Movie fans love saying, "You'll never see the ending coming." Most of the time, they're exaggerating. But every decade produces a handful of movies that actually earn that reputation. The 90s gave us Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, two movies that are still the default reference point whenever someone tries to describe a gut-punch plot twist to a friend. The 2000s had Oldboy, Saw, The Prestige, and the 2010s kept the streak going with Interstellar, Shutter Island, and Parasite.
The 2020s are only about halfway over, but they’ve already delivered an incredible collection of twists that nobody saw coming. So, we went through and picked the 10 that stuck with us the most. Here they are, ranked.
10 ‘Trap’ (2024)
Image via Warner Bros.Nobody does plot twists quite like M. Night Shyamalan. Sadly, Trap is also one of those movies that had its big surprise ruined by the trailer. But if you were lucky enough to go in blind, you got to experience one of the coolest twists of the decade.
At first, Cooper (Josh Hartnett) seems like an ordinary dad taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert. But as the movie goes on, it becomes clear the arena is packed with FBI agents who are hunting a notorious serial killer known as The Butcher, and you soon find out Cooper is the one they’re looking for. Suddenly, Shyamalan flips the entire cat-and-mouse formula on its head by making the killer the one who's trapped, and somehow still gets you rooting for him to slip past the cops.
9 ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ (2022)
Image via A24For most of its runtime, Bodies Bodies Bodies plays out like a classic whodunit. A group of wealthy twenty-somethings gathers for a hurricane party, someone ends up dead, and everyone starts trying to figure out which friend is secretly the killer. Old grudges resurface, accusations fly in every direction, and the body count keeps growing exactly like you'd expect from a slasher.
Except there never was a killer. The ending reveals that David (Pete Davidson) accidentally slices his own throat trying to open a champagne bottle with a kukri for a TikTok video. Every death after that is just the group turning on each other out of paranoia, trying to find a killer that never existed.
8 ‘Project Hail Mary’ (2026)
Image via Amazon MGMIf you went into the movie blind, just meeting Rocky for the first time is already one of the best surprises in recent sci-fi. The film starts as a lonely survival story about a guy stranded in space trying to find his way back home. And then, out of nowhere, another spaceship appears, and from that moment on, the movie becomes a wholesome story about the bond between Grace (Ryan Gosling) and Rocky.
But the movie saves its biggest gut punch for the very end. Throughout the film, Grace insists he never wanted to be on the Hail Mary mission, and you’re wondering what finally changed his mind. Once his memories fully return, we learn he never volunteered at all. Project director Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) had him sedated and placed aboard the ship after the original crew died just before launch. Looking back, that's what makes the ending so much more moving. Grace couldn't bring himself to sacrifice his life to save all of humanity. But by the end of the movie, he’d grown to love Rocky so much that he gave up his only chance of getting home just to save one alien.
7 ‘The Drama’ (2026)
Image via A24The Drama opens like a glossy pre-wedding rom-com between Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson). But director Kristoffer Borgli drops an emotional grenade in the very first act that completely subverts genre expectations. During a drinking game with friends, everyone confesses the worst thing they've ever done. And Emma reveals that when she was 15, she planned a school shooting and only backed out at the last minute. From that moment on, the movie goes from a cute rom-com to a fascinating psychological drama about whether love can really be unconditional.
Charlie is forced to reconcile the woman he thought he knew with a version of her he never could have imagined. It's built around the idea that some things, once said, can never be unsaid. You can forgive them, you can try to move past them, but they'll always sit somewhere in the back of your mind, changing the way you see that person forever.
6 ‘It's What's Inside’ (2024)
Image via NetflixForbes (David Thompson) shows up to his old friend group's pre-wedding party with a briefcase that lets everyone at the party swap bodies for the night. And the rest of the movie turns into a guessing game of figuring out who's actually walking around in whose body. Forbes himself is shady the entire time. He’s always hovering at the edges of the party and never quite explaining why he tracked this group down after years of no contact.
But then you find out that the guy pulling all the strings was never actually Forbes. It was his sister Beatrice (Madison Davenport) the entire time, having swapped into her brother's body and knocked him out before the party even started. And this was all revenge on the group that got her institutionalized years earlier.
5 ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ (2023)
Image via Sony Pictures ReleasingMost movies get one great twist if they're lucky, but Across the Spider-Verse keeps piling them on, and each one is better than the last. The Spot starts out as a goofy villain-of-the-week that every superhero movie has the hero beat in the opening act before the real big bad shows up. But Spot turns his humiliation into motivation and actually evolves into a multiversal-level threat nobody saw coming. Another big blow comes when Miles learns he was never supposed to become Spider-Man at all, and that his dad is going to die because of it.
And just when you think the movie's done throwing twists at you, the ending drops the biggest one of all. It looks like Miles is finally going to tell his mom he's Spider-Man, and that’ll be the big cliffhanger for the next movie. But his mom just stares back at him confusedly. She has no idea who Spider-Man is. The colors feel slightly off. His room looks familiar but not quite right. Then Miles glitches, and it hits you like a ton of bricks. He never made it home. Miguel’s Go Home Machine sent him to Earth-42 instead, where his Uncle Aaron is still alive, his father is dead, and the Miles of this world grew up to become the Prowler!
4 ‘Caddo Lake’ (2024)
Image via MaxCaddo Lake opens with Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) searching for her missing stepsister Anna (Caroline Falk), who went missing on the lake, and Paris (Dylan O'Brien) investigating a section of the water that has strangely receded. Initially, these look like two separate stories running side by side. But you soon realize that Caddo Lake isn’t just a missing person mystery; it’s actually a time travel story.
The twist is that Ellie and Paris are both wandering through different decades of the same lake, which acts as a portal through time, and their lives have been intersecting the whole movie. Anna disappears through the lake and is transported back to 1952, where she is found by Paris and eventually grows up to become his mother. The entire film was a loop with no real beginning and no real end.
3 ‘Bugonia’ (2025)
Image via Focus FeaturesYorgos Lanthimos spends most of Bugonia inviting you to laugh at two conspiracy theorists, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), who kidnap a pharmaceutical CEO because they're convinced she's an alien. Given the movie's darkly comedic tone, their beliefs sound completely ridiculous. They come across as even more unhinged than the kind of people who believe in flat Earth theories or fake moon landings.
Every awkward conversation and absurd detail they reveal about the aliens seems designed to convince you that these two are just deeply traumatized men who have completely lost touch with reality. Except the conspiracy turns out to be true. Emma Stone’s character really is an alien, the empress of the Andromedans, and the ending reveals that Teddy wasn't crazy at all.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?
Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
FIND YOUR FILM →
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.
ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?
AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.
AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.
REVEAL MY FILM →
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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2 ‘Barbarian’ (2022)
Image via 20th Century StudiosThis one starts off like a typical serial killer thriller. Tess (Georgina Campbell) shows up to her double-booked Airbnb late at night and has to decide whether to trust her mysterious housemate Keith (Bill Skarsgård), and every polite thing he does feels laden with menace. In the middle of the night, she follows him down to the basement where she finds a labyrinth of underground tunnels, and then the movie completely switches genres on you.
What was a slasher setup turns into a creature feature about a monstrous woman living in a network of tunnels underneath the house. And right after that jump scare, the film abruptly cuts to black and jumps to a completely different character, AJ (Justin Long), a disgraced actor who owns the property and has no idea what's waiting for him downstairs. By repeatedly changing the genre rules and forcing viewers to start over every time they thought they understood the movie, Barbarian became a defining horror debut and launched Zach Cregger as one of the genre's most promising new filmmakers.
1 ‘Strange Darling’ (2023)
Image via Magenta Light StudiosTold non-linearly across six chapters, Strange Darling spends its opening stretch playing like a fairly straightforward slasher. A wounded woman known only as the Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) is desperately running through the woods while a man called the Demon (Kyle Gallner) hunts her down with a rifle. Every visual cue tells you exactly how this story is supposed to work, and it feels obvious who the victim and the predator are.
But that assumption is exactly what Strange Darling wants you to make. The film masterfully uses your own horror movie instincts against you, and as the chapters go on, you find out that the Lady wasn’t a helpless survivor at all. She was actually the Electric Lady, a ruthless serial killer responsible for a string of murders. And the Demon was her intended victim who managed to turn the tables on her.
Strange Darling
Release Date August 23, 2024
Runtime 96 Minutes
Director JT Mollner
Writers JT Mollner
English (US) ·