Skip to main content

The best twist endings in horror movies, ranked

There are few things better than a great twist ending. That’s especially true in the horror genre, where so much of a movie’s thrill comes from the film subverting what audiences may be expecting from it.

It can be hard, though, to actually deliver on a twist that is both surprising and inevitable. Any great twist should feel obvious, but only in retrospect, and it should probably be something we haven’t seen before. From The Sixth Sense to Scream 6, twist endings are a staple of the genre. These are the best twists that horror movies have ever produced.

Recommended Videos

6. The Others (2001)

6. The Others
101m
Genre
Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Directed by
Alejandro Amenábar

The setup: A woman moves her family to the English coast during World War II. While she waits for word about her husband, who is missing in action, she protects her kids from a rare photosensitivity disorder as they begin to see ghosts. As the hauntings escalate, they desperately search for answers.

The twist: The woman and her children have been dead the whole time, and they are actually the ghosts haunting the house in which they live. The woman’s husband has long since died as well.

The Others (2001) Official Trailer 1 - Nicole Kidman Movie

5. Orphan (2009)

5. Orphan
123m
Genre
Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Stars
Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman
Directed by
Jaume Collet-Serra
Watch on Amazon

The setup: Following a devastating stillbirth, a couple decide to adopt a child. As increasingly strange things begin to happen around her, the parents begin to suspect that their new child may be behind all of the evil in spite of her innocent demeanor.

The twist: The young girl that the couple has adopted is in fact a 33-year-old woman whose growth has been stunted by a rare hormonal condition. She has spent her life passing as a child, and has murdered at least seven people, including the last couple that adopted her.

Orphan Trailer # 1

4. The Wicker Man (1973)

4. The Wicker Man
94m
Genre
Horror
Stars
Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland
Directed by
Robin Hardy
Watch on Amazon

The setup: A conservative, Christian police detective is called to a small Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Once there, he witnesses the island’s strange pagan rituals and gets ever closer to uncovering what’s really going on.

The twist: The detective initially suspects that the girl has been kidnapped to take part in a ritual sacrifice, and then realizes that he has actually been lured to the island to fulfill that purpose. He is sacrificed, and all evidence of his presence on the island is destroyed.

The Wicker Man (1973) Official Trailer - Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento Horror Movie HD

3. Us (2019)

3. Us
116m
Genre
Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Stars
Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph
Directed by
Jordan Peele
Watch on Amazon

The setup: A family on vacation discovers that doppelgangers of each of them have been living underground for decades. Those doppelgangers begin hunting the family, and killing anyone who stands in their way.

The twist: In a series of flashbacks, we come to understand that Adelaide, the film’s main character, is actually the doppelganger of the real Adelaide, who she swapped places with at a young age. Swapping places is what ultimately led to the uprising of the doppelgangers, as the real Adelaide knew of the world above and became a leader to those still underground.

Us - Official Trailer [HD]

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

2. Night of the Living Dead
96m
Genre
Horror, Science Fiction, Drama
Stars
Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman
Directed by
George A. Romero
Watch on Amazon

The setup: One of the first great zombie movies ever made, Night of the Living Dead tells the story of a group of strangers who find themselves trapped in an abandoned house together as corpses begin to rise from the grave. Ben, a Black man and also the most pragmatic member of the group, tries to maintain order amid the chaos.

The twist: After most of his fellow comrades have died and transformed into zombies, Ben seems to find salvation at the hands of an armed posse. As he approaches them, though, he is mistaken for a zombie, shot and killed, and thrown into a fire with the rest of the dead.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

1. The Sixth Sense (1999)

1. The Sixth Sense
107m
Genre
Mystery, Thriller, Drama
Stars
Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette
Directed by
M. Night Shyamalan
Watch on Amazon

The setup: A child psychologist is shot by a former patient, and after recovering from his injury, is assigned to a child who claims that he can see and speak with the dead. As the evidence mounts that the boy’s claim is true, the psychologist manages to help him fit in at school.

The twist: The psychologist, who has been trying to reconnect with his wife throughout the movie, realizes that she is distant because he is dead and she can no longer hear him. He was killed after being shot, and all of his work with the young boy has occurred after his death.

The Sixth Sense (1999) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers
Movie images and data from:
Joe Allen
Joe Allen is a freelance writer at Digital Trends, where he covers Movies and TV. He frequently writes streaming…
The 50 best movies on Netflix right now (April 2025)
Scarlett Johansson holding a gun sideways down to someone in Lucy.

Netflix almost always manages to offer some surprising choices on top of the most popular movies on Netflix. This week, there's a new No. 1, and it's a 2002 rom-com/drama called Life or Something Like It. That film wasn't very successful in theaters, but its impressive cast — including Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns, and Tony Shalhoub — might explain its resurgence.
Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson's non-Marvel superhero-adjacent movie, Lucy, is back on Netflix and in the top 10. This should scratch the itch for the action movie fan in your life, or at least until the next low-budget action flick nobody has ever heard of rises to the top of Netflix's movie chart.
You can find these films and the rest of the best movies on Netflix below. Remember to check this list every Friday morning when we update the lineup to give you the most enticing movie options available.
Looking for something else? We've also rounded up the best movies to stream this week, the best shows on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime, and the best movies on Disney+. 

Watching from abroad? Use a Netflix VPN to access your country's catalog from anywhere in the world. Want to watch on the go? We can show you how to download movies on Netflix.
Editor's Picks

Read more
The best movies on Amazon Prime Video (April 2025)
The cast of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

If you were looking forward to catching Conclave on Prime Video this Easter weekend, then you're just going to have to wait. It's not arriving on Amazon Prime Video until Monday.
In the meantime, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back should appeal to fans of Prime Video's Reacher original series. And since Adrien Brody recently won another Oscar for The Brutalist, it seems like a good time to revisit his first Oscar-winning performance in The Pianist.
You can find these films and the rest of the best movies on Amazon Prime Video below. We update this list every Friday so you can get ready for the weekend with your top viewing options.
Need more recommendations? We’ve also put together guides to the best shows on Prime Video, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Netflix, the best new movies to stream, and the best movies on Disney+.

Editor's Pick

Read more
The best Netflix original movies right now
The cast of Delicious.

Whenever Netflix heavily invests in an original movie like The Electric State -- which reportedly had a $320 million budget -- we'd like to be able to say that it was one of Netflix's best efforts. But it's not, and it doesn't belong on the best Netflix original movies right now.
Truthfully, our top pick for the month, Delicious, probably wouldn't have made it either if there were better alternatives. It's a thriller that's good enough, and it has a potentially star-making turn by Carla Díaz. Our other pick for the month is the documentary The Twister: Caught in the Storm. Between the two films, we suspect it will be the latter that stays with you.
You can find these films and the rest of the best Netflix original movies below.

If you don't find what you're looking for here, try our other lists of the best movies to stream this week, the best Netflix movies, the best Hulu original series, and the best Amazon Prime original movies.

Read more