Greatest Film Plot Twists. Film Spoilers and Surprise Endings. Time Period or Place shifts, or Virtual Reality.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Total Recall (1990)
Strange Days (1995)
12 Monkeys (1995)
Dark City (1998)
eXistenZ (1999)
The Matrix (1999)
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Pandorum (2009)
Triangle (2009)
Inception (2010)
Source Code (2011)
Predestination (2014)
False (or Decoy) Main Protagonist - Usually Killed Off Early (or Substantially Replaced by Another Character)
Psycho (1960)
Alien (1979)
Dressed to Kill (1980)
Executive Decision (1996)
Fargo (1996)
Scream (1996)
Cube (1997)
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
The Hurt Locker (2008)
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Story told from Perspective of an 'Unreliable Narrator' who basically fabricated much or all of the entire preceding story
Brazil (1985)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Primal Fear (1996)
Fallen (1998)
Fight Club (1999)
American Psycho (2000)
Memento (2000)
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Haute Tension (2003)
The Machinist (2004)
Premonition (2007)
Shutter Island (2010)
Life of Pi (2012)
Enemy (2013)
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
The Lego Movie (2014)
Flashbacks (usually in the 'third act' with previously unseen or unknown elements) or a sudden and surprise revelation, uncovering hidden elements, explanations or motives, often of a past event, that helped to solve mysterious circumstance(s)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Les Diaboliques (1955)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Marnie (1964)
Scream (1996)
Swimming Pool (2003)
The Machinist (2004)
The Village (2004)
The Prestige (2006)
Safe Haven (2013)
Arrival (2016)
Unexpected Ending About How The Truth Has Been Shockingly Hidden or Subverted by Lies
Witness For the Prosecution (1957)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
F For Fake (1973)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Dead Calm (1989)
Se7en (1995)
The Mist (2007)
Exam (2009)
Remember Me (2010)
Kill List (2011)
It's a "Conspiracy" or "Con-Job" - All Part of a Plan
The Stepford Wives (1972)
The Sting (1973)
The Parallax View (1974)
April Fool's Day (1986)
Disclosure (1994)
The Game (1997)
The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
Enemy of the State (1998)
The Truman Show (1998)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
The Life of David Gale (2003)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Get Out (2017)
Death-Dreams ("It was all a dream"), or Fantasies at the point of death
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962)
Phantasm (1979)
Brazil (1985)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Total Recall (1990)
Boxing Helena (1993)
Open Your Eyes (1997)
eXistenZ (1999)
The Matrix (1999)
American Psycho (2000)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Identity (2003)
The Descent (2005)
Atonement (2007)
Repo Men (2010)
Crucial character(s) acknowledged as dead; presumed dead, but actually (due to a faked death or faux death), still alive and not dead at all; or the reverse in which characters are actually dead (but are made to appear alive); or the situation (or ploy) of taking over a dead person's identity
Laura (1944)
And Then There Were None (1945)
The Third Man (1949)
Les Diaboliques (1955)
Vertigo (1958)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Saw (2004)
Taking Lives (2004)
The Illusionist (2006)
The Prestige (2006)
Tell No One (2006)
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Gone Girl (2014)
A Sudden Reversal of Fortune for a character, or change in circumstances, or reversal of motivation
After the Thin Man (1936)
Chinatown (1974)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
The Game (1997)
A La Foile...Pas Du Tout (2002, Fr.) (aka He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not)
Saw (2004)
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Sunshine (2007)
Hancock (2008)
Sudden Revelation of the True Nature or Identity of a Character(s) Revealed, an Unexpected Reversal of Identity, or Revelation of a Character Mix-Up
Witness For the Prosecution (1957)
Vertigo (1958)
Psycho (1960)
Charade (1963)
Chinatown (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Deep Red (1975)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
No Way Out (1987)
Shattered (1991)
The Crying Game (1992)
Malice (1993)
Color of Night (1994)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Primal Fear (1996)
Arlington Road (1999)
Fight Club (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Unbreakable (2000)
Frailty (2001)
The Others (2001)
Basic (2003)
High Tension (2003)
Identity (2003)
Matchstick Men (2003)
Oldboy (2003)
Secret Window (2004)
The Man From Earth (2007)
Orphan (2009)
Carbon Copy (2010)
The Tourist (2010)
The Ward (2010)
The Skin I Live In (2011)
Unknown (2011)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Enemy (2013)
The Visit (2015)
Non-linear films, constructed in non-chronological order or reverse chronology, and revealing truth outside of a clear timeline
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Lost Highway (1997)
Memento (2000)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Irréversible (2002)
Identity (2003)
Sin City (2005)
Inland Empire (2006)
Premonition (2007)
Arrival (2016)
*******
1. Psycho (1960) 8.5
10
Planet of the Apes
2. Planet of the Apes (1968) 8
Rate
Taxi Driver
3. Taxi Driver (1976) 8.3
10
Carrie
4. Carrie (1976) 7.4
Rate
Halloween
5. Halloween (1978) 7.7
Rate
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
6. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 8.7
9
Brazil
7. Brazil (1985) 7.9
Rate
Reservoir Dogs
8. Reservoir Dogs (1992) 8.3
8
The Usual Suspects
9. The Usual Suspects (1995) 8.5
9
Casino
10. Casino (1995) 8.2
9
Se7en
11. Se7en (1995) 8.6
8
Primal Fear
12. Primal Fear (1996) 7.7
8
Scream
13. Scream (1996) 7.3
7
American History X
14. American History X (1998) 8.5
Rate
The Sixth Sense
15. The Sixth Sense (1999) 8.1
8
American Beauty
16. American Beauty (1999) 8.3
8
Fight Club
17. Fight Club (1999) 8.8
9
American Psycho
18. American Psycho (2000) 7.6
Rate
Frailty
19. Frailty (2001) 7.2
Rate
Identity
20. Identity (2003) 7.3
7
Matchstick Men
21. Matchstick Men (2003) 7.3
Rate
Saw
22. Saw (2004) 7.6
8
Secret Window
23. Secret Window (2004) 6.5
6
The Departed
24. The Departed (2006) 8.5
9
No Country for Old Men
25. No Country for Old Men (2007) 8.1
9
Paranormal Activity
26. Paranormal Activity (2007) 6.3
7
The Mist
27. The Mist (2007) 7.1
Rate
Inglourious Basterds
28. Inglourious Basterds (2009) 8.3
8
Shutter Island
29. Shutter Island (2010) 8.2
8
Insidious
30. Insidious (I) (2010) 6.8