Movies That Turned Everything Upside Down With The Best Plot Twist Endings

You might have different opinions, but the best plot twists are the ones that arrive so suddenly and so perfectly timed that your brain needs a few seconds to catch up with what just happened. And the really great ones? They leave you sitting there wondering if the reveal was actually a real thing or not. Sometimes the credits roll before you’ve fully processed the reveal, and you're left wanting to re-watch the whole movie all over again, this time to catch the details you missed in the first watch. Which is why, from psychological thrillers and crime dramas to horror classics and cult favourites, these films delivered final act twists that completely changed the way we looked at the story unfolding in front of us.

For most of the film, we watch Edward Norton’s unnamed Narrator spiral deeper into chaos under the influence of the charismatic Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. Tyler becomes everything the Narrator wishes he could be: fearless, reckless and free from society’s rules. Till you realise that Tyler Durden never existed at all.

Where to watch: Netflix, JioHotstar

I remember watching this on television as a kid when it first aired, and the TV operators has deliberately played the same movie on two channels simultaneously with a gap of fifteen minutes between them, so that you could come back and watch the twist again once you realised what had just happened in the final confrontation between Vidya Balan and Indraneil Sengupta.

Where to watch: Prime Video

Martin Scorsese spends the entire film convincing us that Leonardo DiCaprio’s Teddy Daniels is a US Marshal investigating a disappearance at a psychiatric facility on a remote island. That is, till we realise that Teddy is not an investigator in the first place, and it's not the first time he's visiting Shutter Island.

Where to watch: JioHotstar

You can say that this is the mother of all plot twist movies, going way back to silent films of the 1920s. The final five minutes of Cabinet Of Dr. Calighieri turns everything on its head so drastically that every other last act plot twist in cinema just seems like a rip-off of it.

Where to watch: YouTube

Farhan Akhtar’s Don plays like a sleek crime thriller where Shah Rukh Khan’s ruthless gangster is replaced by his innocent lookalike Vijay after a near-fatal accident. Vijay is trained to infiltrate Don’s empire from the inside, and for most of the film you think you’re watching a classic mistaken-identity story unfold, up until a single line said to Priyanka Chopra’s Roma changes the entire movie.

Where to watch: Apple TV

In that one moment, Darth Vader uttered the words, “I am your father”, and one of the best prequel trilogies in cinema was born.

Where to watch: JioHotstar

The original Saw spends almost its entire runtime trapping two strangers in a filthy room with a dead body lying between them. As the psychological torture escalates, the corpse becomes part of the background and you stop paying attention to it altogether. Then, in one of horror cinema’s nastiest final reveals, the body suddenly stands up.

Where to watch: Prime Video

Christopher Nolan’s film follows rival magicians Robert Angier and Alfred Borden as their obsession with outperforming each other turns increasingly destructive. The final act uncovers the horrifying lengths both men went to in pursuit of the perfect illusion, transforming what looked like a story about stage magic into something far darker and far more tragic.

Where to watch: Apple TV

American Psycho is about a psychopath on a killing spree, right? Right? You think so, and then the phone call takes place, and youre left questioning what was real and what wasn't, said phone call included.

Where to watch: Netflix, Prime Video

Nothing really prepares you for the churning in your stomach when you see the final reveal at the end of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy. Which is why we'll leave the description out for this. It's a great movie, but don't tell us that you weren't warned about that twist.

Where to watch: Prime Video