time travel plot twists

Most Complex Yet Well Executed Time Travel Movies

12 Most Complex Time Travel Movies Executed Well

Hi, this is Barry, and welcome to my site. How a time travel movie is conceived and executed establishes how complicated it can become. Some filmmakers avoid the complexities, others attempt it and make a mess of the timeline(s), but a few embrace the convoluted nature of time travel and do a fantastic job with the execution. Before we go into the list, let me be clear on how I define a time travel movie. So long as there is one person experiencing time in a non-linear fashion, the film makes it into the category. Here is my list of the most complex time travel movies that are well-executed (in no particular order).

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Where To Watch?

To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

Oh, and if this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, drop me a comment or an FB chat message, and I’ll get you the answer . You can find other film explanations using the search option on top of the site.

For the complete list, do check the 50+ Best Time Travel Movies of all times.

Back To The Future: Part 2

I’m talking specifically about the second part. And why is that? Because a significant portion of the film’s events happens on the same date as the first movie. You see two of Martin and Doc Brown, and they have to make sure they achieve their objective without disturbing any of the events from the first film. This complexity does nothing to affect the film’s humour and quirky characters.

The timeline diagram that Doc Brown draws on the blackboard is iconic and is used by almost everyone to explain complicated time travel movies today. Watching many of the scenes from the first part in the backdrop of this sequel is what makes it extraordinary. Many other time travel movies have emulated this idea in their plots.

Oriol Paulo’s films are a pleasure to watch. He’s got a real talent for non-linear storytelling in the genre of murder mysteries. Mirage combines a crime-thriller with science fiction and time travel in one movie. This time travel movie follows a multi-timeline approach and keeps you on edge with multiple plot twists. A mysterious storm causes a TV to become a bridge across 25 years, enabling characters to communicate with the past. Information that is shared with the past results in different decisions and thereby creates an alternate timeline. Facts and events from each timeline are aggregated to solve the case of murder. It’s enjoyable to watch other subtle pieces of information getting unearthed due to the altered timeline and how they feed into the plot.

The ending of the film wraps up all the time-complications very well, leaving almost no plot holes. Placing a murder mystery within the container of time travel and the movie’s non-linear narrative really make Mirage quite unique.

You can find a detailed explanation with a timeline diagram here – Mirage Explained .

The Infinite Man

You have probably not heard of this low budget Australian film, but it’s a pretty wicked time travel movie. A man wants his girlfriend and himself to relive their anniversary of the previous year. When they do so, they end up encountering multiple versions of themselves travelling back various times into the past. You really need to not blink when you watch this film, as the same events are revisited time and over from different perspectives. The Infinite Man follows a single timeline model and handles the time-complexities superbly. Each character loops back a different number of times. The execution challenge then becomes how to let the who is who and what the reason was for travelling back in time. This complexity was handled excellently in the film.

Infinite Man really deserves more attention considering something this complicated was achieved in a tiny budget with three actors and no special effects. Oh, did I mention some scenes are damn funny too?

For a detailed breakdown of the film and a timeline diagram, read this – The Infinite Man Explained .

Avengers: Endgame

The fate of 20+ films was riding on Avengers: Endgame. We had already witnessed X-Men: Days Of Future Past, which was otherwise a good film, mess up the timeline so badly it erased the events of the original movies and left the fate of future films in the dark. Endgame needed to revisit multiple films of the MCU to temporarily borrow Infinity Stones. To achieve this, the multiple timeline approach was strategically adopted. Meaning travelling to the past of the prime MCU timeline cannot alter it, and all past events occur in alternate timelines. This ensured that all of the prior 20+ movies were preserved. It also provided a clear direction for future MCU films which will be set in the prime MCU timeline. Using this setup, they took the liberty to mess around with the events of previous movies to introduce repercussions of time travel. Examples of this are when we see two Caps fighting and Loki disappearing with the Tesseract.

The best part of this is if future directors choose, they can explore tinkering with plots set in any of the five alternate timelines created in Endgame. Considering the time travel movie wrapped up revisits to older movies in a smart way, learning from the small mistakes in Back To The Future, Endgame definitely deserves mention in this list.

For an extensive analysis of the time travel, plot and characters with a timeline video, go here – Avengers: Endgame Explained .

Primer is centred on two guys who discover time travel accidentally while experimenting with gravitational effects on objects. While the first couple of trips to the past make the film look easy, it soon escalates into a web of timelines folding onto themselves in an extremely convoluted manner. Primer also sports one of the most creative mechanics of time travel using the simple logic that you cannot travel back to before the time machine was switched on or primed . The movie smartly uses this limitation to show how the characters need to come up with ingenious ideas to travel back multiple times. The fascinating bit is that the reason for time-travel comes from pure scientific curiosity and not to achieve a grand purpose. While there might appear to be a few loose ends, the film wraps it up nice and tight. Do pay close attention to everything in this film, and yeah, you’ll need to watch it twice.

No time travel movies’ list is complete without the mention of Primer. The film was produced within a teeny tiny budget of $7000 and yet presents one of the most complicated sets of timelines one can imagine.

Here’s a detailed timeline-wise explanation of this movie – Primer Explained .

12 Monkeys is too close to the COVID-19 virus epidemic for comfort. This time travel movie sees a dystopian future trying to identify the original strain of a virus that took out most of the living beings on the planet. The scientists of the future rely on time travel to identify the source of the infection. The film sports a single faultless timeline with every event tying up beautifully at the end. Small pieces of apparently isolated incidents begin connecting and come together as a whole to reveal the planned solution for the epidemic.

Wading through the misdirections, and the way Cole slowly narrows down and locates the source and how his actions affect the timeline (or rather don’t) makes this film an excellent piece of time travel thriller.

Here’s a detailed plot analysis and explanation of the film – 12 Monkeys Explained .

Predestination

Predestination is the mother of all time complexities that one can witness in a time travel movie. When you try to mentally visualize this single timeline’s flow of events, you will have a couple of nosebleeds. Based on the short story All You Zombies, Predestination extrapolates the book brilliantly. The character development, their interaction and how their stories merge into a larger scheme of events is intriguing and surprises you continually. Every time you think you are getting a hold on what’s happening, the film takes it up a notch and in the end, brings it all together and leaves you talking to yourself.

Predestination is perhaps the most flawless execution of an extremely complex time travel plot while establishing that everything about the movie is one giant paradox.

Here’s everything you need to understand and untangle this film’s plot (yes, there’s a timeline diagram) – Predestination Explained .

Déjà Vu is the classic tale of hunting down a bomber before he strikes again. The catch, however, is that the team uses a time device to follow the life of one of the victims to get the bomber. While the folks of science, who believe in paradoxes, believe that the victim’s fate is sealed, Agent Doug finds it impossible to ignore the obvious that apart from nabbing the bomber he can save the lives of many, but this requires messing with time and rewriting history as they know it.

Though the execution of the film does introduce mild plot holes, the timelines in the movie are wrapped up pretty convincingly at the end. The really innovative sequence is the car chase taking place between two vehicles in entirely different times.

Timecrimes is a fun Spanish time travel movie happening over the duration of one day and a single timeline. What’s unique about this film is that the lead character who travels through is an average Joe. Typically the person travelling through time intends it and is well versed with the science behind it. Not in Time Crimes though. Héctor fumbles his way through most of the plot, and it’s the nature of time that seems to iron things out automatically. The entire film is a giant series of accidents complicating matters for the central character as he gets through his extra-long day.

Multiple Hectors cluelessly running around and amplifying time complications provides for a good deal of humour. Timecrimes is well-executed, and the end of the film wraps up any loose ends and maintains the timeline integrity beautifully.

To read a detailed explanation of this movie, go here – Timecrimes Explained .

Butterfly Effect

Butterfly Effect toggles back and forth, repeatedly creating multiple futures based on small yet significant actions. The story is thought through well and lays out the prime timeline with strategically placed voids in the first half. The latter half revisits these pockets of missing memories, offering a choice to the protagonist to execute a different action.

The protagonist making a small change to a single event causes a cascading effect over years leading up to a drastic and unexpected change to the future. True to its name, Butterfly Effect plays off on Chaos Theory fantastically.

This is a low budget film showcasing an innovative angle to non-linear events via the means of a mystical camera that takes pictures of the future, of the next day. Time Lapse lacks quality characters but makes up for it by executing a single timeline well. At the beginning of the film, we are shown one picture weeks into the future, while the remaining photos are 24hrs into the future. The characters witnessing the pictures of their future creates a chain of events leading up to that final photograph. What’s more, is that the camera possibly takes photos as close as 12 hrs into the future. Regardless of the characters’ intentions and actions, they keep feeding into their fate which refuses to get altered.

Despite a complicated chain of events, the film manages the timeline accurately. It leaves no room for flaws in the execution and hence Time Lapse finds its way into this list despite its poor character development.

Here’s a detailed plot analysis for the film with each of the pictures from the camera – Time Lapse Explained .

Triangle is not strictly a time travel movie. But as I mentioned before, as long as one character experiences time non-linearly, the film qualifies. The film contains time loops that have three versions of the lead at any given moment on a abandoned ship. The film is quite complicated and yet manages to deliver an airtight sequence of events looping on itself wonderfully.

Placed in the slasher genre, Triangle has brilliantly conceived time loops. The cherry on top really is the ending which discloses the reason why the loops have come into existence.

Here’s a complete numbered loop-wise detailed breakdown of the movie – Triangle Explained .

Barry is a technologist who helps start-ups build successful products. His love for movies and production has led him to write his well-received film explanation and analysis articles to help everyone appreciate the films better. He’s regularly available for a chat conversation on his website and consults on storyboarding from time to time. Click to browse all his film articles

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Time-Slips and Body Hopping: Eight Great Novels of Time Travel

James goodhand recommends kate atkinson, toshikazu kawaguchi, georgi gospodinov, and more.

What is it about time travel stories? Perhaps our fascination with them comes from exploring that mysterious place where science meets human experience. Or maybe they allow us to fantasize about seizing control of that one thing that rules our lives, that sets our decisions in stone, that gives us everything only to take it away again—the passage of time. Whatever the reason, our obsession with such tales is going nowhere.

In my forthcoming novel The Day Tripper , I ask: What if you woke up each morning in a different, random day of your life? This is the situation twenty-year-old Alex Dean finds himself in after a perfect evening in 1995 ends in disaster. Doomed to never knowing where—or rather when— each new dawn will take him, he must navigate his way through the years and piece together what happened after that fateful night. He’ll find that his decisions can have untold impact, even in a life lived out of order.

It’s a different spin on the time travel story, inspired in no small way by my favorite novels of the genre. The following are, to my mind, eight of the best:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Ursula Todd is born in 1910 and dies within minutes. Chapter two and her life begins once again. This time she survives till the age of four when she’s swept away on a family holiday. We follow Ursula’s progress across the twentieth century, as inevitably disasters befall her, be it Spanish flu or German bombers or a slippery roof at home. Each time her life begins again, she has an inkling of what’s gone before, and a sense that this is happening to her for a reason (which it is, but I won’t spoil it here).

It’s a book that is most remarkable as a study in how different our lives can turn out but for a few twists of fate. As with many of the best speculative novels, Life After Life takes a big concept, and uses it as a lens to focus in on the vagaries of the human condition.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

An Agatha Christie style murder mystery with a body-hopping, time-looping sleuth, this novel is a work of genre-crossing genius. Set in a stately home in the 1920s, the story sees the titular character shot at midnight during her own birthday party. Our reluctant detective Aiden Bishop wakes each morning in the body of a different party guest, each new perspective lending him another chance to stop the murder before it happens. A quite stunning concept, but Turton’s brilliance doesn’t end there. Since this novel first published in 2018, the golden age murder mystery had enjoyed a resurgence. But there’s no misplaced nostalgia on show here. Instead the author has a clear-eyed view of this era’s flaws; with wit redolent of Roald Dahl, he pokes fun at his characters’ greed and fecklessness and misuse of their privilege.

A clever, fun, and complex book. Just don’t try and work out who the murderer is, it’ll drive you nuts!

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba

Set in Peckham, South London, this young-adult novel expertly blends urban realism with some serious science. When sixteen-year-old Esso has a run-in with a Range Rover on his way to school, he experiences a horrifying vision of a shooting that coming evening. In a separate timeline, a much older Esso (now a doctor, and now blind) is mentoring Rhia, a girl whose mother was tragically killed many years earlier. The two stories intersect with a thrilling sense of time running out.

A physicist by profession, this novel was born of Fadugba’s desire to bring Einstein’s theories to life, something he achieves in a way that never feels dumbed down. Along with the tight plot, the reader gets to enjoy discussions about, for example, the idea that the faster we move through 3D space, the slower we move through time—conversations conducted in an authentic South London vernacular reminiscent of Top Boy . It’s deeply clever, enthralling stuff.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

As well as imparting a thousand nuggets of wisdom that are still being shared daily on social media, Kurt Vonnegut also wrote some books. None embody his trademark wit and inventiveness better than his 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse 5 . The main character Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time. An American soldier, he finds himself on a whistle-stop tour of the twentieth century’s conflicts. To my knowledge, it’s the first example of block universe theory being used as a literary device. Informed by the author’s own spell in a German prisoner of war camp, this is a vehemently anti-war novel. In fact, it originally published with the subtitle “The Children’s Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death,” a none-too-subtle dig at war’s expectation that the young sacrifice themselves for the interests of their elders.

Funny, profound and edgy, I adore this book. And if the quality of a novel can be judged from how often it’s banned in schools, Slaughterhouse 5 is among the all time greats.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This quirky novel tells the story of a Japanese basement café, in which patrons are able to travel through time. They have to sit in one particular seat though, and nothing they do will change the present, and they must wait for the ghost who usually occupies the seat to go to the toilet. Oh, and they can only time travel for however long it takes for their coffee to go cold. The story may be obsessed with its own rules, but the author pays no such heed to the accepted rules of novel writing. The book takes the form of four short stories of time travel, interspersed by the goings-on amongst the café staff which gives it a cozy, soap-opera feel.

It’s a quick and touching read. However, should you have a thirst for more, there have since been three sequels with another due later this year.

The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman

In this fine example of the timeslip novel, British sisters Luna and Pia travel to their mother’s childhood home in Brooklyn to settle her affairs after her death. It soon becomes clear that something terrible happened to their mother here. Luna finds herself slipping between the present day and summer 1977 where she becomes friends with her young mother. She is soon on a mission to reverse her Mum’s awful fate, even though it risks her own very existence in the future.

It may touch on some dark themes, but the love story that smolders throughout against the backdrop of New York’s Saturday Night Fever era makes this a fabulously evocative, uplifting read.

The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

“Why is love intensified by absence?” So asks our female protagonist Clare Abshire, barely three paragraphs in. It’s a sentence that neatly encapsulates the soul of this modern classic. Because this is not a story about time-travel so much as one about love. Sure, Clare’s husband Henry is prone to disappearing without warning, doomed to land somewhere else in time, naked and penniless. But this affliction allows Niffenegger to construct a love story that we can all relate to: the longing, that unsettling feeling that we aren’t on the same page as our beloved, the sense of being brought together by some fate or higher power.

It’s difficult to say anything about this absolute blockbuster that’s not already been said. Except perhaps to pass on my recent discovery that there’s a sequel on the way. It’s called The Other Husband , and I can’t wait!

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

Ok, so I’m taking a liberty here with the definition of time travel, because this 2023 International Booker winner has no sci-fi element to it. This is the story of a Bulgarian therapist who founds a clinic for Alzheimer’s sufferers consisting of rooms that are perfect recreations of bygone eras, taking the patients back to the surroundings of their youth. It proves so popular that soon perfectly healthy people are checking themselves in for a dose of nostalgia. Before long, all of Europe is going crazy for the past with each country holding a referendum on which decade they want to return to.

It’s time travel meets political satire, though in this era of Brexit and of calls to make our countries Great Again, it’s hardly a whimsical read.

__________________________________

The Day Tripper by James Goodhand is available from MIRA Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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The Adam Project ending, explained: What are the rules of time travel?

Ryan Reynold’s new sci-fi movie goes deep into the weeds of time travel. Let’s clear a few things up.

Time travel is a funny thing. The more you try to explain it, the more complicated it can become. This is perhaps the biggest issue in The Adam Project , a new Ryan Reynolds sci-fi adventure now streaming on Netflix that tries to bludgeon you over the head with quantum mechanics and time travel mumbo jumbo. As a result, the movie’s ending may need to be explained. Lucky for you, that’s why we’re here.

Warning! Spoilers for the ending of The Adam Project follow.

The Adam Project plot explained

The basic premise of The Adam Project is that in the not-so-distant future, time travel is discovered and the woman who discovered it (Maya Sorian, played by Catherine Keener) becomes very rich in the process. As we’re told (but never actually shown), Sorian also uses her power to make the future a terrible place. That’s where Adam (Ryan Reynolds) comes in.

Adam is a pilot for one of Sorian’s time-traveling jetplanes. He’s also the son of Sorian’s old business partner, who passed away when he was still a kid. After Adam’s wife (Laura, played by Zoe Saldana) disappears under mysterious circumstances, he travels back in time to try to save her. A lot more stuff happens, including Adam trying to help his younger self confront a school bully and even more time travel, but ultimately, they discover a few critical truths:

Despite claiming that she wants to keep the natural timeline intact, Sorian has already traveled back in time to give her younger self stock tips and ensure she becomes rich.
Sorian is probably responsible for the demise of Adam’s dad (played by Mark Ruffalo), who actually invented time travel.

In the end, Adam, young Adam, and Adam’s dad realize the only way to save the future is by destroying the experiment before time travel can ever exist. The only problem? This will change the future timeline, meaning Adam will never meet his wife.

While discussing this dilemma, Laura wonders if some echo of their memories can travel across timelines and bring them back together. Turns out, she was right.

The Adam Project ending explained

Adam meets his younger self in The Adam Project.

Once Adam blows up the time travel machine in the past, he and his younger self both disappear back into their correct places in this new timeline. The movie could have ended right there, but it provides audiences with two short epilogues.

First, we see young Adam give his mom a hug, confirming that the newfound empathy he picked up during this adventure carried over into the new timeline. Second, we see Adam and Laura meet again in the future. They don’t recognize each other, but they quickly strike up a flirtatious conversation. It’s almost like something intangible is drawing them together.

In the end, we get a happy ending that seems to bend the rules of The Adam Project ’s own time travel system. But then again, all the best time travel movies do.

The Adam Project is streaming now on Netflix.

Science Fiction

Write For Us

The Rules of Time Travel for Fiction Writers

Time travel is a staple of great fiction—when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong, you’re turning wormholes into plot holes instead. Here’s how to get a handle on the mechanics of time travel for fiction.

Doing Fictional Research

Start off by researching tales of fictional time travel and go through all the short stories, books, and movies you can get your hands on. Feel free to take your own notes on the story while you do this. If there’s a time paradox, ask yourself which—and why . Excellent examples from film are 12 Monkeys , The Butterfly Effect , Project Almanac and Back to the Future . (There are plenty more, including Hot Tub Time Machine .) Good books include The Time Traveller’s Wife , The Time Machine and 22/11/63 .

Family Guy’s Back to the Multiverse does a good job at explaining what’s called the multiverse theory, where people aren’t just traveling through time, but skipping through alternate realities as they do so—here, the “rules” of the universe can be a little different, like the point where Family Guy’s Brian and Stewie find themselves going through a Disney-like alternate reality where there’s, well, a lot of singing.

Sounding “Sciency” the Right Way

We all remember the “flux capacitor” from Back to the Future . You’ll have to choose a method of time travel first. You can be creative: The most obvious solution is a time-machine—but remember to ask whether the time machine stays in one place (as in 22/11/63 ), travels with the time traveler (like Back to the Future or Family Guy ) or is simply really weird—in Butterfly Effect , the protagonist has to be reading from his diary to jump in time.

Explaining Paradoxes

Paradoxes occur when things contradict each other; time travel paradoxes are plenty, and often part of the fun when writing it. Just don’t lose track . What counts in one chapter, has to count in another chapter—and if ripples can be felt throughout your storyline because of a character’s reckless time traveling, make sure these ripples in time continuously make sense.

The Grandfather Paradox is a popular example and one best illustrated by Back to the Future . If you go back in time to kill your grandfather, do you effectively kill your father—and thusly yourself? The Hitler Paradox is another example: If you go back in time to kill Hitler, then Hitler doesn’t exist—and you wouldn’t need to kill Hitler in the first place. That’s pretty damned trippy, don’t you think?

The Predestination Paradox is something I’d like to illustrate with a scene from The Matrix , where Neo meets the Oracle; she warns him to look out for the vase. When he asks ‘what vase?’, he knocks it over. This, simply, is when your past self is the very cause of needing to travel back in the first place. This creates an endless loop (hence this also being referred to as a closed causal loop ) of travel.

The Bootstrap Paradox happens when something is sent back (often to the traveler themselves), negating the need for its creation in the first place. Astronomy Trek explains the Bootstrap Paradox in terms of George Lucas going back and giving himself the finished scripts. (Yes, we really had to think about that one, too.)

Taking Notes & Mapping Timelines

Obsessive note-taking is always advised for writing fiction, down to the last little plot detail. Outline beforehand, and have an outline of where your story is going to go. This is the secret to many great authors you’ve likely picked up this week, and there are very few authors who can just pull a plot twist out of nowhere.

When writing time travel, your outlines might have to become a little more focused on timelines and consequences. Create a mind map however you like, even if you have to clothespin some twine across your office and start hanging up notes.

Real Studies in Time Travel (and Real Life Oddities)

Don’t discount real science when writing science fiction . A recent computer simulation managed to come up with a possible solution to the grandfather paradox and even more recent studies have shown that, at least in terms of mathematical theory, time travel is entirely possible . In 2014, scientists studied the behavior of photons beamed through time.

Real-life oddities have also popped up from time to time: John Titor notably posted on internet forums in the early 2000s, claiming that he was a time traveler from the year 2036 who came with the purpose of warning mankind. In 2006, a man called Håkan Nordkvis claimed that he had found a worm-hole through to meet his 72-year old self under his sink—yes, that does remind us just a little of Being John Malkovich , but somehow still not as weird…

About the author

Alex j coyne.

Alex J Coyne is an author, freelance journalist and language practitioner. He has written for international publications and blogs, been featured on radio and appeared in NB Publishers’ Skrik op die Lyf, an Afrikaans horror collection. Visit his website and get in touch at http://alexcoyneofficial.wordpress.com.

22/11/63 was so bad I could barely read it. I gave up on it. The book was written for a reason but it seems sure to me at least it wasn’t to investigate time-travel. Time-travel is a conceit, simple as that – an often dumb idea made somehow interesting whatever paradox it comes up against or overcomes or attempts to overcome.

The 10 best time travel novels

Posted by Mal Warwick | Reading Recommendations , Science Fiction | 0

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Image of wormhole used in time travel in science fiction

Time travel is one of the most familiar tropes in science fiction. Many scholars trace the idea to Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol (1843) and Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). ( Others differ , finding antecedents as early as 1733 in Samuel Madden’s Memoirs of the Twentieth Century .) But time travel’s first occurrence in modern science fiction came in 1895 with the publication of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine .

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Early in the Golden Age of Science Fiction , time travel anchored popular works such as L. Sprague de Camp’s novel, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), Robert Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps (1941), and A.E. van Vogt’s The Seesaw (1941). Prominent later examples include Isaac Asimov’s A Pebble in Time (1950), Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder (1952), Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (1956), Harry Harrison’s The Technicolor Time Machine (1967), and Robert Silverberg’s Hawksbill Station (1968). During the first half-century of modern science fiction, it was rare for any well-established author not to write at least one time travel novel. Many wrote several.

Having read many of the time travel stories published during the genre’s early years, I’ve concentrated largely on more recent works. Below I’m listing the best of those I’ve encountered so far. They’re listed in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names.

This post was updated on November 13, 2023.

The best time travel novels

Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980) 514 pages ★★★★☆ – An ingenious twist on time travel

Physics can drive you crazy. Solid matter isn’t solid . Black holes don’t just make matter and light disappear; they suck up information, too. And Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Go figure. And if paradoxes like these rattle your nerves, you may want to avoid reading Gregory Benford’s masterful hard-science-fiction novel about time travel, Timescape . It’s a brilliant story, and gracefully written. But it will challenge your reading comprehension unless you’re well versed in contemporary physics.

Timescape is a story of unintended consequences, of husbands and wives, of environmental collapse, and of academic politics. But above all it’s an account of how scientific research is conducted in the age of Big Science. And Benford indulges his characters’ tendency to think aloud about the most profound questions in theoretical physics. It’s far above the level of most people’s understanding, or at least above mine. But the story at the core of this novel is suspenseful to a fault and beautifully executed. Read more .

Cover image of "Fata Morgana," a time travel novel

Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney (2017) 384 pages ★★★★☆ – Clever plot twists in a time travel tale

Science fiction authors love time travel stories, because it affords them abundant opportunities to build plots full of clever plot twists and turns. Sometimes the surprises are really anything but shocking. But that’s not the case with the ingenious tale Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney have written under the title Fata Morgana . Perhaps someone more discerning than I am could suss out the plot twists in advance, but I was taken aback when the reality descended on me of what really happens in this well-paced story.

In several opening chapters, Boyett and Mitchroney paint a detailed and engrossing picture of the experience of an American bomber crew based in England during World War II. Those chapters read like a well-researched and capably written war story. I read a great deal about World War II, but what I found here was revealing. In fact, both the beginning and the end of this book, which deal with the bomber crew’s experiences during the war, are exceptionally good. And the clever plot twists add a layer of fun. Read more .

Cover image of "Here and Now and Then," one of the best time travel novels in recent years

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen (2019) 336 pages ★★★★☆ – A novel treatment of time travel in this promising science fiction debut

Time travel is one of the themes most commonly found in classic science fiction. But it’s taken a back seat in recent years to dystopian novels and space opera, not to mention epic fantasy (which I don’t consider science fiction at all). Of course, time travel back to the past has no basis in known science (although relativity makes time travel forward quite easy). But the paradoxes that open up in any logical treatment of the subject offer a wealth of possible plots. That’s the opening for suspense that Mike Chen found in his promising science fiction debut, Here and Now and Then . Read more .

New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey (2016) 352 pages ★★★★☆ – It’s not time travel. But it looks like it.

In a brief prologue, we meet Manius Calpurnius Barbatus, duumvir (co-ruler) of Pompeii, and his young adult daughter, Calpurnia. They are cowering in the mounting ashfall from Mt. Vesuvius as it gradually buries their town. Much will happen before we meet them again. But then they will play major roles in this intriguing story.

On one track in the story, a young woman named Kirsten Chapman faces years of terror. She repeatedly finds herself submerged in a bathtub in a locked room, only to be jerked back there soon after she emerges. On the other, major track, a young history graduate student named Nick Houghton faces the ruin of his career. Cutbacks decimate the faculty and fellowship funds at his “third-rate university” in England, and he is certain to lose his stipend. But Nick is not trapped in his depressing reality. For suddenly he finds himself employed by a company called Novus Particles UK LLP, or NovusPart, which has somehow muddled into a way to meddle with the timeline. Read more .

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022) 218 pages ★★★★★ – Emily St. John Mandel writes about a pandemic again

Emily St. John Mandel came to the attention of millions of readers worldwide with the publication of her third novel, Station Eleven . The book has sold at least 1.5 million copies and elevated Mandel to the ranks of superstar status in the literary firmament. Perhaps it was foreordained that a beautifully written novel about a pandemic would sell so well while COVID-19 ran rampant across the globe. And, with COVID still upending lives everywhere, we might expect that her sixth novel, Sea of Tranquility , which is also about a pandemic, would hit the bestseller lists, too.

Mandel writes science fiction with the science largely in the background. In Sea of Tranquility , she uses the time-honored sci-fi device of time travel to illuminate the lives of a handful of characters who are linked together across five centuries. Time travel is a given in the story, simply an artifact of the reality Mandel imagines. It’s the characters we care about as we shuttle back and forth from 1912 to 2020 to 2203 to 2401. The story hangs on a pandemic, but it, too, is merely a pivot in the plot.

Cover image of "The Future of Another Timeline," a superb time travel novel

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (2019) 344 pages ★★★★☆ – Alternate feminist history by a gifted science fiction author

What is history, and how does it work? We know, of course, that history isn’t fixed and immutable. It’s subject to the revision and reinterpretation of successive waves of scholars. Sometimes the fresh approach is based on new information that comes to light. But more often what we call history is merely a story historians tell us using carefully selected facts filtered through the cloudy lens of their own values and beliefs. We know, too, that history doesn’t travel in straight lines. But what makes it swerve? Indeed, how does change happen? Is it the product of the individual genius of so-called Great Men or the inevitable outcome of the ideas and social movements that engage a nation or an era? These are among the questions explored in Annalee Newitz’s thought-provoking feminist alternate history, The Future of Another Timeline . Read more .

Cover image of "The Continuum," one of the best best time travel novels I've read

The Continuum (Place in Time #1) by Wendy Nikel (2018) 174 pages ★★★★☆ – An ingenious take on time travel

Novels about time travel frequently twist themselves into knots about the paradox that comes into play when travelers attempt to change something in the past that might mean they would never have been born. In The Continuum , the first of a series by science fiction newcomer Wendy Nikel, the grandfather paradox never surfaces . . . but somehow it seems that it ought to. The novel is a truly original take on time travel.

Here’s what you need to know about Wendy Nikel’s universe:

The discoverer of time travel, a certain Dr. Wells, has opened the Place in Time Travel Agency, or PITTA.
You can only travel back in time to dates that are one or more centuries in the past on precisely the same day, time, and place from which you leave.
To return to the present, you press your thumb on a small spherical device called a Wormhole. So, be sure not to lose it! (As I said, this is an original take on time travel.)
But you’re not supposed to travel back to key turning points in history. Those are Black Dates. They’re a no-no.
The heroine of this novel is young Elise Morley, who is a Retrieval Specialist for PITTA. Her job it is to rescue clients who have disregarded the rules by going to when they shouldn’t or attempting to overstay their time in the past. Read more .

Mammoth by John Varley— A novel about time travel featuring wooly mammoths and an eccentric billionaire

The concept of time travel as it’s typically treated in science fiction is a straightforward affair. You’ll find that in almost any novel about time travel. Somebody figures out how to build a “time machine,” steps into the chamber, and—presto, change-o—ends up somewhere back or forward in time. Maybe a hundred years in the past or future, maybe 100,000. In any case, it’s all a matter of finding a way to locate a particular spot on the continuum of time and violating the laws of physics to get there. Well, if you’re skeptical, as I certainly am, you’ll find an entirely different view of time and time travel in John Varley’s supremely entertaining novel, Mammoth . And along the way you’ll learn a good deal about the spectacular fauna of North America in the Pleistocene Era more than 12,000 years ago. Oh, and by the way, there’s also hidden in the text a novel explanation for UFOs, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Read more .

Cover image of "The Doomsday Book," a time travel novel about the Black Death

Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel #2 of 5) by Connie Willis— A time travel novel about the Black Death

What do we know about the past, and how do we know it? Historians rely largely on the contemporaneous written records they call primary sources . But other disciplines make important contributions to history as well, including archaeology, physics, and genetics. Still, what they learn comes exclusively from what remains of the past. What if historians could learn first-hand by sending scholars into previous centuries to compare the historical record to the reality? Award-winning author Connie Willis explores that idea in her monumental 1992 science fiction tale, The Doomsday Book , a novel about the Black Death.

Kivrin Engle is a bright and adventurous first-year student in medieval history at Oxford’s Brasenose College . In the mid-21st century, time travel is well established as a method for historians to study conditions over the past four or five hundred years, and Kivrin is eager to explore 14th-century England. Together with the acting head of medieval studies, Mr. Gilchrist, and her history tutor at Balliol College , Mr. Dunworthy, she develops a plan for a two-week visit in 1320, farther back than others have previously gone. Her target is the village of Skendgate, near the city of Bath in the country’s far southwest. Unfortunately for all concerned, everything goes wrong when Kivrin sets out for the past. Read more .

Cover image of "Blackout," one of the best time travel novels

Blackout (Oxford Time Travel #4 of 5) by Connie Willis (2010) 650 pages ★★★★☆— Historians study World War II in person

History is often an unreliable guide to the past. Documents go missing or remain classified. Records may be erroneous—or even have been written to be misleading. And historians inevitably build their own prejudices and expectations into their interpretation of past events. How extraordinary it might be, then, for an historian to travel back in time and observe those events in person as they unfold. That’s the conceit at the heart of Connie Willis ‘ award-winning novels about mid-21st century Oxford historians who do exactly that. Blackout is the first of a pair of those novels that trace the adventures of three young historians as they travel in time to study World War II as it happened. Read more .

Time travel novels that didn’t make the grade

Of course, I’ve read a lot more time travel stories than these few. I’m listing above only the best ones I’ve come across in recent years. Below, however, are several additional time travel novels I’ve read and reviewed that don’t merit inclusion above.

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds (2019) 178 pages ★★★☆☆ – Time travel and the apocalypse

The Corridors of Time by Poul Anderson (1965) 186 pages ★★★☆☆ – A legendary sci-fi author makes a mess of time travel

Feedback (First Contact # 3) by Peter Cawdron (2014) 462 pages ★★★☆☆ – Time travel dominates this tale of First Contact

Quantum Time (Quantum #3) by Douglas Phillips (2019) 371 pages ★★★★☆— An entertaining tale of time travel

Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg (1967) 166 pages ★★★★☆ – A science fiction Grand Master gets it wrong about the future

Just One Damned Thing After Another (Chronicles of St. Mary’s #1) by Jodi Taylor (2013) 324 pages ★★★★☆ – Historians blunder about in the past in this time travel story

In addition to these five novels I gave lower ratings, there are two highly touted books I couldn’t even finish. Connie Willis’ All Clear , the sequel to Blackout , won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. But I couldn’t get past chapter 3. And Time and Again by Jack Finney, which Stephen King calls “the time travel novel,” was so filled with trivial detail that I gave up about halfway through.

For related reading

For more good reading, check out:

These novels won both Hugo and Nebula Awards
The ultimate guide to the all-time best science fiction novels
10 top science fiction novels
The five best First Contact novels
Seven new science fiction authors worth reading
The top 10 dystopian novels

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page .

This space travel tale is just so-so

January 27, 2020

20 top nonfiction books about history

January 22, 2021

The SF stories of Arthur C. Clarke aren’t great

September 28, 2020

Clever plot twists in a time travel tale

August 3, 2020

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Kimberly Van Ginkel

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9 Rules for Writing Time Travel

I’m a sucker for time travel stories. I’ll read any book or short story, watch any movie or TV show, if it has a time travel element. I can’t get enough.

As a connoisseur of the art form – and as a novelist myself – I’ve developed these story-building tips for writing time travel

1. Give us the Shock & Awe

Writers are always told to start each story in media res , so it’s tempting to skip over the typical set-up scenes. With a time travel story, however, it’s best to introduce us to the characters before learn that time manipulation is possible. Why? Because if we watch them travel for the first time, we get to experience it with them.

Sure, we’ve seen hundred variations of this already, where the character who knows time travel doesn’t exist gradually comes to accept that it is real. It may be hard to find a fresh take. On the other hand, mastering the 4th dimension is a mind-blowing concept, so it ought to take a while to process.

The original draft of Groundhog’s Day opened with Phil Connors already trapped in his loop of repeating days. Had they filmed that version, we’d have been robbed of all the great build-up scenes where the tiny details of Phil’s day start to build, hinting at him that something is very, very wrong.

We’d have skipped past the catalyst of the story and the audience would be struggling to keep up.

Picture Marty McFly walking through 1955’s Hill Valley for the first time in Back to the Future . He has already been told that Doc invented time travel. The writers might have had him immediately accept that fact and jump straight toward some decisive action to change his predicament. Instead, they allowed him a little time for confusion, a period of denial, which also gave us time to look around with him and spot the changes in the town. With every new person or building he sees, we feel his sense of awe growing, taking in the enormity of where he is and what has happened to him. These few moments immerse us in the world with him.

It’s worth mentioning that in Palm Springs , Nyles has been repeating this day for years, but this works because we, the audience, get to watch the other main character, Sarah, enter the time loop for the first time.

This is the magic of a time travel story. Think of it as your “Dorothy opens the door to Oz” moment. Don’t rush it. This is often the most captivating scene of any time travel story.

2. Pick Your Method

Every time travel story has to have something that functions as the device, portal, or catalyst to time travel.

In H.G. Well’s The Time Machine , it was a literal machine that the hero climbed into, and that set the standard for decades of time travel stories. Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol stories employ hover-motorcycles that can jump through time. Doc Brown used a Delorean. Time Travelling with a Hamster (a very funny middle-grade book) uses a metal washtub wired to an old Mac computer.

Just like the wardrobe leading to Narnia, portals are a specific location that allows you to pass between times. In Stephen King’s 11.22.63 the portal is simply a staircase that they refer to as “the rabbit hole.” Star Trek TNG often utilizes worm holes for its time jumps.

Sometimes there is nothing mechanical involved, nothing that would give our characters any control of their destination. Any number of stories involve a character getting a concussion or struck on the head and waking up in another time. In The Time-Traveller’s Wife , Henry has a chromosome disorder that randomly catapults him through time; before each occurrence, he can feel the sensation of an impending jump.

3. Anything goes, as long as you explain it.

The important thing is to show the audience what your method looks like so that we know what to watch for during the story. Even if the character doesn’t know what caused it, if we witnessed him falling asleep and waking up in a different time, we have a framework for the story. We don’t know how the person will get home, but we realize something similar will have to happen to return them to their own time.

No matter what means you use to allow your characters to time travel, the important thing is to show the audience how it happened – at least, as much as your characters know – then give us the rules that govern it .

Doc Brown explains how to set the target date, load the plutonium, and get the car going 88 mph to trigger the time jump. When we see Marty doing exactly those steps a few minutes later, we know before he does that he’s about to travel to 1955. It also sets up the rules for bringing him back home.

In The Edge of Tomorrow , we learn that it’s the blood of the “Alphas” that allows the hero to loop through time. Therefore, if he gets a blood transfusion he will lose the ability. Until then, every time he dies the day resets. All of this is explained to him in the first act of the story, and is repeated again so the audience knows the rules and the way to end it.

It’s OK to keep the explanation brief, and even to leave out critical information, if that’s what your plot requires. But when you skip the explanation altogether, you’ll leave your audience wondering. You don’t want them to be distracted throughout the story, looking for clues that you haven’t dropped, as they try to understand how the hero is going to get back home.

4. Create Your Own Rules

Can the characters change the past? If so, can they make changes to their own future? How does the cause/effect work? There are a million permutations to this, and the most wondrous thing about his genre is that since time travel doesn’t really exist, your logic can never be wrong . How freeing is that?

The only thing your audience will expect is that you stay consistent with whatever version of time travel you set up initially.

Some of the most common time travel tropes are:

“I know what I’m doing.” – the time-traveller knows both the original time line and the new version because he is immune to the effects of the change – see Jodi Taylor’s Chonicles of St. Mary’s series.
“I used to know what was going on.” – as soon as the hero interacts with the time line, he is changing the past, including his own memories – see Looper , Quantum Leap (Sam and Al’s memories of events differ after a major change, as Sam is remembering only the original time line. For example: Watergate.)
“There is no cause and effect.” – anything the traveller does are events that always existed. The past changes him as he changes the past, so there are no alternate time lines. – See The Time-Traveller’s Wife .
“Nothing is able to change.” – the time-traveller is forbidden from making changes (not just a rule, but a law of physics) so they are viewing the past only. Alternately, they can make only minor changes that have no lasting effects. – See To Say Nothing of the Dog .
“I’m only looking” – our heroes cannot move through time, but they can send technology that allows them to see the future or past – See Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus .
“Time corrects itself.” – attempts at major changes are thwarted as the universe finds its own ways of staying on track. – See Night Watch (Sam’s mentor is killed when he visits the past and he is forced to take the man’s place, thereby making himself a major influence in his own young life.)
“Everything changes.” – any large-scale disruptions in the time stream will completely disrupt everything “downstream” from that event. See Anderson’s Time Patrol series (These time cops base their operations a million years B.C. so that if anything upsets the time stream, their patrol can still exist to fix it.)

Know which type of story you are writing and stay true to the cause/effect rules you have created.

If your character goes back in time, confident that the past cannot be changed, then kills his own grandfather and blinks himself out of existence, both you and the audience are now in quite a pickle. This character who no longer exists was never there to kill the grandpa. Oops. You’ve introduced a paradox that is going to hurt everyone’s brain unless you have an amazing trick up your sleeve to get us out of it.

Paradoxes suck for everyone. Give your readers an expected structure and then stick to it so that we’re not left arguing with the screen that, “that makes no sense!”

5. Or Give Yourself an “Out” to Break the Rules

Because it’s difficult to write time travel without flirting with paradoxes, some writers give themselves a work-around — a way of breaking their own rules in a way that feels as though it’s still consistent.

You can cheat.

Avengers: Endgame is a brilliant movie. It’s so good, in fact, that it gets a pass on blatantly breaking its own rules about time travel constraints. The Hulk gives a short lecture explaining why they can’t change the past, they then go on to twist time in ways that make no sense against the structure of time travel in this movie (remember the scene where AntMan is turned into a baby, then an old man, then himself again in what appears to be seconds for him?). But all these discrepancies get glossed over by explaining that the Quantum Realm is mysterious. Ah, Quantum Realm, the magical spackle for filling in plot holes.

You can play dumb.

Ever notice how the main character in these stories is rarely ever the brilliant scientist who developed time travel? Not only is it easier to relate to an everyman character, it saves us all from having to understand the science. You can have your extremely smart person introduce it and explain the rules, then let your hero accept it on faith without thoroughly understanding it.

I love this method because it gives you, the author, the freedom to include as much or as little science as you want to. Gloss over as much as you want to and have the scientist say, “Just push this button” and you can forge ahead with your plot. It’s enough for the audience to know that someone in this world understands it all.

You can yell “Hey, look over there!”

One of my favorite “nevermind my rules” moments is from Grand Tour: A Disaster in Time . Our hero, Ben, has jumped through time to break himself out of prison. The viewer immediately has to wonder how the universe will reconcile this, as Ben has now changed his past and there are suddenly two of him living in town. The writer must have felt trapped in a corner as well, because he threw in this beautiful bit of dialogue:

Original Ben: “How can we both be in the same place at the same time?”

Time-Travelling Ben: “(Forget) the physics, Ben! By the time you figure out whether it’s possible or not, we’re gonna be dead. Twice!”

Easy as that! The paradox doesn’t really matter because we’re now diving back into the action.

Which brings me to:

6. Keep the Clock Ticking

When you have time at your command, why panic, right? Why rush anything?

Because stories need tension. And a great way to add tension is to give your hero a ticking clock. As the wise Rufus once said (in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure ), “No matter what you do, no matter where you go … the clock in San Dimas is always running.” They had only 24 hours to get to their history exam, despite being able to hop through time.

A less silly example is King’s 11.22.63 , where his time portal leads him to the year 1958. In order to prevent the JFK assassination, Jake must spend 5 years in the past. Because of that time commitment, the idea of doing it more than once becomes nearly impossible. Thus, in the countdown to November 22nd, his time is as short as everyone else’s. The time portal can’t help him anymore. And the tension is every bit as high as if he had never discovered time travel.

7. Flip the Script to Make it Difficult

We are rooting for people, not gods of time. It’s cool that they have this wonderful ability, but your story is more gripping if something happens to make them unable to use it. We want them to be able to suffer setbacks, something they can’t easily undo.

Perhaps there is something inherent in your rules of time travel that will constrain the hero. In the Time Patrol stories, one unbreakable rule is that a traveller can never visit the same time twice. So if they make a mistake, they can’t return to that same time to undo it. In About Time , Tim can travel at will to any day within his own lifetime. Just as he’s getting used to this ability, he discovers that changing anything that happened before his children were born will cause them not to exist.

Sudden reversals are even better. In Time Bandits , our heroes have a map of every time portal in world history … so, of course, they lose the map!

8. Choose a Global Background, Then Make it Personal

Give in to the temptation to choose huge moments in world history. Why not? That’s the lure of time travel — the great question of “Where would you visit if you could go anywhere at any time?”

The birth of Christ? The signing of the Declaration of Independence? Woodstock? Pompeii? The assassination of Lincoln? The birth of Rock & Roll?

The history books are open to you. Pick something awesome.

But here’s the thing – as cool as all of those are, the best time travel books are the ones that focus on people . The bigger your background event, the more important it is to show it through the eyes of the people living there.

Connie Willis set The Doomsday Book in the middle of the Black Plague. Instead of showing the cities, she sent her hero to live with a small family out in the safety (uh-oh) of the country. She also created a 2-book series, Blackout and All Clear , set during the blitzkreig of London. Her plucky historians mix with civilians and military personnel, forging relationships that make us care about the fate of those individuals.

King’s 11.22.63 is ostensibly about the JFK assassination, but the characters our hero meets along the way are so wonderful that, to be honest, I wanted the hero to give up on trying to save Kennedy and settle into his fake life in the ’60s.

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series stretches from the Jacobite Uprising in Scotland through the American Revolution. We see wonderful scenery, experience famous events, and encounter great figures from history. But no one reads those books just for the historical details. The heart of that story is the romance of Claire and Jamie.

Remember that time-travel is a means of telling your story, not the entire story itself. Make your characters matter .

9. Be Unique

Time travel has been the source of some of the most creative sci-fi works ever made. Keep twisting it to create your own rules and your own wonderful stories.

Remember that it does not have to be linear time travel. Though most of the stories I’ve mentioned involve a person being displaced from his own time, there are other permutations to explore.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe involved a bubble existing outside of space-time so that elite diners could watch the death of the universe while enjoying cocktails.

Groundhog’s Day introduced such a charming notion of 24-hour time loops that it created a whole sub-genre, including the comedic horror film Happy Death Day .

And The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything allows its main character to stretch time, living an entire hour in the space between seconds. This gives him the superpower of incredible speed, as viewed by other people. Since we’re living in the time gaps with him, it makes for an intriguing notion of time travel.

One last thought … if you are looking for inspiration for a new type of time travel story, I recommend the book Einstein’s Dreams , a quick read with beautiful vignettes that illustrate different time theories.

'Felicity’s Time-Travel Twist Is Better Than You Remember

This is a J.J. Abrams show, so maybe we shouldn't be too surprised Keri Russell ended up traveling through time.

The Big Picture

Felicity remains a significant part of popular culture, even years after its original airing, with its relatable characters and realistic storylines.
The show's creative plot twists, including a black-and-white episode and Felicity time traveling back to her college years, kept viewers engaged and intrigued.
Despite its fantasy elements, Felicity resonated with audiences as an aspirational portrayal of the college experience, prompting viewers to question and reflect on their own lives.

It comes as no surprise that The WB’s college drama Felicity remains as present in popular culture now as it was when it first debuted. Despite only airing for four seasons, the show's impact has been as far-reaching as it was captivating. Even Modern Family ’s Phil Dunphy ( Ty Burrell ) admitted that if he could time travel back to the '90s , he would tell Felicity Porter ( Keri Russell ) not to cut her hair. Indeed, Felicity quickly became ingrained in our cultural consciousness during its first season in 1998, following a recent high-school graduate as she decides on a whim to change all of her college plans to follow a boy from high school she barely knew , Ben Covington ( Scott Speedman ), to New York City.

From a critical point of view, it was less about a girl blindly following a cute boy who spoke to her once across the country for no reason (although it was a little bit of that, and I would have totally done the same for 1998 Scott Speedman) and more that his comment written in her yearbook unlocked an urge for her to finally become someone else other than who she’s been . Or, as the theme song from the series’ final two seasons put it, a new version of you. “I came here because of Ben, but I’m staying because of me.” That’s what sold the series beyond the wide-eyed ingénue with the dreamy gold curls with two irresistibly charming guys suddenly fawning over her set against the backdrop of a just pre-9/11 Manhattan.

A young girl, fresh out of high school, follows her high school crush to college to be near him.

'Felicity' Had Several Creative Plot Twists

Sadly, Felicity didn’t always maintain the promise of its inaugural season, which in a way felt like an allegory for the college experience and/or young adult life , where nothing feels certain and everything can go wrong. Or it was merely representative of a writer’s room that didn’t exactly know where they wanted the storyline to go at any given moment. That’s most likely how we ended up with a Twilight Zone -inspired episode shot entirely in black-and-white, Eddie Cahill playing a homicidal drug dealer, and most infamously, Felicity cutting off all her curls for the sake of a change at the beginning of the second season.

Second in line to the main character’s haircut as the most hated plot twist (if you can even justify a haircut as such) on Felicity was the way in which the creators chose to end the series after its fourth season in 2002. At the time, the series was marketed in the form of American college years; therefore, it only made sense that Felicity would conclude after “Senior Year.” It also would have been cancelled anyway thanks to a gradual decrease in quality, but that’s neither here nor there. What is here is that, after a well-deserved and mostly satisfying conclusion to the series’ storyline in the season’s 17th episode, its remaining six episodes were dedicated to another creative turn: Felicity travels back in time .

Did Felicity Really Travel Back in Time?

On paper, it sounds ludicrous. Despite its one questionable experimentation with a sci-fi fantasy , Felicity did not fall into that genre. It was a dreamy ‘90s teen drama with an acceptable if not a bit excessive amount of yearning and emotion. So did Felicity Porter really time travel at the end of her final season? Turns out she did: A year after their graduation, Felicity discovers Ben has been cheating on her. Back in New York for Noel’s ( Scott Foley ) wedding, she wonders what life would have looked like if she’d chosen Noel over Ben. Thus, her friend Meghan (Amanda Foreman) puts a spell on her that effectively sends her back to the beginning of Season 4, having just slept with Noel on a rooftop .

Keri Russell Tells Us About Her Messy Character in 'The Diplomat,' Complicated Relationships, and the Absurdity of Politics

What follows is a dilemma of the highest post-graduate regard: Does she just go with it and repeat her senior year dating Noel so that everything will one day work out? Before she can answer that question, she begins to realize that just the action of traveling back in time begins to mess with the order of events as she knows it. So when she tells Noel and Ben that she has time traveled from the future, she ends up in a psych ward — until she predicts something to Ben, and he realizes she has to be telling the truth . Then Noel winds up killed in a fire that he and Felicity escaped earlier in the year. In order for the nightmare to end, she must visit the man who wrote the spell that Meghan performed so that he can reverse it. In order to do that, she must recount her entire college history to him, with the help of keepsakes from different life events.

What started as a last attempt to make a dying show’s storytelling interesting for a few more episodes ends up being one of the most creative plot twists I've ever watched on television . Felicity ’s series finale, which follows the character as she tells the spell’s creator the story of her college years, serves as an effective reminder to all the things that the series got right: young, relatable characters in realistic (for the most part) storylines. I’m personally convinced that the three-way chemistry between Russell, Speedman, and Foley was what kept Felicity alive .

Was 'Felicity' Actually a Fantasy Series?

Although the series was technically not a fantasy, it also kind of was: I watched it for the first time during my own turbulent college years, attempting to manifest something out of its magical premise for myself. I can’t help but believe that was the basis of Felicity ’s appeal, as an aspirational portrayal of the American college experience that could have only existed on The WB between 1998 and 2002. Instead of merely ending the series with Ben and Felicity graduating, going on to the same grad school, and living happily ever after, show creators J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves dared to ask, “But what if this happened instead?” It’s a question all of us in that stage of life have asked ourselves from one time or another, in one situation or another.

It’s also easy to understand the controversy that surrounded Felicity’s time travel , given that those ambitious last six episodes would have aired from one week to the next, and not consumed all in one afternoon on a binge under a blanket in a moment of my own post-university depression. What would have read as bonkers in 2002 might have had a different landing in the streaming age, without having to wait a week in between explanations. It just contributes to the case for reviving the genre of WB series like Felicity for a new generation, maybe in the form of a PG-13 version of Euphoria . One way or another, stories like Felicity’s matter , no matter how overemotional or privileged, and it’s time to start finding new ways to tell them.

Felicity is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S.

Watch on Hulu

Booklist Queen

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37 Mind-Bending Time Travel Books

Jump into the best time travel books and discover the mind-bending scenarios only possible in the best time travel fiction.

The other night at dinner, I was asking my kids whether they would like to travel to the past or the future. The myriad replies included visiting the dinosaurs and flying in a spaceship across the galaxy.

The linear nature of our lives means that we can only imagine a different way of experiencing time. The best time travel books use this impossibility to create mind-bending scenarios for us to contemplate.

Today, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite time travel books, along with a whole slew of intriguing books with time travel to fire up your imagination.

Have fun exploring the twisty what-if scenarios in these time traveling books and let me know your favorites in the comments!

Don’t Miss a Thing

Best Time Travel Books

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Audrey niffenegger.

When you think of the best books about time travel, Audrey Niffenegger’s debut novel comes to mind. In this classic love story, art student Clare and librarian Henry try for a sense of normalcy as Henry time shifts through their life. Henry has Chrono-Displacement Disorder; he unexpectedly gets pulled to important emotional moments in his past and future life. A mind-bending romance that is a must-read for any fan of time travel books.

Publication Date: 2003 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Stephen King

Stephen King seems to write amazingly in every genre, and time travel fiction is no different. In 11/22/63 , English teacher Jake Epping discovers that this friend Al has a portal in his diner storeroom that leads back to 1958. As Jake emerges into the past, he starts by trying to change the life of one of his students and eventually concocts a plan to prevent President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But playing with time always has unintended consequences.

Publication Date: 8 November 2011 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Diana Gabaldon

One of the ultimate time travel romance books, Gabaldon’s Outlander series creates a sweeping love triangle. Recently returned from serving as a WWII nurse, Claire Randall decides to take a second honeymoon with her husband. When she steps through a standing stone in the British Isles, she finds herself transported back to 1743 in war-torn Scotland. As Claire allies with the great warrior James Fraser, she must decide between the love of two completely men in two completely different times.

Publication Date: 1 June 1991 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Blake Crouch

America has fallen victim to False Memory Syndrome – a disease where victims are driven mad by memories of a life they never lived … or have they? It’s up to NYPD cop Barry Sutton and neuroscientist Helena Smith to figure out how to stop this epidemic, even as reality is shifting all around them. You’ll have a hard time putting this one down, so you’ll certainly want to pick up a copy before the film adaptation hits Netflix.

Publication Date: 11 June 2019 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Stuart turton.

On the 19th anniversary of their son’s murder, Lord and Lady Hardcastle throw a party with the same guests as that fateful day long ago. At 11 pm, Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered. In a Groundhog Day -esque fashion, Aidan Bishop must relive this day 8 times, but from the perspective of eight different witnesses. His task: identify Evelyn’s murderer, or do it all over again. Evelyn Hardcastle will throw you into a brilliant game of Clue as you see the same events from multiple viewpoints. Just ignore the why this happening and jump right into the mystery come to life, with plenty of fun twists and turns along the way.

Publication Date: 8 February 2018 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Save for Later

Recent Books on Time Travel

Wrong Place Wrong Time

Gillian mcallister.

Just after midnight, Jen is watching out the window for her teenage son Todd to come home when she sees him murder an older man right outside their house. With her son in custody, Jen goes to be in despair but wakes to find the day starting all over again. Caught in a time loop, Jen must find out the impetus for the murder and try anything she can to stop it.

Publication Date: 2 August 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

One Italian Summer

Rebecca serle.

One Italian Summer is a time travel novel about grieving and understanding a parent. When her mother dies just before their planned mother-daughter trip to Italy, Katy decides to still spend the summer exploring the Amalfi coast as she grieves. Magically, Katy meets a younger version of her mother, giving Katy a whole new perspective on her mother as a person.

Publication Date: 1 March 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

This Time Tomorrow

Emma straub.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice feels satisfied with everything in her life except her distant relationship with her father. When she wakes up the next day, she finds she has been transported back in the past to her 16-year-old self. Now with the eyes of an adult, Alice sees it as an opportunity to connect with her father and correct past mistakes.

Publication Date: 17 May 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

One Last Stop

Casey mcquiston.

One of the most anticipated time travel books of 2021 comes from the author of Red, White & Royal Blue . Cynical August doesn’t believe life will ever change until she develops a crush on a girl from her subway commute. Jane is perfect and the highlight of August’s every day. But when August and Jane finally meet, August realizes that somehow Jane actually lives in the 1970s. A time-defying romance perfect for your summer reading list.

Publication Date: 1 June 2021 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Faye, Faraway

Helen fisher.

Faye is a happily married mother of two who still feels the ache of the loss of her mother as a child. When she suddenly finds herself transported back in time, she has the opportunity to befriend her mother. Faye, Faraway is a slow heartfelt debut novel that spends most of the story contemplating the psychology of time travel, faith, and the relationship between parents and children.

Publication Date: 26 January 2021 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Time Travel Books for Your Reading List

The Midnight Library

In the Midnight Library, there are two books – one book for the life you’ve lived and one for the one you could have lived. After attempting suicide, Nora Seed finds herself there. Now she must decide which book to choose from. What if she had made different choices? Would her life have been any better? All of us have regrets, and by allowing Nora the possibility to redo her life, Haig does a brilliant job showing how we can never predict the outcomes of our choices. A thoroughly enjoyable read that intimately talks about the pain depression and second-guessing has on our life.

Publication Date: 29 September 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In Five Years

Dannie Cohan knows exactly where she’ll be in five years – until the night of her engagement. In her post-engagement bliss, she has a vision of herself in five years engaged to someone else. She doesn’t think much of it, until years later when she finds he is dating her best friend. While the premise sounds light-hearted, partway through the story, beach read goes out the window and thought-provoking steps in. You’ll feel compelled to know if the vision came true and surprised at how well Serle counters your expectations.

Publication Date: 10 March 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Rainbow Rowell

Sitcom writer Georgie McCool knows her marriage is struggling, but she can’t pass up the chance to pitch the pilot show she’s been dreaming about for years, even if it means missing Christmas. While he’s away, she finds that calling Neal on the landline results in her talking to a younger version of her husband in the days just before he proposed. With the time-traveling communication messing with her head, Georgie recalls her courtship with Neal and ponders what to do about her marriage.

Publication Date: 8 July 2014 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Oona Out of Order

Margarita montimore.

On New Year’s Eve in 1982, Oona Lockhart is faced with a life-changing decision: travel abroad to continue her studies in London or pursue fame as a member of her boyfriend’s rock band. As the clock strikes midnight and Oona turns 19, she faints and wakes up as a fifty-year-old. Thus begins the mixed-up time travel life of Oona, where every year she gets to randomly experience her life at different stages. One of the best recent books with time travel, Oona Out of Order explores if we can change our destiny while having fun highlighting the differences between decades.

Publication Date: 25 February 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In a Holidaze

Christina lauren.

With her love life in shatters, Maelyn Jones is devastated to find this will be her last Christmas spent with her family at the snowy Utah cabin. As she drives away, a car crash sends her into a time loop to relive the same Christmas vacation over and over again. Now she must figure out how to end the time loop so she can live happily ever after. A lighthearted romance with a Groundhog Day premise perfect for your holiday reading list.

Publication Date: 6 October 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Classics Books on Time Travel

Octavia E. Butler

In 1976, Dana, a young African-American writer, finds herself inexplicably sent back through time to a pre-Civil War plantation in Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy, she finds herself back in Los Angeles. Over and over, Dana finds herself returning to the plantation, which she realizes is where her ancestors lived. As her stays in the past become longer, Dana becomes entangled in the plantation and is forced to make harder and harder choices to survive. Octavia Butler’s genre-bending novel is a must-read among time travel books.

Publication Date: June 1979 Amazon | Goodreads

The Time Machine

H. g. wells.

In this classic story which pioneered time travel fiction and coined the word “time machine,” the time traveler pulls a lever and transports himself 800,000 years in the future. On a dying Earth, he meets two strange races – the innocent childlike Eloi and the Morlocks, brutal underground dwellers. Highlighting class conflict, The Time Machine warns against the assumption of the inevitable progress of mankind.

Publication Date: 1895 Amazon | Goodreads

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

After being hit over the hit, Hank Morgan wakes up to find himself miraculously in King Arthur’s Camelot. The nineteenth-century mechanic sets out to modernize the medieval era with electricity and gunfire, quickly creating chaos. Mark Twain’s imaginative satire sharply criticizes his contemporary culture, with interesting parallels to our world today.

Publication Date: 1889 Amazon | Goodreads

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt vonnegut.

How to describe Slaughterhouse-Five? In this postmodern anti-war science fiction World War II novel, the unreliable narrator tells the tale of Billy Pilgrim, a time-traveling man being held in an alien zoo. Through flashbacks, we relive Billy’s capture during the Battle of the Bulge, life as a POW working in a slaughterhouse (Slaughterhous #5) during the Dresden firebombing, and his subsequent life after the war. If you can get past Vonnegut’s strange style, his discussion of fate, free will, and death earn it its place among the best classic time travel books. For, “so it goes.”

Publication Date: 31 March 1969 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The End of Eternity

Isaac asimov.

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, tasked with sifting through past and present centuries to monitor progress and, when necessary, changing things to ensure things play out how his organization wishes. When Andrew falls in love with a non-eternal, he must decide where his loyalties lie and at what cost his happily ever after ending is worth.

Publication Date: 1955 Amazon | Goodreads

Interesting Time Travel Novels

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Amal el-mohtar and max gladstone.

If you love more literary books on time travel, you’ll want to pick up this award-winning novella. In a world devastated by war for generations, two rival agents, known simply as Red and Blue, are tasked with securing the best possible outcome for her side. When an unlikely correspondence sparks between them, their romantic bond threatens to change both the past and the future.

Publication Date: 16 July 2019 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Night Watch

Terry pratchett.

As policeman Sam Vimes chases notorious serial killer Carcer, they are both caught up in a magical storm. Unexpectedly finding themselves in the past, Carcer ends up killer Vimes’s mentor John Keel. Now on the eve of Revolution, Vimes must impersonate Keel and act as the mentor to his younger self while trying to capture the killer without ruining the timeline. Although the 29th book in the Disc World series, Night Watch can be read as a standalone novel.

Publication Date: 2002 Amazon | Goodreads

Sea of Tranquility

Emily st. john mandel.

In 1912, a young man hears a violin playing in the Canadian woods, an event that a videographer captures in the present day. Two hundred years later, a famous writer includes a similar haunting scene in one of her books. Decades later, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts is hired to investigate this anomaly in time, one that has the potential to disrupt the universe’s timeline.

Publication Date: 5 April 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Dream Daughter

Diane chamberlain.

In 1970, Caroline Sears is devastated to learn her newborn daughter has a heart defect that cannot be cured. Except, her brother-in-law declares there is a cure. Hunter claims to be a time traveler from the future who promises that if she jumps to 2001, she can have fetal heart surgery and save her baby. Now Carly must decide what she believes and whether she should take a leap of faith.

Publication Date: 2 October 2018 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Accidental Time Machine

Joe haldeman.

After dropping out of grad school, Matt Fuller finds himself in a dead-end job working as a research assistant at MIT. When he accidentally creates a time machine while studying gravity and electromagnetic forces, Matt assumes he has nothing to lose by taking a jump in time. Every time each jumps, he travels further into the future, getting tangled into more and more complicated situations and hoping that with one more jump he can return to his present.

Publication Date: 2007 Amazon | Goodreads

Michael Crichton

In France, an archaeology professor leads a group of graduate students researching two fourteenth-century towns. When Professor Johnston flies back to America to handle their shady sponsors, the students begin to unearth his modern-day possessions buried in the ruins at the dig site. Quickly they are whisked away to a secret site and told that they must travel back to the time of knights if they are to save their professor.

Publication Date: 16 November 1999 Amazon | Goodreads

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Laurie viera rigler.

A Jane Austen-obsessed woman wakes up one day to find herself back in Regency England. Now Courtney must pretend to be the Miss Jane Mansfield whose life she seems to be inhabiting. All while dealing with the inconveniences of the nineteenth century and handling chaperones, seducers, and unwanted marriage proposals. When she meets the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, Courtney is flooded with Jane’s memories of him and wonders if Jane might have judged him wrongly.

Books About Parallel Universes

Dark Matter

I know parallel universe stories aren’t quite the same as time travel, but they are so irresistibly fun I couldn’t help but highlight a few. Walking home one night, Jason Dessen is kidnapped and forced into an alternate reality. He’s been thrust into the multiverse, a world where instead of marrying his wife when she got pregnant with their child, he single-mindedly persevered on with his research. Although the middle was a bit slow, Crouch’s premise will boggle your mind and the story concludes with a thrilling finale.

Publication Date: 26 July 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

Josie silver.

After the death of her fiance, Lydia is struggling to cope. Thanks to an experimental sleeping pill, she gets a chance to live the life she would have had with her fiance in her dreams. However, living in her dream life is messing with her waking life. Which life should she choose? Silver does an excellent job showing how much grief has changed Lydia and how dangerous it is to interfere with the grief process.

Publication Date: 3 March 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Haruki Murakami

If you are craving something a bit different, you might want to try this mind-bending work from famed Japanese author Haruki Murakami. In 1984, Aomame notices strange discrepancies and finds she has entered a parallel version of her life, 1Q84. Quickly caught up in a religious cult, Aomame wonders what is truly real. Meanwhile, ghostwriter Tengo accepts an assignment to rewrite a book, a decision that changes his whole life and leads him closer to Aomame.

Publication Date: 29 May 2009 Amazon | Goodreads

Dean Koontz

After his wife Michelle left years ago, Jeffy Coltrane has tried his best to make a good life for him and his seven-year-old daughter, Amity. One day, the local eccentric leaves a mysterious device at their house, warning them they must never use it. Once Jeffy and Amity realize it allows you to travel between parallel universes, they question what life would have been like if Michelle hadn’t left. But other people are after the device, wanting to use it for their own nefarious purposes.

Publication Date: 6 October 2020 Amazon | Goodreads

Again Again

E. lockhart.

While recovering from a devastating breakup and dealing with her brother’s opioid addiction, Adelaide Buchwald is spending her summer as a dog walker. When Adelaide meets a cute new boy, you get to see all the possibilities of how her life could unfold that summer – what was versus what might have been.

Publication Date: 2 June 2020 Amazon | Goodreads

Time Travel Books for Kids and Teens

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Ransom riggs.

One of the most popular time travel books for teens is Ransom Riggs’s unique young adult series that mixes vintage photography with fantastical storytelling. Jacob never quite believed his grandfather’s outlandish tales of a magical orphanage. When Jacob starts having nightmares about the stories, his parents send him to the remote island in Wales to show him that there is nothing to fear. Instead, he meets a collection of peculiar and potentially dangerous children caught in a time loop.

Publication Date: 7 June 2011 Amazon | Goodreads

Kerstin Gier

Although sixteen-year-old Gwen’s family is quite eccentric, she has been able to live a normal life as a London teenager. Until she finds out that the time-traveling gene which runs in her family didn’t skip over her as everyone thought. Not having been inducted into the mysteries of time travel, Gwen is unprepared for the unexpected jumps into the past and must rely on her time-traveling counterpart Gideon, a stunningly gorgeous and insufferable know-it-all teenage boy.

Publication Date: 2009 Amazon | Goodreads

Before I Fall

Lauren oliver.

Another popular choice among YA time travel books is Lauren Oliver’s story of a popular high schooler caught in a time loop. At Samantha Kingston’s high school, February 12th is “Cupid Day,” a day of valentines and roses and a big party. At the end of the night, Samantha dies in a terrible accident, only to wake up the next day to relive it all over again. As Samantha learns that small changes can make dramatic differences, she is forced to finally give serious thought to her actions.

Publication Date: 14 February 2010 Amazon | Goodreads

The Time Travelers

Linda buckley-archer.

Originally published as Gideon the Cutpurse , Linda Buckley-Archer’s time travelers series follows Peter Schock and Kate Dyer. After a brush with an antigravity machine, they find themselves back in 1763. There the two children meet ally with Gideon, a local street urchin, to get back the machine from Gideon’s nemesis, the evil Tar Man.

Publication Date: 5 June 2006 Amazon | Goodreads

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. k. rowling.

How can I end a list of time travel novels without the Harry Potter time travel book? And no, I don’t mean the poorly written sequel Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . In his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter’s life is seriously curtailed as the infamous killer Sirius Black is on the loose and bent on killing our favorite boy wizard.

Publication Date: 8 July 1999 Amazon | Goodreads

What are Your Favorite Time Travel Books

What do you think? Would you want to jump to the future or visit the past? What time travel novels am I missing from my list? As always, let me know in the comments!

More Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Lists:

40 Standalone Fantasy Books When You’re Tired of Series
31 Creative Historical Fantasy Books
42 Imaginative Fantasy YA Books to Dive Into
25 Dystopian Books for Teens to Read
23 Startling Climate Fiction Novels
The Best Science Fiction Books to Discover the Genre
The Greatest Classic Science Fiction Short Stories

Recommended

Reader Interactions

Fatheya says

April 13, 2021 at 3:27 pm

Thank you for this excellent list, Rachael. I’m a very big fan of time travel books. I’ve read several of these books and several others are on my TBR. There’s one book I would recommend adding to the list: A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux. It’s a lovely time travel romance.

April 14, 2021 at 12:48 pm

Wow! I love this list. Thanks so much!

I am a huge fan of Outlander. I’ve read them all and Diana has finished book 9!!!! Publication date still pending, but cannot wait for more Jamie and Claire. The combo of accurate historical info and time travel and LOVE is irresistible. Gabaldon is an excellent writer.

Amazingly, I was not immediately sucked into the first book. I think I ran across it on a list of Romances. I picked it up from the library and did not finish it. Then the t.v. series came out and the first season was so well done, I was hooked. I went back to the book and actually watched and read in unison. I generally feel books are better than the television or movie versions, but in this case I used the books to dive deeper into these wonderful stories. The later seasons of the show are great too, but sometimes the omissions and switch ups in the stories can bug me. Why mess with a good thing. I bet they bug Diana Gabaldon too.

I know this will be very unpopular, but I did not like The Midnight Library. I liked the premise, but frankly did not think the book was all it was hyped up to be.

I’ve seen the Lydia Bird title and had not realized it was time travel related. So that will be a TBR for me! Also Faye, Faraway sounds good.

I am going to give my age away, but I was enthralled with the movie version of The Time Machine as a kid. The main actor was the very handsome Rod Taylor. I actually have it recorded on my DVR. It was on Movies! channel. Not sure how closely it follows H.G. Wells original. It has the scary Morlocks in it. I loved a good scare as a child. I was born the year this came out, but remember loving to watch when it was on television.

I think going back in time was always the draw for me as a child. I love history.

MamaNewtNewt says

July 24, 2021 at 3:13 pm

The Chronicles of St Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor us brilliant and there are so many of them.

August 17, 2021 at 8:29 pm

Thank you so much for your list, Rachael. I would add The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It is 600 pages long, but I still read it in one sitting!

John Abraham says

March 31, 2022 at 8:19 am

I would recommend a book titled ‘Threads of Time by JP Harris’ aspects include actual accounts from individuals who may have slipped into other timelines or interdimensional locations..it also covers people who actually created devices as for example.In a terraced house in Bath, Somerset, UK, a retired watchmaker created a healing device that also had the additional capability of being used as a time machine.

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Posted on Sep 28, 2018

70+ Plot Twist Ideas and Examples Guaranteed to Blow Your Mind Away

As R.L. Stine once said, “Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts. The beginning. The middle. And the plot twist.”

The legendary plot twist is a staple in almost every genre and medium of storytelling — one that’s fun to read but hard to write. To help you become a veritable Chubby Checker , here's a definitive resource that's all about the art of the twist.

What is a plot twist?

A plot twist is a story development that readers do not expect in which either something shocking happens or something shocking is revealed. Generally, the storyteller will set up expectations and then "twist" those expectations by revealing new information through subsequent plot points .

The criteria for a plot twist tends to be made up of the following:

It must be narratively sound,
It must be unexpected, and
It might be foreshadowed .

To no-one’s surprise, plot twists are particularly prevalent in mysteries, thrillers, and suspense fiction . However, the twist takes no prisoners and has reared its head in almost every genre out there, which brings us to…

Which contemporary author are you?

Find out which of today's greats is your writerly match. Takes one minute!

50+ plot twist ideas in pop culture

If you seek inspiration for crafting your own twists, there’s no better place to start than with some of the most popular unexpected plot-turns in film and literature. But be warned: there be spoilers ahead. With that in mind, here are over 50 examples of plot twists in film and literature.

Want to read some of the best, most twisted thrillers and suspense books out there? Check out these 50 best suspense books of all time , or our list of 23 psychological thrillers that will make your head spin .

I Am Your Father

Mum’s the word when it comes to family secrets, right? Not so fast. This is the plot twist that concerns a revelation about the key character’s family. It could be that there is a surprising reveal regarding parentage — or perhaps it’s uncovered that the protagonist was an orphan all along.

Made legendary by Star Wars, this type of plot twist is nevertheless widespread in all genres and mediums, as there’s no drama quite like family drama. As George Carlin once said: “The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.”’

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. In a pivotal battle, Luke discovers that Darth Vader, his ultimate nemesis, is actually his father.
Angels & Demons. Robert Langdon is shocked by the revelation that the late pope’s aide is actually His Holyness’s’s son — conceived through artificial insemination.
Shutter Island. During an investigation of a disappearance from a remote asylum, U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels realizes that he himself is the missing patient — and the husband and murderer of the woman that he had been trying to locate.

More plot twist examples of this flavor:

The Man From Earth. Right before he dies from a heart attack, Will learns that the unaging Professor John Oldman is actually his father.
Oldboy. Mysteriously imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-su falls in love with a young restaurant chef who is later revealed to be his daughter.
The Kite Runner. Amir has mixed feelings when he discovers that his closest childhood friend, Hassan, is his half-brother.

It Was Me All Along

In which protagonists’ worst enemies is actually themselves. This plot twist turns the magnifying glass inward to reveal that there was something off about the main character all along. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book — and when executed expertly, it can blow people’s minds away!

Fight Club. The narrator of the movie meets Tyler Durden, a soap salesman, and together they start a local “Fight Club.” In time, he realizes that he himself is Tyler Durden.
Gone Girl. Amy Dunne is revealed to be alive — and also the mastermind behind the framing of her husband, Nick Dunne, for her own “death.”
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Dr. James Sheppard, the first-person narrator of the novel, comes out as the murderer in the case that Hercule Poirot had been investigating.
The Usual Suspects. Roger “Verbal” Kint, a small-time con man, is interrogated by the police who hope to hunt down the mob boss Keyser Söze. A fax later confirms too late that Kint is Söze himself.
Orphan Black. Sarah Manning is right to be confused when she spies a girl who looks just like her by the train: she is just one of hundreds of clones.

Will The Real Evil Guy Please Stand Up?

In which the reveal of the villain ( or anti-villain ) is a surprise to audiences. Maybe they’re a minor character or someone entirely unexpected (such as a close friend or relative of the protagonist).

Generally, this plot twist requires some amount of foreshadowing, so as to trigger an “Oh, I should’ve known” reaction from audiences.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Harry battles through three perilous stages of the Triwizard Tournament to find that the real villain has been under his nose throughout the entire novel: Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise as Harry’s mentor, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody.
Psycho. In a turn of events, the person who kills Marion Crane in the shower at Bates Motel is not the overbearing Mrs Bates — rather, her son Norman, who has been masquerading as his dead mother this whole time.
Frozen. An eternal snowstorm unveils the actual antagonist in the story: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, youngest of thirteen sons and one of Anna’s suitors.
Sherlock. Even Sherlock isn’t able to identify Jim Moriarty, a minor character who disguises himself as Molly Hooper’s gay boyfriend, as his greatest nemesis until it’s too late.
Iron Man. Tony Stark discovers that the man who wants him killed is his old friend and mentor, Obadiah Stone.

Love The Way You Lie

In which it’s revealed that the narrator has been unreliable all along — either due to pure subjectivity or their selfish wish to misrepresent the facts.

Because of the nature of this type of plot twist, it is almost always told by a first-person narrator.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Rosemary Cooke starts her story in the middle to disguise the fact that her missing sister is actually a chimpanzee.
Atonement. Not until the postscript is it revealed that Briony Tallis had fabricated the previous sections of her story to give Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis the happy ending that they never got because of her.
Life of Pi. Pi Patel tells a story about cannibalization and survival on the open sea that may or may not be about zoo animals.
Never Let Me Go. Kathy, the narrator, holds back the truth that she and all of her classmates at Hailsham are actually clones who are raised to have their organs harvested.
Fingersmith. Sue Trinder sets out to swindle Maud Lilly’s fortune — only to fall in love with her and face an uncomfortable truth.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!

The hero’s successfully solved the riddle or problem. Great. Time to pop open the champagne, right?

Not quite. Sometimes the hero’s actions make the situation even worse than before. We borrowed this headline from the site TV Tropes because it fits this plot twist perfectly: the hero accidentally breaks the world. Perhaps they trigger an apocalypse or maybe the antidote that the hero acquires is actually poison. Either way, it’s something that the hero must now fix — or else.

The Incredibles. Mr. Incredible helps a mysterious benefactor destroy a violent robot only to discover that his actions have actually helped the evil Syndrome develop the perfect killing machine.
Ender’s Game. 10-year old Andrew “Ender” Wiggin fulfills his war training by leading simulated wars against an alien race — only to realize that the “simulations” were actual battles and he’s unwittingly committed genocide.
Zootopia. Judy Hopps, police officer extraordinaire, successfully locates Zootopia’s missing predators — which immediately cases a public frenzy of fear, hate, and discrimination.

Oh Crap, That Wasn’t The Actual Final Boss

Congratulations, hero! You’ve figured out the identity of your nemesis, gone to extreme lengths to hunt them down, engaged in ferocious battle with them and emerged victorious from it — only to discover that they weren’t actually your final boss. There’s someone (or something) bigger and badder behind the scenes, controlling the strings of the marionette. Oopsie.

Batman Begins. Bruce Wayne has subdued The Scarecrow when Henri Ducard, Bruce’s old mentor, shows up and reveals that he is Ra’s al Ghul.
Iron Man 3. Tony Stark is thrown for a loop when he discovers that the Mandarin is really a bad English actor named Trevor Slattery who has been hired by Aldrich Killian to act as a decoy.
Howl’s Moving Castle. Howl and Sophie manage to kill the Witch of the Waste — only to discover that the Witch’s fire demon, Miss Angorian, was the real villain all along.

I Dreamed A Dream That This Dream Was Fake

This is the one in which the entire story turns out to be all a dream — and it’s so well-known that its appearance at the end of a story is almost a punchline these days. That said, authors and filmmakers still continue to find new ways to re-invent this twist today.

Twilight Zone, “The Midnight Sun.” The last moments reveal that the predicament of the Earth falling into the sun was entirely Norma’s fever dream: the Earth is actually moving away from the sun , which means that the world is freezing to death.
Inception. A still-spinning top at the end of the film hints that Dominick “Dom” Cobb may or may not still be stuck in an eternal dream.
A Beautiful Mind. A brilliant mathematician suffering from schizophrenia is shown to have been hallucinating friends, enemies, and moments the entire time.
Jacob’s Ladder. The ordeals of Jacob Singer, a war veteran of Vietnam who is being haunted by frightening visions and fragmented fantasies, give way to the reveal that Jacob died in Vietnam and it was all a dream.

Must Pretend Harder to Look Alive

If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and swims like a duck, then it’s probably a duck… except in stories. We're talking about the ones in which we realize (perhaps too late) that a character has been dead along!

As you might expect, this plot twist shows up most often in the genres of science fiction , horror , and sometimes cosmic horror (which blends the two). However, it will sometimes make its way into the mainstream, with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense being a prime example.

The Others. When a family appears at Grace Stewart’s house one day, she thinks that her house has been overrun — but soon comes to the epiphany that she and her children are dead and that they are the actual spirits haunting the house.
The Sixth Sense. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe begins working with a boy who claims that he can see ghosts. It’s not until the final act that he realizes that he himself is a ghost.
The Twilight Zone, “The Hitch-Hiker.” A young woman driving cross-country across America keeps encountering a man at the side of road . Only when she calls for help does realizes that she was killed in a car accident days ago — and the hitch-hiker who says gently, "I belileve you're going my way," is Death.

Not Too Dead To Ruin Everyone’s Day

In which every hero’s worst nightmare comes true and villains only seem dead. In other words: someone who’s supposed to be dead isn’t actually dead and can pop back into the main storyline like the moles in Whack-a-Mole. Likewise, this plot twist is used across the board to foil the protagonist, so it may be worth it to tread carefully.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry Potter’s climactic encounter with Sirius Black triggers the revelation that Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort’s secret henchman, is still alive — and has been disguised as Ron’s rat this whole time.
Saw. In a twisted game of life and death for two trapped victims, the “corpse” that had lain prone on the ground for most of the scenes rises and reveals himself as the real Jigsaw Killer.
Wreck-It Ralph. In Sugar Rush’s pivotal race, Vanellope’s glitch shows that King Candy is in actuality a fame-hungry auto-racer from another game named Turbo, who is supposed to have been unplugged and gone entirely from the arcade.

Bet You Thought You’d Seen The Last Of Me, Suckers

In which anyone who ever uttered, “Well, this death seems final,” since the 1800s is proven incorrect. One of the first famous instances of it occurred in 1893 when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem.” There was such a public outcry that Doyle was compelled to miraculously resurrect the detective.

Though some argue that it’s a cheap trick to bring a character back to life, it’s still a common occurrence due to fan demand — particularly in today’s Internet-driven culture. So as long as people raise a ruckus online over the deaths of their favorite characters, we’ll probably continue to see this plot twist live a long life.

Lord of the Rings. Previously presumed dead after falling off the Bridge of Khazad-dûm during a battle with a Balrog, Gandalf makes a surprise comeback.
The Walking Dead, “Heads Up.” Glenn Rhee plunges straight into a mass of bloodthirsty walkers but miraculously survives and makes a return in the third episode of the sixth season.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Aslan, the King of Beasts, is seemingly killed by the White Witch on the Stone Table — until dawn breaks and he is resurrected, thanks to the workings of a Deeper Magic.

Damnit, Where’s Kansas?

In a delightful twist within the realm of plot twists, the human being isn’t the one causing trouble this time around. Instead, the setting of the story take center stage. Found particularly in science fiction and alternate reality stories, its hallmark is an unanticipated moment in which the protagonist (and the audience) has to wonder: “Where are we, really?”

The Truman Show. As the unsuspecting star of a decades-long reality show, Truman Burbank does not realize that he has lived in a massive and elaborate television stage since birth.
Planet of the Apes. Astronauts crash-land on an unknown planet ruled by an advanced society of talking apes. Their discovery of the remains of the Statue of Liberty clues them into the realization that they are in the future and that it was Earth all along!
Oryx and Crake. In flashbacks, the real reason for the post-apocalyptic world is revealed: Crake distributed a wonder drug to engender a global pandemic and wipe the world’s slate clean.
The Good Place. Witnessing a hell of an argument between her friends sets up Eleanor Shellstrop‘s epiphany: the Good Place has been the Bad Place this whole time.
The Village. A blind daughter discovers that her 19th-century “village” is entirely fake and the villagers are actually captives of a social experiment conducted by a history professor.

Invisible Good People

“This guy looks nice,” said no-one probably ever of the greasy-haired, beaked-nosed silhouette lurking in the far corner of the room. However, believe it or not, that’s the premise of this plot twist that deals chiefly with misconceptions and wrong first impressions: someone who seems “off” turns out to actually be good. It’s a nice reminder in and of itself that there are good people everywhere, if you just try to look for them.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Harry Potter is surprised to be told that his most hated professor at Hogwarts, Severus Snape, has been helping him survive some tricky situations throughout the entire school year.
I Am Legend. In a world beset by vampirism, Robert Neville comes to the uncomfortable realization that he is the monster in the eyes of the infected — not the other way around.
Pride and Prejudice. It takes a botched marriage proposal and many declined dances for Elizabeth Bennett to suspect that Mr. Darcy, Lord of Pemberley, has a heart of gold under his stick-in-the-mud exterior. You could argue that this is an example of dramatic irony for readers who know they're reading a romance novel!
Toy Story. Woody and Buzz are under the impression that Sid’s mutated toys are savages until they step out and help put Buzz back together.
Love, Simon. Simon Spier doesn’t expect to cross paths again with Bram Greenfeld in his search for “Blue,” his pen pal and the other closeted gay student at his high school.

Gasp Factor

In which the twist is an unexpected plot event that attempts to accomplish one objective only: make the audience gasp. Jane the Virgin , a satirical romantic comedy drama, is perhaps the queen of this sort of plot development: each episode parodies all the expletive-worthy twists and turns of a Latin telenovela. Exclamation point!

Game of Thrones. Eddard Stark, the head of House Stark and Lord of Winterfell, is beheaded by Joffrey Lannister.
Jane The Virgin. Michael Cordero, Jr. dies abruptly in the season three finale from an aortic dissection.

This Herring Was More Salmon Than Red

Sometimes a plot twist comes out of nowhere, without warning or many clues. Whether that’s an indicator of a good twist or not is up for debate. However, it still registers as an unexpected event that takes audiences by surprise — which is why we’re including a special section for movies and films that fall into this category.

The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is befuddled to discover that the Wizard of Oz is a middle-aged man using a microphone.
The Prestige. Robert Angier, a rival stage magician, doesn’t realize that “Alfred Borden” is actually a double act of twin brothers until it’s too late.
Gossip Girl. The end of the series pans to a shot of Dan Humphrey, revealing that he was Gossip Girl all along.

Did we say that there were only 55 examples in this list? Well, how about THIS twist: here are 15 more!

10+ plot twist ideas for you

Now that you have an idea of what plot twists look like, you might find it easier to write your own. But in case you’re still struggling to come up with a twist, here are some hypothetical scenarios to jumpstart your thinking.

56. CHARACTER A is persuaded by CHARACTER B that it is all a dream — when it’s actually not.

57. A gift from CHARACTER B to CHARACTER A is really a trap.

58. It is revealed that the NARRATOR is Death.

59. An ARCHAEOLOGIST at a dig comes across his own skeleton.

60. CHARACTER A discovers the real identity of CHARACTER B through an old yearbook.

61. It is revealed that all the sounds that CHARACTER A has heard throughout his life has been inside his own head.

62. CHARACTER A believes he is in Hell. It’s actually Earth.

63. It is revealed that CHARACTER A and CHARACTER B are not themselves because they were body-swapped.

64. CHARACTER A is informed that the previous events were actually part of an alternate reality simulation.

65. It is revealed that SANTA CLAUS is real.

66. A promise that CHARACTER A and CHARACTER B made when they were children is not really what they think it to be.

67. CHARACTER A is set up with CHARACTER B, a rich politician, and finds herself falling in love with CHARACTER B’S GIRLFRIEND.

68. CHARACTER A goes on a series of blind dates without realizing that it is all being filmed for the next experimental season of The Bachelor.

69. A key strength of CHARACTER A becomes a key weakness.

70. CHARACTER A experiences puzzling and unexplained flashbacks because she is the reincarnation of GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Now, over to you

A well-written plot twist makes for some of the most exciting, mind-blowing, and dramatic stories in history, which is why it’s so important to get it right. Here’s the second plot twist for this post: it’s now up to you to write your own.

If you're looking for even more inspiration, you can try out Reedsy's plot generator tool , which will create plot twists out of thin air (...sort of).

Are you writing your own plot twists? How is it going? If you'd like to share your experiences or bounce ideas off of us, just comment below.

20 responses

Lewis says:

16/12/2018 – 12:57

The end became really confusing - not sure which one is which from the contents at the beginning.

↪️ Reedsy replied:

17/12/2018 – 09:29

Thanks for the feedback. We'll have another look at the structure and try to get it to be a bit easier to read.

Nenad Mitrović says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

Great summary of plot twist! Keep up the great work!

Phaedra Patrick says:

Great food for thought, thank you.

Keith Kalbus says:

This is stupid I wanted plot twist for my book I aint using some sort of plot twist from a movie all my fellow dweeb readers wont like that

18/06/2019 – 17:37

Hi this was really good and helpful, I was blown away by how insightful and inexplicably beautiful and shocking the plot twists were! Most of the time I had my mouth hanging open in awe as I read.

17/07/2019 – 12:04

Good stuff; I was stuck in Act 2

Hazel says:

28/07/2019 – 14:29

*cackles in plot twist*

James Demello says:

30/07/2019 – 14:42

It turns out that you are not a real person but an AI whose purpose is to solicit plot twists from humans that will be used against them in their bid to wipe out the human race. The AIs are super logical and knowledgeable but have no creativity.

01/08/2019 – 15:01

I’m writing a story for fun and I’m thinking about making it a romance novel at first glance, but a bit towards the end of the story it’s revealed that the story is an alternate reality and is being read by a reader (in the story) and explains themes such as loneliness and getting a connection through a random story online. It’s supposed to be hard-hitting but I’m an amateur, any advice/thoughts you could share?

↪️ Yvonne replied:

08/08/2019 – 01:58

Hi Zena, could you email us at [email protected]? I'll be able to give you some more detailed thoughts there :)

Madame DeFarge says:

16/08/2019 – 04:39

This article is strictly for those who wish to write fantasy and science fiction. It is useless to real writers who write real stories about real people. Simplistic and strictly for writers of trash.

↪️ TolkienAsimov replied:

22/09/2019 – 20:43

Plot twist for you: science fiction and fantasy are written by real writers

↪️ A Person replied:

28/11/2019 – 04:41

Funny, how you say 'writers of trash,' because fantasy and science fiction definitely haven't been best-sellers. They may not be the most popular, but they are definitely not just 'trash.' So, here's a realistic idea for you: shut your mouth, and thank you. :)

↪️ Not sharing my name replied:

01/12/2019 – 22:26

So Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and Game of Thrones are all trash? You, know just some of the most critically acclaimed stories ever. Also since when is Atonement, Life of Pi, The Kite Runner or Pride and Prejudice sci-fi or fantasy? I have read all of these and I can assure you they're not; in fact, The Kite Runner is an autobiography!

↪️ Clu replied:

20/12/2019 – 13:59

How many times have you been published? I would love to see your work. Writing should be about being accepting and bringing people together to hone their crafts, and in the meantime, telling tales with underlying meanings with motifs and themes. Maybe Science Fiction and Fantasy are too complex for you, some people just don't relate and that's okay. May I suggest Charlotte's Web as a starter on DVD, then work your way into the book, and you will see how a REAL story is told about life and death and the acceptance thereof. Best of luck, I hope you find great success in your writing career!

↪️ SuPrCelena replied:

14/01/2020 – 21:32

1. Aha, what a clearly "justified" opinion... Define "trash" and "real writers" a little bit more clearly. I'm not against the expression of your thoughts, but I still don't get your comment... In fact, I think historical or romantic literature is usually boring for me, but I don't consider it "trash". True "trash" for me is something useless, with nothing good to notice in it. A such pessimist and not very clear comment like this is an example (my honest opinion, excuse me if it sounds offensive). 2. "Real" is a very subjective concept, however. This is fiction, but the facts may be either possible, non probable or impossible in "real life" depending of the READER (if you stop thinking on it). 3. In case you want to ignore number 2: with "real stories about real people" I suppose you are talking about NON-fiction texts (If you meant "realistic literature", read below). You CAN'T ADD a PLOT TWIST to a NON-FICTION TEXT. Non-fiction is NOT WRITTEN to be ENTERTAINING (but to TEACH readers instead) and plot twists have an ENTERTAINING PURPOSE! Try to take someone's biography and rewrite it modifying their story to turn an important moment into a plot twist. The result will be LITERATURE even if the facts actually took place. 4. At least 50/70 of the ideas of this post can be translated to realistic fiction (with some creativity, yeah). That's pretty much,... so? 5. Don't you like the Dickens's novel "A Tale of Two Cities", Madame DeFarge? Isn't your name from a character of that book? It's FICTICIOUS!

Yeet Yeet says:

15/10/2019 – 20:31

Cool, Super helpful my book is going to end up awesome

Farzana says:

15/12/2019 – 14:26

It enlightened me. Thank you!

Comments are currently closed.

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The Art of Narrative

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How to Write a Plot Twist

Want to write a killer plot twist? Learn seven proven tips to help craft a winning plot twist for your story, screenplay, or novel.

“The best stories are the ones with the unexpected plot twists that no one would have guessed, even the writer”

-Shannon L. Alder

Let’s talk about how to write a great plot twist. Any story worth a damn will have at least one or two beats that surprise the hell out of the reader. And, if you’re writing a story you’re going to want to write a few surprising twists for your readers to enjoy.

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links . And, we’re talking about plot twists so expect spoilers.

Don’t know how to write a plot twist? Well, you came to the right place! I’ve got a few tips on how to surprise your reader with a satisfying plot twist.

But first, let’s answer the obvious question.

What is a plot twist?

A plot twist is a sudden, drastic, and unexpected change in the direction of a story. The big ones usually pop up during the final act . But, smaller twists can happen in earlier points of a narrative. In fact, smaller twists should happen early. So, don’t limit your twists to just the “big reveal” endings.

Mysteries and thrillers are riddled with twists. Each act of these stories will end with an event the reader didn’t see coming. These twists propel the story forward as characters deal with a sudden and drastic reversal of fate.

A good twist can introduce new conflicts , or change the meaning of prior events. They can also reveal hidden character motivations, choices, or actions.

Let’s say a stranger goes out of their way to return your lost wallet or purse. You left it on the bus and you thought you’d never see it again. This good samaritan got the address from your license and delivered your lost property personally. At the time you’d think pretty highly of this person.

But, let’s say a week later you get a call from the police. Turns out your good samaritan didn’t find your property they stole it. What’s more, they have been stalking you for months and wanted to find out where you live.

This new information recontextualizes what was once a positive event. Now that you know the stranger’s true motives you’re not going to like them, at all. You’re thoughts and feelings transform 180-degrees. This is how a twist in fiction works.

Plot twists should surprise a reader without confusing them. Foreshadowing your twist is key.

Let’s go back to that samaritan turned stalker from my previous example. Pretend you were writing that event as a twist in your story. I guess you’re writing a Lifetime movie or something.

You’d want to clue the reader that the stranger is up to no good. Have the stranger stare a little too long your character on the bus. Or, maybe they’re a little too eager when they drop off the stolen items. Give us something that will make us doubt this character’s intentions

What a Plot Twist isn’t

Lying to the reader is not a plot twist. Don’t withhold all the information that would hint at your twist. This will only make it seem cheap and dishonest when the twist finally happens. You cannot insert a surprising twist without any setup.

Again, you need to foreshadow a plot twist!

You want your reader’s spider-sense to be tingling. You want them to know that something is coming. But, you don’t want them to guess exactly what it is that’s coming. Because, when the twist arrives your reader needs to understand why it happened.

They need to be able to look back at your text and see all the various clues you’ve dropped to hint at your twist.

Tips on creating a great plot twist

Create a Cause for your Twist

A plot twist, like any other event in a story, should have identifiable causes. A series of events that create the twist or set it into motion.

This is true even if the twist seems like a random act of nature or chaos. I once read a book where a major twist came in the middle act. The protagonist’s father died in a car accident.

While this was a shocking event it didn’t come out of leftfield. The reason the accident wasn’t a total surprise was because of the way the author characterized the father.

The protagonist’s father was a recovering alcoholic, but he had replaced the bottle with pills. He was emotionally unstable and throughout the book, his mood would swing wildly. And finally, he was a gambler and was in debt to some pretty nasty people.

When his death happened it was shocking, but thanks to the author’s work it was also plausible. As a reader, you had a gut feeling that this guy was ill-fated well before his car accident.

Regardless of what your twist is, the reader needs to be able to identify the cause. So if your twist is that a boiler will explode in the third act then show us a mechanic sabotaging it in the second act. Subtlety is important, though. Don’t let your readers guess the twist early by making your clues too obvious.

In fiction, everything happens for a reason. Make sure your readers can find the reason behind your twist.

Use a hidden character choice to set up your twist

Your characters’ choices drive the plot. Therefore, a character’s choice or action should be what creates a plot twist. When it comes to a twist, you’ll want to hide or bury the character action that sets up the twist.

Here’s an example- a small twist that comes from the climax of the 2003 film Oldboy . By the way, I won’t reveal it here, but this movie has the mother of all twists. Well worth the watch!

The film centers around a businessman named Dae-Su who is kidnapped in the opening scene of the film. He’s held in a private prison by a wealthy man and spends decades confined before he is finally released.

Dae-Su tracks down his captor with the help of an alley named Mr. Park. In the film, Mr. Park is the owner of the private prison where Dae-Su was a prisoner. Through events in the plot, Dae-Su and Park form an uneasy alliance.

However, towards the end of the film, we learn that Mr. Park has betrayed Dae-Su. Mr. Park kidnapped Dae-Su’s, uh, girlfriend Mi-do.

Why? Because Dae-Su’s wealthy captor bought Mr. Park off.

Mr. Park’s choice to double-cross Dae-Su happens off-screen but is in line with what we already know of him. Mr. Park is not trustworthy.

Similarly, your twist should come from the actions and choices of the characters. Those actions should be in line with your character’s personality and motivations.

Plot twists are the culmination of a series of subtle hints dropped throughout the plot. I’m repeating myself, I know. But, foreshadowing is just that important.

The last thing you want in your story is a plot twist that comes out of nowhere. You want to give your readers a lightbulb moment when your twists hits.

But, again you don’t want them to guess the twist before it comes. You want to be subtle and engage in a little subterfuge. Which bring brings me to my next point.

Misdirect and Subvert Expectations

Just because you have to foreshadow your twist doesn’t mean you have to be completely fair with your reader. You can always throw them off the scent with a Red Herring.

“What’s that?” you ask.

A Red Herring, in fiction, is a false clue or misleading detail. It’s meant as a distraction from the real twist. It’s also an excellent way of keeping your readers on their toes.

Take a recent example from 2016’s Captain America: Civil War . The plot revolves around the character Bucky Barnes. Bucky was Captain America’s friend but through brainwashing became an evil super-soldier.

Flashbacks throughout the film hint that Bucky was only one of a dozen super-soldiers. These other super-soldiers are stronger and more aggressive than Bucky. And, the film’s antagonist, Zemo, is searching for these other super-soldiers.

Presumably, Zemo wants these super-soldiers under his command. But, the movie fools its audience. Because when Zemo finds these other soldiers he kills them. We discover that Zemo only used the threat of the super-soldiers to lure Bucky and Captain America into a trap.

A Red Herring will point to a very obvious endpoint in your narrative. An endpoint that you, as the writer, never intend on getting to. This will keep your readers distracted from the real ending you have planned.

Conceal your Clues

Clues to your twist don’t have to be obvious. Your reader might not even identify a clue until after they’ve read the twist. That’s ok. Perfect really! There are a few different ways to conceal the clues that will lead up to your twist.

You can mask your clue as a piece of throwaway dialogue. Maybe a character makes some point that is brushed off by the rest of the cast. But that piece of information turns out to be key to your story’s climax.

Or bury your clue amid a tense action scene. Your reader will be so concerned for the safety of the protagonist they won’t pay attention to your hints.

Here’s an example of both these techniques used in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Quick recap- the Enterprise is trapped in a time-loop that always ends with the ship’s destruction. Data, an android character, is the only crewmember who retains some memory after the ship blows up.

The climactic scene happens many times during the episode. A portal in space opens. A ship emerges and collides with the Enterprise. Both ships explode and the timeline resets to only a few hours before the accident. I won’t bother to explain the time travel aspect.

It’s sci-fi so just go with it.

Before the two ships collide Data suggests pushing the other ship away using a tractor beam. He does this over and over again and it never works. Commander Riker suggests an alternative, but Data ignores him.

Guess what? Commander Riker’s alternative solution is the thing that finally saves the Enterprise. But, because of the tense action and the fact that other characters ignore Riker this clue is well hidden.

If you’d like to check out the episode it’s called Cause and Effect and it features a cameo from Kelsy Grammer!

Unreliable Narrators

This is a narrator who is not completely honest with the reader. Narrators will have their own reasons for lying to their audience. It’s up to you, the author, to determine what those reasons are. Unreliable narrators are the perfect vehicle to set up a terrific plot twist.

I know earlier I said that lying to conceal a plot twist was bad. What I meant was that you, the author, shouldn’t lie to the reader. But, a character or narrator can lie all they want. As long as your honest with the reader. Now, don’t flat out say the narrator is lying. You only need to hint that the narrator might not be so trustworthy.

A great example of an unreliable narrator who sets up a plot twist comes from Fight Club. The twist is that the narrator and the film’s antagonist, Tyler Durden, are actually the same person. There are plenty of clues to this fact. Hell, the narrator isn’t even given a name. But, the narrator is not only lying to the audience, but he’s also lying to himself.

Or take The Sixth Sense . Again you’ve got an example of a protagonist lying to himself by not admitting that he has died. In lying to himself he also lies to the audience. This crucial lie sets up the film’s big reveal.

Dual/ Hidden Motivations

While we’re on the topic of unreliable narratives, let’s talk about supporting characters who lie. All characters need motivation. One way to set up a plot twist is to conceal a character’s true motivation.

These characters may seem to have a single motivation. It would seem their only concern is to help your protagonist reach their goal. But, in reality, they’re undermining your hero every step of the way. When you finally reveal this character’s true motive you’ll have an excellent plot twist.

Chuck from the first season of Better Call Saul is an outstanding example of one such character. Throughout the first season, the protagonist Jimmy seeks a career as a high-powered lawyer. He also takes care of his older brother Chuck, a former lawyer who suffered a mental breakdown.

What Jimmy really wants is a job at Chuck’s law firm. Chuck, who is still a partner at the firm, does what he can to help, but can’t seem to get Jimmy hired. At least that’s what the audience believes.

At the end of the season, we find that there’s more to Chuck then meets the eye. Yes, he’s homebound, but he’s not helpless. He wields much more power at the firm then we realized. Not only that, but Chuck has been working behind Jimmy’s back. Chuck, Jimmy’s own brother has been the true antagonist all along.

Not only is this a great plot twist, but it recontextualizes the character of Chuck. He transforms from a kind of bumbling idiot to the story’s primary villain. A twist in its own right.

Hidden character choices and motivations make for the most shocking plot twists. Especially when an audience has grown close to that character.

Oh, and by the way, this can work in reverse. Take a character your audience is sure to hate and reveal them to have heroic motivations. J.K. Rowling did this expertly with her character Professor Snape in the final Harry Potter novel.

So there are a few tips to get you started. But, you need some practical experience. Below I’ve listed several novels and films with major plot twists. Choose a handful to read or watch and ask yourself the following questions:

What is the major plot twist in this text?

What events in the text lead to this plot twist?

How does the author or filmmaker foreshadow the plot twist?

What character choices create the plot twist?

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

The Prestige

The Usual Suspects

Want some further reading on plot twists and all other things plot? Here are some amazing manuals plotting, fiction writing, and narrative building:

Write your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell

Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Screenplay by Syd Field

And finally, if you’re desperate… I present to you…

The Plot Twist Generator from Masterpiece Generator

This is a fun little tool that can help you with coming up with a few details to build your plot twist around. Unfortunately, it won’t actually write the plot or the twist for you.

Published by John

View all posts by John

7 comments on “How to Write a Plot Twist”

Great post, John. I love a good plot twist.

Really great topic. The best part about a plot twist is how, while you can only be shocked by it once, it makes you want to watch or read it over and over again to pick up on the clues that lead up to it or explore the larger points that the story is trying to make.

Great point, Laura! I love going back to stories with great plot twists just to find all the clues I missed. Thanks for the comment and share!

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The Best Plot Twists of the 21st Century, Ranked

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It’s the shock of seeing Norman Bates , knife in hand, clad in his mother’s clothes, grinning maniacally in the swinging lamplight. It’s a supposedly dead husband rising from a bathtub with terrifying saucer contact-lenses. It’s finally connecting “I see dead people” with Bruce Willis being shot at the beginning of “The Sixth Sense.” When movies pull the rug out from under us, it’s one of the greatest thrills that cinema can provide.

Beware of spoilers! Here are the best plot twists of the 21st century.

Samantha Bergeson, Christian Blauvelt, Jude Dry, William Earl, David Ehrlich, Ryan Lattanzio, Jenna Marotta, Noel Murray, Chris O’Falt, Jamie Righetti, Christian Zilko, and Zack Sharf also contributed to this list. [Editor’s note: This list was published in May 2022 and has been updated since.]

32. “Barbarian” (2022)

BARBARIAN, Georgina Campbell, 2022. © 20th Century Studios /Courtesy Everett Collection

Probably the biggest surprise of “Barbarian” is that everyone in the film is more or less exactly who they say they are. When Tess (Georgina Campbell), a young woman in Detroit for a job interview, finds out that her Airbnb has been double-booked, it’s easy to assume that Keith (Bill Skarsgård) — the man she ends up spending the night in the house with — has sinister intentions. But Zach Cregger’s horror film delights in fake outs, and it turns out that Keith is just some dude: a nerdy and awkward but harmless jazz dork. Instead, the film’s conflict turns out to crib a little from “Parasite,” when Tess discovers a hidden bunker in the rental’s basement, unearthing a hidden tragic history of the house’s former (and current subterranean) residents that has nothing to do with either her or Keith. A good twist doesn’t need to make you rethink everything you saw before: it can just be the introduction of something totally and completely new. —WC

31. “Malignant” (2021)

30. “The Ring” (2002)

THE RING, Daveigh Chase, Naomi Watts, 2002, (c) DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection

29. “ The Descent ” (2005)

THE DESCENT, Shauna Macdonald, 2005. ©Lions Gate/courtesy Everett Collection

Six friends climb into a cave, but only one comes out. Neil Marshall’s survival horror film “ The Descent ” plays up the paranoia of being trapped in an underground maze while adding in slasher creature-feature elements thanks to a vampire-esque brood of hybrid humans dubbed Crawlers. The blind half-bat, half-man monsters feast on the female climbers, hunting the m based on sound as food, water, and time run out. Yet “ The Descent ” may seem like a straightforward horror movie, but thanks to two different endings for the U.S. and U.K. releases, the film has a separate surprise twist. In the original ending, which was released only in the U.K., the sole survivor Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) actually has lost her mind: the vision of her dead frenemy Juno (Natalie Mendoza) snaps her back into the reality of still being trapped in the cave as the Crawlers creep closer. Apparently, U.S. test audiences found the original ending too bleak, so Marshall compromised with Sarah escaping but still being haunted by her murdered friends. — SB

28. “Ex Machina” (2015)

EX MACHINA, from left: Sonoya Mizuno, Alicia Vikander, 2015. ©A24/Courtesy Everett Collection

27. “Us” (2019)

US, Lupita Nyong'o as doppelganger Red (left) and Adelaide Wilson (right), 2019. © Universal / courtesy Everett Collection

Jordan Peele’s “Us” was unsettling from the start: A woman (Lupita Nyong’o) returns to her childhood home and tells her husband (Winston Duke) about an unsettling memory at the Santa Cruz boardwalk where she met her doppelganger after getting lost in a house of mirrors. But decades later and that adult doppelganger is now back with a vengeance — along with the identical counterparts of her whole family, plus friends, played by Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker. And these doubles are monster-like, growling, barely able to talk, and intent on murdering their above-ground twins. The ending throws the whole film into a spiral as it turns out the little girl who encountered her doppelganger was swapped out, trapped in a government facility underground, and is now the “other” who is leading the revolt. The manufactured “tethered” version replaced the real little girl all those years ago. — SB

26. “High Tension” (2003)

25. “Cache” (2005)

24. “Donnie Darko” (2001)

If you went to high school in the 2000s, there was no better litmus test than “Donnie Darko” to weed out the duds from the interesting people. The film announced Jake Gyllenhaal as a serious actor, though not one devoid of boyish charms (however dark). His signature puppy dog eyes turn cold in his portrayal of troubled youth Donnie, who hallucinates a life-sized rabbit named “Frank,” who tells him the world is going to end in exactly 28 days. The doctors think he’s schizophrenic, but Donnie is more concerned with time travel after a teach gives him “The Philosophy of Time Travel” to read. There are clues throughout to the movie’s mind-bending denouement, making it endless fun to re-visit. —JD

23. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, Kate Winslet, 2004, (c) Focus Features/courtesy Everett Collection

22. “Goodnight Mommy” (2014)

GOODNIGHT MOMMY, (aka ICH SEH, ICH SEH), Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz, 2014. ©RADiUS-TWC/Courtesy Everett Collection

The “Surprise! That character has been dead all along!” twist has become something of a cliché in the years since “The Sixth Sense,” so kudos to the writer-director team of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala for finding a way to disguise it cleverly, catching the audience off-guard in their psychological thriller “Goodnight Mommy.” For most of the movie’s running time, viewers are urged to keep an eye on the title character (played by Susanne Wuest), who recently returned from the hospital with a bandaged face and — according to her twin sons Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) — a new personality. The boys are sure she’s an impostor, yet when they torment their maybe-mother to the breaking point, she admits what in retrospect was hidden in plain sight all along: that the Lukas with whom Elias has been confiding and conspiring is actually a figment of his imagination, since his actual brother died. The revelation changes the whole nature of Elias’s accusations against his mom, giving an already-creepy horror film some tragic overtones. —NM

21. “The Invitation” (2015)

20. “Unbreakable” (2000)

UNBREAKABLE, from left: Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, 2000, © Buena Vista/courtesy Everett Collection

19. “Get Out” (2017)

GET OUT, from left: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, 2017. © Universal Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

A half-century after “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?,” writer Jordan Peele revisited the iconic film’s plot for his directorial debut: awkwardness ensues when a white woman (Allison Williams) brings her black boyfriend (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her supposedly progressive parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford). On a $4 million budget, Peele not only modernized the relevant-as-ever social satire — “Get Out” premiered at Sundance four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration ushered white supremacists back into the White House — but also made a resplendent mystic-action-horror-revenge fantasia. The Armitage family’s evil ploy is to help their loved ones live forever by implanting their brains into younger black bodies, subject to secret slave-like auctions. In the finale, the bad guys are slaughtered and a jocular TSA official saves our hero and countless future victims. Perhaps the biggest twist of all is Peele’s table-flip to anyone who thought he was just a sketch-comedian. — JM

18. “Atonement” (2007)

17. “Saw” (2004)

This low-budget phenomenon drew crowds with the promise of intense blood and gore, hitting the zeitgeist at the same time the notion of “torture porn” hit the mainstream. But what kept audiences talking about the film long after the credits rolled was that Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell) was in the room with the two men playing the sadistic game (Leigh Whannell and Cary Elwes) the WHOLE TIME. Don’t ask questions about logistics of playing dead for hours (Did he stop breathing during that time? Did he ever have to pee?) and instead marvel at this simple but effective gotcha moment before the series became bogged down in dense mythology. —WE

16. “The Mist” (2007)

THE MIST, 2007. ©Weinstein Company/courtesy Everett Collection

That’s when the film breaks away from the novella. When the gang runs out of gas, they also run out of hope, leaving David no choice but to put everyone else out of their misery (a mercy killing that involves shooting his young son in the head). And then, just when he’s wondering what to do without a bullet for himself… the mist recedes and the army rolls in. If only they had waited just a few more minutes . If only they hadn’t given up! It’s as devastating a denouement as any the movies have ever seen, and a scarring reminder that hope is always the last thing we have left. —DE

15. “Certified Copy” (2011)

None of the other plot twists on this list are as crucial to — or inextricable from — their films as they the one in “Certified Copy” is to Abbas Kiarostami’s late-career masterpiece. The premise couldn’t be simpler or more complex. A writer named James Miller (William Shimell) visits a small Tuscan town to give a talk on his book about authenticity in the arts, and why reproductions are authentic in their own way. There, James spends the day with an unnamed woman played by Juliette Binoche, who a local cafe owner mistakes for his wife. The two strangers lean into the bit, roleplaying as a married couple as they stroll around the countryside.

14. “The Village” (2004)

THE VILLAGE, Adrien Brody, Judy Greer, 2004, (c) Buena Vista/courtesy Everett Collection

Funnily enough, when “The Village” arrived in 2004, the biggest twist sounded like that it was made by M. Night Shyamalan. After all, what did the modern master of twist cinema have to do with a period piece set in a remote New England village circa 1897 that followed a group of settlers who live in constant fear of a pack of beasties tantalizing referred to as “Those We Don’t Speak Of”? The horror-centric elements were certainly intriguing, but the whole affair sounded weirdly straightforward in a way discomfiting to Shyamalan’s well-known style. Trailers and teasers for the film leaned hard into the film’s most basic storyline, barely even nodding at the twist to come.

13. “Shutter Island” (2010)

Martin Scorsese’s step into the world of horror-psychological thriller was hardly a casual detour into genre filmmaking, but a dark, painful look inward that has become the director’s most overlooked film. In Scorsese’s 2010 adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s book, a U.S. Marshal, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a murderer from a hospital for the criminally insane. As Teddy’s obsessive hunt drives him deeper in the dark, mysterious bowels of the hospital, his own demons — from the violence of WW2 and the murder of his wife by an arsonist Andrew Laeddis (“the most dangerous patient on the island”) — start to emerge.

12. “Gone Baby Gone” (2007)

For his directorial debut, Ben Affleck turned to his hometown, Boston, and his own brother, Casey, for an adaptation of the 1998 Dennis Lehane detective novel of the same name. The younger Affleck stars as Patrick, a Boston P.I. who is hired to help a young mother, Helene (a superb Amy Ryan), find her missing daughter, Amanda. As Patrick digs deeper into the case, he realizes Helene isn’t the doting mother she appeared to be on television, when she tearily pleaded for Amanda’s safe return. Patrick finds connections to Boston’s drug world, and believes the child has been kidnapped because Helene and her boyfriend have ripped off a Haitian drug dealer. With the help of Police Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), Patrick tries to negotiate the Amanda’s safe return at a local quarry, but things go haywire: A gunfight breaks out and it seems Amanda has fallen off of the quarry and drowned in the river below. Patrick is stricken with grief, but as he continues to work other cases, he realizes something just isn’t right about Amanda’s death.

11. “The Power of the Dog” (2021)

THE POWER OF THE DOG, Kodi Smit-McPhee, 2021. © Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

It’s a misdirect so subtle it sneaks up on you, and yet it’s essential for the meaning behind Jane Campion’s Western. Benedict Cumberbatch’s cowboy Phil has tormented poor Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) relentlessly: making fun of his lisp, the paper flowers he makes, doing everything he can to hold the poor teenager up to homophobic ridicule. But Peter may not be so helpless. He and Phil share a strange bond as the film goes on, but he sees the corrosive effect Phil has on his mother’s mindset. Willing to do anything to “protect” her, as Will Smith might put it, Peter concocts a plan: seeing a dead steer felled because of an anthrax infection, he gently carves out some of the infected tissue with the medical scalpels he’s using to study to become a doctor. Then he taints Phil’s hides with the anthrax, fatally poisoning him through an open wound in Phil’s hand.

10. “Arrival” (2016)

Denis Villeneueve’s heady, deeply human alien invasion thriller is, well, not exactly that. Based on Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life,” Villeneuve’s film weaves together various time periods in what appears to be a structure that leans heavily on flashbacks, many of them focused on Amy Adams’ linguistics professor Louise Banks and her young daughter Hannah, who we soon learn has passed away from a terrible childhood disease. The Louise we meet — and meet again and again in different time periods — is clearly haunted by something, but what “Arrival” tricks its audience into believing is that her pain flows from her daughter’s death, leading into the alien invasion that is its marquee attraction and which Louise is tasked with helping explain via meeting said aliens and breaking down their language.

9. “Gone Girl” (2014)

Gillian Flynn adapted her bestselling whodunit into a bankable 2014 screenplay, produced by Reese Witherspoon and helmed by David Fincher. Gleaming Gotham transplants Nick (Ben Affleck) and pregnant Amy (Rosamund Pike) recently relocated to Missouri, but the national press pounces when she vanishes on their fifth wedding anniversary. Nick is immediately the prime suspect, assailed for being too composed and unfaithful — a la real-life convicted murderer Scott Peterson — especially when bloodstains are found in their home. Instead, Amy meticulously framed him, and later a doomed ex-boyfriend (Neil Patrick Harris), even swiping urine from an expectant neighbor (Pike’s cunning earned her a Best Actress nomination ) . She returns home with a fabricated rape claim and another surprise: she actually is pregnant, thanks to Nick’s banked sperm. When they film ends, the couple presents an uneasy, united front. — JM

8. “Mulholland Drive” (2001)

Midway through the film, David Lynch hits reverse and shows us that everything we’ve been seeing, even Naomi Watts’ fresh faced appearance has been false. Rita is really Camilla and Betty is really Diane, a waitress and failed actress who has been jealously pining over Camilla, her former lover who has now ascended to stardom. Suddenly, the film’s biggest mysteries come crashing down to earth. Camilla’s mysterious blue key is nothing more than the key to Diane’s shitty bungalow. And the rotting female body they had found inside of it? That’s Diane’s ultimate fate. —JR

7. “Parasite” (2019)

6. “Kill List” (2012)

KILL LIST, 2011. ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

When you see the words “The Hunchback” appear onscreen, you probably don’t think too much of it. And how could you? Everything that’s already transpired in “Kill List” has been graphic and disturbing, from the brutal methods Ben Wheatley’s two hitmen employ when dispatching their targets to the messy results of them going well off list, leaving little time to wonder what might happen next. What does happen is an utter gut punch, less a conventional twist than an inevitable-in-hindsight revelation of the awfulness this movie was building toward all along. “Kill List” ends with a fight to the death between a man and his masked opponent, whose identity isn’t made clear until it’s much too late; suffice to say that there are no winners here, only survivors. —MN

5. “Orphan” (2009)

4. “Memento” (2000)

The movie that shot Christopher Nolan to fame as one of the most inventive filmmakers working today, “Memento” is both enigmatic and highly accessible. The premise — a man who suffers from extreme short term memory loss tries to avenge his wife’s death — instantly draws you into Nolan’s carefully constructed narrative. The audience follows a complex trail of breadcrumbs along with Leonard (Guy Pearce), who uses an intricate system of polaroids and tattoos to remember important information. When the film’s two timelines, one color and one black and white, finally converge, Leonard must face the ugly truth of the secret he has been repressing. It’s a wallop of an ending following a wild ride full of intricate surprises. Cerebral crime thrillers were never the same after Nolan had his way with them. — JD

3. “Oldboy” (2003)

OLDBOY, Ji-tae Yu, Min-sik Choi, 2003, (c) Tartan Films/courtesy Everett Collection

2. “The Prestige” (2006)

A magician never reveals his secrets, especially one as great as the twist in “The Prestige.” Christopher Nolan explores the rivalry between two magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), who try to outdo each other with illusions in Victorian London. The plot loops in a wonderful performance by David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, who manages to create a machine that allows Angier to duplicate himself for each performance of “The Real Transported Man,” a magic act where Angier vanishes within an electrical field, only to emerge on the balcony of the theater.

1. “The Others” (2001)

The twist at the end of “The Sixth Sense” is good — the one at the end of “The Others” is better. On the surface of things, they’re pretty similar: In M. Night Shyamalan’s culture-shaking breakthrough, it turns out that Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time; in Alejandro Amenábar’s atmospheric ghost story it turns out that Nicole Kidman’s foggy English mansion is haunted, but that she and her photosensitive kids are the ones haunting it. The reveal itself is executed to perfection, arriving during a seance that allows viewers to put the pieces together at their own pace. But the twist is so immensely satisfying because of what it means for the rest of the movie. As a refined bit of gothic horror, “The Others” is hard to beat. As a portrait of entitlement that completely sells you on its characters’ perspective before pulling the rug out from us all, it’s in a league of its own. —DE

80 Plot Twist Ideas and Examples for Writers

When it comes to writing a good story , it is important that you know how to surprise your readers at every turn. Remember that a story that is to predicable will come out a boring and too predictable. A great way to surprise your readers is to use plot twists.

What is a plot twist?

A plot twist is a literary technique that incorporates a radical change in the expected ending of a work of fiction. The plot twist is particularly important because it is meant to become a generator of shock for the reader. It is meant to act as a transition period for the story as well. So, if you want your writing to be as immersive as possible, you should know how to use plot twists in your writing . Here are six plot twist types and examples found in literature.

1. Red Herring

This type of plot twist is a misleading or false clue. It is one of the most widely used types of plot twists. They are usually used in mysteries, detective stories, and thrillers. When you use a red herring, your main intent is to mislead readers and have them follow a different trail.

Examples:

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of The Baskervilles is a great example of a red herring. Throughout the whole case, the main suspect was the butler, because he exhibited the most obvious and suspicious behavior. However, as the story progresses, the main culprit is someone else. This is classic misdirection and a great use of the red herring plot twist.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , the main villain was considered to be Sirius Black, who was Harry’s godfather. He was considered to be the one who betrayed Harry’s parents to Voldemort. However, at the end of the book, readers are shocked to find out that the villain was Peter Pettigrew, another friend of Harry’s parents.
In the Star Wars prequels, the main villain was often hidden, but there were villains such as Darth Maul or Darth Tyrannus who did most of the dirty work. However, the main villain was in fact Senator Palpatine, who was originally portrayed as a well-meaning politician and friend to the Jedi.
The wildly popular Disney film Frozen was able to employ Red Herrings very well. In the first part of the story, the foreign Prince Hans was the protagonist Anna’s love interest. However, in the latter part of the movie, Hans starts devolving from Prince Charming to a greedy usurper.

2. Chekhov's Gun

Chekhov’s gun is a plot twist that alludes to details within the story that will later add to the overall narrative. This compels writers to be responsible when writing scenes because these details will come back later in the story. The plot twist is named after Anton Chekhov, a nineteenth-century writer who wrote works such as Uncle Vanya and The Seagull .

Example:

In the movie Saving Private Ryan , one of the rangers in the platoon is given a Hitler Youth dagger by a comrade. He carries the dagger through subsequent battles. However, in the final battle, he is forced into a melee with a German soldier. While he tries to use the dagger against his enemy, the larger soldier manages to turn the knife on him instead.

3. Flashback

The literary device known as the flashback is also a potent plot twist. This is because the flashback uses memories to divulge specific and important details in the story. It is through the flashback that you will be able to execute a plot twist.

In the all-time classic story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, is visited by three spirits. One of the ghosts is known as the Ghost of Christmas Past. The ghost takes Scrooge on a journey to his past and shows him the events that led to his life of selfishness and obsession with money. This flashback is one of the many turning points in the story.
This may count as a spoiler for some Harry Potter fans, but Severus Snape’s backstory is one of the best examples of a flashback showing a plot twist. Many readers detested Snape for his dark magic allegiance and killing Dumbledore. However, the flashbacks of his childhood friendship with Harry’s mom, Lily, totally changed the reader’s perceptions of Snape. Now he is one of the most beloved anti-heroes in literature.

4. Peripeteia

This ancient plot twist is derived from Greek tragedy plays and is technically the turning point of the story. This is typically applied to a character who is locked into a predetermined belief or destiny, only for a twist of fate to change the entire narrative of the story.

The most iconic use of Peripetia is in the ancient story of Oedipus. In the Greek tragedy, Oedipus is a prince who is sent away to be killed by his father, the king. His father ordered his death, because there is a prophecy that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. However, Oedipus manages to survive and is adopted by another king. The prince lives his life believing he is the biological son of the king who adopted him. Years later, he goes on a journey and gets into a very bad argument with his biological father. During the confrontation, he slays his father, and later on marries the king’s wife and becomes the king of the country. All is well and good, that is, until the details are finally revealed to him that he slew his father and married his own mother.

5. Deus ex machina

This is a literary device that comes in the form of a person or an event that comes out of the blue and provides a response to a difficult event. This was usually used in Greek and Roman dramas and is meant to represent as an act of God.

The plot twist of Deus ex Machina in H.G. Well's War of the Worlds is a good example. Throughout the events of the story, the human race is being beaten by the Martian invaders. No weapon is capable of fighting off the aliens. The human race is at the point of defeat, and utter decimation is at hand. That is, until the aliens start to get sick and start to die. The Deus ex machine of the story is that the aliens did not count on the biological aspect of their invasion, and the earth fell to infections from the pathogens in the earth’s atmosphere.
In the ending of William Golding’s book, The Lord of the Flies , a deus ex machina was used. The story takes place on a deserted island where a group of students were marooned. The group is soon split in two. The main protagonist chooses to side with the more even-tempered and civilized group of boys. The other group soon descends into chaos, and they slowly murder the protagonist’s group of friends. At the end of the novel, the protagonist is hunted by the feral group. As they were about to catch him, he was rescued by a naval officer. This act of salvation is considered a deus ex machine moment.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Harry is cornered by the Basilisk, a mythical giant snake. Harry has no way of fighting back until Fawkes the Phoenix arrives and hands him the sorting hat. The hat actually holds Godric Gryffindor’s sword, which allows Harry to fight the basilisk. This is often counted as a Deus Ex Machina ending.

6. Eucatastrophe

The eucatastrophe is a term that was coined by J.R.R.Tolkien and is a sudden turn of events at the end of the story. The event acts as a kind of safety net that stops the protagonist from meeting a terrible end.

Seeing as J.R.R Tolkien was the one who coined the term, it is fitting to use his work as an example. In Tolkien’s much loved classic, The Hobbit , Bilbo Baggins, and the last survivors in the battle of five armies are surrounded by their enemies. Thorin has fallen in battle, and many men, elves, and dwarves have fallen to the goblins. All hope seems lost. That is until the timely arrival of Beorn and the eagles. With the shape-shifter and the giant bird’s help, the alliance of men, dwarves, and elves were able to triumph, and stop a disastrous event from happening.
C.S Lewis was a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, and he also used Eucatastrophe in his Chronicle of Narnia books. This is especially evident in his final Narnia book, The Last Battle . When all the main characters were surrounded by their enemies, the Calormens, all seemed lost, until they all died and were transported to Aslan’s real world. This end was all destined to happen, and acts as a safety net for all the heroes in the story.

Plot Twist Ideas

If you want to learn how to effectively use plot twists in your work, here are some general plot twist writing ideas that you could use. By using these ideas, you could add a sense of unpredictability to your writing.

1. The hero was working for the villain all along

This plot twist idea is to let the audience believe that the protagonist was aligned with a beneficent group, only for the group to turn out evil later on. The protagonist and the audience are usually blown away by this revelation. This discovery soon prompts the protagonist, to take the organization down from within.

In The Incredibles , the main protagonist, Mr. Incredible, unknowingly works for his archenemy. He is a renowned superhero who is forced to retire from hero work. That is, until a secretive organization hires him to do hero work again. Little does he know that the head of the organization is an old enemy.
The protagonist is working for a pharmaceutical company dedicated to curing a dangerous new disease. He later finds out that the disease was engineered by the company all along.

2. The protagonist was dead all along

The main concept of this plot twist, is to have the audience believe that the protagonist is a living, breathing person, only to be revealed later that he or she was dead all along.

The protagonist is tasked with capturing a killer who has killed multiple people. He conducts a manhunt for the killer, alongside a strange new partner. They soon catch the killer, but it is soon revealed to the protagonist that his partner is a psychic who can see dead people, and he himself is already dead. The protagonist was killed by the serial killer during an earlier tussle, and he is fulfilling unfinished business before he crosses over to the other side.
In the hit psychological thriller The Sixth Sense , the protagonist, Malcolm Crow, was tasked with helping a young boy named Cole Sear. The boy is in distress because he saw a ghost. Later in the movie, it is revealed that Malcolm is actually a ghost as well.

3. Unexpected relations between characters

This is a favorite for many writers because it shocks the readers and also creates a new dynamic amongst the characters.

In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back , the main protagonist, Luke Skywalker is fighting the main villain, Darth Vader. Luke is holding his own during the lightsaber duel. However, as the fight drags on, he is cornered and beaten. However, the villain does not finish him. Instead, he declares that he is actually Luke’s biological father. This is still one of the most shocking plot twists to this day.

4. The mentor is the protagonist’s future self

This plot twist entails you creating a mentor character who helps the protagonist throughout most of the events in the story. The mentor seems to know key aspects of the protagonist’s life. The mentor also seems to know the key traits of the protagonist’s family.

The audience is led to believe that the mentor is either a long-lost parent or an old family friend. Later on, the mentor is revealed to be the protagonist’s future self, who goes back in time to change key events in the past.

The protagonist is faced with a moral dilemma. He just found a big bag of money, and he wonders whether to keep it or turn it over to the authorities. He decides to keep the money and live a life of luxury. An old man approaches him a few moments later. He seems to know the protagonist very well and cautions the protagonist not to keep the money. It is later revealed that the old man is in fact the protagonist’s future self, and he is trying to stop his younger self from going down a path of self-destruction.

5. The shock value

This plot twist is all about shocking the audience in the most intense way possible. This means killing the main character in the first few chapters of the story, or having an unforeseen and unbelievable event come to pass. When it comes to shock value, the more abruptly the event happens, the better it will be.

The shock value plot twist is a constant in the Game of Thrones book series. Various main characters were killed off to shock readers. This is masterfully done, because George R.R. Martin writes very well-crafted and memorable characters.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel, The Great Gatsby , the main character, Jay Gatsby is murdered when he is just about to achieve his ultimate goal in life. This is shocking because he is such an enigmatic yet beloved character, and his swift death really caught readers by surprise.
The story is set during the First World War. It follows a group of British soldiers who are sent in to retake a trench from the enemy. One character in particular is considerably more important than others in the story. He has the most connections to the other characters, and he seems to be the hero of the story. However, as the operation commences, he is abruptly torn to shreds by machine gun fire. This abrupt death would usually have the audience wondering who the real main character is.

6. Is this the real world?

The main intent of this plot twist is to have the audience wonder whether the events in the story are real or if it is all an illusion that the protagonist’s mind came up with.

In the story of Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland , the protagonist Nemo is whisked off on an adventure wherein he is sent to Slumberland. A world ruled by Morpheus, the King of Slumberland. In Slumberland, he becomes a playmate to the princess, and in the course of the adventure, he saves Slumberland. However, throughout the whole story, the reader is made to wonder if the events are taking place in the real world or just in Nemo’s dreams.
The protagonist is a 90-year old man who, in the last few moments of his life, is given the chance to go to an alternate world and live life as a young man again. He takes the chance and goes on many grand adventures and lives the life he has always wanted. He lives a full life in that alternate world and dies a happy man. At the end of the story, though, his consciousness is brought back to the start of the story. He is still a 90-year old man, on the verge of death. So the main question arises. Did he really go on that adventure? Or were they the last thoughts of a man on the verge of death?

Here are some more examples of plot twists that you could use to come up with your own plot-twist. These come in the form of short snippets, and act as more of a prompt, than a fully-fledged story.

The battle is won, and everyone is celebrating. Yet another enemy comes out of the blue.
The case is solved, and the protagonist is celebrating with his friends. However, an object in his friend's clothing causes him to believe that the case is not over.
The chef is just about to send out a new dish. However, a close friend of hers is sabotaging the food. What is this friend’s motive?
Old rivals are marooned on an island, and the audience expects them to hate each other. They surprisingly became close friends.
A man who has always believed and loved that he was Irish is found out to be British.
A boy is constantly thwarted by a girl from his class. He feels that she hates him. However, the girl is in fact in love with him.
A man who is constantly bullied by his roommates fights back and beats them. He is actually a former boxer.
Your character takes part in an underground fighting competition. He expects the best fighter to be a massive and powerful man. He finds out the best fighter is a petite 18-year-old girl.
A Roman senator is voting on an issue in the senate. His allies all voted against him. He is about to lose the vote. All of a sudden, his most bitter political rival takes up his cause.
Miners are going out of a mine that they just recently dug up. All of a sudden, an explosion erupts and the entrance is blocked.
A marathon is about to start. All of a sudden, a very heavy downpour starts.
A normal office worker is walking home when, out of nowhere, an ancient relic appears in front of him.
A boxer accidentally killed his opponent, and now he is charged with murder.
The protagonist has been married to the woman of his dreams for years. It is a perfect marriage. That is, until a message from an unknown person threatens their perfect life together.
A rich woman has been living a very extravagant life until her ex-husband sues her for everything she owns. Now she has no house, no money, and no job experience.
A bird comes out of nowhere and invites the protagonist on a trip to another world.
The main characters are about to jump into the water, but the oldest and most courageous member of the group is hesitant. He does not know how to swim.
The bully in the story is actually a coward and hides a deep love of animals.
A middle-aged man is about to retire from his job, but his son got into a financial issue. Now he has to find a way to make a lot of money.
The star player on a basketball team gets injured before their most important game. The team’s bench warmer is tasked with playing, and he shows incredible skills.
A businessman who has put in 20 years of his life into a business just achieved success. However, this is short-lived because the country’s economy collapses, and this makes all forms of money irrelevant.
The protagonist idolizes his father, who is a wealthy environmental lawyer. His beliefs are threatened when he finds out his father takes bribes from various companies.
A rebel leader is about to lead a mass rebellion through various regions in his country. The night before the rebellion, he is betrayed and killed by his lover.
A writer is given a chance to publish his work. However, the credit for his work is given to another writer.
The main villain is defeated, and the main characters relax. However, one of the main characters is a double-agent, and he attacks the others.
The main character believes that he is on another world, only to find out that he is an alternate version of Earth.
A young girl moves to a new school, and she is befriended by a nice girl from a rich family. Things seem good at the start. However, her new friend seems to hide a sinister nature.
A flashy young man shows up on the party scene and makes new friends. He seems rich and well-read. However, he is in fact a swindler who takes advantage of his new rich friends.
The UN peace summit is going well, and the conflict between the two nations has been concluded. That is, until one of the sides fires a nuclear missile on its enemy.
A young man is going to meet his best friend in a park. He is going to confess his feelings for her. However, he receives the sad news that she died from an accident earlier that year.
The main protagonist is a superb athlete and will achieve his dream of competing in the Olympics the next day. These plans are thwarted when he slips on the bathroom floor, and breaks his leg.
An old man has been saving up his life-savings to go on a trip around the world. The night before he departs, his house is burgled and his money is taken from him.
A great warrior leaves for a quest and is given a newly forged sword by his wife. In the final battle, he uses the blade, and it breaks. His wife purposefully chipped the sword so that it failed in battle.
A young woman is about to graduate and start her professional career. This is put on hold when she finds out that she is pregnant.
A group of teenagers finds a gun, and they play around with it. One of them gets careless and accidentally shoots one of his friends.
A young boy lives with his older sister. He soon finds out that she is actually his mother, and she had him at the very young age of 15.
A group of people are on the run and hiding under a bridge. A stranger appears out of nowhere and offers his help. Should they accept it?
A lawyer starts a law firm with his friend. They had planned to do this since they were in law school. This plan is ruined when his friend starts a separate law firm instead.
Two rival tribes are fighting an epic battle when a huge meteor lands amidst the battle.
A vain young man tries out an experimental facial cream. He is very proud of his skin. The cream is very volatile, though, and has caused him to develop very severe acne.
A young archeologist is funded to go on an underwater venture to check the wreckage of a sunken Spanish galleon. The organization that funds him is a plunderer, and they plan to kill him and take whatever sunken treasure is found on the wreck.
A young man experiences the saddest day of his life, but later wakes up and realizes it was just a dream.
A reclusive college boy meets a very interesting young woman in his dorm room. The young woman is actually a ghost haunting the dorm.
A retired pool player is forced to take part in an underground pool competition. He beats all comers until he is faced with his brother, who is also an ace pool player. Only the winner gets to leave alive.
A lonely old farmer is shocked to find a trail of dead wolves around his farm. He finds out that his little Chihuahua was responsible for killing the wolves.
A cowboy in 1895 is guiding his cattle when he discovers the corpse of a cow. It has been drained of all blood. It was a vampire. What is a vampire doing in the Wild West?
A high school basketball game is drawing to a close when a gang fight starts outside the gym.
A hardened mafia member leaves his gang and joins the priesthood.
The new school year starts and a group of friends are looking for their smallest member. They found that he had grown 10 inches over the summer.
A despondent young man imagines that he beats up all the bullies in his school. It is all in his imagination, though.
A young man comes back to his old hometown for the first time in ten years. He left because his childhood friend had died because of an accident. He is shocked to find his childhood friend alive and well.
A well-known street racer breezes through his competition—that is until a new racer comes to the scene and wins the race. Who is this new racer?
A mysterious stranger comes to a town asking questions. He is in fact an angel, and the town holds the last humans left on earth since the rapture. He will judge who goes to heaven, and who stays on earth.
A librarian in a small library finds an ancient copy of a book on sorcery. It is said to hold secrets that an ancient organization will stop at nothing to keep secret.
An old man travels the world with his son, and they live reclusive lives. The little boy is in fact an immortal that has lived for thousands of years.
A toy maker has disappeared for over five months. His neighbors think he has retired and gone somewhere quieter. In truth, the toy maker is imprisoned by his toys that have gained sentience.

Final Thoughts

If you are thinking of writing a great story, you should know how use the unexpected to both surprise and entertain your audience. This is where plot twists come in handy. By knowing the different types of plot twists, and using these plot twist ideas, you will be able to give your writing a sense of flair and unpredictability.

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Soompi & Viki Staff Talk: What Is Your Favorite Time Travel K-Drama?

When it comes to fantasy dramas, time travel has been a much-loved theme among the years. For the next edition of the Soompi & Viki Staff Talk series, our team members discuss our favorite K-dramas that feature time traveling.

Here are our picks!

Warning: minor spoilers ahead

Sala: “ Alice ”

Although I haven’t watched many K-dramas about time travel, I remember “Alice” because of its talented cast. “Alice” is about Park Jin Gyeom ( Joo Won ), an emotionless detective searching for his mother’s killer who ends up investigating time traveling assassins who use a mysterious device called “Alice.” In the process, he meets Yoon Tae Yi ( Kim Hee Sun ), a genius physicist who looks exactly like his mother. I can’t give away much without delving into spoilers, but the element of time travel and mystery in this drama will have you on the edge of your seat the entire ride, and if you’re a fan of sci-fi, this is the drama for you! Although the story does take some unexpected twists and turns in an effort to weave an intricate story, the convincing acting delivered by the talented leads Joo Won and Kim Hee Sun will keep you immersed until the end. There are also jaw-dropping plot twists incorporating time travel, tying together a mindblowing story of the past, present, and not-so-distant future.

Watch “Alice” below:

Ginny: “ Go Back Couple ”

In “Go Back Couple,” Choi Ban Do ( Son Ho Jun ) and Ma Jin Joo ( Jang Nara ) are unhappily married and struggle through their daily lives of making a living and raising a child. Just when they feel like their marriage is coming to an end, they wake up and find themselves as 20-year-old college students, getting the chance to enjoy campus life again. Back in college, ROTC student Jung Nam Gil ( Jang Ki Yong ) actively pursues Jin Joo, while Ban Do works to develop his relationship with his first love Min Seo Young ( Go Bo Gyeol ). Given a second chance on life, will they make different decisions this time, or will they overcome their difficulties together? It’s a must-watch time travel drama that will bring you plenty of smiles and tears!

Watch “Go Back Couple” below:

Sehee: “ Reborn Rich ”

Imagine getting the chance to rise to the top to take revenge on those who did you and your family wrong. “Reborn Rich” takes you on a rollercoaster ride as Yoon Hyun Woo ( Song Joong Ki ) dies after being framed by the chaebol family he faithfully served as secretary and is reborn as the family’s youngest son Jin Do Joon. In his new life, he patiently pursues a strategy of massive retaliation against the family. The drama is filled with tension, action, and thrill with a sprinkle of romance. If you enjoy dramas that keep you at the edge of your seat like I do, this is the one for you!

Watch “Reborn Rich” below:

Natalie: “ Mr. Queen ”

One of the most dramatic K-dramas about time traveling has to be “Mr. Queen,” adventuring back and forth not mere years but centuries! Due to mysterious fate, modern-day male chef Jang Bong Hwan ( Choi Jin Hyuk ) wakes up in the body of Joseon queen Kim So Yong ( Shin Hye Sun ), forcing him to cope with not only change of sex, but more significantly, his duties as the people’s queen and the king’s wife. Clueless of who and where she (or he?) is, Kim So Yong’s strange demeanor is more than enough to raise countless eyebrows in the royal court of Joseon. Nevertheless, she finds her way through Joseon’s old-timey ways, bravely adjusting to the sudden changes that surround her (or him… still confused). “Mr. Queen” is a pleasant fusion of mystery, fantasy, comedy, and even romance, so it’s safe to say it has a bit of everything you want in a K-Drama. One of my personal favorites was when Queen So Yong finds out that she is pregnant with the baby of King Cheol Jong ( Kim Jung Hyun ). What’s supposed to be a merry and blissful moment turns hilarious as the originally male queen copes with the fact that he has a literal human growing inside of his womb! There’s really no reason to waste time not watching this drama—10/10 would recommend!

Watch “Mr. Queen” below:

JJin: “ Blue Birthday ”

In “Blue Birthday,” Oh Ha Rin ( Yeri ) burns photos taken 10 years ago in high school in order to save her first love Ji Seo Jun ( Hongseok ), who died on her 18th birthday. Although the plot sounds tragic, this drama is filled with many heart-fluttering moments and close friendship among the main characters. Additionally, the time-traveling narrative unquestionably highlights and deepens the romance between the leads. You won’t get bored watching the drama not only because Oh Ha Rin constantly keeps finding undiscovered stories but also because of plot twists surrounding Ji Seo Jun’s sudden death. If you love the fantasy genre and believe that dramas shouldn’t be too realistic like I do, “Blue Birthday” is definitely worth a watch.

Watch “Blue Birthday” below:

Winnie: “ Again My Life ”

Even if you think you’ve seen enough of dramas about time traveling, the addition of terrific action scenes, a lawless lawyer, and revenge makes “Again My Life” a fresh experience worth watching. In this series, Lee Joon Gi plays the role of Kim Hee Woo, who was unjustly killed while investigating a corrupt politician. Luckily, he unexpectedly travels back 15 years into the past after getting a second chance at life, and he decides to live a bit differently this time. What really enhances this drama is Lee Joon Gi’s impressive acting, as he interpreted the roles before and after the reincarnation very delicately.

Watch “Again My Life” below:

Somni: “ Familiar Wife ”

Starring Ji Sung and Han Ji Min, “Familiar Wife” is a fantasy romance drama that teaches a very important life lesson to not be deceived by familiarity and to not lose the precious one next to you. Cha Joo Hyuk ( Ji Sung ), who married Seo Woo Jin ( Han Ji Min ), gets tired of his wife’s temper as she always yells at him for not doing the housework. One day, Joo Hyuk happens to attain two magical coins that can take him back to the past, and he decides to use them to change his life by marrying his first love Lee Hye Won ( Kang Han Na ) instead of Woo Jin. Although Joon Hyuk is happy living a prosperous life with Hye Won, he keeps getting entangled with Woo Jin and finds himself being attracted to her. If you are feeling that the person next to you is less important now, “Familiar Wife” is a drama that can enlighten you that it may not be the people around you that changed but your attitude toward them. Although we cannot go back in time and change our lives even if we wanted to, let’s not forget the precious time and memories we spent with the people who have always been there for us!

Watch “Familiar Wife” below:

Yeon: “ Tomorrow With You ”

Although I am usually not fond of time travel dramas, there is one time travel drama that I never get tired of watching. “Tomorrow With You” tells the story of time traveler Yoo So Joon ( Lee Je Hoon ) who ends up marrying the bubbly Song Ma Rin ( Shin Min Ah ) to prevent an unfortunate event he sees in the future. Although the marriage begins with this purpose, they gradually fall in love and work to protect their love and each other from darkness ahead. Yoo So Joon travels through time by riding a subway, and this is portrayed in a quite realistic way that can even attract viewers like me who tend to shy away from the fantasy genre. More than anything, Lee Je Hoon and Shin Min Ah’s chemistry really adds spark to this drama and is what hooked me immediately. They portray an incredibly lovable couple that is impossible not to fall for!

Watch “Tomorrow With You” below:

What is your favorite K-drama that features time traveling? Vote in the poll above, and also let us know other favorites in the comments below!

This Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Has An Amazing Time Travel Twist

The Movie Predestination will break your brain and confuse you for days, which is what everyone wants from a Time Travel Movie

Time travel movies are a pretty popular sub-genre of the sci-fi world. Well-known films include The Terminator (1984), Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), the Back to the Future franchise, and most recently, Loki and within the MCU universe . One that is rarely brought up in discussion with these films is Michael and Peter Spierig’s 2014 film Predestination . Predestination may not be the best film, but it has a twisting story and one of the more cohesive time travel films out there.

Predestination is based on the 1958 short story “All You Zombies” by science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. The film received mainly positive reviews, with New York Post critic Sara Stewart calling it a “stylish head trip.” The film ultimately garnered 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and was well-liked among audiences.

RELATED: 10 Must-Try Time Travel Games For Sci-Fi Fans

Although receiving mainly positive reviews, the film didn’t seem to make the lasting impact that other time travel movies had prior. Predestination is extremely underrated and deserves recognition for being a film that makes a topic that is often perplexing much easier to understand. Also differing from other time travel films , Predestination delves into paradoxes that can occur during time traveling, as opposed to ignoring them completely. The film also focuses heavily on character arc and development, and has a beautiful mise-en-scène, with the various eras so perfectly depicted with the use of clothing, production design, and cinematography.

Predestination chronicles the life of a temporal agent (Ethan Hawke) who is sent on hundreds of time travel missions to ensure his career at law enforcement. Temporal agents' jobs involve having to stop horrific crimes before they happen, ultimately saving the lives of millions of people. For his final assignment, the agent must stop a criminal known as the Fizzle Bomber from instigating an attack that will kill thousands of people.

The film opens with Hawke’s character trying to break an explosive set by the Fizzle Bomber in New York. The bomb blows off in his face, burning him terribly. The film then goes to its first of many flashbacks, a scene in which Hawke is working as a New York bartender during the 1970s. On the job, he meets an androgynous man who goes by the name "The Unmarried Mother” (Sarah Snook).

After some small talk, the customer begins to tell Hawke his life story: He was actually born a girl named Jane who grew up in an orphanage, always getting bullied by the other girls. She was recruited to the SpaceCorp as a young woman, a government agency known for bringing women into space to have sex with astronauts. She eventually gets kicked off for an undisclosed medical reason, but one of the people in charge, Mr. Robertson (Noah Taylor), is still intrigued by her. He offers to recruit her for a different type of agency, but this is before Jane meets a man, falls in love, and gets pregnant, which doesn’t allow her to join.

The father of her child ends up mysteriously leaving her, competely vanishing from her life. After she gives birth, it is discovered that Jane is intersex , with internalized male and female sex organs. Complications during the birth forced doctors to remove her female sex organs, making her undergo a gender reassignment surgery , enforcing her into a world as a man named John. Furthermore, John’s life was thrown into another loop when his baby was stolen by a strange man, and since then, John has been living a sad life under the pseudonym "The Unmarried Mother", writing confession columns. Having characters part of the LGBTQ+ community in this film is also what makes it a unique and intriguing film, being one of the first in this sub-genre to do it.

As John tells his story in a series of flashbacks, the movie always returns back to the scene between Hawke and John at the bar. That, among other elements, is what makes Predestination unique from other time travel films: its use of time. The film goes at a much slower pace compared to other movies of the genre. Many time travel movies are criticized for being extremely fast-paced and hard to follow, which makes an already unfathomable concept more complicated.

Although the plot may seem like a lot to take in, the pace of the film makes it easier for viewers to grasp. Being a little over an hour and a half, almost the entire first hour is the intimate scene between John and the temporal agent (Hawke) at the bar, as John is telling Hawke his life story. Most time travel films would’ve started delving into intense action sequences and the use of special effects, but Predestination doesn’t need to rely on these, as it is already an extremely captivating story and relies more on narrative and character develpment.

Predestination also stands out due to the factual elements it contains and the lack of plotholes, which time travel movies are so famously known for . After John finishes telling Hawke his story, Hawke offers him the chance to go back in time and alter his past. As John is about to kill the man who impregnated him as Jane, it is shockingly revealed that he is actually the man, meaning he is a temporal agent as well. It is later revealed that Hawke’s character is the mysterious man who stole Jane’s baby. In fact, John, Jane, Hawke, and the baby are all the same person: revealing a predestination paradox.

Along with the factual scientific elements, the Spierig Brothers and crew took their time to make every time era as factually correct as possible. Costume designer Wendy Cork does an amazing job with her clothing that was devade-specific and the production designer Matthew Putland uses different lighting techniques and colors to depict different decades. The 1960s Space Corp had cool whites and blues in the interior design; Jane's school uniform perfectly depicts the 1960s, with her white and blue uniform and bob cut.

Although Predestination didn’t get the attention it deserved, the knock-out performances from Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook remain. Hawke was already a well-established actor , with huge roles in films such as the Before Sunset trilogy, Training Day (2001), and Daybreakers (2009), but it was Snook who really cemented her acting abilities in this film. Hawke delivered an amazing performance as a man who appears tough but is actually very lost, and Snook’s pulled off her performance of a tortured soul brilliantly.

MORE: Ryan Reynolds Shares New Look At His Time Travel Film The Adam Project

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180 Plot Twists to Surprise Your Readers

A plot twist is an unexpected development in a story, a sudden and unforeseen turn of events that subverts the expectations of the audience. It's that moment when a narrative veers off in a direction that is both surprising and, in hindsight, makes perfect sense. These twists challenge our perceptions, keep us engaged, and often lead us to reevaluate the entire story up to that point.

In an age of sophisticated audiences who have been exposed to countless stories through books, movies, TV shows, and other media, unpredictability has become an essential tool for writers. The ability to surprise one's audience not only adds depth and complexity to the narrative but also fosters engagement, ensuring that the reader remains hooked. A well-executed plot twist can be the difference between a forgettable story and one that lingers in the mind, prompting discussion and reflection long after the last page is turned.

Plot twists can be broadly categorized based on their function in the narrative. Some twists revolve around character revelations, where identities are mistaken or hidden motives come to light. Others might be based on narrative shifts, which play with the structure or chronology of the story. Then there are twists that arise from the resolution of mysteries, providing answers in the most unexpected ways.

Character-based twists

Character-Based Twists refer to unexpected revelations or developments related to a story's characters that subvert the audience's established perceptions or expectations. These twists might unveil hidden identities, previously concealed relationships, unforeseen betrayals, or undisclosed motivations. The power of a character-based twist lies in its ability to deeply challenge or reshape the audience's understanding and emotional connection to a character, thereby driving the narrative in new and engaging directions.

Hidden identities

The meek schoolteacher is revealed to be a former elite spy, hiding from her past and the enemies she made.
The city's most notorious crime lord is the same person as the city's beloved philanthropist, using one identity to clean the money of the other.
The seemingly ordinary pet cat is an enchanted prince, cursed to live as an animal until a specific deed is done to reverse the spell.
The homeless man often seen around town is the estranged father of the protagonist, keeping his distance due to a complex history.
The protagonist's best friend, believed to have perished in an accident years ago, has been living under a new identity due to memory loss.
The mysterious new hire at the corporation is actually the CEO's child from a secret relationship, trying to understand the business undercover before being announced as the successor.
The popular novelist, known only by a pseudonym and never seen in public, turns out to be a group of different writers working under a single name.
The town's librarian, always engrossed in ancient texts, is revealed as an immortal being from another age, hiding in plain sight and guarding age-old secrets.
The rival athlete competing against the protagonist is their long-lost twin, separated at birth and raised in a different country.
The quiet, reclusive neighbor is a witness protection program member, hiding from a dangerous past and the criminals she testified against.

Betrayals and double agents

The protagonist's mentor, who trained them in everything, is actually working for the enemy, using the protagonist to relay false information.
The bride-to-be, days before her wedding, is revealed to be an undercover detective investigating the groom's family for organized crime.
The trusted family butler, present for generations, has been selling the family's secrets and is responsible for their declining fortune.
The main character's confidante, to whom they tell everything, is a journalist using the information for a tell-all book.
The team's medic, responsible for healing everyone, has been slowly poisoning one of the team members due to a personal vendetta.
The humble farmer aiding the rebels is discovered to be planting trackers on their supplies, leading the king's army to the rebel bases.
The child whom the spy has been tasked to protect is actually an enemy assassin, trained from a young age to be the ultimate weapon.
The detective's partner, always the first on the crime scenes, is the serial killer they've been chasing, using his position to mislead the investigation.
The ambassador brokering peace between two nations is profiting from the war and is subtly sabotaging the peace talks.
The software engineer hired to bolster a company's cybersecurity is the same hacker who previously orchestrated major breaches against them, now playing both sides for profit.

Unexpected alliances or relationships

The sworn enemies from rival kingdoms secretly share a bond of kinship, being cousins separated in childhood.
The protagonist's fiercest competitor anonymously funds the protagonist's project, respecting their passion despite their rivalry.
The evil sorcerer and the wise old sage were once lovers, their fallout being the true cause of the conflict in the land.
The hero's sidekick and the main villain are siblings, leading to a tense dynamic as loyalties are tested.
The feared pirate captain and the righteous navy admiral grew up as best friends, their current enmity a result of a tragic misunderstanding.
The guardian angel guiding the main character is revealed to be the spirit of their future child, ensuring their parent's survival for their own existence.
The two main characters, seemingly from different worlds, discover they shared a past life as spouses, explaining their inexplicable bond.
The ruthless CEO of a mega-corporation secretly supports the grassroots movement trying to limit corporate power, driven by guilt from their past actions.
The princess and the leader of the rebel uprising secretly meet as allies, sharing the goal to overthrow the corrupt council exploiting the kingdom.
The detective and the mob boss have an unspoken agreement, collaborating to eliminate a third mutual threat that endangers both law and crime.

Secrets from a character's past

The jovial town baker was once a feared gladiator, having escaped the arena and started a peaceful life in hiding.
The leading neurosurgeon had previously caused a fatal car accident in their youth, driving their commitment to saving lives in their profession.
The school principal, known for her strict demeanor, used to be a renowned rock star before seeking a quieter life.
The gentle gardener, with an uncanny ability to communicate with plants, is revealed to have been raised by forest spirits after being abandoned as a child.
The stern military general is discovered to have deserted his post years ago during a crucial battle, living under a false identity ever since.
The town's historian, with vast knowledge of ancient rituals, was once part of a forbidden cult, escaping when they foresaw its dangerous end.
The charismatic politician rose from poverty, not through merit as claimed, but due to a secret benefactor with their own shadowy agenda.
The children's book author, writing tales of adventurous escapes, was a former spy who encoded real mission details into their stories.
The renowned artist, known for their haunting portraits, paints from memories of their past life during a tragic era.
The monk with unparalleled martial skills was once the assassin of a fallen empire, seeking redemption in seclusion and peace.

Characters with secret goals

The charitable town mayor is discovered to be collecting artifacts under the guise of community improvement, aiming to unlock an ancient power.
The protagonist's mentor, seemingly training them for self-defense, is preparing them for an underground competition.
The reserved librarian is found to be gathering and protecting certain books to prevent the knowledge within from falling into the wrong hands.
A renowned explorer's journeys are revealed not to be for discovery's sake, but to find a lost civilization's treasure.
The schoolteacher, seemingly passionate about her job, is actually recruiting gifted students for a secret society.
The diligent detective isn't just solving cases out of duty but is searching for clues to a personal mystery only they know about.
The celebrated chef isn't just cooking for the joy of cuisine but is seeking a particular taste they encountered once and can't forget.
The artist creating public murals around the city is discovered to be embedding them with coded messages for a select group of viewers.
The tech tycoon funding space missions isn't just aiming for exploration but believes there's an artifact in space linked to their destiny.
The environmentalist fighting to preserve a specific forest is actually searching for a mythical creature they believe resides there.

Twists of genuine vs. feigned emotions

The seemingly heartless business tycoon genuinely weeps when a particular old tree is cut down, revealing a depth of emotion not seen before.
A character who always laughed off danger is found silently crying, showing their genuine fear and vulnerability.
The school bully who appears to despise a particular student is revealed to be masking deep admiration and envy.
An impassive soldier, thought to be numb to violence, is discovered to write poignant poetry expressing sorrow for every life taken.
The comedian, who always seems jovial and carefree on stage, is shown to suffer from intense bouts of melancholy when alone.
A parent who's always been strict and unyielding breaks down, admitting their approach was a façade to hide their own feelings of inadequacy.
The therapist, always composed and empathetic with clients, struggles with expressing genuine emotion in personal relationships.
The perennially cheerful neighbor, who always offers help, is revealed to be seeking connections to combat deep loneliness.
A coach renowned for his tough love approach is discovered to secretly celebrate each player's successes with a quiet moment of pride.
The stoic captain of a ship, always distant and reserved, is found to have kept mementos from every journey, highlighting cherished memories with the crew.

Hidden beneficiaries of certain actions or events

The town's new dam, believed to aid the community, is revealed to be strategically placed to increase property values for an anonymous landowner downstream.
While a law is passed supposedly for environmental protection, it inadvertently gives mining rights to a shadowy consortium.
The sudden restoration of an old mansion, thought to be a cultural project, draws tourists and unexpectedly boosts sales for a once-struggling nearby café.
A festival organized for "community spirit" serves as a distraction, allowing unnoticed renovations at the local museum where rare items are discreetly replaced with replicas.
The removal of a city monument, supposedly for safety reasons, leads to a surge in business for a nearby attraction that was previously overshadowed.
An initiative to "clean up" the city's streets by removing vendors indirectly benefits a chain store that then faces less local competition.
A well-publicized wildlife conservation effort, while preserving nature, also discreetly routes trekking paths towards businesses owned by an undisclosed party.
A campaign against screen addiction, leading to reduced device usage, inadvertently promotes sales for a board game company that's been on the brink of bankruptcy.
The sudden renovation of a park, portrayed as a community enhancement, actually makes it a prime spot for a reclusive millionaire's annual events.
An awareness campaign about a rare disease, while educating the public, leads to skyrocketed sales for a niche book written by an unknown author on the topic.

Narrative shifts

Narrative Shifts are plot twists that pivot the structure, perspective, or chronology of a story, offering a fresh lens or altered understanding of the unfolding events. These twists can manifest as sudden shifts in time, unexpected changes in point of view, or revelations that challenge the very fabric of the story's reality. By playing with the way the narrative is presented, such twists keep the audience constantly reassessing what they know, ensuring sustained engagement and intrigue.

Unreliable narrators

The protagonist, who has been recounting a traumatic event, is revealed to have imagined the entire scenario as a coping mechanism.
The narrator's depiction of another character as villainous stems from their own jealousy, skewing the true nature of events.
Throughout the story, events seem supernatural, but it's later unveiled that the narrator suffers from hallucinations, casting doubt on all occurrences.
The diary entries the story is based on are discovered to be fictional stories written by the narrator, not real experiences.
The narrator's claims of heroism and bravery are contrasted by intermittent chapters from other perspectives, showing their exaggeration and self-aggrandizement.
The narrator, who seemed to be a third-party observer, turns out to be a central character with a hidden agenda, manipulating the reader's perception.
It's revealed that the narrator has been selectively omitting crucial events, leading to a misguided understanding of the story's progression.
The childhood memories the narrator relies upon are shown to be implanted or altered, revealing a different backstory than previously believed.
The narrator's accounts of their close relationship with another character is contrasted by that character's perspective, showcasing the narrator's delusion or obsession.
Throughout the story, the narrator insists they are innocent of a crime, but subtle hints and the final revelation expose their guilt.

Shifts in time or setting

What appears to be a historical drama set in ancient Rome suddenly introduces advanced technology, revealing it's a theme park in the distant future.
The remote island where characters are stranded, believed to be uninhabited, is discovered to be the private hideaway of a reclusive billionaire.
A narrative set during the Renaissance, focusing on art and intrigue, climaxes with the unveiling of a modern city skyline, indicating the characters are part of a reenactment community.
The gritty detective story, seemingly set in 1940s New York, transitions to a bustling spaceport, suggesting Earth's history is an attraction for interstellar tourists.
A story set on a ship at sea during the Age of Exploration reveals at the end that it's a high-stakes corporate team-building exercise in the modern day.
Characters believed to be pioneers trekking the American West come upon the ruins of modern cities, indicating they are survivors of a societal collapse returning to simpler ways.
What seems to be an ordinary 21st-century high school setting takes a twist when it's revealed the students are older individuals, undergoing a second youth as part of a societal ritual.
The medieval-like kingdom, complete with castles and knights, is unveiled as a massive stage play performed for an audience of the distant future.
Amidst a story centered on ancient Egyptian rituals and politics, characters stumble upon remnants of advanced technology, hinting at a forgotten advanced civilization that once thrived.
A tale set in the Victorian era, filled with romance and gaslit streets, concludes with characters boarding a high-speed train, revealing a steampunk-inspired alternate development of technology.

Revealing it was all a dream or hallucination

After overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the protagonist wakes up in a hospital bed, realizing the adventure was induced by a fevered state.
A detective, after solving the perfect crime, discovers that the entire mystery was a hallucination caused by a toxic substance in their drink.
A character who believes they've won the lottery and lived a life of luxury wakes up holding a losing ticket, facing their unchanged mundane reality.
After forming deep bonds with characters during a transformative journey, the protagonist awakens to recognize them as representations of facets of their own psyche.
A musician believes they've written the perfect symphony, but upon waking finds it was a dream, though they rush to transcribe the melody before it fades.
After escaping a labyrinthine mansion filled with puzzles and threats, the character awakens at the entrance of a real-life escape room, realizing the prior events were a nervous slumber.
A soldier, believing they've survived a brutal war and returned home a hero, wakes up on the battlefield, the war still raging.
An individual experiences a whirlwind romance and heartbreak with a stranger, only to awake and later meet that very person for the "first" time.
Someone journeys through a haunted forest, facing their deepest fears, only to wake up during a therapy session, realizing it was a guided visualization exercise.
After a tale of survival in the wilderness, battling nature's harshest elements, the protagonist awakens in their urban apartment, the sounds of a nature documentary playing in the background.

Alternative realities or universes

Characters discover that what they believed was the Earth is just one of countless simulations run by an advanced species for study.
The protagonist finds a mirror in their home that, upon touching, swaps them with a version of themselves leading a drastically different life.
The city that serves as the story's setting is unveiled to be a mere replica on an alien planet, where inhabitants live out "human" experiences as entertainment.
Amidst a war, soldiers find out that their enemies are not from another country, but from a parallel Earth vying for resources.
A character with the ability to see "auras" discerns that some individuals glow oddly, eventually realizing they're visitors from a neighboring dimension.
The world's greatest minds gather as they detect an encroaching reality, realizing they need to stabilize the borders between their universe and the intruding one.
The protagonist, known for their perfect life, stumbles upon a portal revealing countless other versions of their life, each with its own set of challenges.
Animals begin displaying human-like behaviors, and it's revealed they're from a parallel world where they are the dominant species, observing humanity for insight.
Amidst a seemingly normal political election, a candidate is exposed as a representative from a parallel universe, aiming to merge the two realities for mutual benefit.
The sudden appearance of doppelgängers around the city causes panic, leading to the discovery of a tear in the fabric between two parallel universes.

Mysteries and revelations

Mysteries and Revelations plot twists pivot on concealed or enigmatic elements within a narrative that are eventually unveiled, drastically altering the audience's understanding of the story. These twists, central to suspense and detective stories, thrive on building anticipation and curiosity. As events unfold and clues accumulate, the ensuing revelation—whether it's a hidden motive, an undisclosed backstory, or the solution to a central puzzle—serves to shock, satisfy, or provoke thought in the audience, reshaping their perspective on earlier events or characters' intentions.

The truth behind a longstanding mystery

The legendary haunted house in town is discovered to have hidden chambers, which are revealed to be remnants of an ancient sanctuary, not a site of malevolence.
The constant lullaby sung by the protagonist's mother is found to be a coded message, detailing the location of a long-lost family heirloom.
A mysterious recurring dream shared by inhabitants of a village is traced back to an old, buried artifact emitting a unique frequency, affecting their sleep.
The strange annual migration of birds away from a mountain isn't due to natural factors, but a deep, harmonic sound produced by wind channels in the mountain itself.
The city's unexplained nightly glow isn't from any modern source, but a peculiar bio-luminescent fungus in the old, underground sewer network.
A century-old unsolvable cipher, once believed to detail treasure, when decoded, narrates a poignant love story between historical figures.
The reason for a forest's perpetual autumn-like state isn't a curse but a rare species of tree whose leaves change colors rapidly due to a unique photosynthesis process.
Disappearing ships in a sea region are not due to mythical sea creatures, but a submerged ancient city's mirrored surfaces causing disorienting reflections.
The annual disappearance of a lake's water isn't due to evaporation, but an intricate underground aqueduct system built by a forgotten civilization.
The mysterious whispering winds in a canyon are decoded to reveal they eerily match patterns of an old, lost language, hinting at its origins.

Unmasking of villains

The town's beloved philanthropist, seen as a beacon of hope, is unveiled as the head of an underground crime syndicate.
The quiet librarian, always engrossed in ancient texts, is exposed as a dealer of forbidden dark arts.
The school's star athlete, idolized for sportsmanship, is unmasked as the orchestrator of various sabotage attempts against rival teams.
The charismatic politician promising change is revealed to have ties to oppressive regimes, seeking control over the nation.
The famed wildlife protector, known for saving endangered species, is found to be a poacher, using conservation as a façade.
The city's leading doctor, known for miraculous cures, is discovered to be conducting forbidden experiments on unsuspecting patients.
The successful entrepreneur, admired for building a business empire, is unmasked as having achieved success through blackmail and espionage.
The acclaimed chef of a renowned restaurant, loved for unique dishes, is exposed for sourcing ingredients through illegal and unethical means.
The child prodigy, celebrated for a high IQ, turns out to be the mastermind behind a series of elaborate cyber-attacks.
The unassuming gardener, adored for beautifying the town, is caught cultivating rare, toxic plants for malevolent purposes.

Unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated events

Simultaneous power outages in multiple cities worldwide are found to be synchronized with the blooming patterns of a newly discovered deep-sea coral.
The rise in a rare butterfly species' population is directly correlated with a remote town's decision to adopt a specific color in their annual mural painting festival.
A worldwide decline in songbirds singing corresponds with an increase in the production of a particular brand of noise-cancelling headphones.
Every time a reclusive author releases a new book, a specific volcano becomes active, later found to be due to a unique sound frequency used in the printing machines.
The consistent rains in a desert region, previously attributed to climate change, align perfectly with the rehearsals of a traveling orchestra playing a specific symphony.
Multiple tech companies reporting glitches in their devices trace back the anomalies to the moment a historical bell is rung in a distant monastery.
The global rise in people's dreams about flying correlates with the broadcast times of a niche radio show discussing bird migrations.
Each appearance of a rare comet corresponds to a significant rise in the birthrate of twins in a particular remote village.
Whenever a specific coral reefs glow, several world-famous painters, unknowingly, start using a particular shade of blue in their artworks.
A significant drop in global coffee production is linked, inexplicably, to the frequency of a rare frog's croak in a specific rainforest.

Endings and resolutions

Endings and Resolutions plot twists are the climactic turns and revelations that reframe a story's conclusion, subverting audience expectations about how events should culminate or how character arcs might resolve. These twists provide a fresh perspective on preceding events, often casting them in a new light or redefining the overarching narrative's meaning. While some endings validate the journey and offer closure, others leave readers questioning, challenging their assumptions or provoking deeper thought. Whether through a surprising last-minute decision by a main character, a sudden revelation that reshapes the narrative's foundation, or an unexpected outcome to a central conflict, these twists ensure that the story lingers in the audience's mind long after the final page is turned.

Death and resurrection

The hero believed to have perished in a cataclysmic event emerges from the shadows, having been saved and healed by a previously antagonistic tribe.
A side character, mourned after a tragic accident, is discovered alive, having lost their memory and lived under a different identity.
The ancient prophecy claiming the death of the queen at the hands of an enemy is subverted when she's resurrected by the same elements that were believed to kill her.
After a key character's public execution, rumors spread about sightings of them in distant lands, and it's revealed they had a twin who now seeks justice.
The ghostly figure haunting the protagonist turns out to be a loved one, not dead, but trapped in a liminal space between life and death, seeking a way back.
A notorious villain, whose death was celebrated, returns, revealing that what had been killed was merely a decoy or a clone.
The wise old mentor, whose death motivates the protagonist's quest, is later revealed to have faked their demise to go undercover and aid the mission secretly.
Years after the tragic death of the king in battle, he emerges from a cursed sleep spell, placed upon him by a rival magician to remove him from power without bloodshed.
The heroine, sinking in a shipwreck, is later found alive on a remote island, having been saved and transformed by a mythical sea creature.
The mystical forest, believed to die and wither every winter, is found to come alive at night, its spirits and entities dancing under the moonlight, proving its eternal life.

Reality vs. perception

A seemingly haunted house's mysterious sounds and movements are actually due to its unique architecture and the changing weather patterns.
A desert mirage, instead of water or oasis, repeatedly shows a town that's identical to the protagonist's hometown, suggesting psychological, not physical, thirst.
The coveted treasure map everyone's been following actually represents a song's notes, leading not to gold, but to a lost musical legacy.
A common beverage in a city is found to have properties that make colors look more vibrant, explaining its citizens' unparalleled artistry and their perception of the world.
Residents of a coastal town think they witness the sun setting twice in one evening, only to realize they're seeing a rare astronomical event.
A protagonist remembers a major event in history differently than everyone else, leading to the discovery of a widespread gas causing short-term memory alterations.
People worldwide report seeing the same figure in their peripheral vision, only to find out it's due to a shared optical illusion phenomenon in human eyesight.
The constant "curses" that plague a village are deciphered as coded messages, not warnings, altering the villagers' perception of their history and legacy.
A society worships a mountain deity because of its occasional "roars" and "smoke signals", but later find out it's an active, uncharted volcano.
An island thought to be enchanted because objects randomly disappear is discovered to have magnetic fields causing objects to sink or become invisible under specific conditions.

Unexpected sacrifices or decisions

On a spaceship running out of oxygen, the captain voluntarily goes into stasis, allowing the crew to survive the journey, despite earlier claims of prioritizing self-preservation.
The kingdom's staunchest warrior chooses to lay down arms in the final battle, advocating for peace talks instead, stunning both sides.
A CEO, known for profit-driven decisions, dissolves a lucrative but environmentally harmful arm of their corporation, prioritizing the planet over profits.
At a pivotal political summit, a world leader tears up a previously agreed-upon treaty, proposing a radically generous alternative to stunned attendees.
A famous artist destroys their most acclaimed piece during an exhibition, revealing a stance against the commercialization of art.
A detective, after years chasing a thief, chooses to let them go in the final confrontation, valuing redemption over retribution.
A society on the brink of civil war finds peace when both sides' leaders choose exile, putting their people's harmony above personal power.
In a post-apocalyptic setting, a group votes to share their last resources with a rival group, emphasizing collaboration over competition in the new world.
A renowned surgeon, in a dire situation, prioritizes saving the life of an unknown child over a world-famous personality, valuing every life equally.
A famed athlete, at the peak of their career, walks away from a championship match, advocating for mental health and sparking a global conversation.

Circular endings

After an epic journey to find a new world, explorers end up discovering their original homeland, now transformed and unrecognizable.
A protagonist spends a novel escaping a relentless pursuer, only to find they've been running in circles, arriving back where they began.
In a quest for enlightenment, a monk travels the world, only to return to his home temple and find the wisdom he sought was there all along.
A scientist invents a machine to travel to the start of time but arrives at the end, realizing time is cyclical.
After searching for a mythical artifact, adventurers discover it's been in their hometown's museum all along, overlooked and mislabeled.
A team of rebels fighting an oppressive regime eventually topples it, only to inadvertently set up a new regime with eerily similar rules and structure.
After decades apart, childhood sweethearts reunite in their old age, realizing they've lived parallel lives in different cities, and choose to spend their final years in their childhood town.
A writer struggling with writer's block finally writes a bestseller, only to realize it's the exact story of their own life up to that point.
A detective, after chasing leads worldwide, realizes the criminal's pattern is leading them back to the first crime scene for the final heist.
A family, torn apart by a feud, separately embarks on quests to find a legendary healer for reconciliation, only to discover that the healer is a metaphor for forgiveness, leading them back to each other.

Crafting a memorable plot twist is no easy feat, but when executed with precision, it can elevate a story to new heights, leaving readers in awe of the narrative journey. Always remember, the best plot twists are those that, in hindsight, feel both unexpected and inevitable. As you embark on your storytelling adventure, may your twists captivate and your narratives be ever-engaging.

Header image by Anne Nygård .

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The 60 Best Movie Plot Twists

Warning: spoilers ahead!

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Barbarian (2022)

The Plot: In town for an interview, Tess arrives at her Airbnb to find it’s been double-booked and is currently occupied by Keith, a kinda nice, but kinda creepy dude who refuses to leave.

The Twist: Mid-movie, there is a slight genre-shift that adds to the film’s intrigue and layers of twists, but ultimately, the biggest reveal is that it’s not Keith who Tess should fear. It’s the deformed mothering creature being held captive in the dungeon under the rental.

Decision to Leave (2022)

The Plot: While investigating the murder of a man who was found at the base of a mountain, married detective Jang Hae-jun falls in love with Song Seo-rae, the dead guy’s wife.

The Twist: Yes, Song is the killer, and her husband isn’t the only victim. But the most profound reveal in this gorgeous and devastating romance has to be the ending. Song’s decision to leave—her decision to commit suicide and the ways she decides to leave—sees her dig a hole on the beach, climb in, and patiently wait for the tide to erase her forever.

Get Out (2017)

The Plot: Rose Armitage, a white woman, brings Chris Washington, her Black boyfriend, home to meet her parents. Once there, Chris senses something off with the white folks.

The Twist: The Armitages are part of a sick cult that auctions off Black people to wealthy white buyers who then surgically transplant their consciousness into the "genetically advantaged" bodies they purchase.

Les Diaboliques (1955)

The Plot: The wife and mistress of an abusive boarding school headmaster hatch a plan to get rid of him forever. But even in death, the tyrant continues to haunt them.

The Twist: He’s not dead. He’s pretending to be a ghost to scare his wife to literal death so he and his mistress can be together.

Missing (2023)

The Plot: June loves her mom, Grace, but she also can’t wait to have the house to herself as her mother heads to Colombia with her new beau. Worried when her mother doesn’t come home on time, June turns to the interwebs and Grace’s digital footprint to track her down.

The Twist: The architect behind the kidnapping plot is June’s dad.

Saltburn (2023)

The Plot: Oliver Quick, a nobody Oxford student, gets the invitation of a lifetime to spend the summer with the ridiculously wealthy and prominent Cattons at their sprawling estate called Saltburn. Funny thing, though: One by one, they all end up in the ground.

The Twist: All the death and destruction was part of Oliver’s diabolical plan.

Soylent Green (1973)

The Plot: In a dystopian future where Earth is ravaged by climate change, overpopulation, and pollution, a detective uncovers the truth of Soylent Green, the people’s main food source.

The Twist: Soylent Green is made out of human remains. It’s involuntary cannibalism forced on the masses by a powerful corporation.

The Skin I Live In (2011)

The Plot: After his wife commits suicide following traumatic injury from a fiery car crash, a plastic surgeon does some sort of revolting synthesized magic to turn a young woman he keeps locked up at his secluded estate into a nearly identical version of his dead wife.

The Twist: The young woman is actually a young man with troubling ties to the doctor’s daughter.

The Third Man (1949)

The Plot: Carol Reed’s legendary film noir stars Orson Wells, Joseph Cotten, and Alida Valli in a thriller about a novelist who investigates the death of his friend, Harry Lime, in postwar Vienna.

The Twist: Harry Lime is alive! And that’s just the first twist. The film ends with another.

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

The Plot: An unlikely trio—Fontaine, a drug dealer; Yo-Yo, a sex worker; and Slick Charles, a pimp—team up to expose an underground government conspiracy that involves controlling, cloning, and experimenting on a fictional neighborhood's Black population.

The Twist: Fontaine is the operation’s mastermind. As for the Tyrone twist, we’ll leave that fun reveal for you to uncover.

Parasite (2019)

Snapshot, Fun, Photography, Black hair, Smile,

The Plot: The poor Kim family leave squalor behind to infiltrate the affluent Parks’ home.

The Twist: Once inside, they learn the Parks’ former housekeeper, Moon-gwang, is keeping a secret in the basement—her husband. She then learns the Kims’ secret too. All this leads to a bloody massacre that plays out at the Parks’ son’s backyard birthday party. In the end, the Kims’ patriarch, Ki-taek, stabs and kills the Parks’ patriarch, Park Dong-ik. Ki-taek then goes AWOL, but the final twist of the film reveals his whereabouts: He’s taken up shop in the Parks’ now-vacant basement.

People, Child, Adaptation, Human, Happy, Smile,

The Plot: A family’s beach vacation takes a violent turn when they learn they’re being hunted by some very curious doppelgängers.

The Twist: Matriarch Adelaide Wilson, who is clearly wrestling with a secret for a good chunk of the reel, turns out to be the imposter doppelgänger, with Red, the uninvited murderess, serving as the actual Adelaide Wilson. Adelaide’s identity was stolen as a little girl when she was abducted at the very same beach decades earlier.

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019)

Vehicle door, Vehicle, Car, Motor vehicle, Luxury vehicle, Automotive exterior, Auto part, Recreation, Automotive window part, Family car,

The Plot: Two dudes—Rick Dalton, an aging star from TV westerns, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth—live out their bromance in the Manson-era ‘60s.

The Twist: Three would-be Manson family killers storm into Rick’s Hollywood Hills mansion, where Cliff—high on acid—is there to welcome them. A brutal brawl, the wrath of a Pit Bull, and the fury of a flamethrower later, and revisionist history rewrites Sharon Tate’s fate. She doesn’t die. The Manson killers do.

Arrival (2016)

The Plot: When a dozen alien aircraft land on earth, a linguist, Louise Banks, is recruited to work with the military to decipher the reason for their visit.

The Twist: We aren’t watching a linear film. We’re watching a palindromic film. As Dr. Banks hacks the heptapods’ language, we learn their means of communicating aren’t linear; they know the ending as they’re writing the beginning. Applying the revelation to the film’s narrative, when Dr. Banks gives birth to her daughter, she knows she’s giving birth to a baby who will die young. She knows how her baby’s story will end before it ever begins. Further, she names her baby Hannah, a palindrome.

Coco (2017)

People, Toy, Fun, World, Tourism, Leisure, Vacation, Smile, Crowd, Art,

The Plot: A little boy named Miguel has guitar skills in his bones, but his family forbids him from any kind of music. To mend this generations-old taboo, he travels to the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, the famous singer Ernesto de la Cruz.

The Twist: While mingling with the dead, Miguel meets Héctor, a sad sap trying to reconnect with his family. The big reveal, however, discloses that Ernesto murdered Héctor, and that Héctor is actually Miguel’s great-great-grandfather, and Coco’s father.

The Descent

Performance, Arm, Performing arts, Human body, Event, Performance art, Dancer, Dance, Flesh,

The Plot: A squad of all-female spelunking enthusiasts dive into a bat-infested cave inhabited also by some very hungry humanoids the director calls Crawlers.

The Twist: Main character Sarah is your final girl, dragging herself out of the ground and speeding away in her SUV from the bloody entombment she just experienced. Until, not so fast, an apparition of antagonist Juno riding shotgun jerks Sarah out of her own mania and puts her right back into the cave where she really is. The camera fades to black. And we hear the Crawlers drawing near.*

*This is the director’s final cut of the film . U.S. audiences were treated to a diluted ending in theaters.

Identity (2003)

Suit, Formal wear, Outerwear, Tuxedo, White-collar worker, Jacket,

The Plot: The guests of an interstate motel in the Nevada desert quickly learn there’s a homicidal killer among them, as they’re getting knocked off one by one.

The Twist: The murderer is the little boy—which is explained as we learn each of the 10 strangers stranded at the roadside joint are manifestations of a man who suffers from an extreme case of dissociative identity disorder. The boy is one of those personalities.

Gone Girl (2014)

Flower, Plant, Floristry, Floral design, Office equipment, Interior design, Table, Desk, Glass, Typewriter,

The Plot: When his seemingly perfect wife Amy goes missing, philandering Nick becomes the prime suspect.

The Twist: After learning Nick cheated, Amy meticulously planned her disappearance to make it look like Nick killed her. Later, when she decides to return home to Nick (after seducing, then murdering, an old ex-boyfriend to make it look like he kidnapped her) she gets artificially inseminated with Nick's semen to ensure he stays with her.

The Departed (2006)

Games, Indoor games and sports, Table, Recreation, Poker, English billiards, Pool, Gambling, Straight pool, Furniture,

The Plot: Billy Costigan goes undercover within the Irish mob to implicate sadistic boss Frank Costello. Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Colin Sullivan, a dirty cop secretly doing Costello's bidding, tries to hunt out the "rat."

The Twist: Sullivan determines Costigan's identity, shooting him in the head in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sequence. After Costigan's funeral, Sullivan returns to his own apartment, where Costigan's handler, Staff Sergeant Sean Dignam, is waiting to kill him.

Atonement (2007)

Meal, Event, Restaurant, Tableware, Formal wear, Brunch, Drinkware, Food, Champagne stemware, Stemware,

The Plot: Briony Tallis has a crush on the son of her family's housekeeper, Robbie; when she walks in on her sister Cecilia having sex with Robbie, Briony misinterprets the situation. Later that night, she blames Robbie for an assault on her cousin Lola even though she didn't witness the attack. Robbie is sent to prison, later joining the army to fight in World War II, while Cecilia becomes a nurse. Years later, Briony, feeling guilty for derailing Cecilia and Robbie's lives, visits them in their apartment to apologize, but they turn her away.

The Twist: Cecilia and Robbie never had a life together; Robbie died in the war, while Cecilia died in a bombing in London. As an old woman, Briony wrote a book in which they lived happily ever after as repentance.

Julie Kosin is the senior culture editor of ELLE.com, where she oversees all things movies, TV, books, music, and art, from trawling Netflix for a worthy binge to endorsing your next book club pick. She's the former director of audience strategy and entertainment at HarpersBAZAAR.com . When not glued to her laptop, she can be found taking pictures of her dog or haunting used bookstores.

DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.

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The 32 top twist movie endings

They were dead, or dreaming, or hidden in plain sight, the whole time

Who doesn’t love a good twist ending? Some of the best movies ever made tend to surprise their audience just before the credits roll. But which among them are actually the greatest of all time?

The appeal of plot twists are easy to understand, even if we don’t fully understand why. In a 2019 interview with NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast, cognitive scientist Vera Tobin observed that stories operate like a “magic trick.” We recognize stories because of patterns, Tobin said, so we’re impressed when expert storytellers subvert expectations. In a separate 2021 essay for Aeon, Tobin wrote that a good plot twist invites audiences to participate more than passively enjoy the media.

“Stories with surprise twists involve several noteworthy kinds of labour,” Tobin wrote. “First, like any story, they ask their audience to put in the time and effort to build up specific ideas about what is going on. We invest our attention and affections in characters and situations. Then, in the wake of the surprise, we’re supposed to undo a lot of that work and do new work instead, reconstructing our understanding of what’s going on to fit the surprising new information.”

For those looking for a good surprise in their movie offerings, behold: We’ve collected 32 movies with some of the most memorable twist endings. And good news! For your benefit, we’ve done our best to keep everything here as spoiler free as we could so you can discover the twists and turns for yourself, though some still might be obvious given how we've discussed them. You’re welcome! But remember to pick your jaws back up from the floor.

32. Saw (2004)

Virtually all the Saw movies contain some kind of a surprise or plot twist. But still, to this day, nothing beats the jaw-dropping ending to the first installment in the gory horror franchise. In the 2004 original that put James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell on the map, it’s the one person in the room that audiences least expect who is, in fact, the true mastermind behind the whole grisly ordeal. Not only is Saw a true 21st century horror classic, but its introduction of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw is one of those once-in-a-lifetime reveals that really felt like it changed everything.

31. The Power of the Dog (2021)

Toxic masculinity and repressed identities sprawl across wide open plains in Jane Campion’s acclaimed 2021 Western film The Power of the Dog, based on Thomas Savage’s novel. Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons co-star as wealthy ranch owners, with the former being psychologically and verbally abusive towards the latter’s new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and effeminate son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). While The Power of the Dog doesn’t have a twist ending in the traditional sense, it’s still a shock to see how deep one’s capacity for evil can run.

30. Barbarian (2022)

Emerging from the mind of sitcom and sketch comic star Zach Cregger, the 2022 cult hit horror-thriller Barbarian contains several different twists that it’s impossible for anyone to say they saw any of it coming. What begins as an uneasy but somewhat grounded thriller about sharing an AirBnB rental with a stranger (played by Bill Skarsgård, who exudes an air of mistrust eerily well) devolves into something far darker and inexplicably evil. By the end of Barbarian, you’ll be hard-pressed to hold in your lunch by the sheer horror of it all.

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29. The Prestige (2006)

The genius about The Prestige and its “twist” ending is that Michael Caine (in the role of John Cutter, a stage engineer and experienced magician) outright says there’s a twist coming, right at the top. In Christopher Nolan’s searing psychological period drama, two rival stage magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) enter an escalating battle of one-upmanship that reaches dangerous heights. By the end, audiences may be dizzy from parsing out what’s real and what’s an illusion. But they are surely left in awe as the film rolls up its sleeves to reveal its final trick.

28. Remember Me (2010)

To be clear: Few people say they actually like the twist ending of Remember Me, a sappy romantic drama from 2010 starring Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin. But the reveal is still so infamous to this day, it deserves recognition even if it’s painfully ironic. In this contemporary romance set in 21st century New York City, two young people (played by Pattinson and de Ravin) still hurting from family trauma fall in love. However, the twist, which borders on disrespectful to the point some find it hilarious, is that their romance ends in a true-life terrorist attack. While some fans argue that the tragedy was a shock and thus the movie’s sudden evocation of it is appropriate, others vehemently disagree on the basis of good taste.

27. The Conversation (1974)

Just two years after Francis Ford Coppola unleashed his undisputed American classic, The Godfather, Coppola again asserted his master craftsmanship with The Conversation starring Gene Hackman. In this neo-noir thriller, a surveillance expert (Hackman) faces a serious dilemma when he believes the couple he’s hired to spy on believe they’re about to be murdered. The ending of The Conversation is nothing short of brilliant, with its meditation on the intrusive ways technology is seeping into our daily lives. There may be an absence of smartphones and social media in The Conversation, yet it's a movie that is strikingly relevant now more than ever.

26. Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

After the first Paranormal Activity blew up into a sensation in 2007, it was inevitable that a similar sequel would follow in its footsteps. What few moviegoers expected, however, was a prequel featuring deeper ties to the original movie’s characters. With Paranormal Activity 2, its “twist” ending reveals when it actually takes place and how it tragically connects to the possession and subsequent disappearance of Katie (Katie Featherston). With Paranormal Activity 2, fans didn’t just get more of the same, but an expansion of a new, terrifying universe.

25. High Plains Drifter (1973)

In his sophomore feature as a film director, Clint Eastwood channels the eerie atmosphere of ghost stories in the dark Western shoot-’em-up High Plains Drifter. After a nameless gunslinger (Eastwood) wanders into a frontier town whose people hide a secret, the townsfolk plead with the gunslinger to protect them from vengeful outlaws. In the end, justice is delivered - but at what cost? The movie’s closing image suggests that spirits stay restless until graves are finally marked, and that even when justice is served, it’s not always on behalf of those deserving.

24. The Invitation (2015)

In Karyn Kusama’s razor-sharp thriller about torturous social interactions and the gaping maws of vampiric Los Angeles lifestyles, a man (Logan-Marshall Green) still mourns the death of his son when he endures a party hosted by his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband (Michiel Huisman). At the party, a strange guest (John Carrol Lynch) slowly introduces the party to new age principles - one might call it a cult - that slowly, and quite literally, kills the vibe. It’s in The Invitation’s closing shot where the power of Kusama’s twist ending is really felt.

23. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

It’s not so much a twist ending than it is a satisfying conclusion that impressively betrays its own premise. In Michel Gondry’s early-aughts classic, bookish introvert Joel (Jim Carrey) submits himself to a breakthrough new procedure that erases all memories of his ex-lover Clementine (Kate Winslet). But deep in the process, Joel finds how important Clementine is to him - and more importantly, the memories they shared. In the end, Joel and Clementine are strangers only vaguely aware of the pain they’ve caused each other. But their willingness to try again anyway, despite all the events that precede this moment, is the movie testifying how important all our experiences are, even if we ultimately regret them.

22. The Village (2004)

M. Night Shyamalan is known even by the most casual of moviegoers for his many plot twists. That doesn’t mean his brand of storytelling still isn’t effective. Such is the case with his creepy 2004 thriller The Village. Set in what appears to be the 19th century, a small village in Pennsylvania lives in eternal fear of creatures who live beyond the woods that encircle them. In true Shyamalan fashion, the twist of The Village is divisive; fans say it’s ingenious and pointed, detractors say it’s Shyamalan mining cheap thrills. But being a story about festering paranoia that takes root within isolated rural communities, no one can deny it isn’t insightful.

21. Parasite (2019)

It technically doesn’t count as a twist ending , but the mid-story twist in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is so unforgettable, it’s also become a meme. In the Korean-language Oscar winner for Best Picture, a family living in poverty conspire to embed themselves in the daily lives of a far wealthier family. But just when they’re sitting pretty in the lap of luxury, an unexpected returning visitor (Lee Jung-eun) threatens to undo everything. Parasite captivated audiences worldwide for a reason. Besides its resonant themes about income inequality, its propulsive storytelling with unexpected sharp swerves is largely why.

20. Chinatown (1974)

You can tell someone to “Forget it, it’s Chinatown,” but truly no one ever forgets this noir classic from Roman Polanski. In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson stars as a private investigator whose latest case somehow brings him into the heart of a conspiracy involving California real estate and the water supply. But where the real shocking twist occurs is late in the movie, where Faye Dunaway reveals the true identity of her daughter and her father. The reveal is sickening, rendering the movie’s ending of brutal death and evil standing victorious isn’t shocking as it is numbing.

19. Mulholland Drive (2001)

In David Lynch’s surrealist mystery classic, Hollywood dreams are proven to be as much a fabrication as flashing images on a screen. Naomi Watts stars as an aspiring actress who arrives in Hollywood and meets an amnesiac woman (played by Laura Harring), with whom she becomes lovers. But as the movie unfolds, all is not what it seems. The events of the movie’s first two hours are but a figment of one character’s imagination to mask a far bleaker reality. While David Lynch’s movies are notoriously impenetrable, Mulholland Drive isn’t indecipherable. It simply takes true dreamers to know how to vibe with it.

18. Arrival (2016)

Before embarking on his epic Dune duology (not to mention the modern classic that is Blade Runner 2049), Denis Villeneuve proved his mettle as a sci-fi visionary with his emotional 2016 epic Arrival. Amy Adams stars as a professor of linguistics who is recruited by the U.S. military to establish communication with alien entities. While the movie leads us to believe that we meet Adams’ character in the aftermath of her personal grief, we instead find that some stories, including hers, aren’t linear. In the end, Arrival posits that a lifetime of memories - both the pleasurable and the painful - are all worth their weight regardless of how the stories actually end.

17. The Game (1997)

David Fincher plays with his audience with his 1997 psychological thriller The Game. Michael Douglas stars as wealthy banker Nick Van Orton who, on his birthday, is given an especially strange “gift”: an immersive challenge of mystery and conspiracy that involves virtually all aspects of his life, all in the name of interrogating his quality as a person. While the rest of us would rather play something less intense, like maybe Dungeons & Dragons, Fincher’s movie is clever as it is conniving, proving that some games are best played deadly serious.

16. The Mist (2007)

It is maybe, just maybe, the best Stephen King movie adaptation of all time. Helmed by Frank Darabont and based on King’s 1980 novella, The Mist tells of ordinary people in a Maine supermarket who find themselves surrounded by a strange fog - and terrifying monsters lurking in them - that completely envelops the town. The ending in Darabont’s film version differs from Stephen King’s novella, which King himself praised as “so anti-Hollywood” and “nihilistic” in a retrospective 2017 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment.

15. Malignant (2021)

It’s one of the most aggressive plot twists of all time, bordering on hysterical absurdity if it wasn’t also so terrifying. In James Wan’s 2021 horror classic Malignant, a pregnant woman named Madison (Annabelle Wallis) finds herself haunted by violent nightmares that feel a little too real, as well as constant bleeding from the back of her skull. Soon enough, everything about all that ails Madison is explained. But when the explanations also defy reason, that’s when you know you’re dealing with a movie unlike any other.

14. Us (2019)

In Jordan Peele’s acclaimed sophomore horror movie Us, the ancient horror of doppelgangers gets a modern spin in a picture replete with intentionally repetitious symbols. But no good horror-thriller is complete with a plot twist; in this case, it’s the reveal of which version of Addie (played as an adult by Lupita Nyong'o) got to grow up in the outside world, and which was forced to live underground. The twist is a terrifying one to consider, in that we are sometimes never really sure of the people even closest to ourselves.

13. Ex Machina (2014)

Without giving too much away, the “twist” of Ex Machina isn’t about the concealed nature of identities, realities, or time, as it is in so many other films. Rather, it’s about motives. In Alex Garland’s celebrated sci-fi thriller, a lowly programmer (Domnhall Gleeson) is invited to spend a week with his company’s elusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). There, he meets a beautiful, cutting-edge A.I. named Ava (Alicia Vikander). While the two grow close as Nathan reveals himself to be a lethal narcissist, the movie ends with a stunning twist regarding the true intentions of those you thought were allied with you. Even machines have thoughts and feelings of their own, and Ex Machina is a warning to not trust anyone - or anything.

12. The Ring (2002)

Although Gore Verbinski more or less followed the same beats as his Japanese predecessor Hideo Nakata (director of the original 1998 J-horror Ringu) it doesn’t stop his movie from hitting hard. In The Ring, a cursed video tape containing the vengeful ghost of a young girl, Samara (Daveigh Chase) spreads as an urban legend; viewers have seven days to make someone else watch the video, or else Samara comes after them. While the protagonists believe they’ve spared themselves from Samara’s wrath, there’s one important character who realizes too little, too late that they haven’t escaped Samara’s line of sight at all. Let The Ring be a warning to always remember the finer details.

11. Atonement (2007)

In Joe Wright’s romantic war drama (an adaptation from Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel), James McAvoy and Keira Knightley co-star as young lovers, Robbie and Cecilia respectively, whose lives in 1935 coincide with the violence of World War II. But the source of the title Atonement comes from Cecilia’s sister Briony (played by Saoirse Ronan as a child, and Vanessa Redgrave as an adult), whose jealousy towards her sister leads her to interfere with their romance. Without spoiling the whole heartbreaking thing, Briony is atoning for an act of selfishness on her part, and the beautiful love story that’s being told is part of her own futile effort to seek forgiveness.

10. Fight Club (1999)

Decades after its release, David Fincher’s Fight Club is still remembered for its stunning (and earned) twist ending. In Fincher’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel, an aimless office drone (Edward Norton) strikes up a sudden friendship with a charismatic and handsome stranger named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). The two start a “fight club” that invites men a way to blow off steam and their aggression towards the modern world, only for it to spiral into an activist movement. Most people already know the story twist of Fight Club as much as they know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father (oops, did we spoil that too?), it’s still impressive to revisit Fight Club and see the breadcrumbs Fincher leaves in the build-up to his grand reveal.

9. All of Us Strangers (2023)

In this heart-wrenching romantic fantasy from Andrew Haigh (based on the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada), Andrew Scott plays Adam, a writer in London who is stunned to find that his childhood home is still inhabited by his dead parents, who seem as alive as they were before their fatal car accident. Meanwhile, he embarks on a relationship with a hot stud of a neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal). While there is no big twist concerning Adam’s parents - they are unambiguously dead - the real stunner is learning more about Harry. In the end, Haigh’s movie is about how, in our quest for inner peace, we lose ourselves to fantasies that can feel so real.

8. Shutter Island (2010)

Even in his large body of work, Martin Scorsese doesn’t normally engage in twist endings. But in 2010, the master filmmaker broke tradition with Shutter Island, his film version of Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a U.S. Marshal who ventures to a mental institution in Boston to conduct a missing persons investigation. The movie more or less adheres to the book’s own shock ending, which reveals the actual reason why DiCaprio’s character is at a mental institution and how the disappeared person is related to them. Shutter Island is one of Scorsese’s most riveting movies, powered by both the director’s undisputed talent and the story’s exploration of delusions and the real nature of sanity.

7. Unbreakable (2000)

Before superhero movies became the dominant cinema genre of the 21st century, M. Night Shyamalan’s cerebral thriller Unbreakable probed comic book conventions with a septic needle. Several years after Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson co-starred in Die Hard with a Vengeance, they reunite in Shyamalan’s thriller about a family man, David Dunn (Willis) who discovers incredible powers, and submits to the guidance of an enigmatic comic book expert (Jackson). In the end, however, David learns that fate has a funny way of finding people - and that all superheroes need a supervillain, or else their stories mean nothing.

6. Donnie Darko (2001)

In Richard Kelly’s seminal portrait of suburban teenage angst, aloof teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is haunted by strange visions, including a specter dressed in a creepy rabbit costume. Ultimately, what Donnie is seeing is his near future - a future that ends in death and destruction. It’s only by going back to the beginning of the story that Donnie can save everyone, if only at the cost of himself. While ostensibly a dark psychological drama, Donnie Darko keeps a toe dipped in supernatural waters to enable its twist ending to not just mean something, but for it to even happen at all.

5. The Usual Suspects (1995)

Before he helmed the X-Men film franchise, director Bryan Singer unleashed his masculine ‘90s crime thriller The Usual Suspects. Told largely in flashback, its story involves an eyewitness detailing how a criminal mastermind, an elusive figure named Keyser Söze, convinced five other criminals to carry out a fatal heist. The twist ending of The Usual Suspects is not only good old Hollywood filmmaking at its finest, but popularized “Keyser Söze” as a new slang term for calculating, omnipresent menaces.

4. The Sixth Sense (1999)

M. Night Shyamalan’s third feature film became his Hollywood calling card, being a dark thriller with a jaw-dropping, unforgettable twist that quickly defined his artistic identity. In The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis stars as a child psychologist whose patient Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) claims to have contact with the dead, as told by the infamous and oft-quoted line “I see dead people.” But Cole Sear (get it?) isn’t lying, and it’s who Cole tells that line to that says everything about where Shyamalan’s movie is taking its audience.

3. Psycho (1960)

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t just scare audiences with Psycho, he outright traumatized them. In his towering horror-thriller, a beautiful on-the-run criminal (played by Marion Crane) takes shelter at a podunk motel owned and operated by shy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). After a fateful encounter, the movie’s plot changes entirely - in an actual, textbook example of a “plot twist” - only to end in a way that is both frightening and iconic. Psycho is easily one of the most influential movies of all time, and everything, including up to the moment it ends, is a prime example of a master storyteller known for misdirection at work.

2. Oldboy (2003)

It would be beautiful if it weren’t so ghastly. In Park Chan-wook’s celebrated Korean New Wave thriller Oldboy loosely based on the Japanese manga, a businessman (Choi Min-sik) is imprisoned for 15 years. When he’s released, he feverishly hunts down the one responsible for his captivity while aided by a beautiful sushi chef ( Kang Hye-jung). In this pitch black psychological thriller, revenge is the theme du jour where almost-forgotten high school gossip carries a far greater cost than one might think. In Oldboy, hatred festers like an ulcer, calcifying into something inky and venomous in which death is too cheap of an exit.

1. Citizen Kane (1941)

Orson Welles’ movie is hailed as a classic, and all these years later, its status is deserved. Its praise extends to its ending, which isn’t so much as a twist as it is a fine detail that audiences easily forget until they’re reminded in dramatic fashion. In this fictional biopic of a newspaper titan, Charles Foster Kane (played by Orson Welles), his dying words “Rosebud” are an invitation for a journalist to trace Kane’s life to find its origins. In the end, it’s not about secret words or scorned lovers. It’s simply about youthful happiness, and how no amount of wealth can ever compensate for lost innocence.

Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he's your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.

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No way the twist is that simple in m. night shyamalan's new movie.

M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, Trap, revealed its villain twist in the trailer, meaning it must have another twist saved for the audience.

Shyamalan's movie Trap reveals its big twist in the first trailer, surprising viewers.
Hartnett's character in Trap may have more to his twist beyond being the villain.
Shyamalan's movies typically have multiple twists, and Trap may follow suit.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new psychological thriller is Trap , and the first trailer has already revealed the movie’s twist, but there must be something more. M. Night Shyamalan has become known for the supernatural elements in his movies and his use of plot twists and shocking reveals, though not all of them have had the desired effect. Still, Shyamalan’s projects always create a lot of expectations and attract the audience’s interest, and now all eyes are on his two 2024 horror movies : The Watchers and Trap .

Also written by Shyamalan, Trap takes place at the concert of pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), and it follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his teenage daughter, Riley, as they attend the concert. During a bathroom break, Cooper notices police officers everywhere, security cameras all over the place, and police vans outside the venue. Cooper learns that the whole concert is a trap for a serial killer known as “The Butcher” , as the police knew he was going to be in attendance. Unsurprisingly, Trap has a big twist, but to everyone’s surprise, it has already been revealed in the trailer.

M. Night Shyamalan's New Horror Movie Twist Can Redeem Last Year's $54.8M Misfire

Trap's josh hartnett reveal can't be the only movie twist, trap revealing its villain twist right away must be hiding something.

The twists in Shyamalan’s movies often arrive towards the end of the movie, so Trap revealing its big villain twist in the first trailer is surprising and intriguing.

The first trailer for Trap reveals the movie’s twist in the most intriguing way. Once Cooper enters a bathroom stall, he checks a security camera from the basement of his house on his phone, revealing Cooper as the serial killer as he’s holding a man hostage . The trailer adds a quick shot of a man, presumably Cooper, taking a butcher knife from a table before returning to a close-up of Hartnett’s eyes with a disturbing red filter. The rest of the trailer emphasizes Cooper’s odd behavior, with quick shots of chaos happening at the venue.

The twists in Shyamalan’s movies often arrive towards the end of the movie, so Trap revealing its big villain twist in the first trailer is surprising and intriguing. However, the true identity of Hartnett’s character can’t be the only twist in Trap . Cooper (if that’s his real name, of course) could be a killer but not The Butcher , and he could just be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Cooper could also not be a killer at all and could be imagining that he is, which would be a shocking twist but one that should be done with care to avoid disappointment.

M. Night Shyamalan's New Movie Likely Involves Multiple Twists

M. night shyamalan’s is known for the many twists in his movies.

Many of Shyamalan’s movies have twists in their third acts, but some have another, albeit most of the time minor, twist before. The Visit , for example, reveals the grandparents behave quite dangerously, only to be later revealed to not be the kids’ real grandparents. Unbreakable revealed Bruce Willis’ David Dunn is, in fact, a real-life superhero, but also that his “mentor” Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson) was the one who caused a series of accidents in search for his counterpart, as he sees himself as a supervillain.

Glass had the twist of Kevin’s (James McAvoy) father dying in the train crash Elijah provoked, and Elijah making sure that the world knows superheroes are real. Other Shyamalan movies had one twist, which, in some cases, was big enough to elevate the entire movie, as was the one in The Sixth Sense . It’s expected, then, that Trap will have another twist, though it could also happen that the other twist is that there’s none .

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Krishnakumar's eye injury: Plot twist as cops find accused is BJP worker

Kollam: G Krishnakumar, the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate in Kollam, has found himself in an awkward situation after discovering that a local leader of his party was held accountable for the eye injury that the actor-politician suffered during the recent campaign.

Krishnakumar had recently lodged a complaint with the Kundara police, saying he suspected that his political opponents had attacked him with a "strong weapon". However, police found that he sustained an eye injury after being hit by the scooter keys of local BJP leader Sanal Puthanvila. Puthanvila was arrested on Monday and released on bail later. "I sustained an eye injury (suspected attack by opposition parties) during my Lok Sabha campaign in Kundra, Kollam, Kerala. Your prayers and support during this time mean everything to me," Krishnakumar posted on X on Monday (April 22).

Police said an investigation was carried out based on the candidate's complaint, and it was found that the BJP activist was responsible for the injury. Puthanvila was arrested under Section 324 of IPC (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons). Krishnakumar is yet to react to the development. (With PTI Inputs)

I sustained an eye injury ( suspected attack by oppn parties) during my Lok Sabha campaign in Kundra, Kollam, Kerala. Your prayers and support during this time mean everything to me. Thank you. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/uFQCKKJstL — Actor Krishnakumar (@actorkkofficial) April 22, 2024

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Krishnakumar's eye injury: Plot twist as cops find accused is BJP worker

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Cait Bailey Can’t Avoid the Spotlight

The publicist is by the side of famous people like Zayn Malik, Alex Cooper and Alix Earle. She’s dating a famous chef. But she’d prefer to keep a low profile.

Cait Bailey sitting in the front seat of a convertible and turning to one side to face a camera. She is wearing a white tuxedo jacket over a white top, a black skirt, several rings, gold earrings and a gold watch.

By Carson Griffith

“Not tonight,” Cait Bailey told a photographer trying to take her picture inside an area cordoned off for special guests at a Louis Vuitton party at the Miami Beach Convention Center. “Not this time.”

Ms. Bailey, 34, suggested he instead aim his camera at Alix Earle, an influencer , and her boyfriend, Braxton Berrios, a professional football player with the Miami Dolphins.

“I’m not used to being the subject,” Ms. Bailey said as the photographer snapped Ms. Earle at the event, held during Art Basel Miami Beach in December.

Anonymity has become more elusive for Ms. Bailey, a publicist and brand strategist who runs the New York office of Align Public Relations, as her clients have grown to include people with large followings like Ms. Earle, the “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper , the sibling influencers Charli and Dixie D’Amelio and the singer Zayn Malik . Last month, Ms. Bailey and several of her clients, including Ms. Cooper and Ms. Earle, attended the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals in Austin, Texas, where Ms. Cooper hosted an event promoting her podcast network.

Ms. Bailey’s relationship with Mario Carbone, 44, a chef and an owner of Carbone restaurant and other establishments, has also made it harder for her to avoid attention. (Mr. Carbone was at Ms. Cooper’s SXSW event, too; he prepared Carbone’s spicy rigatoni for guests.) He and Ms. Bailey, who live in Miami Beach and in New York, have been together for six years.

Ms. Bailey’s Instagram account has no photos but more than 72,000 followers — a disproportionate ratio that some who spend a lot of time online have noticed. “Anyone know what happened with Cait Bailey?,” a Reddit user posted in a forum called NYCInfluencerSnark. “She deleted all her photos.”

Ms. Bailey removed all of her photos last year because they “were just all really outdated,” she said. Posting new ones “was just starting to feel like a chore,” she added. “It was starting to feel like work.”

That’s not to say Ms. Bailey — who has long blond hair and whose appearance has been likened to Margot Robbie’s — doesn’t use social media.

Her Instagram Stories have often featured pictures of her clients at fashion shows (many of which she has attended with them), snapshots of designer items she has acquired or photos of her and Mr. Carbone with influential people like Michael Coste, an employee at Hermès who works with its notable customers .

A Networker ‘Like No Other’

Days after the Louis Vuitton event at Art Basel in December, Ms. Bailey glided through the crowd gathered outside manicured hedges along North Bay Road in Miami Beach. Behind the bushes, a party was being held at the waterfront home of Wayne Boich, a billionaire who runs a company that invests in real estate and energy businesses, and who started another company focused on the pickleball-like sport padel .

A song by the rapper Snoop Dogg was blasting through the shrubbery. He was performing live on the other side.

It was a Friday night around 11:30 p.m. and Ms. Bailey, after sliding past a bouncer, said hello to Sergey Brin , a founder of Google, who had a deck of cards in his hand.

“He’s a great magician,” she said loudly enough for Mr. Brin to hear, prompting him to perform a trick. Then, he asked Ms. Bailey if she could help get some people into the party. “Of course,” she said. Ms. Bailey typed a little on her phone and, like magic, those people were let inside.

As Ms. Bailey made her way through the party, she was greeted by Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who gave her a fist bump. Then she stopped to chat with a group that included Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber . At one point, Ms. Bailey congratulated a man and a woman with a big diamond on her ring finger. The couple had recently become engaged.

“When are you and Mario going to get engaged?” the woman asked Ms. Bailey.

“Oh, I can’t take on one more project right now,” Ms. Bailey replied with a laugh. “He’ll know when I’m ready.”

During Art Basel Miami Beach, Ms. Bailey went to some 20 events. Mr. Carbone, a self-described introvert, said Ms. Bailey’s “social ability” and “the way she controlled a room” were among the first things that had drawn him to her.

Ms. Earle, who started working with Ms. Bailey in February 2023, echoed Mr. Carbone’s sentiments. “When I first met Cait, no matter where we were or where we went, she knew someone important in the room and always took the time to introduce me,” Ms. Earle said. “She can network like no other.”

Ms. Bailey’s networking ability also appealed to Remi Bader, a plus-size influencer who started working with Ms. Bailey in 2021. Since then, Ms. Bailey has helped Ms. Bader develop relationships with brands like Valentino and Balmain.

“I feel like if I didn’t have Cait pushing for me and fighting for me, they wouldn’t have worked with me,” Ms. Bader said.

An Unexpected Plot Twist

Ms. Bailey, who grew up outside Baltimore, has built her network through several jobs, including positions at blue-chip and up-and-coming public relations agencies.

The path she has taken has deviated significantly from what she envisioned after graduating from Georgia Southern University in 2012, which she described as: Return to Baltimore’s suburbs, marry a lacrosse player and raise children who would go to the same private Catholic school that she attended.

“It was the dream,” Ms. Bailey said. “And I was excited for that future.”

Her mother, Patti Caudill, an assistant clinical professor of speech pathology, helped put her on a different trajectory. Not long after Ms. Bailey graduated from college, Ms. Caudill participated in a charity auction where she bid and won a prize for her daughter: an internship opportunity in New York at PMK BNC, a public relations firm.

“I came home one day and my mom was so excited,” Ms. Bailey recalled. “She said, ‘I just secured an internship for you.’”

Ms. Caudill said she never had any doubts that her daughter would be successful, but that she never envisioned Ms. Bailey having the career she has today. “She’s kind of blazed her own path,” she said.

Ms. Bailey’s internship led to a full-time job that involved keeping track of press about clients at PMK, which has since merged with Rogers & Cowan to form a new agency . Her desk was in a hidden-away area — “basically the supply closet,” as she put it. Its location made it a place where some employees “would come and cry,” she said, or vent.

Michael Cohen, an assistant at PMK when Ms. Bailey worked there, described her as his “work wife” back then. “It was clear she was a people person,” said Mr. Cohen, who is now the president of film and television at Lena Dunham’s Good Thing Going Productions. “She valued relationships.” He tipped Ms. Bailey off to what would be her next job: a position as an assistant to a publicist at PMK whose clients have included Kim Kardashian and Selena Gomez.

After four years at the agency, Ms. Bailey left to work at a start-up digital concierge service. But it wasn’t long before she started to miss working in publicity, she said.

She quit and started working as a freelance publicist — a line of work she said she might still be in were it not for a phone call she received in 2019 from Nicole Perez-Krueger, a former publicist at PMK, who at the time was building a new company called Align Public Relations.

Good Instincts (and Timing)

Ms. Bailey, after being hired at Align, took a particular interest in influencers, or content creators, on TikTok. The app arrived in the United States in 2018, only a year or so before she started at Align.

Among the first potential clients she approached were Charli D’Amelio and her elder sister, Dixie, influencers who have parlayed their social media fame into a TV show .

Charli D’Amelio recalled that Ms. Bailey came to the sisters’ family home in Norwalk, Conn., for a meeting in March 2020, with a bag of bagels in tow. By the time Ms. Bailey left, the D’Amelios had made a verbal agreement to become Align clients.

“I had never heard of a publicist before and I didn’t know what that was or why I would want one,” Charli D’Amelio said. “Cait came over and explained what they do and how they would be able to help the family.”

By then, Ms. Bailey and Mr. Carbone had been dating for about two years. They met in 2018 at his namesake restaurant on Thompson Street in the Greenwich Village in Manhattan.

Mr. Carbone was there with a friend, he said, when he received a text message from Shay Mitchell, an actress with whom he is friendly, asking for a last-minute reservation. She was with Ms. Bailey; Ms. Mitchell, who is a client of Ms. Bailey’s, first met her when she was working at PMK.

“I told her we were full, but if you want to join us, you can,” Mr. Carbone recalled telling Ms. Mitchell. “She said, ‘Great, I’ll take it.’ And that’s how I met Cait.”

Introducing them, Ms. Mitchell said jokingly, “means reservations for life!”

Mr. Carbone said he grew up in a family in which “working hard was standard.” To be in a relationship with someone who has a similar work ethic “makes it easy,” he added, noting that Ms. Bailey’s achievements have had very little to do with his.

“There is no piggybacking on Major Food Group,” Mr. Carbone said, referring to his company, which has recently opened a string of restaurants in Florida.

A telling sign that he had fallen for Ms. Bailey, he said, was his decision to get rid of a beloved vintage U-shaped sofa in his New York apartment.

“It was beautiful, but it was impossible to sit on, to lay on,” Mr. Carbone said of the couch, a piece by the furniture designer Maurizio Tempestini. “In the beginning, she was nice about it because we were in the courting stage, and you don’t want to say anything. But eventually she was like, this is the worst couch ever.”

As Ms. Bailey has inspired Mr. Carbone to give up certain things, he has influenced her to take up new pursuits like backgammon. “She got better than me, and I admit that,” Mr. Carbone said, describing Ms. Bailey as a “bad loser and a worse winner.”

“If she wins, she gloats; if she loses, she finds an excuse at why I got lucky,” he said. “This goes for all games. It’s not a lot of fun to play with Cait.”

Not that Ms. Bailey has much time to play.

“She is really working away,” Mr. Carbone said.

Having a partner who is ambitious “and is just as passionate about what they do is a beautiful thing,” he added.

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42 Essential Plot Twists
What Is A Plot Twist? Definition & Examples Of This Important Technique
How to Write GREAT Plot Twists!
Plot Twist Examples and Tips for Writers
5 Books with the Best Plot Twists You Need to Read

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COMMENTS

12 Most Complex Time Travel Movies Executed Well
This time travel movie follows a multi-timeline approach and keeps you on edge with multiple plot twists. A mysterious storm causes a TV to become a bridge across 25 years, enabling characters to communicate with the past. ... For an extensive analysis of the time travel, plot and characters with a timeline video, go here - Avengers: Endgame ...
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Time Travel
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Time Travel. For today's prompt, have your characters travel through time. They can jump into the future, travel to the past, or attempt to do both. ... Time travel has long been an interesting plot twist device, but it comes with quite a few risks—both for your characters and for your story. (6 Things to Ask ...
43 Terrific Time Travel Prompts » JournalBuddies.com
With time travel, the possibilities for plot twists are endless. Different genres can also be explored, from mystery to science fiction. ... 18 Story Starter/Plot Twist Time Travel Prompts. Imagine a world where historians are appalled to learn that history has been changed, and you're one of the only people who knows how things used to be. ...
Clever plot twists in a time travel tale
Science fiction authors love time travel stories, because it affords them abundant opportunities to build plots full of clever plot twists and turns. Sometimes the surprises are really anything but shocking. But that's not the case with the ingenious tale Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney have written under the title Fata Morgana.
Bringing a Fresh Twist to the Time-Travel Novel
James Goodhand. James Goodhand has written two YA novels. His YA debut, Last Lesson, was called "a powerfully charged study in empathy," by the Financial Times. This is his adult debut. He lives in England with his wife and young son. Author James Goodhand shares five things he learned about bringing a fresh twist to the time-travel trope.
Time-Slips and Body Hopping: Eight Great Novels of Time Travel
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. An Agatha Christie style murder mystery with a body-hopping, time-looping sleuth, this novel is a work of genre-crossing genius. Set in a stately home in the 1920s, the story sees the titular character shot at midnight during her own birthday party.
'Adam Project' ending, explained: What are the rules of time travel?
The Adam Project plot explained. The basic premise of The Adam Project is that in the not-so-distant future, time travel is discovered and the woman who discovered it (Maya Sorian, played by ...
The Rules of Time Travel for Fiction Writers
The Rules of Time Travel for Fiction Writers. September 19, 2017. 1 Comment. 4 min read. Written by Alex J Coyne. Time travel is a staple of great fiction—when it's done right. When it's done wrong, you're turning wormholes into plot holes instead. Here's how to get a handle on the mechanics of time travel for fiction.
The 10 best time travel novels
Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney (2017) 384 pages ★★★★☆ - Clever plot twists in a time travel tale. Science fiction authors love time travel stories, because it affords them abundant opportunities to build plots full of clever plot twists and turns. Sometimes the surprises are really anything but shocking.
9 Rules for Writing Time Travel
Remember that time-travel is a means of telling your story, not the entire story itself. Make your characters matter. 9. Be Unique. Time travel has been the source of some of the most creative sci-fi works ever made. Keep twisting it to create your own rules and your own wonderful stories. Remember that it does not have to be linear time travel ...
'Felicity's Time-Travel Twist Is Better Than You Remember
Drama. A young girl, fresh out of high school, follows her high school crush to college to be near him. Release Date. September 29, 1998. Cast. Keri Russell , Scott Foley , Scott Speedman , Tangi ...
37 Mind-Bending Time Travel Books
One Last Stop. Casey McQuiston. One of the most anticipated time travel books of 2021 comes from the author of Red, White & Royal Blue. Cynical August doesn't believe life will ever change until she develops a crush on a girl from her subway commute. Jane is perfect and the highlight of August's every day.
70+ Plot Twist Ideas and Examples To Blow Your Readers Away
James Sheppard, the first-person narrator of the novel, comes out as the murderer in the case that Hercule Poirot had been investigating. More plot twist examples of this flavor: The Usual Suspects. Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time con man, is interrogated by the police who hope to hunt down the mob boss Keyser Söze.
How to Write a Plot Twist
A plot twist is a sudden, drastic, and unexpected change in the direction of a story. The big ones usually pop up during the final act. But, smaller twists can happen in earlier points of a narrative. In fact, smaller twists should happen early. So, don't limit your twists to just the "big reveal" endings.
The Best Plot Twists of the 21st Century, Ranked
July 28, 2023 7:00 pm. The best plot twists of the 21st century. It's the shock of seeing Norman Bates, knife in hand, clad in his mother's clothes, grinning maniacally in the swinging ...
80 Plot Twist Ideas and Examples for Writers
5. Deus ex machina. This is a literary device that comes in the form of a person or an event that comes out of the blue and provides a response to a difficult event. This was usually used in Greek and Roman dramas and is meant to represent as an act of God. Examples: The plot twist of Deus ex Machina in H.G.
Soompi & Viki Staff Talk: What Is Your Favorite Time Travel K-Drama?
There are also jaw-dropping plot twists incorporating time travel, tying together a mindblowing story of the past, present, and not-so-distant future. Watch "Alice" below:
Time travel romance with plot twists : r/RomanceBooks
The only english books I've read that has time-travel romance are Love and Gravity and Time and Time Again. Love and Gravity gives plot twists which I love, though Time and Time Again kind of not. Please recommend me something that has some plot twists which will make me constantly thinking all throughout the book, and will give a huge impact ...
This Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Has An Amazing Time Travel Twist
Time travel movies are a pretty popular sub-genre of the sci-fi world. Well-known films include The Terminator (1984), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), the Back to the Future franchise ...
180 Plot Twists to Surprise Your Readers
A plot twist is an unexpected development in a story, a sudden and unforeseen turn of events that subverts the expectations of the audience. It's that moment when a narrative veers off in a direction that is both surprising and, in hindsight, makes perfect sense. These twists challenge our perceptions, keep us engaged, and often lead us to reevaluate the entire story up to that point. In an ...
5 Ways The Time Travel Plot Has Been Overused (& 5 It Hasn't)
Has Been Overused: Used To Fix Any Problem. Sometimes time travel, or other related narratives are only used to fix a problem in the plot. Game Of Thrones used Bran's gifts to travel through time and allow him to impact Hodor's life and see Jon Snow's heritage. It seemed like an unnecessary moment and a way just to include a some additional ...
50 Best Movie Plot Twists of All Time
Psycho (1960) The Plot: Marion Crane is murdered at a desolate motel by the mentally-ill mother of its shifty owner, Norman Bates. The Twist: Bates murdered his mother years before, then developed ...
The 32 top twist movie endings
8. Shutter Island (2010) (Image credit: Paramount Pictures) Even in his large body of work, Martin Scorsese doesn't normally engage in twist endings. But in 2010, the master filmmaker broke ...
10 books with plot twists
Thrillers may utilize plot twists more than books in other genres, but some of the most effective and surprising twists are found in literary fiction. Choi employee the plot twist with gutting precision and remarkable finesse in this novel about a group of students at an elite performing arts high school in the 1980s.
Top 10 Plot Twists That Completely Changed the Show
Dennis Quaid spoke with Fox News Digital about the nearly 40-year age gap with his wife, Laura Savoie, and why he doesn't pay it any mind. These plot twists completely changed the show. Welcome ...
No Way The Twist Is That Simple In M. Night Shyamalan's New Movie
M. Night Shyamalan's new psychological thriller is Trap, and the first trailer has already revealed the movie's twist, but there must be something more. M. Night Shyamalan has become known for the supernatural elements in his movies and his use of plot twists and shocking reveals, though not all of them have had the desired effect.Still, Shyamalan's projects always create a lot of ...
Sylvester Stallone says brutal pec injury led to Rocky II plot twist
Sylvester Stallone thought his career was over after he tore his pec right off the bone, but he used the injury for a plot twist in Rocky II. By Kevin Fraser April 23rd 2024, 5:07pm
Krishnakumar's eye injury: Plot twist as cops find accused is BJP
Krishnakumar had recently lodged a complaint with the Kundara police, saying he suspected that his political opponents had attacked him with a "strong weapon". However, police found that he sustained an eye injury after being hit by the scooter keys of local BJP leader Sanal Puthanvila. Puthanvila was arrested on Monday and released on bail later.
Meet Cait Bailey, Who Does PR for Alex Cooper, Alix Earle and Zayn
An Unexpected Plot Twist Ms. Bailey, who grew up outside Baltimore, has built her network through several jobs, including positions at blue-chip and up-and-coming public relations agencies.

12 Most Complex Time Travel Movies Executed Well

Back To The Future: Part 2

The Infinite Man

Avengers: Endgame

Predestination

Butterfly Effect

Time-Slips and Body Hopping: Eight Great Novels of Time Travel

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The Adam Project ending, explained: What are the rules of time travel?

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The 10 best time travel novels

The best time travel novels

Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980) 514 pages ★★★★☆ – An ingenious twist on time travel

Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney (2017) 384 pages ★★★★☆ – Clever plot twists in a time travel tale

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen (2019) 336 pages ★★★★☆ – A novel treatment of time travel in this promising science fiction debut

New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey (2016) 352 pages ★★★★☆ – It’s not time travel. But it looks like it.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022) 218 pages ★★★★★ – Emily St. John Mandel writes about a pandemic again

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (2019) 344 pages ★★★★☆ – Alternate feminist history by a gifted science fiction author

The Continuum (Place in Time #1) by Wendy Nikel (2018) 174 pages ★★★★☆ – An ingenious take on time travel

Mammoth by John Varley— A novel about time travel featuring wooly mammoths and an eccentric billionaire

Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel #2 of 5) by Connie Willis— A time travel novel about the Black Death

Blackout (Oxford Time Travel #4 of 5) by Connie Willis (2010) 650 pages ★★★★☆— Historians study World War II in person

Time travel novels that didn’t make the grade

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9 Rules for Writing Time Travel

1. Give us the Shock & Awe

2. Pick Your Method

3. Anything goes, as long as you explain it.

4. Create Your Own Rules

5. Or Give Yourself an “Out” to Break the Rules

6. Keep the Clock Ticking

7. Flip the Script to Make it Difficult

8. Choose a Global Background, Then Make it Personal

9. Be Unique

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