern altar boy accused of murdering a beloved Archbishop. Aaron reveals to the lawyer he has an alternate personality: "Roy", a violent, angry bully who defends yet constantly picks on Aaron. Roy admits he was the one who killed the Archbishop, and Aaron pleads insanity. Roy bursts out in court, proving Aaron to be mentally unstable. The lawyer also reveals that Aaron and an altar girl were molested and forced to perform underage porn for the Archbishop. After the trial, Aaron is given a few months in a psychiatric facility. The lawyer and Aaron shake hands and part ways, but on the lawyer's way out, Aaron reveals to him that he has been faking. The lawyer asks "There never was a Roy?", and Aaron responds that he's disappointed in the lawyer and reveals "there never was an Aaron", revealing he consciously tortured and murdered the Archbishop, as he "deserved it" for being a pedophile, and he murdered the innocent altar girl because she could testify against him. He reveals that although the name Roy was fake, that's who he truly is, and the sweet personality was just for show. The lawyer, depressed that he's let a psychotic killer free from punishment, leaves a broken man. This double performance got Norton an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, and this was only his first film role.
#5: Memento: In Christopher Nolan's second film, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man suffering from anterograde amnesia, a condition that prevents him from making new memories, tries to track down "John G.", the man who raped and murdered his wife. He kills Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), who appeared to be helping him, and the film then backtracks to show why he did it. The film switches back and forth between long sequences in color, and short scenes in black and white. The color sequences are shown backwards chronologically, whereas the black-and-white sequences are shown in proper order. In the black-and-white sequences, Leonard is talking on the phone to a mystery caller, telling the story of when he worked at an insurance company, and how a man named Sammy, with the same condition he now has, whose case he was investigating, killed his diabetic wife by giving her repeated insulin injections at her request, as she was trying to test him to see if he could break his condition by remembering he had already injected her. In the color sequences, Leonard uses notes, photos, and tattoos to remember the clues and facts he's already uncovered, and to conduct a complex investigation, trying to track down John G. He is assisted by Teddy, but is told by a woman (Carrie Anne-Moss) he is helping to not trust him. In the end, it's revealed the woman is manipulating Leonard, using his condition against him, as he killed her drug dealer boyfriend, whom he believed to be John G. Teddy is also revealed to be an undercover cop named John Gammell. John (Teddy) reveals that Leonard is delusional, as he has confused bits of his life with the life of Sammy, a con man with no wife, as Leonard's wife was diabetic, and he killed her with the insulin, which she did because she wanted to break his amnesia and due to the mental stress she suffered after being raped and beaten by thugs. John also reveals he felt sorry for Leonard, and helped him track down the rapist and kill him, and thought that the act of revenge would break Leonard's condition. As it turns out, Leonard continued to forget his revenge, and John has helped him track down innocent men over the years to give his life purpose: to constantly hunt down a killer, as he'll never remember getting vengeance for his wife's death. Leonard, angered by John telling him the truth, purposely writes down false info on John, as he'll forget why he wrote it down, which will lead his future self to kill him based on false info, as Leonard has decided "Teddy" will be "his John G."
#4: The Sixth Sense: The film that kick-started M. Night Shyamalan's career also started his reputation for twist endings, and this one is still the best he ever came up with. In this horror-drama, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), is shot by a former patient, Vincent (Donnie Wahlberg), who says Crowe "failed him", before the patient turns the gun on himself. The next fall, he and his wife have grown apart, rarely speak, and Crowe begins to suspect she's cheating on him. He begins to work with Cole (Haley Joel Osment), a young and awkward boy with few friends, whose case is very similar to Vincent's, and he believes this could be his redemption for failing Vincent. He discovers Cole can "see dead people", and helps Cole overcome his fear of the ghosts he sees, and also discovers Vincent had the same "gift" as Cole does, and that's why he went crazy. He feels he should not let the same happen to Cole, and helps Cole find the purpose for having the gift: to help ghosts fulfill their purpose for staying on Earth to help them pass on. Cole successfully helps the ghost of a sick little girl, by revealing to the public that her cruel stepmother poisoned her. Crowe decides to part ways with Cole, as he has successfully helped him. Crowe returns home, and finds his wife has fallen asleep on an armchair in their living room, and their wedding videotape is playing on the television. Crowe then discovers he has not been wearing his wedding ring, and realizes he died the night Vincent shot him, and that he was one of the ghosts Cole could see. He has already filled the first purpose for his return from the grave: to redeem himself for failing Vincent. He then fulfills his second purpose for staying: to whisper to his sleeping wife she never came second in his life, and she was more important to him than his work, something she never believed. He is then able to peacefully pass on to the next life.
#3: Planet of the Apes: In this 1968 sci-fi film, Charlton Heston plays an astronaut who goes into space with three other astronauts. The crew slip into cryo-sleep, and when they awake, they have crash-landed on a mysterious planet. One of the crew have died , and the three remaining crew members have lost the ability to properly communicate. The three men explore the barren landscape of the planet eventually finding humans on the planet. They discover that the humans act more like primitive cavemen, and that apes have become highly intelligent and have taken over this world. After being enslaved, Heston escapes and reveals he can intelligently communicate. He is able to escape the corrupted city of apes with a few scientist apes and a beautiful female human. They arrive in a cave that has evidence of intelligent human life, before they are confronted by ape soldiers. Heston wants to leave to search for more answers on the existence of humans on the planet. The soldiers promise that Heston and his new girlfriend can leave and they will not be followed and the scientists will be treated fairly, but warn Heston he may not like what he finds beyond the cave. The ape scientists are betrayed by the evil Dr. Zaius, who orders his soldiers bury all evidence that intelligent humans existed on the planet before the apes rose to power, he also orders the scientists imprisoned. Heston and his girlfriend ride along the shoreline on horseback, and approach a destroyed monument. Heston falls on his knees and screams out in anger, sadness, confusion, and frustration. The camera pans back to reveal a partially destroyed and buried Statue of Liberty, revealing the alien planet is in fact Earth after a nuclear apocalypse. This is a much better twist than the one in that God-awful Tim Burton remake.
#2: The Empire Strikes Back: In this film, well.. everyone already knows what happens. After Luke Skywalker has his hand chopped off in a duel with the dark lord Darth Vader, Vader reveals that Obi-Wan was using a metaphor when he said Vader killed Luke's father, because Vader is Luke's father, he just acts like a completely different person. It's pretty well known by most people today that Vader is Luke's dad, but back in 1980, nobody saw this coming.
#1: The Usual Suspects: In Bryan Singer's crime-thriller, a gang of criminals are killed on a boat in the Port of LA. The story is told through the eyes of the only survivor of the massacre, a crippled and somewhat stupid small-timer Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey, who won the Oscar for his role), who tells a US Customs Investigator (Chazz Palminteri) the increasingly complex story of how he and a few other criminals got a job from a mysterious and legendary Turkish crime boss named Keyser Soze. After the investigator begins to piece together that the leader of the criminals Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) is Soze himself and he faked his death on the boat, and left Kint as a witness. Kint refuses to testify, but admits Keaton was behind the entire scheme. Kint, tearing up, leaves the investigator's office, as his bail has been posted. Kint gathers his things and leaves, limping down the street. The investigator, while preparing to go after Keaton, looks around his bulletin board, and realizes that most of Kint's story has been fabricated, and names of places and people in the story were taken from items on the board or around the room. The investigator rushes out of the office, and another investigator notices a fax coming in through the fax machine. As Kint walks away, he drops the limp and gets into a car with Kobayashi, Soze's representative from Kint's story, and they drive away. The second investigator, back at the office, takes the fax from the machine. It reveals a sketch of what Keyser Soze is believed to look like, and the sketch heavily resembles Kint. The investigator hopelessly runs after Kint, and frantically looks around a crowded public park, searching for any sign of Kint, aka Keyser Soze, but alas, he arrived too late, as Soze has escaped, like Kint said earlier "and like that, he's gone". The reveal is not only fantastic, but is mind-bending and original, not to mention the fantastic music and editing in this sequence. It's not only, in my opinion, the best movie plot twist, but it's also the most well-executed of them all.
Honorable mentions:
Black Swan, Donnie Darko, The Prestige (didn't make the list, as it was a deal-breaker for most people, and to me, was a slight let-down), No Way Out, Scream 2, Frailty, Session 9, Seven, Insidious, Friday the 13th, Reservoir Dogs (not that crazy of a twist, but a good one), The Game.
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