Flick Critique: Best plot twists

SPOILER ALERT: This column contains spoilers for movies.

Movies are often super predictable, with audiences being able to tell a movie’s ending halfway through the film. With overplayed tropes and plot points, plot twists have become less common in modern films. Nonetheless, a good plot twist never fails to shock audiences and leave them reeling at all the clues they missed that signaled the mind-blowing ending. Here are five films that left audiences questioning everything and wondering what the hell happened throughout the duration of the movie. This list is riddled with spoilers, so be warned.

First on the list is “Mulholland Drive.” Perhaps one of David Lynch’s best known works, this cult classic leaves audiences wondering what is real and what is not. While the first half of the movie shows you one world, the second half shows you the complete opposite. When the protagonist is launching her Hollywood career in the former half, she is a struggling actress in the latter. Combined with major fantasy and surrealist elements, the film itself is a puzzle. Lynch does provide some clues, hinting that the first half is the protagonist’s dream world, almost a way to escape from the misery she lives in her real life. Nonetheless, this interpretation is not as clear as many viewers would like, as they are forced to rack their brain for an explanation behind Lynch’s story.

“Orphan” is next on the list, with one of the creepiest little girls to ever hit theaters. The plot starts off with a young family looking to adopt. While the orphan seems angelic at first, her malicious actions soon prove otherwise, as she harms her siblings and even sends one of them to the hospital. Additionally, when she tries to hit on her stepfather and is rejected, she chooses to kill him and go after the rest of the family. This killing spree is not the plot twist, surprisingly. Rather, it’s that the 13-year-old girl is actually a 33-year-old serial killer. This plot twist is certainly unexpected and certainly leaves audiences questioning everyone they have ever met.

Next on the list are two films starring Christian Bale — “The Machinist” and “The Prestige.” In both of these movies, Bale tricks the audience into believing one thing, then does a complete 180 degrees and leaves them bewildered. In “The Machinist,” Bale thinks he is playing a sick game of hangman, where he has to figure out the missing word in order to find the identity of a man who is stalking him. However, he soon realizes that all the clues he thinks he has been seeing only point towards his own inner demons and guilt.

In “The Prestige,” Bale and Hugh Jackman have one of the most intense rivalries of all time. Both renowned magicians, Bale and Jackman start off as friends, but soon become enemies when a trick goes wrong. This only sets of a destructive chain, where both magicians’ only ambition is to see the other fail. Ultimately, this thirst for revenge ends with Jackman’s death and the discovery that the key to Bale’s trick is no intricate or sophisticated technology, but rather, his identical twin. Both of these movies, while entirely different, display Bale’s artistry and talent — constantly being able to play with audience’s emotions.

Finally, an underrated movie with a shocking plot twist — “The Others.” In this 2001 film, the audience is introduced to a woman and her children living in what they believe to be a haunted mansion. There are whispers, constant noises and just constant strange occurrences that start worrying the family. In the end, however, the woman realizes that they are not being haunted, but rather they are haunting the new family living in the house. In reality, the people who she thinks are her servants have been dead for decades from tuberculosis. She, in fact, killed her own children in their sleep and then killed herself. The movie closes with the new family leaving the mansion, acknowledging they will never rid themselves of the ghosts living in the house, and with the woman taking advantage of the new opportunity she was given to live a new life with her children, even as ghosts.

Movies with a plot twist continue to blow viewers’ minds left and right with unexpected elements no one sees coming. While these films are becoming increasingly rare, a few gems have proven that this cinematographic element is not dead and that it is more valuable than many think it to be. Nonetheless, as long as audiences love the element of surprise — which will always be the case — plot twists will remain a beloved aspect of films and of the movie-watching experience overall.