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15. The Others (2001)
The movie: It's 1945 and World War II has just ended. Grace (Nicole Kidman) and her two children live in a dusty old mansion in Jersey. To make matters worse they seem to be sharing their country home with some uninvited guests from the spirit world.
What's the twist? Grace is dead, as are her children. Not only are all three of them ghosts, but Grace is the one responsible. Driven mad with loneliness waiting for her husband to return, and struggling with the difficulties of having photosensitive children, she smothered her kids with a pillow and then shot herself!
14. Primal Fear (1996)
The movie: In the dock for a grisly murder, altar boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton in his first-ever role) pleads diminished responsibility on account of his split personality, a condition that causes him to veer between stammering innocent and twisted killer. That's alright though, he's got defense attorney Martin Vail (Richard Gere) to help him achieve justice...
Article continues belowWhat's the twist? Once his lawyer has got him off the hook, Stampler reveals that the innocent side of his personality was mere performance. There is no "Roy": he's a killer to the core.
13. Split (2016)
The movie: Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) is a man suffering from a serious case of multiple personality disorder. He has 23 of them, in fact, and the less friendly identities living within his body have decided to kidnap three girls for rather nefarious purposes.
What's the twist? It's an M. Night Shyamalan movie, so you spend the entire movie waiting for the twist, but no one expected this. The final shot is one of Bruce Willis in a diner, looking warily towards the TV as news of Kevin's crimes are exposed. Willis' character's name, it's revealed, is David Dunn... sound familiar? Yep, you've been watching a spin-off to Unbreakable this entire time.
12. Chinatown (1974)
The movie: Hired as a private investigator to pry into the business of a big wheel in the L.A. power and water industry, Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) becomes embroiled in the convoluted affairs of femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway).
What's the twist? When pushed to explain her relationship with her husband's mistress Katherine, Evelyn reveals that the girl is both her sister and her daughter, the result of a childhood liaison with her father, Noah Cross.
11. The Prestige (2006)
The movie: Two rival stage magicians spend their lives trying to out-magic each other in 19th century London, to devastating results. But how is it that Christian Bale's Alfred Borden always seems able to be in two places at once?
What's the twist? It turns out that Borden isn't one person, but two twins playing the same role on the stage and indeed in real life. This comes as a shocker to Hugh Jackman's jealous illusionist, who ends up being shot and killed by one of the twins at the end, after the other has found himself hanged at the gallows.
10. Citizen Kane (1941)
The movie: The Orson Welles classic that's usually on around Christmas, details the life and times of a famous media mogul. It all plays out through the experiences of a reporter who tries to get to the bottom of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane (Welles)'s last word, Rosebud.
What's the twist? Rather than referring to a lost love or a valuable artefact, Rosebud is revealed to be the name of Kane's childhood sled. In dying, Kane was pining for his lost youth, the one time in his life when he was truly happy.
9. Planet Of The Apes (1968)
The movie: Having crash-landed on a foreign planet, gruff astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) and his crew discover a strange society in which a group of apes has evolved into humanoid creatures with the power of speech.
What's the twist? This strange planet is none other than Earth itself, turned into a post-apocalyptic nightmare by the greed and foolishness of mankind. The half-submerged Statue of Liberty in the last shot is what tips him off. Since then that iconic shot has made its way onto the DVD cover, so not much of a twist anymore...
8. Soylent Green (1973)
The movie: Far away in a distant, dystopian future, the all-powerful Soylent Corporation feeds the resource-stretching populace with tasty wafers known as Soylent Green. Meddling copper Charlton Heston is suspicious of where these wafers are coming from, leading him to question just what's going into his diet...
What's the twist? All together now: "SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!" Yes, those wafers are made from corpses.
7. Fight Club (1999)
The movie: The narrator (Edward Norton) goes along with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt)'s escalating antics until people start dying. As Project Mayhem begins to spiral out of control, the narrator sets about attempting to shut down the movement, following Tyler's paper trail from city to city...
What's the twist? Wherever the narrator goes, he's greeted as Tyler by the members of the project. Soon enough, Tyler turns up to spell things out: he and the narrator are two sides of one split personality.
6. Saw (2004)
The movie: Lawrence (Cary Elwes), a doctor, and Adam (Leigh Whannell), a photographer, awake to find themselves trapped in a dingy bathroom, with only a corpse, a saw, and some instructions for company. Told that one must kill the other in order to survive, the pair realise a grisly task lies ahead.
What's the twist? When one of the men finally makes his escape (having sawn off his foot to do so), the other is left with the corpse as he waits for help to be sent. Suddenly, the corpse rises to its feet, revealing itself to be none other than the Jigsaw killer himself. Game over, he snarls as he locks the door behind him.
