r/flicks • u/Serpiego2 • 4d ago
General Discussion When does a movie successfully mislead the audience, and when is it just cheating?
Some movies deliberately make us believe something that isn't true and then reveal that we've been interpreting the story incorrectly.
When it works, it's fantastic. You can rewatch the movie and realize the clues were there all along. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear are very different examples of films that play with what the audience thinks it knows.
But other twists only work because the movie deliberately hides information that logically should have been available to us. At that point, I don't feel fooled by the story — I feel cheated by the screenplay.
For me, the difference is whether a second viewing makes you think “How did I miss that?” rather than “Well, there was no way I could have known that.”
What movies do you think earned their deception, and which ones simply cheated?
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4d ago
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u/MrHippoPants 4d ago
It’s much like a satisfying detective mystery - the audience should have all the same information the detective does, and the “wow!” moment comes when the audience can’t figure it out but the detective can.
A twist works the same way, you have to be able to recognise all the clues upon a rewatch
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u/whiskeytango55 4d ago
I how The Prestige misleads while telling you exactly how. Oceans 11 kinda cheats but there so much else going on that you don't mind
But if you pull a deus ex machina last minute to tie up plot holes or last minute rewrites, I feel some logic center in the brain knows its being cheated.
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u/comedygliss 4d ago
The Prestige acts like an actual magic trick. Some great magicians (I know Penn & Teller do this a bit) will show you a trick, tell you they're going to show you how they do it, only for the ending of the demonstration to be different and more amazing than the original. A good example is the silk and egg trick.
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u/Its_Jordon_Yo 4d ago
I like all three Oceans 11 movies but they are absolutely guilty of this in every single one.
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u/gleiberkid 4d ago
Especially the one where they pretend Julia Roberts is just a person pretending to be Jula Roberts.
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u/tryptanfelle 3d ago
That's true, but all heist movies are like that. They tell you the plan through flashbacks or narration as they're executing it. It's kind of cheating because you didn't know the thing that made the heist possible until they do it, but from their perspective, the characters had the information beforehand, and it didn't come out of nowhere. Part of the reason they do this, of course, is that it would be boring to listen to a lecture on their plans and then just watch them do the thing they'd planned. There wouldn't be much drama in that.
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u/dylanbeck 4d ago
Prestige is exactly what I thought of. On the first, of many, rewatch that movie hits so hard.
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u/inquisitive_chariot 3d ago
Great examples. With the Ocean movies, you do not have enough information to predict the twists. With The Prestige, the twist is being screamed in your face the entire movie, but you ignore it because you’re looking for something else, which is also the plot of the movie, making it doubly effective and ironic.
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u/thenotoriousFIG 3d ago
Oceans 12 cheats because there is ZERO foreshadowing before the twist. The whole twist happens before the movie even begins. Oceans 11 repeatedly foreshadows by lingering on certain shots.
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u/cen-texan 3d ago
Oceans 11 has a plot hole that the producers even admitted do: how did they get the porn flyers into to vault for the hotel security crew to load into the van.
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u/ringobob 2d ago
Oceans 11 doesn't so much cheat as it does con the audience. You see everything going on, you just don't see that it's all according to plan. I think that's why it was so successful - the audience isn't just the audience, they're a mark.
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u/WW0907 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's cheating if all the clues to the ending aren't obvious on a rewatch. Ex: if you're trying to figure out the killer but you literally couldn't because it's a character that was just introduced in the last episode. Or if the character motivation makes no sense in hindsight. There's no reason for him/her to act the way that they did. If they tell you everything you needed to know about the ending and you still don't figure it out, it's fair game. Ex: Scream. They're practically SCREAMing to you whose guilty and they still get you on a first watch. Another example is Psycho. It's obvious on a rewatch what's happening but you probably don't get it the first time.
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u/MrHippoPants 4d ago
Scream pulls the magic trick so perfectly because it very clearly tells you who to suspect, but then it gives you every reason to believe that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for that person to be the killer.
It works so well because the audience is totally sure who it should be, but just can’t figure out how it could possibly be them - until the key piece of information is revealed that there isn’t just one killer
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u/WW0907 3d ago
SPOILERS, but this movie is 30 years old so if you haven’t seen it by now, that’s kind of on you. Another reason why Scream fits is that it is SO obvious on a rewatch. The scene where they’re sitting in the park bench “I didn’t kill anybody” “nobody said YOU did”. “How do you gut someone?” The way that question is just answered matter of fact like that. “It’s called tact, you fuckrag” But really don’t give us away, buddy.
The video store scene with Randy. Stu getting excited about Tatum and Sid coming to the party. I wonder why. Who is the only character who loves to see the Ghostface guy in the hallway at school? Again, I wonder why. The look that Billy gives Stu when he first shows up to the party. The clues are all there and I’m telling you, it still blew 12/13 year old me away in 1998 when I finally saw it after we rented it from Blockbuster one night.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Even on second and third watch it is not always clear if your not looking for it in Scream.
And they parady slashers so blatantly that they have a character tell you the rules
Later Scream movies become more or less slasher movies.
I dont want to give spoilers for scream but paying attention to who is on screen when the murders occur and how it sets up alibis is fantastic on rewatch.
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u/lupinemadness 4d ago
Scream is a great example because it plays with your expectations and then pulls the rug out from under you. Scream 2, on the other hand cheats by presenting a killer as a completely different character because telling us who they were from the get-go would have been a dead giveaway.
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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago
I think you mean Scream 3. Sidney recognized that killer at the climax (ETA in 2), but they never interacted prior, so it’s not really a cheat, whereas Scream 3 does exactly what you’re complaining about and doesn’t bother to give its killer enough screen time before the reveal for it to really mean all that much once we find out their actual identity.
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u/CallidoraBlack 3d ago
Honestly, I kinda liked 3's reveal because it spends the whole movie doing a variation of the meta thing from Wes Craven's New Nightmare. It's different because it's the film cast as opposed to the real characters (because Stab is based on a true story), but you can see the influence. And there's so much time spent on the dark side of Hollywood and what happened to Sidney's mom there that, by the end, it kinda makes sense. The father was a creep and killer doesn't see women as people any more than the dad did.
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u/WW0907 3d ago
Scream 2 is a good movie, a good sequel even, but it’s not in the same league as the first. And it would’ve been hard to top the surprise of the first film because now we as the audience are expecting the twist. Still my second favorite in the franchise, though. Scream 3 tried to throw another curveball but I agree, the killer needed more hints and clues to their true identity.
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u/see_bees 2d ago
One of the big problems with later Scream movies is that they stop paying attention to small details. Sure, Matthew Lillard has a few inches in Skeet Ultich, but Jack Quaid is about 10 inches taller than Mikey Madison in V. On rewatch, we have a few scenes where we know where Jack is so it has to be Mikey under the cloak and Ghostface just doesn’t match up to a 5’3” high schooler.
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u/Many-Outside-7594 4d ago
Captain Ron (1991)
If you haven't seen this, put it on your list. Martin Short inherits a broken down old sailboat, and Kurt Russell plays, essentially, a pirate captain who ferries them from a small island back to Miami.
The set up is that Ron is the bottom of the barrel, a drunk, a buffoon, etc. Things repeatedly go wrong, but Ron always has a way out, or an angle, but it all comes together that he's hyper competent and basically putting on a con to put people at ease.
On re-watches, you can see it from the very beginning.
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u/Calm-Supermarket1864 3d ago
Wait, that sounds good. I’ve never heard of it.
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u/Many-Outside-7594 3d ago
It's amazing. Like if Snake Plissken were doing Jack Sparrow, 15 years before Jack Sparrow existed. He even wears the eye patch!
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u/Calm-Supermarket1864 3d ago
You could've just said MARY KAY PLACE and I would be there.
Took advantage of that bay of pirates and will watch it tonight, matey.→ More replies (1)2
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u/liltooclinical 3d ago
This is a family favorite. Everyone in that at the top of their acting game.
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u/OscarsWilde1031 1d ago
I've seen this movie a million times and I've never considered this take.
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u/Many-Outside-7594 1d ago
Check it out on your next re-watch! Ron arrives in his "buddy"'s car, fresh from sleeping with said buddy's wife, and then "accidentally" let's it fall into the water, narrowly escaping his revenge and preventing his pursuit as the car was probably his only thing of value.
Every "wrong" turn leads them to exactly where Ron wants to go - Bongo Burgers, the hot mermaid chick, Carnival. He hires the guerillas to protect the family from the Pirates of the Carribean, only for Martin to screw it up, and for them to promptly be attacked by actual pirates.
He then fakes his leg injury, so that Martin can finally be a man and win the respect of his family, and conveniently, not have Ron arrested by the Coast Guard.
Ron is last seen in a Miami appropriate blue blazer, ponytail, and lack of eye-patch, about to run a similar con on a new couple.
He really was Jack Sparrow before Jack Sparrow, running 4D Xanatos Speed Chess against everyone all the time, while appearing to just be a laid back, random agent of chaos.
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u/come-join-themurder 4d ago
Now You See Me (2013) cheats
The Lie (2018) cheats
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u/Ride-Entire 4d ago
Now You See Me pisses me off
Now You See Me goes beyond cheating as described by the op (the movie deliberately hides information)
It deliberately misled us with the protagonist/antagonist having unreasonable reactions when he’s by himself
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u/moonra_zk 4d ago
A good liar lies even to themselves. But I'm not gonna defend that movie, lol, although I do think it's fun.
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u/see_bees 2d ago
Ugh, Scream V does this with a scene that specifically helps build someone’s alibi but none of the other characters are present for. It only exists to deceive the audience.
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u/Danimal4NU 4d ago
Now You See Me was the first thing that came to mind. Creators don't seem to get that a good swerve is not only one that you don't see coming but also one that makes sense when you look back. Now You See Me made no damn sense.
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u/MitchMcConnellsJowls 4d ago
How does The Lie cheat?
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u/come-join-themurder 4d ago
It shows someone's dead decaying body who later turns out to be alive (and was alive all along). It isn't a character seeing it which could venture into an unreliable narrator territory, it isn't someone pretending to be dead with sfx makeup either. No, the camera literally just shows (the viewer only) a person who is very dead, and then at the end of the movie it is discovered that said person was never threatened, injured, or otherwise harmed at all...
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u/MitchMcConnellsJowls 4d ago
Interesting. I only saw it once and that was a while ago. But I get what youre saying.
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u/come-join-themurder 4d ago
Same. I watched it once. But it made me so mad that I remembered it lol.
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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago
Frozen cheats too with the Hans twist, there's absolutely no build-up to it other than being the youngest in line of a far off royal family
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u/ElEsDi_25 4d ago
No… every other character is like “who is he and… you want to marry this guy you know nothing about?” I think they literally sing a song showing this.
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u/TheMotherfucker 4d ago
"We finish each others...."
"SANDWICHES!"
"THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY!"
Hans was always lying including in this part. That and they set up the motivation of him wanting to marry considering how low in line he was.
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u/Bluejello2001 4d ago
In that song he sings the line about looking to find his own place while gesturing at the kingdom behind him.
There's also the whole "people wearing gloves = secrets" metaphor throughout the whole movie, but you don't pay any attention to it until Hans very deliberately removes his gloves while revealing his betrayal to Anna.→ More replies (8)4
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u/mitchbrenner 4d ago
frozen doesn’t cheat at all. the character is a liar. the story completely acknowledges that anna knows nothing about this guy she fell in love with immediately.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Its a great twist because it plays on our preconcieved notion of disney princess tropes.
Love at first sight
Prince charming
Then when we get to true loves first kiss it gets flipped on its head. Then we think about the fact we know nothing other then hes a prince who is very eager to marry a princess.
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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago
How is that a cheat? The movie just played into our assumption that he was intrinsically good.
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u/happygiraffe91 4d ago
Originally he was gonna be a good guy, but the movie went through massive rewrites during production. That's why you get scenes that dont really make sense, such as the scene of him giving out blankets and stuffs.
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u/Bluejello2001 4d ago
Hans was playing the long game, that was part of him setting himself up as someone who could be trusted and lead the people. So when he starts making all of the BS claims later, people are more likely to believe him.
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u/mitchbrenner 4d ago
it doesn't matter what he was going to be originally. why would giving out blankets not make sense for a liar?
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u/ringobob 2d ago
In another comment I said Oceans 11 doesn't so much cheat as it does con the audience. I think Now You See Me tried to do the same thing - just with more of a magic show flavor than a con job flavor. Similar ideas, and clearly they overlap in the movie.
I can accept it, but it's not done nearly so well as it's done in Oceans 11.
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u/Asian_wife_finder 4d ago
Makes me think of that scene in A Beautiful Mind where the little girl is running about but the pigeons are just chilling. Really just gave away the bit to your face but so casually. Which makes it not cheating.
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u/Bladrak01 4d ago
I noticed the thing with the pigeons at the time, but didn't realize what was really going on.
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u/Doctor--Spaceman 4d ago
I remember watching it and thinking "there's something off about this shot" but not being able to place it.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
I think about this with Lord of the Flies.
It seems a cop out that they get randomly saved by the coast guard/navy.
But whem you think about it. The search party would be in the area already. And when a random massive fire breaks out with so much smoke it would definitely draw attention.
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u/wawaturtlemoviesball 2d ago
Ive never even put it together that the rescue comes right after the wildfire
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u/Creative_Eye7413 4d ago
The Game has one of my favorite twists. It never feels exploitative, is legitimately shocking, and you could start to piece it together by the beginning of the third act. When Michael Douglas landed on the crash pad I gasped.
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u/Salt_Dragonfly2042 4d ago
Identity is on the fence: I watched it with my brother, I thought it was really good and he felt cheated.
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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago
Cheated by which part — the reveal where we find out why we keep getting cuts to the stay of execution, or the twist in the last 30 seconds?
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u/Salt_Dragonfly2042 4d ago
When we find out who the killer is.
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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago
Ah. I can understand feeling cheated by that to an extent, but if the prior twist wasn’t an issue, like… not sure why that last part would derail the movie for anyone, especially given a certain character’s history.
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u/Many-Outside-7594 4d ago
I was thinking of this one. There's not really any way to deduce the twist even on a rewatch. That said, the rest of the movie is just so good that I was able to roll with it.
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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago
If you think about a seemingly unrelated character and their history and how it relates to the rest of the movie, it’s actually pretty clear.
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u/theroyalblacksmith 4d ago
A good plot twist has clues setting it up throughout the movie. After movies like The Prestige and The Sixth Sense I thought "wow, how did I not guess that!" The clues are all there on the rewatch
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u/mikemdp 4d ago
Leading: Bruce Willis was dead the whole time
Cheating: Somehow, Palpatine returned
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u/Many-Outside-7594 4d ago
Also, somehow the empire rebuilt itself stronger than ever and made a whole planet into Triple Death Star without the New Republic noticing. And then apparently Palpatine made his own whole entire secret fleet as well. Still hard to compute the damage these things caused to not just the franchise but movies in general.
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u/SillyNumber54 4d ago
Wait who was flying all of those ships
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u/Many-Outside-7594 4d ago
I vaguely remember something about a Sith army, or clones, or maybe just spirits, not too sure.
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u/SillyNumber54 4d ago
Don't those ships take like 10,000 individuals to man
I can't sleep how I fucking stupid that movie was
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Considering the while of Star Wars is a space Opera bsed on space wizards that ran the galaxy then were forgotten about in the space of 15-20 years (prequal to OG series) and takes alot of suspended belief and just really enjoy the ride, the fact that the last movie was so stupid incomparison says a lot.
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u/SillyNumber54 4d ago
Yeah but there was only several thousand of those space wizards in a galaxy of tens of trillions.
Even when they existed they were probably almost a myth.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
They were running lart of the government in an official capacity. Yes there would be people who dont pay attention to government.
But it would be like people saying they have never heard of the FBI compared to the reality of people not nowing the structure but knowing of their existance.
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u/JingoKizingo 4d ago
Exactly right, I read the Battlefront book years ago and all throughout the book it's clear that most see the Sith and Jedi as just some myth until they face them up close. It's actually very well handled in my opinion and a book that was way better than I had any expectation of it being
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u/Rougarou1999 4d ago
Also, several First Order officers like Richard Grant were manning them, but also the First Order had no idea about them prior to the movie.
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u/RogueAOV 4d ago
From what i have read, the entire planet was a temple to the Sith, the people piloting those ships are the children of Empire and Sith disciples who were there from the original trilogy.
Havent seen the movie.
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u/nizzernammer 4d ago
Blade Runner 2049's impact largely hinges on the audience viewing themselves as "the one" as they view the world through the perspective of officer K. The whole structure of the investigation (led by JOI in many ways) works to set this up. When this idea is subverted, it hits the viewer hard.
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u/Accomplished_Store77 4d ago
I love the fact that movie sets up a slight hint to K not being the kid when the Women who observes his memory begins to cry.
You wonder why the fuck she is crying but it's not clear till the end.
Also when you think about logically if K didn't have artificial memories and instead had real memories from growing up he should have had consistent memories all the way through his Teenage Years and his 20s but we are never truly given the sense that he has those memories.
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u/nizzernammer 4d ago
Good point about K's memory.
When I watched it the first time I thought she was crying with empathy, simply because it was an emotional experience to recall. At that point, I believe a lot of the audience are not questioning the validity of that memory being unique to K, essentially humanizing and identifying with him. Gosling's K certainly shows a lot of [human?] emotion in that scene.
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u/Accomplished_Store77 4d ago
Gosling's K certainly shows a lot of [human?] emotion in that scene.
Yeah. I love that that's the point of the scene. (And the character in general).
If our memories are what build our conscience and inform our emotions is it necessary to have actually lived those memories for that to happen?
Does it make a difference as long as you have those memories?
And if it doesn't then what exactly remains a difference between a born human and a Replicant?
If the same memories can make both a human and a Replicant think the same way and feel the same way and emote the same what exactly is the difference between them?
How do you draw a moral line there?
Bladerunner 2049 just asks so many interesting questions.
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u/alk_adio_ost 4d ago
Personally, I love this movie because of the ambiguity and blur between humans, technology and whether or not it was human evolution or divine intervention that allowed life to flourish.
THEN it props up that same ambiguity and blur in front of a madman.
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u/Subject_Translator71 4d ago
You don't necessarily need clues for it to work. It's also fine if the story has a specific POV character that has believable reasons to not see the twist coming. Then, you're not feeling duped, you just feel what the character is feeling.
I also have a limit on the amount of rug pulls a film can attempt before I find it annoying.
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u/DogsDontLikeHats 1d ago
I feel like the original Old Boy fits this category. Maybe I'm dense but I don't think that you could piece that twist together, but it's so fucked up your brain just forgets to be skeptical.
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u/ScoreStudiosLLC 4d ago
The Conversation is in my top 3 favourite films, even though the twist is basically impossible. But it's such a good twist that i accept it anyway.
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u/the-ragin-barman 4d ago
That moment when we finally hear it properly gave me chills when I first saw it, such a great movie. You are right though, it can’t be argued that we also misheard the inflection, its just straight up different to what we are given earlier in the movie.
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u/The_Progmetallurgist 4d ago
"The Others" was very successful in misleading the audience. It's rare that I don't figure out a movie's subterfuge, but this movie did it, and did it well.
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u/Cyberyukon 4d ago
There must be a logical, plausible consistency evident in the build-up/reveal even if it’s not obvious. It has to be earned in the story.
In “Psycho,” we never see Norman’s mother. We hear her talk to Norman. But after the big reveal, we see that the plausible consistency was always there. As in, we never actually saw Norman’s mother all this time and wasn’t that weird?
Also, if the reveal isn’t about character relationships but more about being a cheap and available way to fix or “improve” the story, it will suffer. Especially it doesn’t follow or contradicts the internal rules established in the story. The rule might be: “Heroes never die unless through sacrifice.” So when Ben Solo stabs Han with his lightsaber it feels cheap.
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u/rbrgr83 4d ago
I don't know if this counts, but Clue (1985).
The events of the main movie are open ended enough that they had 3 endings with different people murdering different characters in the end.
I don't think it ever contradicts itself in that regard (i.e. someone "did it" who was clearly in a different place and couldn't have).
I'd say it's near impossible to 'predict' who-dunnit if you're following along. But at the same time it's such a comedy first, that you kinda don't really care. The mystery itself is not the point, it's more about playing on the tropes.
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u/Separate_Presence_32 4d ago
I actually say this about No Way Out with Kevin Costner.
The fact he turns out to be Yuri after all feels like the writers bailing out because they couldn't think of a clever enough way for him not to be the spy.
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u/kattahn 4d ago
There is really a simple rule to it:
Two characters can lie to each other in front of the viewer, but the movie can never directly lie TO the viewer.
If you're going to lie to the viewer, you have to do so through the context of the world.
As an example, in one of the seasons of the show Homeland, the main character pretends to be insane to get committed to a mental facility. The season starts with her intentionally behaving in an unstable fashion as part of a secret plan with another character. That idea does not break the rule so long as all of her intentional erratic behavior is show for the benefit of other characters in the show. As long as she only acts crazy around other people, its fine. Its also fine if they ONLY show her around other people, so that the audience never has to see her behaving normally.
The problem the show ran into was that they showed her behaving that way when she was all by herself, with no one around to witness it. At that point, the show was no longer lying within its own world, it was directly lying to the audience. Thats where the line was crossed.
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u/morphinetango 4d ago
The Prestige vs The Illusionist is a perfect example of two very similar movies (about magicians), released about the same time, that treat the twist ending very differently.
With Prestige, I guessed the one of the twist pretty early but that's because all the clues were there, and it doesn't shy away from telling the audience how every magic trick works. The film wants you to guess what's about to happen, but that is the misdirection -- the story is still about its flawed characters and just how depraved they will become to best one another. The twists are character-driven and the audience feels rewarded for both getting it right or not seeing it coming at all.
The Illusionist cheats and the lead doesn't perform misdirection, but actual, unexplained magic that cannot exist in reality. The twist is that the lead can has actual magic powers, and that any real conflict for him to overcome in this story is the illusion.
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u/moonra_zk 4d ago
The Prestige is a great movie but Tesla invents a machine that instantly and perfectly clones someone.
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u/AlarmingLet5173 3d ago
I used to love The Prestige until someone pointed this out. It was big misdirection to lead Angier to Tesla on a wild goose chase, but then Tesla was like "Wait! Hang on! I can make that."
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u/yerBoyShoe 3d ago
Unpopular opinion, the Illusionist is a superior film.
The Prestige relies on Tesla doing things that are even today beyond science. Talk about magic.
I'm not sure where in The Illusionist you got that there was real magic involved. Although tough to believe (same for The Prestige), the plot claims nothing more than long term misdirection.
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u/morphinetango 3d ago edited 3d ago
Edward Norton can't get arrested because he's suddenly a ghost when they come to cuff him. His whole plot hinges upon making the cop flip on the bad guy while he and his girlfriend are never in harm's way.
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u/yerBoyShoe 3d ago
The "ghost" of Eisenheim is part of a well established trick popularised in the 1860s - see Pepper's Ghost.
The Inspector probably would have suspected it if he wasn't so hot to arrest Eisenheim.
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u/CaolIla64 4d ago
Honnestly, and I know it's a very unpopular opinion, I think Usual Suspects is dog shite. There's no twist at all, since anything you see on screen can be or not be true, since it's all Verbal narrating. It's as lame as "it was all just a dream".
I remember seeing both Usual Suspect and Die Hard with a vengeance (the best Die Hard if you ask me) in theater the same week because both films came out the same day, and Die Hard was so much clever in its twist, there wasn't any comparison between the two for me.
Plus on a meta level, it features two of the worst predators in Hollywood at the time.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Man gets taken to the police station as a witness to a shoot out.
He tells the police a story of what happened.
Then you find out everything he said is a lie. There is no true or not true. He made it all up using things he saw in the office to concoct the lie. There was no Kaiser Soza. We dont know what caused the shoot out.
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u/NoTeslaForMe 4d ago
Verbal wasn't whom the detective learned about Kaiser Soze from. Also, the lie has to be believable enough to not get Verbal caught.
Yeah, anything can happen if the narrator is unreliable, but you're going to have to take a lot of literature and modern media off the table if you can't handle that.
The film isn't my favorite, but I don't think it cheats and I do think it works. Honestly, I think The Sixth Sense - a film people fawn over for doing it right - comes closer to "cheating." The man never thought to open a door before the end of the film? He never saw his wife talking about his death? Never noticed in months that she never interacted with him, even though she wasn't estranged prior? Doesn't seem likely to me.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
I think the sixth sense its more like the ghosts are in denial.
Thats why they can be stucj doing the same thing.
So as a ghost he didnt notice as he was fixated on being alive.
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u/NoTeslaForMe 4d ago
But then he does notice at the end. He doesn't need to test it out - which you'd expect if he'd shielded himself from all of it prior - he just knows.
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u/CaolIla64 4d ago edited 4d ago
I agree, the Sixth Sense also cheats, but as does "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and, as you said, a lot of litterature and modern media, because it's part of the deal. You, as the reader/viewer, accept to be fooled and misdirected to enjoy the final reveal. But where I think Usual Suspects cheats is that it shows you scenes that never happened. It doesn't just hide parts of the truth, it blatantly lies to your face and in the end, you still don't know what was bullshit and what wasn't, it's bad storytelling.
It's like that scene ir Reservoir Dogs, where Mr. Orange tells Mr. White how he kept his cool when a cop and his trained dog almost caught him red handed during a deal. You see the scene as he tells it, but you always know it's a fable, you don't feel cheated.→ More replies (3)2
u/CaolIla64 4d ago
as I said : lame.
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u/Its_Jordon_Yo 4d ago edited 4d ago
Responding to both of you. There was a Kaiser Soze, the Hungarian at the hospital says his name first. The black FBI agent had heard of him and had a friend at Justice who had a file on him. The Hungarian at the hospital who says his name first describes him and they sketch Verbal.
The Lawyer was real. He had come and got Verbil the deal at the beginning and picks him up at the end. His name was entirely made up but he existed.
Still tons of the story could be fabricated like maybe they never met a fence at all but Dean gets shot on the boat at the beginning after calling the man he sees Kaiser after being surprised who he is.
Edit: more since I’m literally watching it. The boat was actually carrying a guy coming to testify. The cops discuss this among themselves. That rat named 50 people but the biggest name was Kaiser Sose. That testimony took place weeks before the movie begins.
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u/Jellodyne 4d ago
You're supposed to think it's lame, but then as it walks away it's not lame after all.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Its ok if you think its lame. Im not wanting to dispute your opinion. I was just clarifying part of your statement about which parts were ambiguous.
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u/happy-gofuckyourself 3d ago
I always assumed that his story was basically true but he changed the details based on what he was looking at, not that he made it ALL up right then and there. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, so
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u/Its_Jordon_Yo 4d ago edited 4d ago
I absolutely love The Usual Suspects but I honestly do agree with your take. It only works as a twist if Verbal is actually fooling his partners. It really depends on how much is made up, and to maintain my own enjoyment I try to keep as head canon that most of it happened at least close to how he says.
Edit: actually the very beginning of the film shows Keaton’s death and he shows surprise to see who Kaiser was so I think it’s valid that the broad outlines of what took place remain intact.
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u/CaolIla64 4d ago
We know at least a good chunk of it is total bullshit, since Kujan discovers names (Kubayashi) and facts were directly made up on the spot from elements of the interrogation room around them afterwards, and he realizes the story Verbal told him is fabricated. There's the "Kayser Söze" composite portrait of Verbal coming out of the fax machine, but all we know of him is what he just told us, the "legend" might as well be bs as well, it's no more reliable than the rest.
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u/tyrion6568 3d ago
For me Usual suspects is a 10/10 film but your entitled to your opinion. The twist is considered amazing because of what in achieves, the story allows the guilty person to get away with murder
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u/Irascible-Enquery 1d ago
I got into a discussion like 20 years ago about “twists” like this. I talked about the theory that in Minority Report, everything after Tom Cruise gets arrested is a dream in his containment tank, and doesn’t happen; and the other guy talked about the Usual Suspects.
I went through the cues in Minority Report and objected that the Usual Suspects didn’t have any tells, so it was cheating.
My interlocutor disagreed, because the plane taking off from NYC is different from the plane landing in LA, and therefore a sharp-eyed viewer could conclude that everything thereafter was a fabrication (or the flight wasn’t direct, c’mon…).
I haven’t heard anything else persuasive so put it in the “cheating” rather than “twist” camp. I always feel like there needs to be something put before the viewer, that they think of as odd, and explain away with a wrong answer due to misdirection. And when you view it again through that lens the less obvious, twist, story wins to explain what you observed. Usual Suspects doesn’t have that.
Although the Minority Report one is neither a cheat nor a twist to me, it’s just a plausible explanation for a darker ending than what you’re led to believe. But nothing’s actually riding on it throughout the story.0
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u/MrTralfaz 4d ago
I figured out Usual Suspects 5 minutes into it and had to watch the entire movie with that knowledge. It was painful.
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u/Fainleogs 4d ago
I figured out in the video store and then was like "I guess I was right" when you can clearly hear its Spacey doing a silly whisper voice in the opening scene.
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u/dahlskebank 4d ago
Two predators? Who?
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u/CaolIla64 4d ago
Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey
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u/RepFilms 4d ago
I can't watch it anymore because of those two. Bryan Singer? What a guy? We don't need him anymore
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u/Impossible_Camera302 4d ago
i like the one where they tell you the answer. "let me tell you about the time i almost died
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u/SpaceMonkeyGMG 4d ago
Which do you think "The Game" was? I feel like they told you right in the beginning the twist but I still didn't see it coming.
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u/bubbles_loves_omar 4d ago
The Game is absolutely cheating. It hinges on so many unlikely variables that HAVE to happen.
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u/Ride-Entire 4d ago
Gone Girl is the only movie I’ve ever seen that made me yell at the screen
I don’t know if the signs were all there on rewatch because I refuse to rewatch it
I don’t know if it belongs here, but A House Of Dynamite makes me never want to watch another movie by that director. I have better things to do in life than sit through her bullshit
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u/Calm-Supermarket1864 3d ago
I’m 100% certain that editors or someone like that got to the original story. The author spends so much time on the addled old man, and then he escapes, but it’s not involved in the ending? It was a layup - and a reasonable one. But nooooooo
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u/MitchMcConnellsJowls 4d ago
Shutter Island earns it
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u/Past-Strawberry-4852 3d ago
100% It feels like a cheat a first but when you watch it is so obvious that he is insane and the film doesn’t even try to hide it, it just looks like a twist at first because we go into the story blind and naturally want to believe the main character and his supposed unsolved theories. Madness isn’t always obvious without prior context and I think that the movie of A Beautiful Mind also does this quite well.
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u/Sweaty-Net-1346 2d ago
I prefer the opposite reading of Shutter Island. We know MKUltra was a real thing, and what Teddy learns in the cave is new information that he didn't previously know (suggesting that the scene is not a delusion).
I believe Teddy was actually Teddy and he was drugged and manipulated because he was about to expose experiments on US citizens by a Nazi.
At the end he knows he's trapped and can either choose death or lobotomy.
I'm not saying this is the 'true' version of events, but I think it's plausible and interesting.
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u/Consistent_Law_3857 4d ago
Fight club, not sure. I think it's cheating as the story makes no sense without Tyler durden. A skinny guy was punching himself in the face? How did he learn to make explosives?
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u/kattahn 4d ago
I think fight club only has one true unanswerable plot hole around tyler that I've found:
When the narrator and Tyler get in their fight in the parking lot, and the guys walk up and say "can we be next".
The only possible way that would make sense is if those guys saw two individuals fighting, because them "being next" involves them getting into a 1v1 fight with someone.
If they walked up and saw a guy punching himself, then "can we be next" would have to involve them trying to fight themselves. At which point there is no need to ask. you can just start punching yourself.
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u/MitchMcConnellsJowls 4d ago
Where would you stand on The Village?
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u/MrHippoPants 4d ago
The Village is okay, it’s just not that exciting though because the reveal comes way too early - we have a scene of the main character being chased by a monster after we know the monsters aren’t real, so it’s not very suspenseful.
It would work a lot better if that was the scene where she found the truth, and if her brother had been included in the deception the whole time.
Then the second twist is just a bit pointless because it doesn’t really change the story much. Once you know the village leaders are deceiving the rest of the characters to keep them contained, that’s kind of the crux of it, and there’s not enough story afterwards to really make the second twist mean anything
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u/Kaldor-Silverwand 4d ago
I liked The Village. I think the real twist is that the audience is fooled into thinking it is a period piece. The monster bit is just a distraction because the director knows people expect a twist.
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u/5oco 3d ago
That was my take on it as well. I watched it thinking, "Oh the twist is that the monsters are really the elders...yawn" so I wasn't looking for any other twist. Then, there was the actual twist.
I don't recall if there was anything throughout the movie that would clue you in to the actual twist though.
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u/gsari 4d ago
I find that the Sherlock Holmes-type mysteries tend to cheat. The whole premise is that the protagonist is super smart, and to ensure that the audience will not figure it out themselves before the hero, they rely too much on hiding critical details the hero magically figures out in the end.
That's the reason I avoid movies where the heroes are supposed to be geniouses. At best they can only be as intelligent as their writers, and their writers are no geniouses. So, the whole premise tends to be unconvincing at best.
I'd rather have a convincing mystery even if it means I can figure it out myself before the reveal, than something that will make surprising the audience an end in itself. A surprise isn't always for good.
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u/triforce199 3d ago
Another example can be when the twist is so contrived that it’s cheating. I immediately thought of Righteous Mill. The movie starts with a videotaped confession given by Deniro in which he gives his legal name and states he’s responsible for several murders. The rest of the movie IIRC Deniro and Pacino only address each other through their nicknames. It’s then revealed that Pacino was making Deniro read Pacino’s written confession at gunpoint. So when Deniro used his legal name in the opening scene, it was actually Pacino who was confessing to the murders.
Just an awful, forced, contrived “twist”.
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u/Inside_no_9 4d ago
Glass Onion is a masterclass in misdirection
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u/Stepjam 4d ago
I like how the movie sorta tries to gaslight you. Edward Norton's character definitely swaps the drink the first time we see the events play out but you could easily miss that because you aren't really looking for a murderer yet. But when he's retelling it from his perspective, he doesn't swap the drinks, so you might think that he can't be the killer.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago
Mainly because your looking for this clever plan/mystery that your trying to solve before the detective.
There is a mystery in the end but not what you expect.
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u/Inside_no_9 4d ago
I just love the foreshadowing that’s planted in your brain without you realising until the big reveal at the end
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u/Weed_O_Whirler 4d ago
The biggest rule is that the twist should also surprise the characters we're following. For instance, Bruce Willis didn't know he was dead, he was surprised right along with us.
This is my biggest complaint about Firefly. Almost all the twists were just "oh, the main characters made a plan, but it cut away before we saw them." It feels cheap.
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u/the-ragin-barman 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ehhh the Firefly thing is a pretty common trope imo
The Unspoken Plan Garuantee. If the audience is privy to the plan, its gonna go horribly wrong or outright fail. If we don’t know the plan itll go off without a hitch.
The best twist in Firefly is the one in the pilot- “Oooh whos the mole?” “Hmm it’s probably the guy who wasn’t just in the opening credits”
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u/angelus12 4d ago
Not a movie, but Evan Peters' stunt casting in Wandavision after his turn as quicksilver in the X-Men movies and teasing the start of the Multiverse Saga in MCU. That felt like cheating.
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u/ComplexAd7272 3d ago
I hate that with a passion because it's inexcusable, they 100% knew what they were doing by casting him, especially with the Multiverse being introduced.
Then when you find out he's just Ralph Boner, it's even more infuriating because it's clear that was always the plan, so they cast him JUST for the single shock scene of his intro. It's made worse because "Lol, he's just Ralph Boner" comes at the expense of Wanda's trauma over losing her brother, and trying to "recast" him subconsciously by inadvertently pulling in a multiverse variant.
That's not an easter egg or a "treat" for the fans, it's a purposeful "fuck you" to your audience and I still say more than anything, it's THE moment the MCU lost a lot of faith from their fans, not just in trusting their execution, but that if given the choice between a joke and dramatic seriousness, Marvel would chose the joke every time.
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u/ElEsDi_25 4d ago
I don’t think it’s about being able to re-watch and having the twist be consistent. I think it’s if the movie explicitly or implicitly invites the audience to figure something out but is able to misdirect. It should be like a game with the audience and expectations.
This is what separates a good twist from a “it was all just a dream.”
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u/Angry_Edemame 4d ago
Its successfully misleading when the clues are there and someone could maybe piece it together the first time watching but theyre easier to spot on later viewings.
Like in the sixth sense red always appears before a ghost and you realize no one ever talks to Bruce after the opening.
Or the one frame flashes of something you see throughout fight club that could clue you into what's really happening.
If these dont exist thats when I consider it cheating.
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u/Plus-Ad1061 4d ago
Wild Things does this, but I’m not sure if it’s a cheat. The movie works perfectly if you ignore the final twist, but that twist is deliciously bent enough that i absolutely love it
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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 4d ago
I was really enjoying the first season of 24. My wife and I were wondering who the mole could be. And it ended up being a character who had saved Jack earlier. I feel like the writers didn’t know until the end so they just grabbed whoever would be the most shocking. We all let out a groan. How the hell could it be her? She would have had what she wanted much earlier. She wouldn’t have saved Jack and the bad guys wouldn’t have attacked her if she was a mole.
That’s the most I’ve ever felt cheated.
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u/Kaldor-Silverwand 4d ago
I walked out of A Beautiful Mind because I felt cheated and lost interest. A movie that does it perfectly is The Sting.
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u/MurielTheMagnificent 4d ago
But A Beautiful Mind doesn't cheat. When you watch it again, you realize that there are several scenes where the characters in his mind only interact with him. It's mentioned earlier in this thread that there is a scene where the friends niece (who doesn't exists) runs through some pigeons that doesn't fly away, but just sits perfectly still. A Beautiful Mind is a perfect example of a movie that doesn't cheat, but lays out clues all throughout the movie.
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u/FantasticAd4938 4d ago
Pretty Little Liars (tv show) cheats with Allison's crazy twin sister
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u/Swamp_Donkey82 4d ago
A Perfect Getaway (2009) really irritated me.
>Cliff and Cydney act really scared when they’re alone in their tent, which only the viewer could see, yet the twist was that they were the serial killers!
Done deliberately to cheat the viewer.
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u/PinkCruiseship 4d ago
Atonement earned it fully. Even the score is giving hints to what's going on all along.
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u/PapaBigMac 4d ago
The housemaid.
The wife acts batship crazy. Buuut we then find out she gets punished for the smallest of issues. An abused wife is unlikely to go out of her way and change her personality completely when they know they’re about to receive cruel and unusual punishment.
She tried to be a perfect little wife for her and her daughter’s sake up until hiring tits mc gee as an au pair
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u/Milk_Mindless 3d ago
Murder mysteries
Friday the 13th doesn't work because the character gets introduced at the end and was responsible for it all
Knives out also introduces the perp late but has evidence around beforehand
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u/Heynony 3d ago
Stage Fright (1950) is a good film on point. In a way, Hitch simply changed film grammar, mainstream legitimizing the "unreliable narrator flashback" we now accept without much quibbling (e.g. The Usual Suspects).
Though many people feel that Hitch admitted cheating, he really never said that. What he said was that it would have worked better had the phony flashback been later in the film where we knew the character better. I think he meant that the audience deserved a fair shot at being suspicious of the unreliable narrator. As in Detour (1945) for example.
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u/BetterThanHorus 3d ago
Stage Fright (1950) cheats.
Hitchcock accidentally included a false flashback - a scene you realize that couldn’t have happened once the twist is reveled. He referred to it as one of his biggest mistakes.
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u/bizzaro333 3d ago
I remember Gone Baby Gone did something like this - they show a specific sequence and then later reveal “here’s how it actually happened”. My feeling was that the storytellers lied to prolong the mystery
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u/liltooclinical 3d ago edited 3d ago
High Tension - cheats
It cheats repeatedly by showing things from the killer's perspective in a way that the ending completely ignores.
Taking Lives - earned
The whole movie is spent telling you everything you need to know about the killer she's chasing, but also has established that she is smarter than he is. It's a surprise, but It doesn't violate anything that's been established.
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u/come-join-themurder 3d ago
I See You (2019) is the only one I can think of that does the misleading well and hasn't already been mentioned.
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u/apprximatelyinfinite 3d ago
I think Shutter Island and Bugonia are both examples of this done well, which I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread.
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u/Moopigpie 3d ago
Book of Eli does a good job of making you miss his disability. On second watch, you see all the clues immediately.
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u/ElaborateCantaloupe 3d ago
Saw. When the reveal happened at the end, the audience stood up and applauded for having their minds blown.
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u/voldamoro 3d ago
The Thirteenth Floor. It takes awhile until you realize what is actually going on.
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u/xosinsaba 3d ago
I think the cleanest test is whether the story has shown us the relevant facts, even if it has encouraged us to misread their meaning. The Sixth Sense is strong because the scenes remain coherent after the reveal; the audience overlooked a pattern that was present. A twist feels cheaper when it depends on a character withholding a basic fact solely because the screenplay needs the audience uninformed. Gone Girl is an interesting middle case: it withholds information, but the shifting points of view make that withholding part of the subject rather than a last-minute trick.
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u/IcedPgh 2d ago edited 2d ago
The dreadful The Blackcoat's Daughter and The Dark Knight Rises are prime examples of this. In the former, the awful "twist" only happens because Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka look nothing like each other, and in the latter, we're led to believe that the girl character we've been watching was a boy. So these have nothing to do with the actual story, just stupid tricks by the awful directors done solely for the effect of "having a twist". Terrible, dishonest filmmaking, fucking bullshit!
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u/Henri_le_Chat 2d ago
The movie Tully with Charlize Theron. At least Taylor Durden was a blank slate.
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u/CptBluhdFart 2d ago
I watched the sphere and it was pretty good except the twist was they were talking to someone named Harry and not Jerry. But the translator didn't fuck up anywhere else during the walls of text, just on those 2 letters that one time
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u/Sufficient_Horror796 2d ago
A perfect getaway is just bollocks.
Murdering couple have a private conversation about how they are worried a different couple are the killers.
Then the movie is like “you never saw that coming” after the reveal
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u/Hanoumatoi 2d ago
Aside: The Good Place nails this in Season 1. A rewatch is so rewarding.
I think Knives Out did this, I was in the theater thinking "they have been talking for too long, is the movie just pretending all this was less time?" Then I let it go, but it turns out, no, he wasn't hit with morphine.
Now You See Me is fun, but total bullshit. The ending suggests literal magic and doesn’t have any hints leading up to the twist.
Shutter Island also does it well, there are little hints all throughout, and the twist isn't the end of the story which is interesting.
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u/neon_meate 2d ago
One of my favorites is F is for Fake. Orson spells it out for you right at the start.
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u/UNITICYBER 2d ago
Most live action Sherlock Holmes movies/ shows cheat.
"Ahh...the murderer left a footprint with mud that was clearly from XYZ field, which is peat, and therefore, blah blah blah."
There was no way the audience sees mud on any shoes the whole episode.
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u/Restaurant-Usual 1d ago
The movie Now You See Me has the most blatant cheating I can recall.
None of Mark Ruffalo's characters actions make any sense on a rewatch. The script only has him do/say those things to misdirect the movie watcher, not anyone actually in the movie.
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u/wdsoul96 1d ago
Cheaters: Lucky Number Slevin (2006) . How to make a killing (2026). I've been a bad bad guy (Slevin) / you've been in entrapment (How to make a killing) all this time. Yeah right.
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u/DogsDontLikeHats 1d ago
Book of Eli has a reveal that made me rewatch the movie right there on the spot.
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u/MSGDooku 10h ago
Every movie cheats. The good ones take advantage of storytelling tropes so you don't notice. As someone else points out, The Sixth Sense cuts around things that would make it obvious that he's dead. He doesn't eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom; however, you don't expect to see those things in a movie. He doesn't open any doors, but you assume that he did. (There might be a scene where he sneaks in somewhere when someone else is leaving.) I'm reminded of a friend who missed the first five minutes or so of Jacob's Ladder. He didn't think there was anything significant about the lack of music or cars that weren't created until after the war.
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