The 10 stupidest movie twists of all time
Cinema is a medium of trickery, in which filmmakers try to make audiences suspend their disbelief and believe in the unbelievable. Impressive CGI can bring towering creatures to life, impressive editing can make it seem several weeks’ worth of acting actually takes place in one narrative day and the classic movie plot twist attempts to pull the rug from underneath your understanding of the respective film itself.
These twists, turns, and narrative Helter Skelters can lead to moments of pure cinematic brilliance, such as when David Fincher pulls the mask from the main character in Fight Club or when Alfred Hitchcock reveals the killer in his iconic horror, Psycho. On the other hand, such moments can result in pure nonsense as a narrative is derailed in favour of pointless insanity.
Scouring the world of cinema to find those narrative plot points that just don’t work, take a look at our list of the worst plot twists of all time that make you question, ‘what were they thinking’? Including such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Sam Mendes, James Mangold and Oliver Stone, this list pulls no punches.
The 10 stupidest movie twists of all time
10. Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)
At the time, Sam Mendes’ James Bond film Spectre felt like a bit of a misfire, and seven years later, it looks even worse. Daniel Craig as 007 nor Christoph Waltz as Blofeld can save this disaster of an action movie that commits the cardinal sin of action cinema; it’s simply boring. Not only this, but the twist at the end of the film, in which Waltz is revealed as both Blofeld and Bond’s brother, is simply stupid.
Tainting the whole tenure of Craig as Bond, Spectre is a disaster for more reasons than one, not least because it suggests that Blofeld was the orchestrator behind several movies worth of violence. It’s needlessly complicated and just doesn’t make sense.
9 . Identity (James Mangold, 2003)
James Mangold has proven in recent years that he is quite the filmmaker, helming Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix, the Marvel movie Logan, Oscar-winner Le Mans ’66 and even the forthcoming Indiana Jones 5. Early in his career, he made a small crime thriller called Identity, which, despite starring the likes of John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet and Alfred Molina, really wasn’t great.
Set in a motel where a group of ten strangers are being killed off one by one, it turns out that no one is actually real, and each of them is the figment of one person’s imagination. It’s just a bit pointless really.
8. The Number 23 (Joel Schumacher, 2007)
It should have really been obvious that a horror film starring Jim Carrey and directed by the same mind as Batman & Robin, Joel Schumacher, wasn’t a good idea, with the final result proving this beyond doubt. Also starring the likes of Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman and Danny Huston, the film, about a man who finds a book which triggers an obsession with the number 23 within him, was a critical and commercial flop.
Turns out his obsession was entirely self-inflicted, as the book was written unwittingly by himself many moons ago. It’s just a bit rubbish, really, isn’t it?
7. Savages (Oliver Stone, 2012)
Undoubtedly, the American filmmaker and Vietnam war veteran Oliver Stone is a magnificent creator. He is responsible for some of the greatest political movies of all time, including Platoon, JFK and Wall Street. With that being said, however, nothing can defend his terrible 2012 movie Savages, starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, John Travolta and Uma Thurman.
The film, which sees two drug dealers (Kitsch and Taylor-Johnson) get caught up with a Mexican cartel, ends with their demise as well as the death of the woman they both love. Psyche! It was all a dream.
6. The Life of David Gale (Alan Parker, 2003)
Any film starring the once-great Kevin Spacey, who was charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men in the UK in May 2022, is now instantly tainted, with The Life of David Gale being just one such movie. The actor himself plays the titular role of David Gale, a man who wishes to abolish the death penalty only to find himself being framed for rape and murder and sentenced to death.
The befuddling twist reveals that Spacey’s character was in on it from the beginning, filming the entire crime before sending the tapes off to reporters in order to make a point about the need to erase capital punishment…we think?
5. Now You See Me (Louis Leterrier, 2013)
Notorious in the world of contemporary pop-culture cinema, Louis Leterrier’s film about a group of master magicians who pull off a stunning bank heist is utter hilarity from start to finish. Whilst the film isn’t all that ‘bad’, with decent performances from Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, there are several moments of pure nonsense, with the twist ending included.
It turns out that the FBI agent who has been trying to find evidence for the magician’s crimes is actually in on their secret and never wanted to catch them in the act. In hindsight, it makes the whole film both redundant and entirely drab.
4. Remember Me (Allen Coulter, 2010)
On the surface, the 2010 romantic comedy Remember Me with Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin, seems like any other young adult weepy of the time until you watch the film’s twist ending, that is. It all follows a young man who falls in love with the daughter of a cop who arrests him until Pattinson’s character, Tyler, shows up at the father’s office at the World Trade Center, and the date is revealed, September 11th, 2001.
A terrorist attack is the last thing any viewer would’ve thought of, with this unwarranted finale leaving a bitter and confusing taste in the mouth of almost each and every audience member.
3. Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton, 2001)
Considering that we would consider the original Planet of the Apes movie to have one of the best-ever twists, bear with us just for a moment as we explain this one. Telling the story of an astronaut who crash-lands on a strange planet where apes rule humans, the remake of the influential 1968 movie ends with the same big reveal as the original, with the mysterious location being earth many years in the future.
The key difference is the execution. Where the original movie, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, merely showed the toppled Statue of Liberty lying broken in the sand, Burton’s remake ends with a scene of utter hilarity. Presumably wanting to do something a little different, the remake sees the main character travel through space, back to earth before running to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, only to be shocked to see the statue of Abraham Lincoln has the face of an ape and, indeed, the cops who quickly arrest him are too, monkeys. Very, very silly.
2. High Tension (Alexandre Aja, 2003)
Whilst this somewhat niche French slasher movie may not be widely known, its twist is so utterly poor that anyone who has seen the film will know that it deserves its place on this list. The plot is simple enough, telling the story of two girls who find themselves victim to a brutal serial killer, but the twist is so complicated it defies basic logic, revealing that the killer is one of the main characters themselves.
We’ll let the great Roger Ebert’s words explain this one’s hilarity, with the American critic explaining back in 2003 that the twist is “not possible, given our current understanding of the laws of physics”.
1. Serenity (Steven Knight, 2019)
Taking number one is the most recent release on our list, the 2019 Steven Knight car crash, Serenity. So bad it’s really quite enjoyable, this film sees Matthew McConaughey’s Baker and Anne Hathaway’s Karen in a strange world where nothing is what it seems, yet life goes on as normal. A fishing boat captain, Baker spends most of his time on the water trying to catch a fish named Justice until his suspicions about reality lead him down a curious rabbit hole where he must kill Karen’s abusive husband.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that the film’s events are happening inside a computer as part of a video game designed by a boy whose dad was killed in Iraq. So, just to make this clear, a young boy designs a fishing simulator to keep his dad alive and keep his stepdad in a state of eternal digital punishment.
The boy clearly needs a therapist and an expensive one too.
