Best trick/twist ending in a movie? (spoilers, of course!) (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

Chad R: talk about missing the point, or more accurately, seeing only half of it and therefore completely missing it. Also, it is always sad when someone feels justified in throwing away the ending of a movie without warning because they didn't like it, or more likely were threatened by it.

But, this thread isn't an in depth discussion of the endings.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

That was a great film. I kind of wasn't completely surprised by that, but I didn't really expect it either. Good catch though.

 

[Josh.C]

Just because..., I must throw a vote for the worst "attempt" at a trick ending EVER. I'm going to say hands down SECRET WINDOW w/ Johnny Depp takes the cake. There were ten year old kids in the front row that saw that twist coming. One of the most un-original films I have ever seen. Good thing I saw it on a sneak peak for FREE!!!

JC

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

I also would not regard Million Dollar Baby as being a "twist" flm. The film may have looked like a "typical boxing flick", but it really wasn't. The film was actually about the development of a father-daughter-type relationship between Frankie and Maggie, and the boxing element was really just the context in which it happened to occur. Viewed like that, the final part of the film is not a twist, more one of the many ways that the film could naturally have ended.

A "twist" ending, at least for me, is more the type of ending that actually forces you to reassess everything that you've seen, where you have to reconisder the assumptions that you've made. Fight CLub, Usual Suspects, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Psycho - all of these were twist endings. Million Dollar Baby was just a film that went in a different direction.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Oh, I just remembered another which threw me for loops the entire film, not just at the end: The Game. First time I saw that I was at the edge of my seat the whole time, and everytime the conspiracy seemed to be coming together in your head, NOPE!

 

[Southpaw]

Yeah! What he said.... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Southpaw]

You want another bad attempt at a trick ending???? BASIC with Travolta and Sam L. My lord, that was terrible.

 

[Chad R]

I wasn't threatened by it -- it didn't work. The literal needs to be believable for any metaphor to take hold. The literal does not work, and therefore any metaphor it was attempting does not work. The ending did not resolve the story but rather opened up far more questions and inconsistencies that the family sitting happily at the picnic table does not answer or even hint at being worked through. This was a deeply dysfunctional family with a lot of problems bubbling under the surface and that film's ending would have compacted the problems not brought them closer.

 

[Janna S]

Limbo.

 

[JohnRice]

Chad, we disagree. The point of this thread is not for you to tell me I am wrong in my assessment of any particular film, or the other way around. You clearly have issues with The Upside of Anger that I don't share. It is no surprise there is a great deal of disagreement regarding it. Just read a few comments about it on Netflix or wherever you choose. It seems to either work for someone, or it doesn't. For me, it makes a remarkable amount of sense.


Aother one just occurred to me, Dellamorte Dellamore (aka) Cemetery Man. Now that's one freaky ending.

 

[Phil Florian]

April Fool's Day might be one. If I recall, the trick ending was (predictably) the fact that all the previous murders were, in fact, a hoax.
Though, I may be remembering it incorrectly.

Brazil had a good "trick" ending, of sorts. In one of the cuts, any way.

Good call on Ed Norton's role in Primal Fear. I saw this movie on accident (we were there to see a free preview, found it sold out, and the theater manager shuffled us into whatever other movie was starting around that time and bam!).

 

[Holadem]

That's beside the point: You should have used spoiler tags or been vague enough to not give the ending away. I suggest you do so out of courtesy for everyone reading. Your post still out there for all to see. And please do not reply with a reference to the warning in the thread title: It does not reference any movie, and is essentially useless beyond a general warning.

--
H

 

[Shawn_KE]

Reese being John Connors father in Terminator was a nifty "twist" I guess.

 

[Chris]

I agree with 12 Monkeys

Here's a few that are different twist endings, but I thought very effective ones.

Citizen Kane How could this not get mentioned so far? It's maybe one of the top twists of all times. The search for Rosebud ends... and..

The Wizard of Oz Plenty of buildup toward the end, with the Wizard (who's the heart of the title..) What a twist!


I just had to throw in some classic twists that didn't get a message. Vertigo would also be one of them.

 

[Josh.C]

I just watched The Skeleton Key last night, and I immediatley thought of this thread. Great twist in that one, and I really enjoyed the movie. I'm surprised it's taken me this long to see it.

Also, one of my favorites, and worthy of this list imo, What Lies Beneath

JC

 

[JohnRice]

I saw this incredibly stupid movie last night. These two kids saw each other across a room at this big party, and instantly fell madly in love with each other. It turns turns out their families are mortal enemies, but instead of instantly hating him, the girl says something about "my only love sprung from my only hate" and ends up marrying him instead. Give me a break, they've known each other for a couple hours and she marries him? She's only 13 years old, and she just marries this guy. Then, if you can believe it, the guy kills her cousin, and she doesn't even get angry at him. Anyway, there is this completely absurd thing about her pretending to be dead, and they both end up killing themselves. Talk about one stupid, unbelievable story. How do these movies keep getting made anyway?

 

[Joe Kamsan]

Twist endings have become so common now that they have to pack a real punch to one up classics like Usual Suspects and Seven. Usual Suspects was the first movie to leave me floored and I haven't seen an ending like it since.

What about bizarre twist endings?

Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl.

Love Total Recall's ambiguous ending.

Thought the twist in 'The Game' was overdone yet strangely I like the film as a whole.

 

[Josh.C]

How about "Scream". This one was extra cool because the characters in the movie were talking about possible twists and turns in movie plots, while actually acting out the plots and twists in the movie we were all watching. It's not going to rate with many of the one's listed above, but still very effective, and with an added "fun" factor that most of the others mentioned do not have.

Granted this movie opened the door for many horrible sequels and copycat films (almost created it's own genre) which never lived up to the original. IMO it doesn't change the fact that Scream was a great film (One of my alltime great theater experiences).

JC

 

[JohnRice]

It is downright absurd how trick endings have become. I remember someone here commenting some time back about how movies based on Shakespeare were always so stupid because he always knew what was going to happen. An awful lot of people seem to think that if a movie doesn't have a trick ending, it isn't any good.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

The great thing about Vertigo is that it reveals the twist 2/3 of the way through the film - unlike the book, which does leave the reveal for 3 pages from the end. It has a great effect of distancing the audience from Scotty - because they know something he doesn't know, and so we are forced to just sit and watch the unfolding of events in horror.
There is something about the unconventional timing of the reveal that is particularly effective (see also Fight Club - don't they make the revelation with half an hour to go in that film? Although in that case, you could say the revelation was needed for the ending to play out.)