History TheEndingChangesEverything / LiveActionFilms

* ''Film/TheUninvited2009'' appears to be a typical horror film with the protagonist Anna seeing the ghost of her dead mother seemingly accusing her new stepmother (who was the mother's nurse before marrying Anna's father) of killing her. There's even a moment where her boyfriend comes into her room in the dead of night after failing to show up at the designated meeting spot earlier. She tries to hug him and realizes that his spine is broken. He then, with his body twisted, tries to walk to her, as she runs away screaming. Finally, her stepmother, whom she and her sister Alex think is a BlackWidow, appears to drug Anna and threaten to put her back into the mental hospital. Anna wakes to to find the stepmother's body in the dumpster with Alex holding the knife. Their father arrives, and, horrified, reveals that Alex died along with their mother before the start of the film. Anna is the one who accidentally caused the explosion that killed them (after seeing her father cheat with the nurse) and went insane, imagining Alex to be alive and her mother and boyfriend's ghosts haunting her. She was also the one who pushed her boyfriend off the cliff but blocked it out. The only thing no one can figure out is why Anna thought that the stepmother was a black widow. The final scene reveals that one of her friends in the mental hospital was the real black widow.

* Likewise the movie ''Film/HouseOfFlyingDaggers''. In its final half hour, each individual character reveals each other individual character, all of them in roles they hadn't seemed to fill for most of the movie. The only character, amusingly, who's been somewhat honest the whole way through, is the one who's supposed to be the one conning others.

* The 2006 film ''Film/{{Irresistible}}'': You don't know if Mara (Creator/EmilyBlunt) was in fact Sophie's (Susan Sarandon) prodigal daughter, or if she just stole the identity of her best friend Kate (who bears a closer resemblance to Sophie and her other daughters).

** ''Film/TheVillage'': A gravestone suggests the film takes place in the late 1800's, it's revealed to actually be the modern day and the isolated village was an attempt to live peacefully away from the rest of society.

* ''Film/AntiMatter'': A woman named Ana begins to have difficulty forming new memories, is unable to eat but never feels hungry, and has other bizarre symptoms after a teleportation experiment. Her research partners who were working on the teleportation machine with her seem strangely unconcerned when her room is broken into by a person wearing a chimpanzee mask who steals her work, and they later seem to be {{gaslighting}} her and keeping secrets from her. She becomes convinced that she lost her soul when she was teleported. [[TeleporterAccident It turns out she was accidentally duplicated during a teleportation test]], and we have been seeing things from the point of view of the duplicate. She cannot form new memories and feels no hunger because she isn't a real person, she is just an echo of the real Ana made of light. The real Ana and her partners were hiding this from her because she kept forgetting she was a duplicate and [[CloningBlues getting distressed by the revelation]].

!!Individual examples:
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' examples:
** ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' has the [[LukeIAmYourFather reveal that Darth Vader is Luke's father]]. This brings plenty of moments from not just this film, but [[Film/ANewHope the previous]] that have a bigger meaning, most notably the dinner scene early in the previous film.
--->'''Aunt Beru:''' "Luke's just not a farmer. He has too much of his father in him."\\
'''Uncle Owen:''' "That's what I'm afraid of."
** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' has one for those who have only seen the movies and don't know the Emperor's real name, only that he's the mysterious Darth Sidious who manipulated the Trade Federation into attacking Naboo in [[Film/ThePhantomMenace the previous film]]. Most of the film details how the Clone Wars (that would change the Galactic Republic into the [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]]) started, with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, hailing from Naboo, having tried to negotiate with the Separatists the whole time, only to have to resort to the Clonetroopers created by a man called Tyranus. Then at the end Dooku, leader of the Separatists, meets with Sidious who calls him "Lord Tyranus", and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buh5A70loA the Clonetroopers military parade at the end is scored by the Imperial March while we have a long close-up on Palpatine]], revealing that the kind Chancellor is really Darth Sidious and was behind ''everything''.
** ''Film/{{Solo}}'' has a meta-example, for those who've read up on their Star Wars EU lore. After killing [[BigBad Dryden Vos]], Qi'ra contacts [[TheManBehindTheMan the man who Dryden reported to]], and the [[GreaterScopeVillain real top dog]] of the Crimson Dawn - '''[[Film/ThePhantomMenace Maul.]]''' The Crimson Dawn isn't just any old criminal syndicate - it's Maul's attempt at rebuilding his criminal empire after the [[ComicBook/DarthMaulSonOfDathomir destruction of the]] [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Shadow Collective.]]
* [[TropeCodifier Popularized]] by the film ''Film/TheUsualSuspects''. A police prisoner, Verbal Kint, is being interrogated about a ship explosion the previous night. His interrogator Agent Kujan believes that the explosion was caused by Dean Keaton, a crooked cop, but Kint tells how a diabolical mastermind called Keyser Soze was behind it all. Eventually, Kint relents under Kujan's pressure and admits that Keaton was Keyser Soze all along. Just after Kint is released from custody, however, Kujan realizes that Kint has been spinning a gigantic lie using objects around the office as inspiration. It's suggested that it was Kint himself who is Keyser Soze and Kint was simply playing a role the whole time. This is all foreshadowed in the beginning, when Kujan states that cops almost always find what they expect to find. Kujan expected Kint to be a weak patsy protecting Keaton, so that's the role Kint played.
* ''Film/MatchstickMen''. Obviously, most of the film is a con. But when did it start? How much of it was planned, how much improvised? And just how much affection do Frank and "Angela" have for Roy? The film suggests answers for some of those questions, but some of them we just have to guess about.
* ''Film/FightClub'': The guy he met on the plane who seemed to be the brains behind everything that happened turned out to be the main character's split personality, putting into question everything that happened during the whole movie.
* ''Film/{{Memento}}'' ends this way, when it's revealed that Leonard killed his wife's rapist before any of the events of the movie, and [[AmnesiaDanger not remembering this]], has been killing criminals with similar names. The man he kills at the start of the film (actually the end of the timeline) is the DirtyCop inducing him to do this, toward whom he himself had planted hints. Raising even more questions, the dirty cop claims that the actual rapist did not kill Leonard's wife, but she committed suicide because she couldn't deal with Leonard's amnesia. His memory of "Sammy Jankis" is actually a twisted version of his own story that he conditioned himself to remember. However, since he ''is'' a dirty cop, it's unclear whether he's actually telling the truth or just trying to keep Leonard busy until he loses his memory again.
* The Jet Li movie ''Film/Hero2002'' uses this trope by taking place almost entirely during an audience with the emperor during which the main character tells his story to the emperor in long flashbacks, after which the emperor points out a flaw in the claims. Based on the lies he discovered, the emperor tells the story again with some changes of what he thinks really happened. And with his lie exposed, the nameless hero then confesses the actual events and retelling the story a third time. And then everything changes again when he reveals that he never actually intended to kill the emperor since he realized the folly of the insurrection on his way to the palace and only wanted to explain his reasons before accepting his punishment for participating in a conspiracy. He also demonstrates that he ''could'' have killed the emperor at any point, after getting within 10 paces of him, even using his technique but turning his blade at the last moment.
* Likewise the movie ''Film/HouseOfFlyingDaggers''. In its final half hour, each individual character reveals each other individual character, all of them in roles they hadn't seemed to fill for most of the movie. The only character, amusingly, who's been somewhat honest the whole way through, is the one who's supposed to be the one conning others.
* The 2006 film ''Film/{{Irresistible}}'': You don't know if Mara (Creator/EmilyBlunt) was in fact Sophie's (Susan Sarandon) prodigal daughter, or if she just stole the identity of her best friend Kate (who bears a closer resemblance to Sophie and her other daughters).
* The 2003 French/American horror film ''Film/HighTension'' (known as ''Switchblade Romance'' in the UK) uses this to disturbing MindScrew effect. Marie is a severely unreliable narrator, and a PsychoLesbian, and the killer. This WAS somewhat foreshadowed in the beginning (the dream about Marie chasing herself, with footage from later in the movie; Marie being mentioned as never having a boyfriend) but this is in the realm of FridgeBrilliance; to most people it seems like a totally random and jarring AssPull bordering on GainaxEnding, due to several scenes that make no sense if she and the killer are the same person.
* The Korean film ''Film/ATaleOfTwoSisters'' featured both an UnreliableNarrator and RealAfterAll, leaving the viewer to wonder how much was truly supernatural, and how much was merely the delusions of the insane protagonist.
* Another Korean film, ''Film/BloodyReunion'', ends when we find out that the narrator is the murderer, and she made up the entire story, and all the bad things in the flashbacks actually happened to her, not the other guests.
* Korean horror ''Film/DeadFriend'' (also known as ''The Ghost'') is played out as a generic horror flick, until the final scene where it is revealed the ghost who has been killing off Ji-won's (the main character's) friends IS in fact Ji-won. In a flashback it is shown that Ji-won had inadvertently caused the death of a girl before the movie began. The audience is led to believe this girl is the ghost and that she wants revenge. However, it is later revealed that she and Ji-won switched bodies just before the girl died, so the girl is actually the protagonist we have been following throughout the movie and Ji-won is the ghost.
* ''Film/WildThings'': Pretty much all the characters are revealed in a series of twists to be allied with one another, then revealed in another series of twists to be secretly betraying one another. Even when the movie is over, the writers throw in several more twists during the closing credits just for fun.

* ''Film/{{Primer}}'': The second act of the film involves the use of very limited TimeTravel; in the third act Abe learns that his friend Aaron has ''already'' used the time machine to [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast change the past.]] So during the entire aforementioned second act, Aaron had actually been Aaron-from-a-week-in-the-future, manipulating current events for his own ends.
* The remake ''Film/TotalRecall2012'' drops the ambiguity and sticks with a happy ending, but the Extended Cut of the remake puts some of the ambiguity back in. The message that Quaid finds in Hauser's apartment shows Quaid/Hauser portrayed by Ethan Hawke instead of Colin Farrell, and the tattoo he received at Rekall is missing at the end.
* ''Film/LuckyNumberSlevin'', in which it's revealed that the eponymous apparent patsy has [[KansasCityShuffle planned out all the film's events thus far]], working with the hitman who'd apparently been using him to [[RunningBothSides play both ends against the middle]].

* ''The Rachels'' opens with the death of Rachel Nelson after she apparently fell off a balcony, and then the first half of the film is a look at the events leading up to her death before looking at how her "best friend", Rachel Richards, basically tries to exaggerate their friendship and her grief about what happened to win simpathy. The insight of their mutual former friend, Roxie (who used to be the third Rachel of the titular group), reinforces the idea that Rachel R. pushed Rachel N. off the balcony and now intends to use the publicity for her own reputation. However, the final scene reveals that Rachel R. and Roxie were both present when Rachel N. fell off the balcony, and while Rachel R. just walked away, Roxie explicitly stayed behind to watch Rachel N. fall. Rachel R. even explicitly claims that she pushed Rachel N. off just to get the fame of being a killer while taunting Roxie that she's the more twisted of the two as she waited just to watch Rachel N. fall.

* In ''Film/ShutterIsland'', we learn at the end that the protagonist isn't a cop anymore; just a delusional mental patient. Everyone he's met, including his partner, has been playing along with this delusion in the hope that it'll let him get over his trauma and the apparent conspiracy was all in his mind. Not only that, but he killed his wife after she killed their children; it was this incident that caused his psychotic break and he's been blocking it out.
* In ''Film/{{Unknown 2011}}'', Creator/LiamNeeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a scientist who came to Berlin with his wife for a biotechnology conference. He gets in a car accident, wakes up in the hospital after a [[AsleepForDays four-day coma]] and finds that another man has completely taken over his life. Harris' wife believes the other man, who seems to know everything Harris knows, is her husband. TheReveal is that Harris is a deep-cover assassin who was on a mission to kill someone at the conference, but now [[BecomingTheMask believes his own cover story]] as a result of [[LaserGuidedAmnesia the brain damage he suffered in the car accident]]: Harris' "wife" is actually his partner, and the other man was a backup assassin who took over the role of "Dr. Harris" when the protagonist disappeared.
* In ''Film/Unknown2006'', the film's conclusion reveals that James Caviezel's character is actually an undercover cop, who had infiltrated the kidnapping ring and was about to bust them when a toxic gas rendered both kidnappers and kidnappees unconscious and amnesiac. And then the ''very'' last scene twists the twist, by revealing that he'd also been sleeping with the wife of the kidnapped millionaire, and had ''incited'' the rest of the criminal gang to abduct the man so he could murder him and set the gang up to take the fall.
* In ''Film/PsychoBeachParty'' it turns out it was all a dream in the main character's mind, that later got turned into a film where the main character then goes to kill some of the audience...so arguably you have to wonder when she got put away, who actually died, who was the actual murderer...and it raises so many questions.
* Used to creative effect in ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4meeZifCVro Lovefield]],'' a short film by Mathieu Ratthe. In the middle of a secluded cornfield, a man appears to be finishing killing a woman offscreen. Hurrying back to his truck, he grabs a towel and the audience presumes he's trying to cover up the body and perhaps dispose it in some way. Then just at the end, the man says "It's a boy," and a newborn baby appears in view. The woman who sounded like she was dying was in fact in the midst of delivering a child and the blood was just the afterbirth.
* Near the end of ''Film/{{Identity}}'', it's revealed that none of the people at the motel are real. They are only the figments of Malcolm Rivers's imagination, each of them a separate personality of his mind.
* Excessively used in the American remake of the horror movie ''Film/SilentHouse'', after being chased around the house by a mysterious burly man, and her father and uncle get attacked by the man and taken away, she finds out from a woman who claims to be her child hood friend that her father and uncle used her and the main character in child pornography and that the mysterious woman was the killer the whole time. Then it turns out the woman doesn't exist and that the main character was the killer. THEN, after killing her unrepentant father and sparing her repentant uncle, it turns out neither of them exist. [[MindScrew Maybe?]]
* The 2003 version of ''Film/{{Willard}}''. The finale goes from the title character screaming while killing his turncoat rat to him screaming in an insane asylum. He has bite marks on his face, but it's not clear if anything else in the movie actually happened or if he simply has an obsession with rats, and his damaged mind created a fictional history for his wounds.
* In ''Film/SleepawayCamp'', it's obvious early in the story that Angela is the killer. The ''real'' twist is that "Angela" ''isn't'' Angela. The real Angela died in the boat accident at the start of the film. "Angela" is actually Peter, Angela's brother, who was taken in by their insane aunt and raised as "the daughter [she] always wanted." Although this is actually hinted a few times during the movie (starting with the fact that we're never actually shown which sibling survived), most viewers would've blown off a lot of the clues as simply part of Angela's odd nature.
* ''Film/PrimalFear'' ends with TheReveal that the seemingly innocent altar boy who appears to have a [[GollumMadeMeDoIt violent split personality]] - and who has just been found not guilty of murder - is nothing of the kind; he's only been pretending to have a SplitPersonality, and the ''innocent'' personality, not the violent one, is fake.
* ''Film/ThePrestige'' ends with a reveal that Christian Bale's character is actually a pair of twins, concealing this in order to perform magic tricks. Specifically, this calls into question which of the twins actually killed the wife in the beginning scene, whether it was truly an accident (and the possibility that he was telling the truth when he said he didn't know), and which one is dying for the crime, rightly or wrongly. It does, however, explain his odd behavior towards his wife. FridgeBrilliance and watching the dialogue again seems to imply that the twin who killed the wife is also the one who dies at the end. However, it's the other twin who said he didn't know, and while this is likely true, it raises even more questions.

* ''Film/TheSkeletonKey'' builds everything up to make it look like Violet is planning to sacrifice Ben and Caroline in a ritual to give her immortality. It turns out that this is only half right. The ritual is a transfer, not a sacrifice, and "Violet" and her husband are actually two former slaves named Mama Cecil and Papa Justify, who have been using the ritual to swap bodies with younger people. "Ben"'s fear of "his" wife is because he's actually the family's young lawyer - Papa Justify moved from the Ben body to the lawyer's before the movie began, and the lawyer in the Ben body is understandably traumatized and trying to warn Caroline. The ending also changes the way a lot of seemingly trivial comments come across, such as Violet complaining that the nurse sent to look after Ben is not black (Mama Cecil comments at the end of the movie that she'd wanted to move into the body of a black girl) and asking if Caroline had any tattoos to see if her body was acceptable. It also adds a sinister layer to the romance between the lawyer and Caroline, since it's revealed that Papa Justify was only doing it so that he and Mama Cecil could continue to live as a married couple in their new bodies, without anyone suspecting something is off.
* Everything single horrible thing that happens to Michael Douglas's character in ''Film/TheGame1997'' - losing all his money, getting drugged and sent to Mexico, snapping and shooting his brother - is part of his surprise birthday party. Seriously. Or you could argue that the party at the end is a dying hallucination as he commits suicide for ''actually'' killing his brother. Either way, nearly everything in the movie is proven to be a staged incident.
* ''Film/TheUninvited2009'' appears to be a typical horror film with the protagonist Anna seeing the ghost of her dead mother seemingly accusing her new stepmother (who was the mother's nurse before marrying Anna's father) of killing her. There's even a moment where her boyfriend comes into her room in the dead of night after failing to show up at the designated meeting spot earlier. She tries to hug him and realizes that his spine is broken. He then, with his body twisted, tries to walk to her, as she runs away screaming. Finally, her stepmother, whom she and her sister Alex think is a BlackWidow, appears to drug Anna and threaten to put her back into the mental hospital. Anna wakes to to find the stepmother's body in the dumpster with Alex holding the knife. Their father arrives, and, horrified, reveals that Alex died along with their mother before the start of the film. Anna is the one who accidentally caused the explosion that killed them (after seeing her father cheat with the nurse) and went insane, imagining Alex to be alive and her mother and boyfriend's ghosts haunting her. She was also the one who pushed her boyfriend off the cliff but blocked it out. The only thing no one can figure out is why Anna thought that the stepmother was a black widow. The final scene reveals that one of her friends in the mental hospital was the real black widow.
** Anna thinks she is a black widow because the stepmother wasn't using her real name. This was only because she was on the run from an abusive boyfriend and had to change her name to elude him, something tragically common in many cases of Domestic Abuse.
* The endings to ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'' and its [[Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet2010 remake]]. When exactly was Nancy awake and when was she sleeping?
* ''The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh''. There's room for interpretation, but it's strongly implied at the end of the film that Leon never returned home, and the events of the film are simply Rosalind's lonely ghost imagining what might have happened had her estranged son come to settle the estate.

* ''Film/RabidDogs'': The three robbers die but so does Maria. The protagonist then steals their getaway car and money and drives away with his sick child in it. Then it turns out the child is someone he kidnapped and he ends up calling the mother for ransom!
* Creator/MNightShyamalan is famous for his MandatoryTwistEnding, many of which are designed with this in mind.
** ''Film/TheSixthSense'': Crowe is a renowned child psychologist who is shot by a deranged former patient in the opening scene. A TimeSkip has him meet with Cole who reveals that he can see dead people. It's revealed in the end that Crowe was DeadAllAlong, killed in the opening scene, and only Cole can see and talk to him. This redefines his entire role in the movie as you realize that many plot points, like his attempts to communicate with his distant wife, are not as they seemed.
** ''Film/{{Unbreakable}}'': Elijah mentions partway through the film that he has been researching various local disasters hoping to find someone who survives miraculously unharmed, which included the main character David in a train crash. At the end it's revealed that he ''orchestrated'' many of those disasters, including the train crash, in the hope of finding a superhero.
** ''Film/TheVillage'': A gravestone suggests the film takes place in the late 1800's, it's revealed to actually be the modern day and the isolated village was an attempt to live peacefully away from the rest of society.
** ''Film/{{Split}}'': The movie plays its main story relatively straight, although features some relatively unexpected supernatural elements with the character who has a SplitPersonality. The ending shows David from ''Unbreakable'' watching a news report on the events of the film, which changes the movie as it is also following the rules established by the earlier movie.
* ''Film/TheLazarusEffect'': The ending shows the villain's RedemptionEqualsDeath was all a DyingDream by the FinalGirl. The villain is alive, and the FinalGirl is dead. This works well with the film's theme of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, as a magical explanation would make a great deal of what we saw accurate anyway, while a mundane explanation would call it into question.
* ''Film/{{Reincarnation 2005}}'': Nagisa, the FinalGirl, is straightjacketed in a sanitarium and being taunted by a creepy old lady about being possessed by the murderous Professor Omori; she screams and cries and thrashes...then begins laughing, proving that she ''is'' possessed. Roll credits.

* In ''Film/WitnessForTheProsecution'', after Leonard is acquitted for murder, Christine reveals that she engineered the critical surprise evidence which she presented (in a perfect disguise and accent) to get Leonard off for the murder he really did commit. Then Leonard returns all SmugSnake to gloat at bamboozling Sir Wilford with Double Jeopardy shielding him from justice. Fortunately, he immediately overplays his hand and pays the price.

* In the 1980 sci-fi musical ''The Apple'': In the very end, Mr. Topps - never mentioned until minutes before he arrives - appears in a Rolls Royce and takes all hippies to heaven or a new planet (or both). This means: 1.) Up to this point, you could interpret this film as an anti-commerce message when Bibi is corrupted by Bugalow's business, but is not necessarily a stand-in for hippy culture. With this ending, the movie completely takes sides in favor of the hippies and portrays them and their love/peace-cause as unambiguously good. 2.) All of Alphie's visions are to be taken literally (Bugalow is not metaphorically the devil but literally, Bibi does not take the forbidden fruit metaphorically but literally, etc.) 3.) Alphie and Bibi are no longer the main characters of the movie but the hippies - not introduced until very late in the film and receiving about zero character development or being spotlighted on their culture - are and get an eschatological meaning. A sequence where Mr. Topps creates the world and Bugalow falls from grace in the beginning of the movie was planned but never filmed.

* ''Film/TheNatureOfTheBeast'' stars Creator/LanceHenriksen as an uptight office drone and Creator/EricRoberts as a charming drifter. It's established that one of them is a white collar criminal with a stash of cash and one of them is a serial killer. Roberts' character insists on accompanying Henriksen, using the fact that he "knows what's in his briefcase" as leverage. Every time Roberts sets his sights on a passerby, against Henriksen's pleas, that person winds up dead. In the end, it's revealed that ''Henriksen'' is actually the serial killer (with a briefcase full of knives) and Roberts the white collar criminal. Roberts has a death wish and is toying with a killer the whole time, driving him to indulge his murderous impulses against his will.
* ''Film/TheWailing'' ends with Il-Gwang, the shaman who had been helping Jong-Goo, was somehow on the same side as the evil spirit/devil that was tormenting his daughter.
* ''Film/CounterInvestigation'': The 9 year old daughter of police chief Malinowski is raped and murdered, and after a hasty police investigation with little evidence, Daniel Eckman is arrested and convicted. Eckman proclaims his innocence, and Malinowski begins a [[TitleDrop counter-investigation]] to find the real killer, the main focus on the movie. Eventually, it is proven that another known child murderer was in the area at the time and Eckman is let out of jail. Then it is revealed that Eckman actually was guilty. Then it is revealed that Malinowski ''knew'' Eckman was guilty the whole time and deliberately did the investigation to get Eckman released so that he could kill him with his own hands in revenge.
* The 2008 Chilean film ''Solos'' (English title ''Descendants'') looks like a conventional ZombieApocalypse movie, albeit told from the novel perspective of a young girl left alone to wander the desolated city. Curiously, the zombies themselves don't seem to pay her or the other roaming children she meets any attention, but the ''human military'' seems determined to experiment on or kill them. It's only when you see freakin' '''Cthulhu''' arise from the ocean to defend the children from their pursuers that you realize it's a ''CosmicHorror Apocalypse'', not a Zombie one, and the few adults not rendered undead by emergent unnatural forces want to study or kill the kids because they're turning into Deep Ones: adapting to the new EldritchAbomination-ruled world.
* ''Circus Kane'': Tracy initially seems like a run-of-the-mill FinalGirl who ultimately becomes the last survivor of Balthazar Kane's CircusOfFear-themed death house, but the ending reveals that she's not innocent. Far from it; in fact, she had been DaddysLittleVillain the whole time, and had been her own father's partner in crime so that the whole operation could be transferred to her management.
* ''Film/AntiMatter'': A woman named Ana begins to have difficulty forming new memories, is unable to eat but never feels hungry, and has other bizarre symptoms after a teleportation experiment. Her research partners who were working on the teleportation machine with her seem strangely unconcerned when her room is broken into by a person wearing a chimpanzee mask who steals her work, and they later seem to be {{gaslighting}} her and keeping secrets from her. She becomes convinced that she lost her soul when she was teleported. [[TeleporterAccident It turns out she was accidentally duplicated during a teleportation test]], and we have been seeing things from the point of view of the duplicate. She cannot form new memories and feels no hunger because she isn't a real person, she is just an echo of the real Ana made of light. The real Ana and her partners were hiding this from her because she kept forgetting she was a duplicate and [[CloningBlues getting distressed by the revelation.]]
* ''Film/DenOfThieves'': The ending shows that Donnie was the real master mind behind the heist. He recruited Merrimen and his crew intending the set them up to take the fall, while he and his crew made it off with the 30 million.
* Near the end of the {{Giallo}} film ''Film/{{Spasmo}}'' it is revealed that most of the strange events of the film were an elaborate attempt to [[{{Gaslighting}} trick the main character Christian into believing himself to be insane]] and commit himself to a mental hospital, which was all set up by his brother Fritz, although the plan got out of control when one of his minions decided to simply kill Christian instead. The twist turns into a double twist when at the very end it turns out that that Christian really is insane and [[TheKillerInMe has been killing people and not remembering it]]. Christian has a heredity mental illness and Fritz was trying to trick him into thinking he was insane before he went insane for real to stop him from hurting anyone but was already too late. Christian commits [[SuicideByCop suicide by letting the boyfriend of one of his victims shoot him]] when he realizes what is going on. The one thing that isn't explained until the very last scene is the mutilated manikins that keep showing up throughout the film. It turns out Fritz has the same mental illness and deals with it by pretending to kill manikins.
* The ending of ''Film/Destroyer2018'' reveals that Erin arriving at the crime scene was in fact the final scene, not the first. Everything that followed has in fact been a flashback. The body is actually Silas and Erin is the one who shot him. OnceMoreWithClarity allows the viewer to assemble everything in the proper order.
* The ending of ''Film/{{Upgrade}}'' reveals that the hyper-intelligent AI computer chip implanted in Grey Trace, which gave him movement back after thugs killed his wife and paralyzed him, actually planned the whole thing in a plot to take over his body and become human.

* ''Film/StageFright1950'' ends by revealing that the flashback that takes up the first ten minutes of the film was a fabrication by Jonnie, and in fact he, not Charlotte, killed Charlotte's husband, and rather than Charlotte trying to frame him he had been trying to frame her. This was controversial at the time, with some critics finding it a betrayal of the audience's trust.
* ''Film/RazorBladeSmile'' has a vampire trying to kill her creator and destroy the evil conspiracy he's created, and ends with them battling to the death - only for her to pull the killing blow and start chatting amiably. The entire plot has been a decades long roleplay for a murderous vampire couple who amuse themselves by pretending to be in conflict and manipulating humans.
* ''Film/Masquerade2021'': There are two separate narrative strands in the movie: a young Casey-Rose hiding from art thieves who've broken into her home and murdered her parents and Sofia, and a grown up Casey (now calling herself Rose) planning revenge against the man responsible. The viewer's interpretation of events will be completely different on subsequent viewings.
* ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'' plays with this wickedly, given it's a {{Biopic}}. If the viewer interprets the final shot, which reveals that Bob Zmuda is '''not''' playing Tony Clifton at the latter's comeback concert one year after Creator/AndyKaufman's death from cancer, to mean Andy really has faked his illness and death as he was considering and everyone around him at least initially assumes he is, boy does that change what came before it, extending to ''out-of-universe levels!'' (It also changes things from a BittersweetEnding to a HappyEnding for Andy himself, at least.) '''However''', for those who don't believe that HesJustHiding the shot can just as easily be interpreted, as The Movie Spoiler did, as Tony now being played by "an admirer". That the viewer is left wondering what's real '''is''' about as Kaufman-esque a way to end a retelling of his life as can be imagined.

* ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'': In the Billy Wilder classic, much humor is made of the fact that Osgood is in love with "Daphne" and doesn't know she's really a man. Except, the iconic last line, spoken by Osgood after TheReveal, is a wholly unsurprised "Nobody's Perfect." So, the joke was really on "Daphne" because Osgood knew Daphne was a man all along.

* In ''Film/{{Unknown 2011}}'', Creator/LiamNeeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a scientist who came to Berlin with his wife for a biotechnology conference. He gets in a car accident, wakes up in the hospital after a [[AsleepForDays four-day coma]] and finds that another man has completely taken over his life. Harris' wife believes the other man, who seems to know everything Harris knows, is her husband. TheReveal is that Harris is a deep-cover assassin who was on a mission to kill someone at the conference, but now [[LaserGuidedAmnesia believes his own cover story]] as a result of the brain damage he suffered in the car accident: Harris' "wife" is actually his partner, and the other man was a backup assassin who took over the role of "Dr. Harris" when the protagonist disappeared.

** ''Film/TheSixthSense'': Crowe is a renowned child psychologist who is shot by a deranged former patient in the opening scene. A TimeSkip has him meet with Cole who reveals that he can see dead people. It's revealed in the end that Crowe was DeadAllAlong, killed in the opening scene, and only Cole can see and talk to him. This redefines his entire role in the movie as you realize plot points, like his attempts to communicate with his distant wife, are not as they seem.
** ''Film/{{Unbreakable}}'': Elijah mentions part way through the film that he has been researching various local disasters hoping to find someone who survives miraculously unharmed, which included the main character David in a train crash. At the end it's revealed that many of those disasters were orchestrated by him in the hope of finding a superhero, including the original train crash.

* ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'': In the Billy Wilder classic, much humor is made of the fact that Osgood is in love with "Daphne" and doesn't know she's really a man. Except, the iconic last line, spoken by Osgood after TheReveal is a wholly unsurprised "Nobody's Perfect." So, the joke was really on "Daphne" because Osgood knew Daphne was a man all along.

* ''Film/PlanesTrainsAndAutomobiles'': As Neal is finally back in Chicago, he takes the train home and starts thinking about Thanksgiving with his family, which segues into thinking about his time with Del, remembering a cryptic comment Del made: "I haven't been home in years...". Neal returns to the train station, where he sees Del sitting alone and he asks why he's still there, and Del admits he's been a homeless drifter after his wife Marie died eight years earlier. Neal, heartbroken from this revelation, invites him to his family's Thankgiving dinner.

* ''Film/{{Reincarnation}}'': Nagisa, the FinalGirl, is straightjacketed in a sanitarium and being taunted by a creepy old lady about being possessed by the murderous Professor Omori; she screams and cries and thrashes...then begins laughing, proving that she ''is'' possessed. Roll credits.

* ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'' plays with this wickedly, given it's a {{Biopic}}. If the viewer interprets the final shot, which reveals that Bob Zmuda is '''not''' playing Tony Clifton at the latter's comeback concert one year after Creator/AndyKaufman's death from cancer, to mean Andy really has faked his illness and death as he was considering and everyone around him at least initially assumes he is, boy does that change what came before it, extending to ''out-of-universe levels!'' '''However''', the shot can just as easily be interpreted, as The Movie Spoiler did, as Tony now being played by "an admirer". That the viewer is left wondering what's real '''is''' about as Kaufman-esque a way to end a retelling of his life as can be imagined.

* ''Film/TheNatureOfTheBeast'' stars Creator/LanceHenriksen as an uptight office drone and Creator/EricRoberts as a charming drifter. It's established that one of them is a white collar criminal with a stash of cash and one of them is a serial killer. Roberts' character insists on accompanying Henriksen, using the fact that he "knows what's in his briefcase" as leverage. Every time Roberts sets his sights on a passerby, against Henriksen's pleas, that person winds up dead. In the end, it's revealed that ''Henriksen'' is actually the serial killer (with a [[KnifeNut briefcase full of knives]]) and Roberts the white collar criminal. Roberts has a death wish and is toying with a killer the whole time, driving him to indulge his murderous impulses against his will.

* Everything single horrible thing that happens to Michael Douglas's character in ''Film/TheGame'' - losing all his money, getting drugged and sent to Mexico, snapping and shooting his brother - is part of his surprise birthday party. Seriously. Or you could argue that the party at the end is a dying hallucination as he commits suicide for ''actually'' killing his brother. Either way, nearly everything in the movie is proven to be a staged incident.

--->'''Aunt Beru:''' "Luke's just not a farmer. He has too much of his father in him."
--->'''Uncle Owen:''' "That's what I'm afraid of."

* The ending of ''Film/{{Destroyer}}'' reveals that Erin arriving at the crime scene was in fact the final scene, not the first. Everything that followed has in fact been a flashback. The body is actually Silas and Erin is the one who shot him. OnceMoreWithClarity allows the viewer to assemble everything in the proper order.

* ''Film/AntiMatter'': A woman named Ana begins to have difficulty forming new memories, is unable to eat but doesn't never feels hungry, and has other bizarre symptoms after a teleportation experiment. Her research partners who were working on the teleportation machine with her seem strangely unconcerned when her room is broken into by a person wearing a chimpanzee mask who steals her work, and they later seem to be {{gaslighting}} her. She becomes convinced that she lost her soul when she was teleported. [[TeleporterAccident It turns out she was accidentally duplicated during a teleportation test]], and we have been seeing things from the point of view of the duplicate. She cannot form new memories and feels no hunger because she isn't a real person, she is just an echo of the real Ana made of light. The real Ana and her partners were hiding this from her because she kept forgetting she was a duplicate and [[CloningBlues getting distressed by the revelation.]]

* ''Film/AntiMatter'': A woman named Ana begins to have difficulty forming new memories, no longer feels hunger, and has other bizarre symptoms after a teleportation experiment. Her research partners who were working on the teleportation machine with her seem strangely unconcerned when her room is broken into by a person wearing a chimpanzee mask who steals her work, and they later seem to be {{gaslighting}} her. She becomes convinced that she lost her soul when she was teleported. [[TeleporterAccident It turns out she was accidentally duplicated during a teleportation test]], and we have been seeing things from the point of view of the duplicate. She cannot form new memories and feels no hunger because she isn't a real person, she is just an echo of the real Ana made of light. The real Ana and her partners were hiding this from her because she kept forgetting she was a duplicate and [[CloningBlues getting distressed by the revelation.]]

* Near the end of the {{Giallo}} film ''Film/{{Spasmo}}'' it is revealed that most of the strange events of the film were an elaborate attempt to [[{{Gaslighting}} trick the main character Christian into believing himself to be insane]] and commit himself to a mental hospital, which was all set up by his brother Fritz, although the plan got out of control when one of his minions decided to simply kill Christian instead. The twist turns into a double twist when at the very end it turns out that that Christian really is insane and [[TheKillerInMe has been killing women and not remembering it]]. Christian has a heredity mental illness and Fritz was trying to trick him into thinking he was insane before he went insane for real to stop him from hurting anyone but was already too late. Christian commits SuicideByCop by letting the boyfriend of one of his victims shoot him when he realizes what is going on. The one thing that isn't explained until the very last scene is the mutilated manikins that keep showing up throughout the film. It turns out Fritz has the same mental illness and deals with it by pretending to kill manikins.

** In ''Film/StateAndMain'', the main character perjures himself in court and instantly regrets it. It turns out that the whole court scene was just a play designed by the local love interest to give him a chance to rethink his choice before the real court case begins. ''TheSimpsons'' parodied this scene, and Lisa admits that it's almost insultingly far-fetched.

* TheEndingChangesEverything/{{Saw}}

* Each of the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' movies ends on a twist that is at least somewhat like this:
** ''Film/SawI'': The man lying "dead" in the middle of the room was John Kramer, the Jigsaw killer who had orchestrated the traps. He was alive the whole time.
** ''Film/SawII'': The "live" feed of the traps that the detectives are watching was actually pre-recorded, and Daniel, Eric's son, was in a safe in that room the whole time. Also, Amanda was working for John Kramer, acting as his disciple to continue the Jigsaw legacy after he dies, with the events of the film having been a trap she designed for Eric that he failed.
** ''Film/SawIII'': The entire film was a SecretTestOfCharacter that John Kramer had designed for Amanda, feeling that she had lost sight of his ideals and was just murdering people out of hatred by creating inescapable traps.
** ''Film/SawIV'': Hoffman was another of John Kramer's accomplices, and continues his legacy after John and Amanda are dead.
** ''Film/SawV'': Hoffman frames Strahm for the Jigsaw murders he committed before killing him, getting away scot-free.
** ''Film/SawVI'': In his will, John Kramer gave his wife Jill five envelopes containing pictures of five people to be "tested", which she gives to Hoffman. The ending reveals that Jill held onto a sixth envelope that contained a picture of Hoffman himself. Jill locks him into a reverse bear trap and leaves him to die; he survives, but gets half a GlasgowGrin in the process.
** ''Film/Saw3D'': Dr. Gordon, one of the victims from the first film, has since become yet another of John Kramer's accomplices. He finishes what Jill started by kidnapping Hoffman and leaving him to die in the same basement Gordon was locked up in in the first film.
** ''Film/{{Jigsaw}}'': The main series of traps is actually a flashback to events ten years prior, and all of the people in it died...save for one. That survivor was Logan, the ostensible protagonist for most of the film, who is revealed to have become an apprentice of Jigsaw's (and now, the man carrying on his legacy) after surviving the trap.

-->'''Aunt Beru:''' "Luke's just not a farmer. He has too much of his father in him."
-->'''Uncle Owen:''' "That's what I'm afraid of."