SPOILER ALERT!: Favorite Surprise Ending

[snyprrr]

C'mon, ruin it for me!

How bout at the end of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?

Succubus, with John Cassavettes.

There's sooo many!

[MDL]

It's not quite the ending, but the twist in The Conversation had me reeling when I first saw it back in the early '80s, even though, to pull it off, Coppola cheats brazenly.

[karlhenning]

What a weird thread. I mean, for it not to be a spoiler for anyone, everyone participating in the thread should have seen everything already.

Right?

[DavidW]

After a large # of Shyamalan movies I've come to hate the twist ending.  As Vonnegut said:

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

And you know what he is right.  Cheap twists are the sign of a poorly written pulpy narrative.

[DavidW]

On a less grumpy note Psycho has two good twists, one of which is NOT at the end of the movie!   Also that twist at the end of the second Star Wars movie (Empire Strikes Back) was pretty good.

[karlhenning]

Not all twists are cheap : )

Your righteous quarrel, though, Davey, did remind me that The Twilight Zone was a series essentially bult on the idea of a twist ending.

[DavidW]

If the twist is a natural extension of the story then I'm fine it and don't consider it cheap.

Yeah that show was notorious for the twists.  It's a COOKBOOK KARL!  A COOKBOOK!!

[canninator]

Growing up, Empire Strikes Back. As an adult, The Others, a real chiller superbly paced to a really creepy twist.

[snyprrr]

I can't remember which movie started the whole, "The killer is really a woman" thing.

The Ninth Configuration is a Sleeper.

[The Six]

The Giants winning the World Series

[snyprrr]

Reid stole Nevada!

[Antoine Marchand]

As an adult, The Others, a real chiller superbly paced to a really creepy twist.

I agree. The Others is a superb movie and the character of Nicole Kidman is simply amazing... and moving.

It recalls me these lines of the Sartor Resartus:

Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye as well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of human Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air and Invisibility?

[Brian]

There was that GMG religion thread where everybody maintained a civil tone.

[karlhenning]

There was that GMG religion thread where everybody maintained a civil tone.

: )

[Philoctetes]

There was that GMG religion thread where everybody maintained a civil tone.

Definitely happened when I wasn't around.

[KevinP]

Empire Strikes Back.

I've not seen it in decades, but what was so surprising about the ending?

[snyprrr]

I've not seen it in decades, but what was so surprising about the ending?

uh,... Luke, I'm your father?

[Daverz]

People don't believe me that I was surprised by the twist in The Crying Game.

One of the more interesting twists is in Psycho.  The "heroine" is killed off early, and it's like a totally different film starts.  (I don't think that's a spoiler for anyone.)

A twist ending that really pissed me off was the finale of Life on Mars.  It's the tritest and laziest kind of twist imaginable.  I don't know if the Brit version ends the same way as the US version (the shows are almost shot for shot identical in many places).  The twist that ended Lost was rather lame considering the build up for it.

[DavidW]

I've only seen the UK version of Life on Mars, but I thought the ending was perfect, crazy but perfect!

[lisa needs braces]

One of my favorite twists is from one of my favorite films -- Vertigo. It's the scene where one of the characters is writing a letter to another. It's handled very well since Hitchcock reveals this "secret" to the audience and the main character remains ignorant. By doing this, Hitchock gets far more mileage out of the revelation as after it there is new suspense that develops regarding when and if the main character will discover what has been revealed to the audience.