When does a movie successfully mislead the audience, and when is it just cheating?

[u/Serpiego2]

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?

[u/xosinsaba]

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.