Content Warning: The following article contains discussions/depictions of rape.Film noir movies are meant to send viewers through twisting and turning stories with an ending that often remains unexpected. A great example came with Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, which was released at the end of 2021 and features an ending that seemed poetic justice considering what came before. When David. O. Russell releases his new noir, Amsterdam, in October, and fans expect the same.
The important thing is to make sure the twist ending is fairly done, so the viewer can look back and see the clues that led to the shocking finale. Nightmare Alley foreshadowed its end perfectly, and other movies, especially those from the past, have mastered this technique of film noir filmmaking.
Diabolique (1955)
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Diabolique is a French Film Noir that features two women involved in an abusive relationship with the same man. When the women decide they have had enough, they pull off a plan to murder the man and dump his body into a pool on the grounds of the boarding school he owns.
However, no one finds the body. The twist comes with the man rising out of a bathtub at the end, causing one of the women to die from a heart attack. It was a perfect double-cross, a staple of the film noir genre. They don't get away with it though, as there was one more twist that sent both of them to jail.
Memento (2001)
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Christopher Nolan's first movie was a film noir called Following, where he told the entire story out of order, and it pieced the puzzle together by the end. In Memento, he worked on a similar puzzle structure with another Noir, this time telling the story backward.
It seemed that showing the ending of Memento first spoiled everything that happened, but Nolan created a brilliant twist surprise ending. Leonard has had short-term amnesia since his wife's death, and his entire life's journey was finding her murderer. However, the man he killed wasn't the murderer, but was a private investigator. Leonard had already killed the murderer and just doesn't remember.
Chinatown (1974)
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Chinatown was a masterwork of storytelling. Jack Nicolson stars in this film noir as a private detective hired to find out if a man is cheating on his wife. However, the entire movie featured double cross after double cross.
The fact that the entire Chinatown plot was about illegal water corruption in Los Angeles makes the movie sound boring. But, it was far from it, as Jake learns important people are involved, but he can't do anything about it. The twist came when Jake learned that the woman who hired him had a daughter after her father raped her. When the police killed her and the man escaped justice, it was a complete shock.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
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The Usual Suspects played with the format of many classic film noir movies. There was a crew put together to pull off a job, someone on the inside who betrayed them, and it was all tied up with an unreliable narrator. It was this person who really helped pull off the twist.
There were a lot of people who could have been the rat. The problem is that viewers pieced together the puzzle thanks to the unreliable narrator. The big twist was that the man who told the police the story was the man behind everything, and he was nothing as he pretended to be.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
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The Maltese Falcon was an adaptation of a Sam Spade novel by Dashiell Hammett, making both the book and the movie a staple of the film noir genre. The plot was simple. Three people were in search of the elusive and valuable Maltese Falcon, and when Spade finally got it, he set the table to bring everyone down.
The twist occurred when everyone realized the Maltese Falcon was a fake. Two of the men headed out to keep searching for it, but Spade sent the police after them. However, Spade then revealed that his love interest killed his partner and he had her arrested too. This was a strong theme in all film noir, where love and duty rarely ever coexist in the real world.
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Stream now on Hulu
Guillermo del Toro created a fantastic modern-day film noir in 2021 with his remake of Nightmare Alley. Del Toro took the horrors of that original movie and pumped up the Noir aspects, with a grifter who gets a job at a carnival before becoming a successful psychic.
Like the best noir movies, Nightmare Alley foreshadowed its twist. When Stan first joined the carnival, he learned about the "geeks." These were downtrodden men taken in, given alcohol and drugs, and then turned into sideshow freaks. The twist where Stan ended up as a "geek" for another carnival tied the entire story together perfectly.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Stream now on Starz
Based on the novel by James Elroy, L.A. Confidential was a story about corruption at every level of the LAPD. The most honest detective was the most unlikable. The most likable was the most violent. However, it was these two men that had to work together in the end when they realized who the real bad guy was.
The corruption went all the way to the top with Captain Smith, played by James Cromwell. With all the likely suspects, he was one of the least likely. The real twist at the end was a film noir staple, as nothing changed and the city swept the Captain's crimes under the rug and claimed he died a hero.
Identity (2003)
Stream now on Netflix
Identity is a neo-noir movie from 2003 that is a hybrid Noir and horror movie. This takes the form of an Agatha Christie-style whodunit. A group of strangers ends up at a roadside motel on a rainy night. When someone dies, they realize the killer is among them, but they have no idea who it could be.
The twist here is that none of these people exist. Malcolm Rivers is a convicted mass murderer, but he has several identities and one of them is the actual killer. A psychiatrist convinces one of them, Ed, to go inside his mind and find the killer and eliminate him. It was a mind-boggling twist that somehow actually worked.
Se7en (1995)
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David Fincher directed his neo-noir Se7en and presented one of the most heartbreaking twists in film noir history. The movie saw two detectives set out to find a serial killer known only as John Doe, whose murders were based on the Seven Deadly Sins.
The twist ending of Se7en came when he surrendered to the police and admitted there were two murders they had yet to find. When they took him out, he showed them only one, but it was this twist that led to the last one. He killed one of the detective's wife and delivered her head in a box. The officer killed John Doe, completing his circle. It was a devastating end.
Last Night In Soho (2021)
Stream now on HBO Max
Last Night in Soho looked like a horror movie from the outset, but it shared all the characteristics of a modern-day film noir. Set in London, an aspiring fashion designer from the country earned the chance to go to a fashion school in town. Things do not go well when she gets there and starts to see visions of a girl from the past who she believes was murdered.
However, the twist showed what really happened. Not only was this ghostly girl from the past not murdered, but she became a murderer of the men who abused her. She was also still alive and would do anything to ensure no one learned her secret.