The Handmaiden and 4 Other Thrillers With Shocking Finales You Won't Be Able to Predict
Even if you've seen dozens of movies with unexpected twists, these projects will still surprise you.
A good thriller not only keeps you on the edge of your seat, but can also throw in an unexpected twist at any moment. We recall five excellent movies whose endings are hard to predict.
1. The Handmaiden, 2016
The Handmaiden is the story of a large-scale fraud, in which each side tried to gain the maximum benefit for itself.
In the 1930s, in Japanese-occupied Korea, an experienced con artist offers a poor girl the perfect plan to escape poverty: she must become a servant in the house of a rich Japanese woman and help him seduce the mistress.
However, the elaborate plan goes awry when the human factor comes into play: the girl falls in love with the mistress of the house and decides to go over to her side.
2. Gone Baby Gone, 2007
Gone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck's directorial debut, the kind that actors who decide to try their hand at directing can only dream of.
A four-year-old girl is kidnapped in Boston – her aunt hires two private investigators who have no experience in similar cases. She explains her choice simply: they know the most important thing – the streets.
The investigation brings them together with gangs and drug dealers of the city, and in the end they are faced with a moral dilemma on which the life of a little girl depends.
3. Incendies, 2010
The war drama that made Denis Villeneuve an international star and allowed him to receive an invitation to work in Hollywood.
Many fans still consider the movie to be the best of the director's career, and their position is understandable: Incendies is an underrated detective story that stands out in Villeneuve's already depressing filmography for its shocking pessimism.
According to the plot, a brother and sister learn from their mother's will that their father is still alive, and she asks the children to find him and learn the tragic story of her life.
4. The Secret in Their Eyes, 2009
The Argentinean The Secret in Their Eyes is a successful mix of genres: it is a detective story, a thriller and, above all, a revenge drama with an unexpected ending.
According to the plot, a former court official, now an aspiring writer, remembers a scandalous case he worked on a quarter of a century ago: he and his partner were looking for the killer of a murdered woman – the culprit was arrested, but half a year later he became the president's bodyguard.
The man decides to visit the participants of those events, not knowing that he will soon learn the shocking end of this twisted story.
5. Diabolique, 1955
Of all the films ever described as Hitchcockian, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique is the most Hitchcockian of all.
The French novel on which the film is based was originally intended to be filmed by Alfred Hitchcock himself, but he was late in acquiring the rights – the duo then wrote a new book, from which the maestro made Vertigo, one of the most important films in the history of cinema.
As for Diabolique itself, it is the story of a forced partnership between a lover and a wife who decide to kill the man who brought them together, which became an outstanding thriller that does not give the viewer time to breathe and constantly throws up new plot twists.