If you look at the history of the twist ending as it relates to the world of cinema, sure, you're going to find your fair share of thrillers. Movies like Psycho, The Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects, to name just a few, have many famous twist endings because they want to shock, thrill, or disturb the audience. Including a twist ending is a natural way to accomplish these goals. As for non-thrillers that have twist endings, or otherwise unexpected conclusions?
You could make the argument that they're able to be even more shocking, given how jarring it can be to experience an unexpected revelation after sitting through, say, a comedy, an action movie, or a slow-paced/non-thrill heavy horror film. These endings all belong to movies that aren’t principally thrillers, showing that twists aren’t the exclusive property of such a genre.
10. 'Some Like It Hot' (1959)
Billy Wilder directed a wide range of movies throughout his directorial career, and indeed made some thrillers, with perhaps his best being Double Indemnity (which was also an example of film noir). Wilder’s comedies were also generally very good, and Some Like It Hot still holds up when watched today as something consistently funny and bold (especially for its time) from beginning to end.
It follows two men on the run from gangsters after witnessing a murder, and they disguise themselves as women to escape, which sets up non-stop farcical situations. At the film’s end, it delivers perhaps its biggest and most surprising laugh when an old man, who was attracted to one of the “women,” finds out the truth, then casually responds with, “Well, nobody’s perfect,” maybe implying he’s okay with the revelation. Again, it’s bold stuff for 1959, and it’s still an excellently funny and brazen punchline to Some Like It Hot as a whole.
9. 'Whiplash' (2014)
Though Whiplash is not technically a thriller, it does manage to be more intense than the vast majority of thrillers out there, owing to how hard it pushes as a psychological drama. It is about a battle that goes on for a long time between two people: one is a young music student who wants to be the best drummer possible, and the other is a tyrannical teacher who is known for pushing his students very hard. Both pursue perfection, and they kind of get it in the end, with the whole finale of Whiplash following the student put in an impossible situation, and drumming/commanding his way out of it, all in front of numerous people.
It’s a victory for both, arguably, but whether it’s actually a good thing is another matter altogether. As for twistiness, you get the cruel trap the protagonist walks into, the fact he works his way out of it, but then follows an unsettling feeling that his “victory” provokes; it’s seemingly an unexpected happy ending that, upon reflection, twists itself into something actually far bleaker than one might’ve expected possible.
8. 2023's "Robot Dreams"
This one is a bit multifaceted, like the aforementioned ending to Whiplash, but Robot Dreams does eventually show itself to be a movie with an unexpected ending, and in more than one way. The plot of the entire film is simple, as a dog and his robot companion become separated early on, and spend a great deal of time trying to reunite before realizing that both might be better off moving on.
And they do move on, meeting new friends and companions (or, if you prefer, something else entirely). Robot sees Dog on the street, but chooses not to approach him, which is a bit unexpected. But it makes sense, and then Robot plays their song one last time, and they dance, technically together once more (and for probably the last time), but literally apart. Also, hearing “September” and feeling sadness (plus a little happiness) is an additionally unexpected and novel experience.
7. (2018)
"Avengers: Infinity War" Well, if you look at Avengers: Infinity War as being a movie where Thanos is the central character, you could argue that him winning at the end of the day isn’t much of a twist. After all, if a film follows a protagonist or a group of heroes very explicitly trying to achieve a goal, and then they achieve it, that’s kind of what you'd think would happen; that’s just clean storytelling, right?
It’s the fact that Thanos is not a good guy that makes the ending surprising, plus the fact that an MCU movie had the guts to end with half of all life in the universe being (temporarily) wiped out, sympathetic and heroic characters included. It is about as brutally gloomy as an ending to a blockbuster movie can get. The only thing that might help is the possibility that Thanos was the main character of the movie. Usually, the main character getting what they want at the end of a movie isn't much of a twist.
6. 'The Sting' (1973)
So, a lot happens at the end of The Sting, but that’s kind of what you want when you watch a crime movie that’s also a comedy, and one that features a pair of charismatic con artists (played by Robert Redford and Paul Newman) at the center. They both go up against a dangerous mobster, with one of them being out for revenge, and their complex plan ends up being enacted, somehow.
That they achieve a victory isn’t too surprising, but the way they manage to do it during the final scene of The Sting? That is what makes it generally twisty and unpredictable. There are faked murders, mistaken identities, and carefully choreographed chaos, all adding up to get the heroes what they want, and even if you, as a viewer, feel a bit conned by the whole thing, you’ll still come away at least begrudgingly impressed by such a cinematic magic trick.
5. 'Citizen Kane' (1941)
Citizen Kane does count as a mystery movie, but it’s not quite fast-paced or punchy enough to also feel like a thriller; perhaps calling it a psychological drama would be more accurate. That doesn’t mean it’s not dazzling at times, more just that it’s fairly restrained. Still, it does save a pretty big moment twist-wise for the film’s ending, which is when the viewer finds out what “Rosebud” is.
That’s a revelation, but so too is the revelation that no one else ever found out what Rosebud was, since the sleigh got burned in a fire before the truth was revealed. So it’s a surprise to find out what it is (and what it meant), and then a surprise to realize that no one outside the audience would ever find out, even though the mystery of what “Rosebud” meant drives so much of Citizen Kane’s narrative.
4. 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009)
This is a slightly cheeky example, because Inglourious Basterds is an often thrilling and suspenseful film… but, if you were to label it as one kind of movie, you'd call it a war film. Maybe that’s a small distinction, but the ending to this one really had to be included, simply because of how audacious and awesome the rewriting of history is here.
Quentin Tarantino expects you to “know” that the Basterds will fail, and that Adolf Hitler won’t die in a cinema, because history tells us he took his life in his bunker near the war’s end. So, to see him get blasted apart while various other members of the Nazi party get shot up and/or burned to death? It somehow works, proves cathartic, and reveals that, yes, Tarantino can rework history drastically and still make it feel satisfying and appropriate.
3. 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' (2019)
Just doing it once wasn’t enough for Tarantino, because somehow – in another twist of fate – the filmmaker had the guts to rewrite 20th-century history once more, right at the end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This film’s most easily definable as a dramedy, and something of a hangout movie, with the more tense moments saved for the film’s final act, which features the two main characters clashing with the Manson family.
2. 'The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)
A movie with a phenomenal score and phenomenal everything else, you're probably sick of hearing about how great The Empire Strikes Back is, and how it’s probably representative of Star Wars at its best. It certainly succeeds in elevating what already existed in the first movie, pushing characters in new and darker directions while saving one particularly big bombshell reveal for the very end.
Yes, Darth Vader, who’s been a major villain for two movies now, ends up telling Luke Skywalker, the hero, that he’s his father. It’s been parodied so much that most won’t be surprised by it anymore, but it’s easy to imagine it being staggering back in 1980. Oh, also, the way Han Solo’s story wraps up here is surprising, as is the fact that the heroes largely get defeated. They are not completely defeated, but The Empire Strikes Back basically ends with them having to heal and then fighting back against the strike-happy Empire.
1. 'Planet of the Apes' (1968)
One of the darkest endings of all time, and maybe the darkest ending in sci-fi movie history, Planet of the Apes is a very good film with one remarkable ending. It’s, again, the kind that’s probably been spoiled to the moon and back, but, essentially, what was initially assumed to be a new planet was actually Earth all along, and the astronauts who landed there now have to reckon with the idea that the apes have taken over.
Everything builds to that revelation, but it’s also a potentially less surprising one if you’ve seen the more recent Planet of the Apes movies, given they track how the apes took over the planet – bit by bit – from the humans. But, judging the 1968 film on its own: yes, it’s a phenomenal twist ending, and Planet of the Apes isn’t really a thriller, and so the reveal about “it being Earth all along” deserves the #1 spot here.