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We did NOT see that coming: 40 spoilers for those who dare to read on

Deaths, doppelgangers, ghosts, fathers, imaginary friends, magicians and a sled. Lean in and enjoy a world in which there are only so many ways to twist a tale

Updated on: Sep 15, 2023 4:24 PM IST
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You can’t escape spoilers. They’ll find you eventually.
You can’t escape spoilers. They’ll find you eventually.
  • Killing Eve, Season 4, Episode 8 (2022)

    Just hours after assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and MI5 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) have their first kiss, one of them is shot as they try to escape through the Thames. The other survives, as she watches the enigmatic woman fall to her death.

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  • Game of Thrones, Season 4, Episode 2 (2014)

    A Baratheon (who’s actually a Lannister) dies at the Purple Wedding, his own marriage ceremony, to everyone’s relief.

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  • The Sixth Sense (1999)

    Therapist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), who is trying so hard to help a little boy process the fact that he can see dead people, is a ghost himself! He was murdered at the beginning of the film and just didn’t realise he was dead.

  • A Beautiful Mind (2001)

    Those friends who keep hanging out with mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe) aren’t real, after all. Nash suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and his “friends” exist only in his head, even as he accepts his Nobel Prize.

  • Black Swan (2010)

    Oh no. Ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman), subsisting on half-boiled eggs and paranoia, didn’t actually stab her rival Lily (Mila Kunis) in a fit of frustrated envy on the day of their performance of Swan Lake. Nina imagined most of her interactions with Lily, even THAT sex scene. Whom did Nina stab then? Herself.

  • The Prestige (2006)

    Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) are both competing to be the best magician in Victorian London. They’ve used every trick in the book. Both used clones: Borden had a secret identical twin, who was involved in stunts, Angier had a special cloning machine, and killed his clones after a trick was performed. Presto!

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  • Primal Fear (1996)

    Frightened altar-boy Aaron Stampler didn’t brutally murder Chicago’s beloved archbishop. It was his alter-ego, Roy. Defense attorney Martin Vail (Richard Gere) successfully proves Aaron’s innocence in court. It’s only later that Vail realises he’s been duped. “There never was a Roy?” he asks. The altar-boy replies: “There never was an Aaron”.

  • Gupt: The Hidden Truth (1997)

    “Kajol is the killer.” That’s it. That’s the line that ruined several moviegoers’ lives in the ’90s.

  • Kahaani (2012)

    Why is Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan), heavily pregnant in Kolkata, looking for her missing husband, Arnab Bagchi? Plot twist: Vidya was never pregnant. Her husband’s name is not Arnab Bagchi. She’s avenging the death of her husband in a poison-gas attack.

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  • The Others (2001)

    Yes, Grace’s (Nicole Kidman) rambling old family estate is indeed haunted. But it’s Grace and her kids that are the ghosts, hiding away in the dark since World War II, spooking the daylights out of the real world.

  • Yesterday (2019)

    In a world where no one has heard of the Beatles, John Lennon is still alive!

  • Andhadhun (2018)

    Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) may or may not have lost his vision after Simi’s (Tabu) attempt to brutally murder him.

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  • Stranger Things, Season 4 (2022)

    If there’s an Eleven. It means there was once a One. Yep, that ugly scabby intra-dimensional boogeyman is the same boy that lived in the Hawkins Lab with Eleven.

  • Breaking Bad, Season 2, Episode 12 (2009).

    Walt (Bryan Cranston) watches Jane (Krysten Ritter) vomit in her sleep from heroin overdose and die right next to a fast asleep Jesse (Aaron Paul), and does absolutely nothing about it.

  • Talaash (2012)

    Surjan (Aamir Khan) is investigating the death of a film actor when he meets a mysterious escort, Rosie (Kareena Kapoor Khan), who aids him in his quest. Rosie, however, turns out to be a ghost.

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  • Kaun? (1999)

    A woman (Urmila Matondkar) is alone at home on a stormy evening when she learns that a psychopathic murderer is at large. She jumps at every sound. Then, two strange men (Manoj Bajpayee and Sushant Singh) break into her home, blaming each other for the murders. Who’s the psychopath? It’s the woman all along.

  • Pathaan (2023)

    Salman Khan makes a cameo. But it’s too soon. We won’t tell you as whom.

  • Karthik Calling Karthik (2010)

    A suicidal Karthik (Farhan Akhtar) is saved by a mysterious landline-caller who also claims to be Karthik. When Karthik talks about it to his girlfriend (Deepika Padukone) and shrink (Shefali Shah), he’s encouraged to not receive the calls, which only angers the telephone-Karthik, who threatens to destroy the suicidal Karthik. Turns out, Karthik is schizophrenic and was leaving phone messages for himself all along.

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  • Jawan (2023)

    There are different versions of Shah Rukh Khan, and it’ll be hard to pick your favourite one.

  • Fight Club (1999)

    The Fight Club isn’t real and neither is Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). He’s just an alter ego of the narrator (Edward Norton).

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  • Memento (2000)

    Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has tattooed key events from his life on his body because he has amnesia. He goes looking for the man who raped and killed his wife, Catherine (Jorja Fox), only to discover that it was he who murdered her via an insulin overdose.

  • Shutter Island (2010)

    US Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is investigating a hospital for the criminally insane to find out what happened to a woman named Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer). A storm, a busted vintage car, and a chase later, all is revealed to be an elaborate psychological experiment. Daniels, rendered insane from shooting his wife who drowned their kids in a bout of depression, invented his Teddy persona, preferring to die as a good man rather than “live as a monster”.

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  • Saw (2004)

    John Kramer, the “corpse” in the bathroom, was the Jigsaw Killer who egged Adam and Gordon on to kill each other, and he comes alive right at the end.

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  • The Usual Suspects (1995)

    Who is Keyser Söze, feared heist master, ruthless killer and impossibly wily villain? Why, it’s petty con artist Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) who’s spun his entire yarn from bits and bobs drawn from items in the police precinct. His limp? Even that’s not real!

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  • Endgame (2022)

    A super rich dude dies. Avengers:

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  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

    There’s a Childish Gambino in the Spider-Verse.

  • Succession, Season 3, Episode 9 (2021)

    The married-into-money son-in-lawTom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), who knows there’s no wine in prison and can’t decide if he loves his wife or not, helps her billionaire father punk his three kids.

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  • A Wednesday (2008)

    Mumbai was brought to a standstill by a terror threat, security loopholes were exposed, all by an unnamed caller (Naseruddin Shah) who describes himself as a “stupid common man wanting to clean his house”.

  • Barbie (2023)

    Margot Robbie isn’t the only Barbie; Ryan Gosling isn’t the only Ken.

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  • Se7en (1995)

    Serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) has murdered five people he believes are guilty of each of the seven deadly sins. Cops Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) have finally tracked him down. Only Envy and Wrath remain. So, what’s in the box? Doe envied Mills’ life – the box has the severed head of his wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow). Mills gives in to wrath, kills Doe. Doe’s set is complete.

  • Stranger Things, Season 2, Episode 8 (2017

    Samwise Gamgee doesn’t make it.

  • Big Little Lies, Season 1, Episode 7 (2017)

    Jane’s (Shailene Woodley) son Ziggy isn’t the kid who’s been attacking mousey little Amabella at elementary school. Ziggy, however, was born of assault, and has two half-brothers in his classroom. One of them has learnt what Daddy does to Mommy and has been biting and choking Amabella. Oh, and Daddy is the dead guy they’ve been discussing all through the series.

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  • Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 7 (2017)

    He knows nothing. He’s high-born and doesn’t know it. He’s spared by the Night King and doesn’t know why. The dragon-mum he’s wooing is his aunt and he doesn’t know it.

  • Donnie Darko (2001)

    It has to do with time travel, an alternate reality, a man in a rabbit mask, a fire, a motivational speaker who’s actually a paedophile, and Donnie realising that the only way to keep his world going is to sacrifice himself. Or something. We’re still not sure. Just hum Mad Word by Tears For Fears.

  • Psycho (1960)

    Norman Bates is both the shy, awkward owner of the shady Bates Motel and Mother, the alter-ego he’s taken on after he killed his abusive mother. Oh, and he stabbed Marion to death in the shower.

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  • Us (2019)

    It’s not Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) who’s scared of being attacked by her doppelgänger. Adelaide herself is the fake one. She was swapped when she was a little girl. The woman in the real world, terrified of beaches, is the clone.

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  • The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

    Hiding behind those posters of Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch on the prison cell wall is the tunnel that Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) dug, bit by bit over the years, to eventually escape, stealing the warden’s shiny shoes, no less.

  • Coco (2017)

    Uh oh. Ernesto de la Cruz, Mexico’s late great musical treasure, is a lying thieving murderer. He poisoned Héctor, stole his songs and became famous. Grandma Coco’s dad was a nice guy after all, as Miguel discovers in the afterlife.

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  • Gone Girl (2014)

    Amazing Amy (Rosamunde Pike) has faked a diary, her disappearance and her husband Nick’s (Ben Affleck) violent behaviour, all to punish him for relocating them to the boondocks and having an affair.

  • Citizen Kane (1941)

    Rosebud is the sled.