The Best Surprise Endings in Movies

By Kirk (10/12/04)

I love a good surprise ending. It can save an otherwise mediocre movie. A good surprise ending is like a magic trick. You get misdirected the entire movie and then at the last minute, bam! You find out the movie has been about something else all along.

Here's a list, in a sort of order.

	The Sixth Sense – Yes, I know, you saw it coming from a mile a way. Well I didn’t. And I knew there was a surprise ending. The gold standard of surprise endings.
	The Crying Game – I've never seen The Crying Game, and I know what the surprise is, but until The Sixth Sense, this was easily the biggest buzz for an ending ever.
	Fallen – This movie is way underrated in my opinion. Denzel Washington hunts down a body-switching demon that sings a Rolling Stones’ song. Sounds stupid, right? Well, the trailer looked even dumber. But I went to see it and my jaw dropped. It starts and ends with a voice-over that I loved.
	The Usual Suspects – It’s such a darling of the critics that I almost don’t want to mention it. But who didn’t love that last scene of Kevin Spacey walking away from the police station? “ The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
	Fight Club – I didn’t even know that this one had a surprise ending, which means it caught me even more.
	Wild Things – OK, I know that everyone thinks that the only reason to watch this is to see Neve Campbell and Denise Richards kiss. But I has several surprises in it and the best surprise is during the credits, seriously.

Some That Weren't Surprises

	Psycho - By the time I saw it (2002), everyone knows that Norman Bates' mom is dead and that he's just dressing up as her. It might have been a good surprise back in the day.
	Medicine Man - It wouldn't be much of a surprise anyway, but Darren ruined it for all of us by announcing at band practice, "it's the ants". About halfway through the movie I wanted to kill him.