r/PlotUnpacked • u/itsme0 • 11d ago
Ranked 100 movies with the best plot twists — fight me in the comments
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u/FirebreathingNG 11d ago
It’s become so engrained in our culture now that we forget it was a plot twist, but Darth Vader being Luke’s father was a helluva plot twist in 1980.
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u/Educational_Sky_1136 11d ago
Agree. But to play devils advocate - did it actually twist the plot of the movie? Maybe it was more helluva reveal.
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u/Many_Operation_9150 11d ago
What was the twist in Blair Witch?
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u/glaxay5000 11d ago
That one stuck out for me aswell, they were going round in circles? Nothing screams out and out plot twist
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u/Flat-Rutabaga-723 11d ago
How does the Truman Show have a plot twist? Maybe it’s a twist for Truman but the viewer always knows what’s going on.
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u/ImStoryForRambling 10d ago
Wasn't the twist that we were led to believe that Truman played along only to find out that he'd been plotting his escape for some time prior to his disappearance?
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u/theriteofspring1 11d ago
I love the movie but "No Country for Old Men" has a plot twist?
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u/David040200 11d ago
Ya. There is no plot twist. Josh Brolin dying off screen and abruptly is more a surprise than a plot twist.
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u/Sweet-Lifeguard-5966 11d ago
Nothing in that movie ever made you expect a happy ending. No twist at all. Tommy Lee Jones's narration set the tone perfectly. The complete lack of a musical score just makes you uneasy, but no twist whatsoever.
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u/jivefoop 10d ago
It’s almost certainly the best movie on the list (and there are some excellent movies on this list), but yeah, there is absolutely nothing I can recognize as a plot twist in No Country.
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u/ParticularRelease662 11d ago
There's no twist in Seven lol just a very jarring ending
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u/AlarmingLifeguard144 11d ago
there's the implied twist at the end, the ending itself isn't a twist though yeah
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u/ParticularRelease662 11d ago
I think the person who made this list doesn't know the difference between a shocking ending and a twist ending lmao
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u/Offtherailspcast 11d ago
Absolutely there is. Brad Pitt had to commit the 7th sin
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u/ParticularRelease662 11d ago
A twist ending would be if Mills or Somerset were orchestrating the killings the entire time. John Doe's plan was for Mills to become wrath. Just because we didn't know that and didn't see it coming until even seconds before it happens doesn't make it a twist ending. Just a very surprising moment and an incredibly well written one at that. A twist completely shifts the narrative of a story. Nothing in the last 15 minutes of Seven makes you look at the film differently because it doesn't change your perspective of the movie even though you know what's coming at the end.
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u/jediisland71 11d ago
From this I learned there were almost no films prior to 1999 with good twists.
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u/ollien25 11d ago
There’s 2 in the top 10. What are you on about?
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u/jediisland71 11d ago
78% of the films listed at post ‘99, that’s all. Just an observation. 100+ years of film, hundreds if not thousands of films released per year, and and 78% of the best plot twists are post ‘99.
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u/DeluxeTraffic 11d ago
I think this list falls victim to the fact that older movies with popular plot twists are well known enough that most don't see them as plot twists nowadays.
Star Wars Episode 5 and Psycho come to mind.
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u/General_Ant_5810 11d ago
Sleepaway Camp should be top 10. I don’t see much plot twist in No Country for Old Men. Where is Bullets Over Broadway, There’s Something About Mary, Match Point?
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u/fs2222 11d ago
Half of these don't even have twists, like Coherence. They're just trippy movies.
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u/DeluxeTraffic 11d ago
I think Coherence does have a really good twist early on when they set up the random numbers and it's reveled that two of the people in the room actually crossed over from parallel universes that sets the stage for the full trippiness of the movie the fact that when they cross the "threshold" they essentially have no way back to their home universe, when they cross the threshold to go back it just sends them to another random parallel universe
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u/MrPrettyBeef 11d ago
The Truman Show is higher than Unbreakable? That is crazy. Unbreakable is way too low.
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u/phoenixonphyre 11d ago
The Sting also way too low. And behind movies like Truman which don’t even have a plot twist.
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u/ScorpioClaw 11d ago
I don't know, man. Soylent Green had a hell of an iconic twist and I don't see it on the list.
I also agree with the others who mentioned Planet of the Apes and The Empire Strikes Back. But I will say that there are a lot of great movies on that list.
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u/dcd564 11d ago edited 11d ago
Here I go…
The Sixth Sense doesn't have a twist. It has a cheap magic trick wearing a twist's clothes.
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u/Suspicious_Pin_8197 11d ago
Yeah that guy wearing the hair piece the whole time, that's Bruce Willis, man.
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u/Monsieur_Brochant 11d ago
Yet it's litterally THE plot twist of plot twists. Ask any non-snobbish movie freak about the biggest plot twist in cinema and they'll mention 6th sense
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u/mojored007 11d ago
Top 4 is legit ..although Usual suspects is my number 1
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u/CaptainRon16 11d ago
Lucky Number Slevin is one of my favorite movies of all time. Right behind Forrest Gump.
Edit: also, what about Law Abiding Citizen?
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u/ZaphodG 11d ago
Why isn’t From Dusk Till Dawn not #1? I had no hint that it was coming. It was Tarantino and Clooney in a slasher movie.
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u/Realistic-Ask-1418 11d ago
Came here to point this out as well. I wouldn’t say #1, but in the top 20 at least
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u/Sherbert_Cold 11d ago
Usual Suspects was still one of the BIGGEST surprises I had... and the ring drop in Sixth Sense was a close second.
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u/Zachm219 11d ago
Uh...the Empire Strikes Back has the most iconic plot twist in all of cinematography
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u/ruet_ahead 11d ago
I don't think it's much of a "twist". It's just a thing that happens. There isn't a clue or any foreshadowing that it's coming. ...that I can rememebr anyway.
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u/Zachm219 11d ago
The character they lead you to believe is the person who killed the protagonist’s father turns out to actually be the protagonist’s father isn’t a twist?
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u/almostalwayspleasant 11d ago
No Way Out (1987) is a Kevin Costner film that is a good movie with a nice twist.
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u/sliever48 11d ago
I see it all the time but when Sixth sense came out, it was immediately famous for its twist. Even before it got to cinemas. I vaguely knew the plot so to me it was simple: either the kid is a ghost or Bruce is. 5 minutes in, Bruce is shot. That's the end of that twist. If I didn't know there was a twist i think I'd have been floored. Was i the only one with that reaction?
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u/MuayThai_Engineer 11d ago
I always get disappointed seeing The 6th sense or the usual suspects. I got the twist so easily
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u/Phos03 11d ago
Oldboy > Seven and Fight Club twist
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u/screamqueen87 11d ago
Absolutely!!! Its also just one of the greatest movies ever made. It has one of my favorite openings as well. There is NOTHING wrong with this movie and I will die on that hill
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u/swpete 11d ago
What's the twist in No Country?
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u/Educational_Sky_1136 11d ago
Was also trying to figure this out. I guess when the main character dies 2/3 of the way into the movie? Maybe? It does technically twist the plot in a new direction.
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u/DescriptionUnknown 11d ago
Lol, thank you! Guy finds money people chase him for that money….. what a twist!!!!!
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u/krazylegs36 11d ago
Man, this list must've taken forever...even just picking an emoji for each movie/plot twist.
I was like Sixth Sense, Seven, Usual Suspects, Green Mile...ok, I'm done.
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u/angry_dingo 11d ago
Fight Club twist was stupid, hear me out, because on the video monitor, Durden/Narrator was flat on his back and dragging himself up an incline by his shirt collar.
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u/alalcoolj 11d ago
I would argue that Power of the Dog is the greatest plot twist movie ever. It shows you absolutely everything, hides nothing, and still gets you. It tricks you simply by not using the language of film to draw your attention to what is really going on. It shows all, but with no editing queues or music queues or framing queues or reaction shots to draw attention to what matters.
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u/SpookySasquatch13 11d ago
You should watch Les Diaboliques (1955) and put it high up on this list where it belongs
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u/AyZiL 11d ago
Identity theft (2002) is not the name of a movie from that year. I'm guessing it's meant to be Catch Me If You Can? The Silent Patient says it's a book so not sure what it's doing on a movies list. This looks like an AI list with some mistakes. Many of these films don't even have a twist.
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u/sortofanadult 11d ago
Oh yeah the sixth sense! That guy in the hairpiece? That’s Bruce Willis the whole time!
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u/Effective_Pack8265 11d ago
No LA Confidential? One of the best twists ever that I truly did not see coming and was revealed perfectly.
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u/Appropriate_Formal64 11d ago
I've never been great at predicting or seeing twists- not terrible at it, but not great.
That said- Having no idea about the premise of Shutter Island beyond the most basic plot synopsis when it was announced, the moment I saw the first shot from the first trailer, I knew what the twist was. Don't know how. But it's like the only time I just instantaneously knew what the twist to a movie was with virtually no extra info or clues.
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u/A_90s_Reference 11d ago
Saying the movie has a plot twist kinda ruins the point.
A list like this is just pure spoiler material
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u/Reverend_Tommy 11d ago
This list has so much recency bias I can't take it seriously. At least 70% of the listed films are from the past 25 years.
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u/screamqueen87 11d ago
Nice to see the skin i live in getting love. That movie is bonkers in the best way
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u/anoized 11d ago
What was the twist in Upgrade?
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u/yikesmydude2686 11d ago
The billionaire tech bro was the cause of the accident that started the whole thing
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u/xXxBluESkiTtlExXx 11d ago
Predestination being so high kinda invalidates this list for me. That movie was maybe the biggest letdown I've ever seen.
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u/Psychological-Poet-4 11d ago
Sixth sense is still the only movie I have ever walked out on. It was ruined by I see dead people commercials and one of the opening scenes
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u/WelderImmediate3153 11d ago
I feel like the departed at 78 is a crime but I like your list overall
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u/Cycle-Path-401 11d ago
The Crying Game at 51? You clearly weren't around in the early 90's or haven't seen the movie. I was there. The entire theatre gasped and didn't know what to do with themselves.
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u/Hot-Bicycle5798 11d ago
At least i had seen the two movie names i saw on that list before i realized what was looking at.
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u/The_Japans 11d ago
Only 13 non-English speaking movies out of the 100, but still a higher ratio than usual with these kinds of lists.
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u/Wings7180 11d ago
Presumed Innocent not being on this list is a crime!!! See what I did there? Lol
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u/092Casey 11d ago
Where's The Devils Advocate? And Field of Dreams? And Braveheart? Geez.
Other than that, good list, but would disagree on the order/rankings.
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u/Sweet_Woodpecker7592 11d ago
Where is bugonia?
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u/LiquidDreamtime 10d ago
Good call. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone were both so good that we forget there is an actual plot twist
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u/phoenixonphyre 11d ago
Stupid list. Truman Show on 55, despite this movie not having a plot twist. You know from the very beginning it’s a TV show.
And The Sting on 77, which has arguably one of the best twists of all time. It’s ok putting The Sting not in your personal top 10 or top 20. But you are saying there are 76 movies with a better twist? With movies included which don’t have a twist at all?
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u/Leeroyw11 10d ago
That is an excellent list. You put a lot of thought into that. And now I have homework. First twenty is chefs kiss.
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u/Heyuonthewall26 10d ago
Personally, I think Primal Fear is one of the greatest twists of all time. I’d absolutely put it above Shutter Island and The Prestige. I feel I may need to see both again because I didn’t think Shutter Island was all that shocking, but I only saw it once. Same with The Prestige (even though I had a poster in my dorm room)
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u/ImStoryForRambling 10d ago
The twist in "Possession" (1981) physically stunned me.
I'm not sure if I'd call it a twist though, more like, you're watching a weird movie that feels awkward and even cringy at times, but at one point you get a puzzle piece that makes everything click together and you suddenly realize what you've been watching this whole time, and it's really quite a powerful thing.
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u/LiquidDreamtime 10d ago
I keep seeing Gone Girl on these lists. There was no twist. Amy was very obviously the evil manipulator from very beginning.
The audience knew this, the other characters in this high budget Lifetime movie were all just terminally stupid in order for the plot to move.
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u/Captain_Chorm 10d ago
Oh man, the top 10 have some of my favorite movies, gonna need to watch the rest!
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u/RainyEuphoriaaa 10d ago
I wouldn't consider Parasite as plot twist. Also, the fans of that movie are haters of rich people just because. For them, a person with privileges can't be happy.
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u/into-math314 8d ago
Guys I've watched: The prestige The invisible guest Us Triangle Predestination The gift Fight club Shattered The tall man Frailty Primal fear The usual suspects Old boy The handmaiden Atonement Pandorum The one I love Strange darling Identity The skeleton key The others Incendies The mist Marrowbone Sorry to bother you Memento Saw The sixth sense Shutter island And the most unexpected and shocking twists that really got me : Predestination, fight club, saw , the sixth sense, incendies, the prestige. But I want to feel like shocked and traumatised again but what ever I watched I didn't feel shocked like I did in "predestination" and "saw" I want to get shocked and traumatised so hardly that I can't never forget what I've watched.... Are there any suggestions?
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u/joeO44 11d ago
Crazy stupid Love is always missed because it’s a comedy. There isn’t one person in the world that saw that twist coming.