11 Great Films Ruined By Terrible Plot Twists

Do you know what really grinds my gears? Terrible plot twists, that’s what.

Everyone’s had this experience before: there you are, enjoying a perfectly serviceable romance/thriller/drama/action/horror/[insert odd subgenre here] flick, when, suddenly, you’re shocked out of your seat, and not in a good way.

You’ve just witnessed a ruinously bad plot twist that has the net effect of obliterating any shred of credibility your film of choice may have once possessed. Please know that you have my deepest sympathies, and if you need to talk to anyone to help you get through this tough time, our comment boards are always open to you.

Terrible plot twists are the ultimate in awful movie-watching experiences. Sadly, that doesn’t mean they’re uncommon. And unfortunately, I’ve seen more than my share of good films destroyed by ridiculous, strange, unjustified or just plain dumb twists. What this feature will not do is examine head-scratching endings/twists in decidedly awful movies, so, despite such efforts as The Happening, The Village and Devil, M. Night Shyamalan only gets one title on this list (because, easy though it would be, we can’t let him take every slot, can we?). You also won’t see Tim Burton’s godawful Planet of the Apes remake, which redefined big-budget stupidity with its Ape-raham Lincoln drivel, possibly the worst twist of all time attached to one of the worst remakes of all time.

In order to help preserve the sanity of my fellow cinephiles and possibly save a few from getting blindsided by terrible out-of-the-blue twists, I’m counting off eleven solid films that were derailed by jaw-droppingly bad twists.

Of course: spoiler alert!