How Movies Pull Off Effective Plot Twists

追加: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Filmmaking at its core utilizes a plethora of storytelling tools to keep us, the audience, engaged, excited, and coming back for more. They range from traditional narrative beats like an exciting incident and climaxes to nonlinear storytelling to visual cues.

[00:00:16]However, one of the most polarizing to this day is the twist.

[00:00:23]>> No, not that twist.

[00:00:27]No, Jonathan Davis, shut up. The twist has become synonymous with bad at this point in film history. And it isn't for no reason. An oversaturated industry where it was once called art is now called content. Oh, for [ __ ] sake.

[00:00:44]It is getting harder to fool audiences.

[00:00:47]Some filmmakers are still excellent at it and manage to throw us off or surprise us, but it seems to be fewer and far between. So, after this conversation with my friend, the Austin angle on my last video, it got me thinking, what actually makes an effective twist? I tried to wrap or twist my mind around the idea. You see what I did there?

[00:01:12]My name is Wyatt. Welcome to my mind.

[00:01:15]Stay a while and let's discuss how to pull off an effective twist.

[00:01:26]When I decided to take this on, my first task was to go over some of the most popular twists in cinema. Now, popular doesn't necessarily mean good either.

[00:01:35]There are some very poor piece of [ __ ] Terrible [ __ ] off. What I learned going through these is there are a few different kinds of twists in movies. I narrowed it down to four. First and most notable is the twist ending. The most popular of movie twists, the one that has left a sour taste in the mouths of audiences for decades. The one that either completely destroys a movie or elevates it to a new height. Over decades of cinema, people have come to expect an ending twist and usually try to guess it from the opening credits, if not the trailer. [ __ ] can we like stop doing that? Like, it really takes the whole [ __ ] fun out of the whole thing. My wife is like terrible for this. We're barely through the first 5 minutes and she's like, "That guy did it." There was a time where these finale twist seemingly came out of nowhere. The ending twist exists to shock both the audience and the hero of the story. A third act surprise that leaves the audience saying, "No way." If done correctly, the twist can warrant a rewatch immediately after, resulting in an entirely different experience. It makes us go back through everything we just watched, wondering what we missed, what were the clues, and feeling like the movie outsmarted us. And that's a good thing.

[00:02:48]A magic show is so much better when you can't figure out how the trick actually happened. Some of these movies like Seven, The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, actually gained more notoriety due to their final twist. More on that later, though. Next, and less prominent is the midpoint twist. This is when the movie does a complete 180, often bending genres at about the halfway point. It isn't as much shocking as it is thrilling because you still have an hour in this new world you've just entered.

[00:03:20]In the right hands, it could feel like a twoin-one moviegoing experience. Think From Dust till Dawn becoming a vampire movie in the last third out of nowhere later replicated in Sinners. To be fair, Sinners does foreshadow the vampire thing a little bit where in from Dustal Dawn it's just like vampires. Sometimes the midpoint twist isn't totally thrusting you into a new world as much as a new perspective. Think A Place Beyond Pines. Switching the Bradley Cooper story after Gosling dies. A more famous example of this would actually be Alien. You watch it now and sure it's not shocking that Ripley is our hero, but nobody sitting in that theater in 1979 thought Tom Scarret was dying halfway through and Sigourney was taking over. Nobody thought that. The third and probably least used twist is the opening act twist. I hesitate to call this one a twist when it comes so early, but it's equally memorable. This twist usually works best in a sequel, diverting from an expectation from the predecessor, but sometimes it works on a standalone.

[00:04:28]Again, hesitate to call it a twist. But in the Friday the 13th remake, you spend about 15 to 20 minutes getting to know all of these characters before every single one of them get axed. Then we meet our main characters. Same can be said about Reservoir Dogs, a heist movie with no heist. Right after the opening credits, we jump to post heist. The number one example of this though, ironically, is the one that started this whole video for me is Terminator 2. If you are fresh off the Terminator and you go into T2 blind, the movie sets up the best opening act twist of all time. Up until the shootout at the mall, you entirely believe that Robert Patrick is a human being, a new soldier from the future to protect Jon. But no, had to spoil it in the [ __ ] trailers.

[00:05:20]Finally, and briefly, the last type is almost an honorable mention, but it's what I'm calling the continuous twist, or it's just been twists sort of happen throughout the movie. Okay, I specifically wanted to highlight Zachary Kger on this, as he is two for two now for movies that you don't have a sweet [ __ ] clue what's going to happen until it's over, i.e. Barbarian.

[00:05:45]It completely sets up Bill Scarsgard is probably going to be the serial killer.

[00:05:49]There's another guy in your Airbnb with the same booking. That alone makes a good horror movie. But nope, now there's a secret tunnel underneath. Then [ __ ] Pennywise gets God by elderly Marilyn Manson in those tunnels. Then we just cut to nonadvertised Justin Long, which is my favorite Justin Long, might I say.

[00:06:11]Then we get this whole bit of [ __ ] all that with the suburban flashback. Then he's still alive. Every other scene of this movie brings a new surprise element. It's actually kind of insane. I saw this alone in theaters and that's how everybody should have seen it. So, with those four types of twists, how exactly do strong filmmakers pull them off? Well, plot twist, I've narrowed it down to four key steps. First, the twist needs to be unexpected. This sounds extraordinarily obvious, but really, the next three do not matter if you [ __ ] up this first one. Audiences are ironically getting dumber and smarter at the same time. Takes less to entertain but more to surprise. We have seen so much at this point that we've become numb to so many things. Pulling this off is literally impossible for 100% of the audience. But if you can even fool 50% of your audience, that is a massive win.

[00:07:05]It also lends to an excellent conversation after the movie about who saw that coming and their theories. And if your twist is so painfully obvious and expected from the beginning, well, everything just falls flat. Even if the movie's good, the viewer can't escape that, well, I saw that coming feeling, and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth after the movie's over. Still affects how we talk about the movie's twist later. Trailers aside, Apex recently came out and had the most obvious bait and switch I've seen in a hot minute.

[00:07:36]How does one make a twist unexpected?

[00:07:40]Let's get to number two. Second, the twist must have purpose. That's right.

[00:07:45]What is more frustrating than a twist that is just there to have a twist? In the quest to be unexpected, a lot of studio movies will throw something in, anything at all to have the gotcha. I didn't find a major culprit for this liken it to the gimmick of the killer coming back in slasher movies. This has become so much more of just a staple now that it's barely a twist anymore. When it was initially done in the 70s, it added another scare. It added another layer to the lore of the villain. Now it's so frequently done, it's just a cheap gag. Not to beat a dead horse, but a good twist should service the story or the arc of a character, which makes the gotcha better. The six sense, the big gotcha in that is actually a huge character moment for Bruce Willis, not just the audience. The T800 being a hero again shocks the audience but also Jon.

[00:08:38]It changes everything he thought he knew. Everything Sarah had prepared him for while raising the stakes for us. We are in uncharted territory with the T1000.

[00:08:48]On the opposite side of this, which inspired this entire video, is 10 Cloverfield Lane. The movie does a good job at keeping you on your toes wondering if John Goodman is a crazy kidnapper man or he's correct. By the first ending, it seems he's just a crazy kidnapper man, but then we get attacked on alien attack scene. The crazy man wasn't crazy.

[00:09:12]Sort of. It doesn't feel organic when the reveal is revealed. Which leads me to number three. The twist should feel organic. Carrying on a 10 Cloverfield Lane, your big twist can be as wacky and out there as you want, but it should feel organic. should live within the established rules of the world. It should fit into the tone of the rest of the movie. I have issue with the two ending movie where the pacing is going really well and you lead to what feels like a climax. You have a breath. You think you're going to the finale and then boom, another tacked on scene that's not even satisfying. Not to say this can't be done well, but in 10 Cloverfield Lane, it just feels cheap and like it was tacked on later as an afterthought. You know why? The title, like fully because of the title. Nothing about this movie feels like it belongs to Cloverfield until the ending. I would not be surprised if the original script for this movie had nothing to do with aliens or Cloverfield, but then they thought, hm, how could we mock it this? It was a no-win scenario because if you change the title, cut the ending, it's a great thriller about a doomsday prepper. but probably makes a little less money. The other side of that coin is you name it 10 Cloverfield Lane then we actually [ __ ] expect aliens or we feel duped.

[00:10:37]Point is change the title, remove that ending, movie becomes a cult classic.

[00:10:41]Nothing hurts a twist more than it feeling out of place or forced upon us.

[00:10:47]Looking at you somehow Palpatine returned.

[00:10:52]Holy segue, Batman. Number four, the somehow Palpatine returned [ __ ] you twist. Also known as your twist needs to be believable. If you must write a follow-up book to explain your [ __ ] twist, then you failed. Congratulations.

[00:11:07]This doesn't mean your twist can't be outlandish or whimsical. Just means it has to follow the rules of the movie's world this far. Saying our spy has confirmed the worst by somehow Palpatine has returned just accept it breaks literally every single rule I just prior mentioned.

[00:11:26]Except it's unexpected. Unexpected cuz it makes no godamn sense. It's only fan service. It does nothing for the plot.

[00:11:35]It is forced through offscreen exposition. It undoes everything that the movie before did. There is another offender of this in Rise of Skywalker that follows the guidelines a bit more except believability. The moment where Finn and Po find out General Hux is the resistance spy, huh? What? Like what? Sure, it's semiorganic.

[00:12:02]Not well done, but semi in the sense the movie is talking about a spy existing.

[00:12:08]It serves the purpose of saving our heroes. kind of and revealing the mystery that the movie did present to us earlier. And I'm not saying it does any of these things well. Okay. But it's making as bare minimum Deadpool effort as possible. But in no way is this believable. You're saying this guy >> REMEMBER THIS AS THE LAST DAY OF THE Republic >> is the resistance spy. It honestly feels like an SNL sketch. It is so unfathomable. Also has zero payoff because he dies minutes later.

[00:12:50]Now, I've been harping a lot on the failures of these four essential tips, but that's cuz there's a specific movie I wanted to talk about that I think does all four of these things exceptionally well in my opinion. one of my all-time favorite twist endings. And of course, there are multiple honorable mentions that I have shown throughout the course of this video, but a recent example that I absolutely love, Beonia. Saw this alone in a theater last year with minimal prep, and I loved every [ __ ] second of it. I was enthralled with the masterclass in acting and writing, the artistic visual storytelling, the comedy amongst the darkness. Spoilers from here on. Sitting there the whole time praying praying that Emma Stone was an alien and Jesse Plemens was right the whole time. The only thing that could make this more epic, more outstanding is having the balls to go for gold with the ending.

[00:13:44]Imagine Plemens was right. How bonkers would that be?

[00:13:48]And then he was. I was smiling ear to ear during this wild finale. The grotesque beauty of the final montage is eerie and hilarious. It completely masters all of the above. It is entirely unexpected except for the fact that you might jokingly think, "Dude, imagine he's right." Entirely organic to the world, the raw, the gritty, the bizarness.

[00:14:10]Is that a word? Bizarness completely serves the story and the audience, leaving us with an unforgettable ending, but also properly tying a bow. Cuz what was the alternative? Clemens blows up and Emma Stone goes back to her normal life and likely therapy. How boring. This would have made an otherwise intelligent drama feel generic. The ending not only subverts expectation, but it also demands a rewatch and leaves you feeling icky. Like in a good way. What is Beonia without that twist? Well, it's a completely fine dark thriller. What is it with the twist? You know, it's nominated for best picture this year.

[00:14:53]Sorry if this video felt long or repetitive. I have a lot of feelings.

[00:14:57]What do you guys think? What makes a good twist? Do you agree with me or disagree with me? Uh, I know I'm going to get a lot of negative feedback probably on the Beonia thing. I thought that movie was popular, but lately I see a lot of hate comments for Beonia. What do you think is the best twist of all time? What do you think is a really bad twist? I personally love Beonia. I stand where I stand. I'll die on the hill. I think it was a masterpiece. Thanks for watching, guys. Thanks for stepping in my mind. I hope you had fun. Like and subscribe for more. Hoping to keep these up at a more frequent rate.