5 Most Shocking Plot Twists in Film History

Plot twists are why spoilers are the cardinal sin for moviegoers. There is nothing more satisfying than fully enjoying a cinematic masterpiece.. Because a well-constructed narrative, accompanied by an unexpected plot twist, evokes a strong sense of surprise, which is usually quite memorable.

Many mediocre directors, trying to imitate the great masters, make films that rely entirely on plot (I’m looking at you The Usual Suspects). This is not the best way to do it. A great plot twist is usually the icing on a delicious cake.. If the cake stinks, the cherries don’t matter.

The following five films fit this rule perfectly.. Each of them was already a great film, the storytellers only added to their great narratives, making them unforgettable.

souvenir

Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors ever. Which became an indisputable fact thanks to his masterpiece “Oppenheimer”. Twenty-three years ago, Nolan was already demonstrating his enormous potential as an artist.. Memento premiered in 2000, impressing audiences with its unconventional storytelling. It tells the story starting from the last scene of the film, the chronology is reversed. It is in this order that the origin of the main character is revealed to us. And this happens in parallel with black and white scenes arranged in chronological order, all so that both narratives ultimately coincide.

Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) is disoriented, having lost the ability to form new memories due to a blow to the head from the attack. His wife died during the confrontation, so now he seeks revenge. The film’s narrative strives to emulate this feeling in the audience.. Since the main character doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing most of the time, the audience should feel the same way until the end. It is for this reason that Leonard’s body is full of tattoos: he constantly writes key words on his skin, trying to remember the events to which they refer.

The plot comes to an end. Leonard discovers the true identity of the only person he could trust, Teddy, who was supposedly helping him track down his wife’s killer. The truth is that Teddy was one of the police officers investigating the murder case. He helped Leonard track down the criminal he killed, But since Leonard’s memory resets every fifteen minutes, his thirst for revenge could never be satisfied.. From then on, he used him as his personal hitman, giving him false information about the murder of any person Teddy pointed out as a suspect.

It’s wonderful to see how these two narratives converge in the end, leaving us speechless. At the same time, it is implied that Leonard has invented a new identity to cope with the truth that It was he himself who killed his wife, a product of his defective memory.. Since the narrator is unreliable and we end up knowing nothing, the plotters introduce us to the psychology of the main character.

Fight club

When I think of storytellers, Fight Club immediately comes to mind. Since its premiere, the revelation that the main character is hallucinating another character has been played thousands of times, but no one has been able to recreate the shock we feel when it turns out that Tyler Durden is just a projection of the main character.

Throughout the film, we see the narrator admire Tyler. He is what the main character would like to be: rebellious, carefree, confident, courageous, attractive, it says a lot about the main character that this madman is his role model. There comes a point when admiration turns to concern when Durden becomes the leader of a terrorist group. Edward Norton’s character finally awakens to common sense. Brad Pitt’s character suddenly disappears, so the main character begins flying around the United States in search of him.

His world turns upside down when he realizes that all this time he was looking for himself (sounds corny, but profound). He changed identities and organized terrorist cells everywhere. His followers don’t seem to understand when the narrator tells them he’s looking for Tyler Durden. They say, “Sir, you are Tyler Durden.”.

Just like that, suddenly everything makes sense. Each piece of the puzzle fits together with the other. We experience a pleasant revelation when we realize that Tyler Durden is just another side of the main character. And it’s interesting to see how David Fincher illustrates the act of a man struggling with himself. Psychology projected onto the screen.

Planet of the Apes

Of all the storytellers on this exciting list, this is the most iconic. Because this is a perfect example of the power of plot twists. Planet of the Apes is a good movie before the reveal that happens at the very end. Subsequently, it is turned into a magnificent classic of world cinema.

It tells the story of three astronauts who find themselves stranded on a distant planet after traveling in suspended animation for over two thousand years. As they explore, they realize that in this world, monkeys are at the top of the food chain, and humans are enslaved by them and do not have the ability to speak. The main character, played by Charlton Heston, is considered disgusting because he is a man with the gift of speech. which is impossible according to the religious canon of monkeys. He later manages to escape, accompanied by the woman with whom he shared the cell.

Happy to have escaped a life of slavery or even execution, the protagonist calmly drives along the beach with his wife until he sees something horrifying. He recognizes a monument on his planet, with the Statue of Liberty half buried in front of him.. At this moment he understands everything: he and his companions did not get anywhere, some technical failure brought them to the same place from where they started, only thousands of years later. His hope of returning to Earth is destroyed, he is already on Earth, and his civilization is history.

This great twist gives new meaning to everything we’ve seen since it implies an apocalypse. The advanced civilization that sent these three astronauts to explore outer space was destroyed by someone, allowing the apes to evolve and become the dominant species. Charlton Heston’s character was hilarious at first. Since he had never felt much affection for planet Earth and its inhabitants, he wanted to find something better somewhere in the galaxy. Every moment he thought that he had realized his dream. only to understand the true horror of what happened.

Oldboy

When someone recommends the masterpiece, the most iconic film in all of Korean cinema, Oldboy, they usually add a warning: “You should know that this is very disturbing.”. This is due to the vivid plot. So perverted that many people feel sick thinking about it.

Oldboy tells the story of Oh Dae Soo, a terrible man who is kidnapped and forced to live locked up in a motel for fifteen torturous years, only to be released without explanation. The desire for revenge flows through his veins, but he does not know where to direct it.. The story haunts our consciousness for an hour and a half until the final perversion is finally revealed. The villain locked up the protagonist to punish him for spreading a rumor that turned out to be true: that he had sexual relations with his sister. Shame forced the girl to commit suicide. Not satisfied with this first punishment, he manipulated events so that the protagonist ended up having sex with his own daughter without knowing it.

This revelation is so terrible for Oh Dae Soo that he begs the villain not to tell his daughter, committing the pathetic act of cutting out his own tongue with scissors. In the end, he himself manages to forget about it through hypnosis.

The atmosphere of Oldboy is very unique. It immerses you in a cruel world where punishing people by locking them up in a hotel for years is a lucrative business. In which the thirst for revenge is the strongest feeling that exists. And where brutal violence is the answer to any problem. In the end, the protagonist, with his detective intelligence and gift for violence, cannot avoid falling into the most grotesque trap ever conceived.

Psycho

Psycho is considered a revolutionary film as it introduced several concepts that were unheard of in 1960. ran away while others fainted in an atmosphere full of screams and laughter. Things got so bad at a New York movie theater that managers called the police.others called for the film to be censored. It was banned in a number of countries, including Ireland, and in Britain several scenes had to be cut from the footage.

During the famous shower scene, the old woman kills what should have been the main character. Something completely unheard of, since the main character must always remain alive until the end of the film. This made a deep impression on the public.. Everyone expected the woman to open her eyes and survive despite the stab wound. But no, he actually died right in the middle of the film.

Then the second plot twist occurs: the culprit of the murders was not the old woman, but her son, disguised as a woman. It turns out that Norman Bates killed his mother and her lover. Unable to bear the guilt, he preserved his mother’s corpse, pretending that she was still alive.. His personality became fragmented, alternating between his own and that of his late mother. Every time he feels attracted to a woman, the “mother” awakens inside him and forces him to kill the object of his desire.

This pair of storytellers emotionally destroyed the audience who saw Psycho in 1960. Even then it was a shock to see how horribly the main character was killed. The killer disposes of the body, the money (which has been the defining factor of the film up to this point) and the car as if they were nothing. The second impact occurs when Norman Bates’ horrific mental problems are revealed. Of course, film marketing stressed that the novel on which Psycho was based was inspired by a true story. Without a doubt, one of the films that still has the greatest impact on audiences to this day.