Gasp! It was old man Wilkins all along! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most surprising moments in cinema history that left us gobsmacked. Beware of spoilers ahead, and enjoy!
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00:00 No, you have a house.
00:01 Rented in your name.
00:02 You have jobs, you have a whole life.
00:03 You have night jobs because you can't sleep.
00:05 Welcome to WatchMojo,
00:08 and today we're counting down our picks
00:10 for the most surprising moments in cinema history
00:13 that left us gobsmacked.
00:14 I see dead people.
00:16 We'll only be picking from live-action movies,
00:19 so you won't find any animation here.
00:21 If only there was someone out there who loved you.
00:23 Beware of spoilers ahead and enjoy.
00:26 Number 10, Head in a Box.
00:28 Seven.
00:29 Detective!
00:31 You're looking for me.
00:34 If you're a child of the 1990s,
00:37 you more than likely have a very specific memory
00:39 of Brad Pitt screaming, "What's in the box?"
00:43 Well, the answer to that question broke our minds.
00:46 David Fincher's Seven is one of the most twisted
00:49 Hollywood movies of all time right from the jump.
00:52 A serial killer enacting his murders
00:53 based on the seven deadly sins?
00:55 Yeah, not exactly a piece of cake.
00:57 Because I envy your normal life.
00:59 Put the gun down, David.
01:00 It seems that envy is my sin.
01:02 Oh, what's in the box?
01:03 But the real horror comes at the film's end
01:06 when Detective Somerset and Mills
01:07 take the killer into the desert
01:09 and he pulls off his last trick.
01:11 I took a souvenir.
01:13 Her pretty head.
01:16 He has the head of Mills' wife delivered to the trio,
01:19 sending Mills into a tailspin
01:21 and completing the killer's plan.
01:23 Number nine, Time is Not Linear.
01:25 Arrival.
01:26 Come back to me.
01:29 Will you come back to me?
01:30 Denis Villeneuve's science fiction masterpiece
01:33 is the type of movie that quietly grabs you by the heart
01:35 and never lets go right up until the very end.
01:38 Throughout the movie,
01:40 we're watching linguist Louise Banks
01:41 try to figure out how to communicate with aliens
01:44 that have landed on Earth.
01:46 Periodically, we see flashbacks of Louise and her daughter
01:49 who has died from some unknown illness.
01:51 However, as Louise starts to learn what the aliens want,
01:55 we learn the truth of the flashbacks.
01:57 Well, let's say that I taught them chess instead of English.
02:01 Every conversation would be a game.
02:03 Every idea expressed through opposition.
02:05 Victory, defeat. You see the problem?
02:07 If all I ever gave you was a hammer...
02:12 Everything's a nail.
02:13 The aliens wanted to give Louise their way of experiencing time,
02:16 which is not linear.
02:18 Therefore, the flashbacks aren't flashbacks at all,
02:20 but premonitions of the daughter that Louise will have
02:23 and lose.
02:24 It's a heartbreaking revelation.
02:26 Despite knowing the journey and where it leads,
02:30 I embrace it.
02:35 And I welcome every moment of it.
02:41 Number 8, "Chessburster, Alien."
02:44 For as much as this movie has gone down in history
02:46 as one of the best science fiction horror movies of all time,
02:49 it takes a minute to get going.
02:51 What's the matter?
02:52 The food ain't that bad, baby.
02:54 [coughing]
02:56 You two patrols.
02:57 However, we can pinpoint the exact moment
02:59 where things turned on their head,
03:01 and it's one of the most shocking moments in movie history.
03:04 After Kane is attacked by an alien creature,
03:06 it detaches from him by its own volition and seemingly dies.
03:11 Kane appears to be just fine,
03:12 so the crew goes back to relative normal.
03:15 But then, as they're enjoying dinner,
03:17 Kane begins to convulse.
03:19 [screaming]
03:21 [coughing]
03:23 Before you can really get a handle on what's going on,
03:28 an alien bursts straight through Kane's chest.
03:31 We were never the same again.
03:34 Number 7, it was "Earth All Along, Planet of the Apes."
03:38 This franchise has done relatively well for itself over the years.
03:42 But in our opinion,
03:43 nothing beats the shock of the original 1968 film.
03:46 You know what they say, "Human see, human do."
03:49 The plot focuses on astronauts who crash land on a planet
03:52 run by hyper-intelligent apes.
03:54 The apes hunt the human astronauts,
03:56 eventually capturing our main character, Taylor.
03:59 He tries in vain to escape the strange planet he's come to,
04:02 only to realize it's not so strange after all.
04:05 At the end of the movie,
04:07 Taylor comes upon the remnants of New York's Statue of Liberty,
04:10 half buried in the sand.
04:12 The planet he crash landed on is actually Earth,
04:15 destroyed by nuclear war.
04:17 "You maniacs!
04:20 You blew it up!
04:22 Oh, damn you!
04:26 God damn you all to hell!"
04:30 Number 6, "Minutes from Rescue, The Mist."
04:33 Who knew rescue could feel this bad?
04:36 If you made it to the end of "The Mist," we salute you.
04:38 But it's not a happy ending.
04:40 The movie centers around multiple people
04:42 who are caught in a supermarket
04:44 when a mysterious mist full of nasty creatures
04:47 engulfs the world.
04:49 At the end of the film,
04:50 our main character, David, escapes with his son
04:52 and two other survivors.
04:54 They don't make it very far.
04:55 "Gave it a good shot.
04:58 Nobody can say we didn't."
05:02 "Nope."
05:02 And sure that the creatures are about to kill them,
05:05 they all agree to kill themselves.
05:07 "I'll watch."
05:12 "There's five of us."
05:14 David shoots the survivors, including his son,
05:16 and heads outside into the mist to die.
05:19 Then the military shows up.
05:21 Everyone is saved.
05:23 Our jaws dropped.
05:25 "Ahhhh!"
05:33 Number 5, "The Snap, Avengers Infinity War."
05:37 There are plenty of moments throughout Marvel's run
05:40 that had us shrieking with delight,
05:42 but not many that had us silent with despair.
05:44 But the end of "Avengers Infinity War" did the trick.
05:47 The film concludes with an all-out war
05:49 with Thanos and Wakanda.
05:51 And at one point,
05:52 we think the Avengers might have defeated him.
05:54 "You should have gone for the head."
06:01 But Thanos has the Time Stone,
06:03 and thus he's able to turn back the dial
06:05 when the Avengers defeat him.
06:06 When Thanos gathers all of the stones,
06:08 he enacts his plan to disappear
06:10 half of the universe's population.
06:12 That includes half of the Avengers.
06:14 "I don't feel so good."
06:18 "You're all right."
06:18 "I don't know what's happening."
06:21 Watching our favorite characters disintegrate into dust
06:25 left us speechless.
06:26 "What did it cost?"
06:31 "Everything."
06:33 Number 4, the narrator is Tyler Durden, "Fight Club."
06:37 The second time you're watching "Fight Club,"
06:39 it's easy to keep an eye out for the hints
06:41 leading up to the inevitable twist.
06:43 But the first time you see it,
06:44 that reveal is absolutely shocking.
06:47 When our narrator meets Tyler Durden
06:49 and starts "Fight Club" with him,
06:50 we assume that Tyler is the one at the helm.
06:53 But as the film goes on,
06:55 it becomes clear something much stranger is at play.
06:58 We finally learn that the narrator and Tyler
07:00 are one and the same.
07:01 "Say it."
07:04 "Because we're the same person."
07:07 "That's right."
07:08 The narrator has created Tyler as a separate personality
07:11 and is using him to live out the life he really wants.
07:14 "You could not do this on your own."
07:17 "All the ways you wish you could be, that's me."
07:20 Unfortunately, he's unable to stop himself
07:23 before things go too far.
07:24 "Everything's gonna be fine."
07:32 Number 3, Bruce Willis was dead the entire time, "The Sixth Sense."
07:36 This film might have one of the most perfectly deployed twists of all time.
07:40 It's the sort of reveal that makes you say,
07:43 "No, it can't be."
07:44 But the more you think about it,
07:46 the quieter you get as you come to understand how you've been fooled.
07:50 Bruce Willis stars as child psychologist Malcolm,
07:52 who is treating a little boy who believes he can talk to ghosts.
07:56 "I see dead people."
07:57 It seems that the boy is telling the truth,
08:00 but that's not the wildest part.
08:01 "I see people."
08:05 "They don't know they're dead."
08:07 At the end, we're shocked to learn that Malcolm himself
08:10 has actually been dead the entire time.
08:13 It's a stellar feat of filmmaking.
08:15 "Goodnight, Malcolm."
08:23 "Goodnight, sweetheart."
08:24 Number 2, "I Am Your Father."
08:26 Star Wars Episode V, "The Empire Strikes Back."
08:29 Star Wars took the world by storm in 1977,
08:32 but the sequel is probably the best of that original trilogy.
08:36 And it arguably includes one of the most shocking moments of all time.
08:40 As Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have their final fight at the end of the movie,
08:45 Darth Vader drops a huge truth bomb.
08:47 "No, I am your father."
08:57 Luke believes that Vader killed his father,
08:59 but Vader reveals that he is Luke's father.
09:02 The movie basically comes to an end after that,
09:05 leaving audiences with a huge twist that they had to wait years to find out more about.
09:10 "Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
09:15 "No! No!"
09:19 Before we unveil our top pick,
09:21 here are a few honorable mentions.
09:23 A twin thing, "The Prestige."
09:26 Ain't nothing but a twin thing.
09:30 "You were Fallon the whole time."
09:35 "No. We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden."
09:41 Kaiser Soze, "The Usual Suspects."
09:44 It was Kevin Spacey all along.
09:46 "He mentioned Kaiser Soze."
09:48 "Who?"
09:49 "After that, my guess is you'll never hear from him again."
09:54 Man in the Basement, "Parasite."
09:56 That's not a ghost. That's a person.
09:58 "So, I was sitting in front of the TV, and Dasom was eating a cake."
10:12 Scheduled Texts, "Promising Young Woman."
10:15 Cassie got the last laugh after all.
10:22 "He faked all the data.", "Interstellar."
10:25 Never trust Matt Damon.
10:26 "He faked all the data."
10:31 "Yes."
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10:48 Number 1, "The Shower Scene, Psycho."
10:52 This moment is so famous, it might be difficult for some of us to understand
10:55 just how shocking it was at the time.
10:57 "He just goes a little mad sometimes."
11:03 "We all go a little mad sometimes."
11:08 "Haven't you?"
11:10 Psycho is arguably Alfred Hitchcock's best-known film,
11:13 starring the very famous Janet Leigh.
11:15 Well, almost starring Janet Leigh.
11:18 Leigh takes over the first part of the film,
11:20 heading to the Bates Motel to meet her boyfriend Sam with stolen money.
11:24 But as she takes a shower that night, she's attacked by a shadowy figure and killed.
11:34 In 1960, it was almost unheard of to kill your star less than halfway through the film.
11:40 That paired with the utterly terrifying nature of the shower killing,
11:43 makes this moment a classic.
11:45 "I hope they are watching."
11:47 "They'll see. They'll see and they'll know and they'll say,
11:52 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly.'"
11:55 If we missed any of your favorite jaw-dropping moments,
11:58 let us know in the comments below.
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12:15 [outro music]