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Truelove review – an exquisite drama about bumping off your best mates

Could you kill your oldest pals as an act of love? That’s the question asked in this twisty, magnificent and deeply moving show starring Lindsay Duncan and Clarke Peters

S he is magnificent isn’t she, Lindsay Duncan ? I keep meaning to say it every time I see her in anything and somehow never do. So. She is magnificent in everything and never more so than here, surrounded by a group of equally formidable actors, in the new six-part drama Truelove.

Truelove is The Big Chill 40-plus years on and now really quite chilly indeed. A group of old friends meet at a funeral and make a drunken pact to help each other shuffle off this mortal coil should the indignities of age or illness become too much to bear. Among them, Tom (Karl Johnson) points out, they have the necessary skills to get away with – well, whether you call it murder or an act of love is the central question of the series.

Duncan plays Phil, a retired senior police officer, well versed in the ways of criminality and how best an investigation can be thwarted. Ken (Clarke Peters) is a former soldier. David (Peter Egan) is a doctor, also retired but still able to prescribe. His wife, Marion (Sue Johnston), who is also Tom’s sister, drinks to it all.

Eight months later, death comes calling for Tom and he comes calling for Phil and Ken. He has cancer of the lymph glands, liver and pancreas – “The full English, the doctor called it” – and a month or so to live. Will they honour the pact?

Would you? When his friends cannot, Tom unsuccessfully attempts to hang himself. They visit him in hospital. “I’m on suicide watch and Do Not Resuscitate,” Tom tells them. The script is full of such exquisite lines.

Eventually, however, Tom manoeuvres them into an impossible position and this time they answer his call. From there, the ravelling complications begin, as the keen investigating officer (Kiran Sonia Sawar) brings all her energy to bear on the inconsistencies she unearths, ironically powered by her eagerness to impress Phil, the former chief constable.

I don’t fully buy into the central premise, that a group of friends – however close, however wise, however pragmatic – could fulfil such a promise to each other. Perhaps more about the years of unseen friendship would have eased the incredulity a little. But in the end, it does not much matter. The meat and the joy of the thing is in the slow – and wholly credible – unfurling of the ramifications of what they do. It is in the deftly crafted scenes of love in all its forms, from the devotion between the long-married couple David and Marion as her decline into dementia begins, to the fraying bonds between Phil and her husband, Nigel (Phil Davis), as he embraces the downsizing not just of their house but of their lives in a way she cannot, to the still-flickering flame between Ken and Phil that is further fuelled by their partnership in crime. Or not crime. You decide.

It is also in the performances. There isn’t a main actor here without at least half a century of experience at work (on top of inborn, overflowing talent) and it shows. Duncan is perfect as the erstwhile detective turning her unsentimental eye to the service and protection of her friends. Peters makes us feel every twist of his tortured conscience and Davis every bit of his misery as he comes to suspect the two of them of having an affair that, in essence, gives the lie to his whole married life. And then there are Egan and Johnston, loving each other increasingly fiercely in the teeth of everything unholy.

This is the first drama series written by Iain Weatherby, and what a debut. Full of great lines, but also deft, dense and, as we move through the episodes, deeply moving. Elegiac without ever becoming bleak, a sort-of murder mystery/police procedural that never descends into cliche or thrillerdom, and set firmly and unapologetically within the world of seventysomethings instead of gesturing at it or mocking it. At marriage counselling, Phil remembers how Nigel used to leave her a packet of 10 Silk Cut out after a hard day. “It was the 90s,” she says to their therapist. “Judge not, Erica.” It’s funny but it’s not played for laughs. It’s experience nipping nonsense in the bud.

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Truelove review: Darkly entertaining euthanasia drama could not be more timely

As parliament is called upon to legalise assisted dying, channel 4's drama about a group of septuagenarians who promise to kill one another is a thoughtful addition to the debate.

Is there something about this dark and dank time of year that suits TV dramas about euthanasia? In December 2022, the BBC gave us Mayflies , in which Line of Duty ’s Martin Compston played a writer asked to accompany a terminally ill pal to a Swiss assisted-suicide clinic. The February two years before that Sky Atlantic aired Aussie series The End. And now, this January, we have Channel 4’s Truelove .

This four-part drama concerns a group of old friends reunited at the funeral of one of their number who had died an agonising death due to cancer. “You wouldn’t let your dog suffer like that,” opined David, a retired GP played by Peter Egan. “If I get like that, take me out the back and shoot me,” concurred Phil, an ex-police chief (Lindsay Duncan).

At the ensuing wake, the friends made a drunken vow to terminally intervene should one of them suffer an unbearable medical condition. And they certainly had the combined skill sets to execute such a pact – among them was an old soldier, Ken, played by Clarke Peters of The Wire . “Ken can bump us off and Phil can cover it up,” as David put it.

Their loose talk was soon put to the test, however, when the prime instigator of their pact, Tom (Karl Johnson from Mum ), revealed that he had terminal cancer (“lymph, liver and pancreas … the full English”). When his friends initially refused to help, Tom tried to hang himself, ending up in hospital. “I’m on suicide watch and ‘do not resuscitate’,” he told them.

This gallows humour permeated the script written by The End of the F***ing World creator Charlie Covell and Iain Weatherby ( Humans ). It was clear that Truelove wasn’t going to be a dour issue-driven drama – more a duty to watch than a pleasure – but rather a darkly entertaining and very human tale.

And how refreshing to see older people so unpatronisingly central to the drama instead of clichéd “nan” or “grandpa” types: a fabulous cast of over-70s also included the 80-year-old Sue Johnston as David’s wife Marion, whose story will come into greater focus in later episodes. Instead, this opening instalment foregrounded Phil and Ken, who were tempted to revisit some long-ago and seemingly unfinished romantic business.

There were shades of Brief Encounter here, with Phil having a dependably dull husband, Nigel (Phil Davis), back home thumbing through leaflets for bungalows as he plotted to downsize their enviable-looking family home. “We all know how it goes,” a dissenting Phil told Nigel. “Bungalow… hospice… crematorium.”

UK facing 2024 'tipping point' in fight to legalise assisted dying

Sally Wainwright’s Last Tango in Halifax was rightly praised for its rare portrayal of love in later life, but I never really believed in the physical attraction between Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid ’s otherwise plausibly companionable characters. There was no such difficulty here with Phil and Ken as they exchanged looks quietly smouldering with unspoken longing.

Duncan was particularly superb and it was great to see her given such a meaty role. The opening scene, as she drove to the funeral in her open-topped Audi while chain smoking and listening to David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch”, made it clear that she was going to obey Dylan Thomas’s exhortation and not go gentle into that good night.

In one sense this was a crime drama – assisting a suicide being punishable with up to 14 years in jail. And with Esther Rantzen , who has stage-four lung cancer, calling for parliament to legalise assisted dying , the question of euthanasia is back in the headlines.

Dame Esther has reportedly booked into Dignitas in Switzerland should the need arise, an option dismissed by Truelove ‘s Tom as “a Zurich suburb surrounded by strangers”. This thoughtful, bracingly humorous and beautifully acted drama considers some radical DIY alternatives. Needless to say, don’t try this at home.

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‘True Things’ Review: A Teasing, Tingling British Drama About Love With the Improper Stranger

Harry Wootliff's refreshingly adult romantic psychodrama doesn't sustain its electricity to the very end, but terrific performances by Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke see it through.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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From the second that benefits office worker Kate makes charged eye contact with the flirty, scuzzily charismatic claimant across the desk from her, you’re torn between pulling her back, as a sensible best friend would, and urging her to go for it, as we might secretly do ourselves. The man has red flags practically pinned in his bleach-blond, boyband-style hairdo, not just because he’s an ex-con, and not just because intimate client relations are strictly verboten in Kate’s job.

As played, quite rivetingly, by Tom Burke , he seduces women in a way that makes clear his simultaneous capacity to hurt them; as played, quite recklessly, by Ruth Wilson , Kate comes across as a woman who can live with being hurt if it makes her feel alive. Harry Wootliff ‘s jaggedly grown-up psychological drama “ True Things ” thrives on the hot, tense chemistry between its two excellent leads: It’s what pulls the audience through an obstacle course of potentially implausible scenarios that instead ring stingingly true.

Who hasn’t, at one point or another, plunged headlong into a plainly misguided relationship because it felt so thrilling in the moment? Is the release while it goes right worth the afterburn once it goes south? If the sex is great, does it matter if you’re not getting a soulmate out of it? These are some of the questions prompted, though crucially not settled, by Wootliff’s intelligent, intuitive adaptation of Deborah Kay Davies’ acclaimed 2010 novel “True Things About Me,” which instead trusts its highly particular heroine to answer them for herself, and doesn’t much care if the audience agrees.

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While maintaining the thoughtful emotional acuity of her impressive, Josh O’Connor-led debut feature “Only You,” Wootliff’s follow-up sees the British director expanding her formal register into harder, spikier territory — sealing her status as one of the British industry’s most interesting new talents. For Wilson, meanwhile, “True Things” finally offers the actor-producer a big-screen vehicle to match the emotional range and volatility she displayed in TV’s “The Affair.” U.K. distribution rights have already been snapped up by Picturehouse, but this sexy, accessible arthouse item could sell well internationally following festival dates in Venice, Toronto and the main London competition.

“I think men find you difficult,” Kate’s mother tells her at one point, typifying the kind of sentiment that women like Kate — now in her thirties and perennially unattached — seems to hear often, and consequently internalize, in their lives. “Difficult,” of course, is really code for defiant, unwilling to compromise her desires for those of a man, and not especially interested in domestic stability. Her best friend Alison (a fine Hayley Squires) fails to understand this, keen to set Kate up with the kind of handsome, superficially nice, ultimately unsuitable guys that she herself would settle down with. There are lots of those in the drab seaside town where Kate lives; there aren’t many who get what makes her different.

But when Burke’s confident, deep-gazed stranger strolls into Kate’s office, seeking benefits after a recent spell in prison, he seems to meet her directly at her level. He invites her out to lunch, initially as a joke, though it’s mere hours before they’re having rough, quick sex in a multistory car park. A passing glance at his paperwork suggests his name is Samuel, but she identifies him in her phone only as “Blond,” reversing the kind of gendered objectification usually presented on such relationships on screen and asserting the blunt feminine perspective that colors “True Things” throughout.

But if Kate seems in control to begin with, Blond’s carnal hold on her ultimately gains the callused upper hand. Before long, she’s playing hooky from work to be with him, scarcely disguising her absences from Alison and her exasperated boss, and spiraling into substance abuse: highs that linger as long as Blond is there with her, though his attention grows more erratic as hers grows more intense. Burke, who brilliantly essayed a very different kind of toxic romantic in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir,” pulls off a tricky high-wire act with Blond, making him both an elusive, magnetic object of understandable obsession and a small, strangely sympathetic cad, unequal to the life-saving possibilities that Kate has projected onto him.

Wilson, on the other hand, never makes herself a mystery to us. With a clear point of view often closely twinned by Ashley Connor’s snaking, sparking cinematography, her gutsy performance doesn’t flinch from the erotic ecstasies and humiliations that her outsize crush forces upon her. The film’s sex scenes, while not notably explicit, are genuinely and unusually sensual, the two actors’ physiques exposed and entangled in ways that reflect their characters’ only fleetingly compatible personalities.

Only in a rushed final act does “True Things” waver, serving up a change of scene intended to place this messy, shadowed relationship in the clear light of day — referencing, perhaps, Lynne Ramsay’s rebelliously feminine, richly sensory “Morvern Callar” — only for both lovers’ motivations to turn somehow vaguer and more opaque in the process. Yet there’s still something exhilarating in Wootliff’s refusal to explain her characters to us: To the end, we feel them instead, via the sun and salt and sweat on their skin.

Reviewed at Picturehouse Central, London, Aug. 19, 2021. (In Venice, Toronto film festivals.) Running time: 102 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Picturehouse (in U.K.) release of a The Bureau, Lady Lazarus, Riff Raff Entertainment production. (World sales: The Bureau, Paris.) Producers: Tristan Goligher, Ruth Wilson, Ben Jackson, Jude Law. Executive producers: Rose Garnett, Eva Yates, Lizzie Francke, Vincent Gadelle.
• Crew: Director: Harry Wootliff. Screenplay: Wootliff, Molly Davies, adapted from the novel "True Things About Me" by Deborah Kay Davies. Camera: Ashley Connor. Editor: Tim Fulford. Music: Alex Baranowski.
• With: Ruth Wilson, Tom Burke, Hayley Squires, Elizabeth Rider, Frank McCusker, Ann Firbank, Tom Weston Jones, Nathan Ampofo, Michael Moreland.

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Truelove: release date, cast, plot, trailer, interviews, episode guide and everything you need to know

Truelove is a Channel 4 drama series about love, life and death starring Lindsay Duncan, Clarke Peters, Phil Davis and Sue Johnston.

With Lindsay Duncan as its lead, Truelove on Channel 4 asks whether you’d help a friend to end their misery. Jam-packed with other stars too, including Sue Johnston, Phil Davis and Clarke Peters, the six-part series is made by Clerkenwell Films, the team behind comedy-drama hit The End of the F***ing World . 

The drama had previously cast Julie Walters but sadly she is battling advanced bowel cancer and had to be replaced by Lindsay.

Truelove follows a group of old friends reunited at a funeral. Lindsay Duncan plays Phil, an ex-senior police chief enjoying her somewhat boring retirement, who comes face to face with old flame Ken ( The Wire 's Clarke Peters). And it’s not long before the pair realise they never quite got over one another. After a few drinks, the chat gets deep and they make a pact, along with the rest of the gang, to help one another have dignified deaths when the time comes. But the time comes sooner than they think.

Here's all you need to know about Truelove on Channel 4...

Truelove release date 

Truelove is a six-episode drama that started on Channel 4 on Wednesday January 3 2024 at 9pm with the next episode on Thursday January 4 at 9pm. The subsequent four episodes play out on the following Wednesdays and Thursdays at the same time.

How to watch Truelove online for free – and from anywhere 

Is there a trailer for Truelove?

Yes there's a Truelove trailer which shows just what an emotional drama this is going to be. Take a look below...

Truelove plot 

In Truelove , Lindsay Duncan plays Phil, an ex-senior police chief who is in the midst of her retirement. At a friend’s funeral she bumps into her teenage sweetheart Ken (played by The Wire 's Clarke Peters) who is now an ex-special forces veteran and divorcee. The pair never really got over their feelings for one another and both feel a little at sea in their retirement. 

At the funeral, the drinks flow and soon the pair and their friends start talking about their own deaths. And they make a drunken pact that if any of them are suffering a slow and terrible decline, they will step in to help them have a dignified death. But what starts out as a fanciful idea soon becomes a shocking reality. And they are all left wondering if it’s ever right to end a life? Can these pensioners take back control of their lives during their twilight years? 

“If your friend reached a soul-destroying level of decrepitude, could you help them transition, if asked?” says Clarke Peters. “Would it be right, would it be noble, could you do it? Which of that internal triumvirate do you listen to — your head, heart or soul? You know it is illegal in law and scripture to take a life, but could you do it? These scripts explore that moral dilemma in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s funny, it’s dark and it’s full of twists and turns. And DAMN! To tell this story, with this cast, was something I would have dreaded missing out on… Roll on “action”!”

Truelove cast — Lindsay Duncan on playing Phil

Lindsay Duncan plays former police officer Phil in Truelove.  "Ken and Phil don’t expect this situation. When they made the pact in the pub everyone was drunk and filled with emotion,’" says A Discovery of Witches star Lindsay. ‘This is an unusual thriller as it spans long-standing friendships, marriage and a smouldering love affair.

"Phil was a high ranking deputy chief constable, so she’s tough," explains Lindsay. "You see her giving Ken instructions about how things should be done - but he disobeys!"

*Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan has previously starred in dramas such as Merlin, The Sinking of The Laconia, Doctor Who and Around The World in 80 Days . She played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 2009 film Margaret .

Clarke Peters on playing Ken

In Truelove , Clarke Peters plays Phil's ex-flame Ken. "There was a wonderful sense of support on set, we had so much to talk about," says The Wire’s Clarke, 71, who was originally paired with Julie Walters for the roles of Ken and Phil. Sadly the National Treasure star stepped down from filming after being diagnosed with cancer. "I’m really sorry Julie didn’t do it, but I’m also glad that Lindsay was the one to step in. Working with both of them was wonderful, as they had different approaches to the piece."

* Clarke Peters is best known for his role as Detective Lester Freamon in the hit series The Wire . He’s also starred in Life on Mars, Marley & Me, Doctor Who, Holby City and Damages . He played Nelson Mandela in the TV movie Mandela: The Prison Years and starred as Sonny in The Tunnel . He was also in the huge movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri . Clarke plays Josiah in The Man Who Fell to Earth . 

Who else is starring in Truelove?

Truelove also features The Royle Family, Brookside and Time star Sue Johnston, alongside Phil Davis ( Whitechapel, Poldark ), Peter Egan ( Unforgotten, After Life ), Karl Johnson ( Mum ), Fiona Button ( The Split ) and Kiran Sonia Sawar ( Murdered by My Father ) as PC Asher.   

Truelove episode guide (with some spoilers)

Here's a brief episode guide to the full series of Truelove . Please look away if you don't want spoilers...

Episode 1 Phil (Philippa) had a long and distinguished career in the police, but is thirteen years retired and very, very bored. Meanwhile Ken, a solitary SAS veteran, feels similarly at sea. They reunite for the first time in years at a friend’s funeral, and – at the drunken wake – they and their friends take it in turns to imagine what a dignified death looks like, dreaming of quality of years over quantity. Naturally, Phil and Ken would make the perfect team to help any ill friends with a ‘solution’. Ken could kill them, and Phil could use her detective skills to cover up the crime and make it look like a natural departure. It’s just like police work in reverse, after all. What starts as a joke morphs into reality when their beloved friend Tom asks them to make the ultimate sacrifice…

Episode 2       Phil and Ken are badly shaken after Tom’s death, and desperate to cover up their crime. As they readjust to normal life, a young police officer Ayesha Kareem discovers Tom’s body washed up with his boat. However, she begins to suspect foul play…

Episode 3       Ayesha can’t let her suspicions about Tom’s death go and becomes convinced she’s found evidence of murder. Meanwhile, Marion’s health deteriorates.

Episode 4       Phil and Ken rekindle their romance and, spurred on by Phil, Ken reconnects with his family. But Ayesha is starting to suspect that her mentor might have something to do with all of these deaths…

Episode 5        Phil’s antennae are raised when she finds out that Marion’s doctor had no idea about her dementia. Meanwhile, Ayesha closes in on Phil.

Episode 6       Phil and Ken are left reeling by the truth about Marion. Phil must do everything she can to save Ken from ruining the rest of his life and make amends for a love she let pass her by fifty years ago.

Behind the scenes and locations on Truelove

Truelove filmed scenes in Burnham-on-Sea, in Somerset in south west England, with scenes taking place on boats. Filming also took place on the beach next to Burnham Sailing Club and the pontoons.

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I'm a huge fan of television so I really have found the perfect job, as I've been writing about TV shows, films and interviewing major television, film and sports stars for over 25 years. I'm currently TV Content Director on What's On TV, TV Times, TV and Satellite Week magazines plus Whattowatch.com. I previously worked on Woman and Woman's Own in the 1990s. Outside of work I swim every morning, support Charlton Athletic football club and get nostalgic about TV shows Cagney & Lacey, I Claudius, Dallas and Tenko. I'm totally on top of everything good coming up too.

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How Tony Scott’s Ending for ‘True Romance’ Won Quentin Tarantino Over

Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette starred in the cult classic as Clarence and Alabama, respectively.

The Big Picture

• Though Quentin Tarantino penned the script for True Romance, Tony Scott ended up directing the feature.
• While Tarantino wanted to keep the original ending of the script intact, Scott opted for a less bleak ending.
• Scott stated that he had fallen in love with the characters and wanted to give them a fairy tale ending.

Quentin Tarantino has become one of the most renowned writer-directors in Hollywood, a singular voice whose scripts feel as though they could not succeed with the touch of any filmmaker other than Tarantino himself. But one of his greatest stories was brought to the screen by another director. In the early 1990s, Tony Scott , brother of Ridley Scott and master genre-auteur behind Top Gun , Crimson Tide , and Man on Fire , read a two of Tarantino's scripts and wanted to direct both of them. Tarantino, not wanting to give up both of his features, opted instead to give Scott a choice between the two . Scott left Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs , the film that would go on to be his acclaimed feature debut, and started bringing True Romance to the screen. While Tarantino had a bad experience giving his Natural Born Killers script away to Oliver Stone , Tarantino was pleased Scott's version of True Romance . Scott did make a few changes that Tarantino had to be swayed into appreciating, but the film largely fulfilled the vision that the original script offered for this violent, romantic tale.

True Romance

A whirlwind romance between a loner and a prostitute takes a dangerous turn when they come into possession of valuable contraband. As they head to California to make a sale that could start their new life together, they are pursued by mobsters and law enforcement, setting the stage for a showdown that challenges their commitment to each other.

'True Romance' Is a Perfect Melding of Tony Scott's Filmmaking and Quentin Tarantino's Writing

True Romance follows Clarence ( Christian Slater ), a comic, movie, and Elvis fanatic, and Alabama ( Patricia Arquette ), a call girl who abandons her work after quickly taking a liking to him. The two get married on a whim, and after a violent encounter with her former pimp, played in a captivating, strange performance by Gary Oldman , go on the run with a bag full of drugs that they took by mistake. After these drugs are a variety of mobsters, rounding out the film's impressive ensemble cast with the likes of Christopher Walken and James Gandolfini in one of his first major movie roles.

Tarantino and Scott are two incredibly distinctive artists . Scott's films could work well without a single line of interesting dialogue because he has such an incredible hold over the visual language of a story and often shoots his films in a vibrant style that gives Bayhem a run for its money. Tarantino, on the other hand, built his career on telling stories that overwhelmingly rely on charming, chatty characters delivering iconic dialogue . He is a strong writer, one who is unafraid to infuse every inch of his work with overt references to influential pop culture that informs his own interests and how he constructs his characters.

'Pulp Fiction’s Mysterious Suitcase Once Contained a 'Reservoir Dogs' Easter Egg

Scott's unique visual style mixed with Tarantino's sharp writing and character work is a match made in heaven. The two effortlessly compliment each other so well. Scott was a filmmaker who ascended to auteur status simply by establishing such a strong tonal hold over every story he directed. He was not a writer by trade, so his films were not necessarily conceived in a manner that was informed by his vision. But when he got his hands on a script, Scott knew exactly how to fit it around the way he liked to work. That meant that a Tony Scott picture would always be visually interesting , but the script could really make or break how compelling it was. But when your script is written by the guy who made Pulp Fiction , it certainly gives you a lot to work with.

Tony Scott Gave 'True Romance' Its Fairy Tale Ending

As with many Tarantino movies , True Romance builds to a climactic shootout . This one involves three different groups: police officers, mobsters, and a shady film producer's bodyguards all converging in a nice Los Angeles home where the stolen money, a lot of drugs, and a lot of guns are present. Bullets go flying, just about everybody in the room gets shot. Clarence takes a bullet to the eye, and for an extended period of time, Alabama believes him to be dead, as does the audience. But after the dust and the feathers (from the endless amount of pillows that were caught by the gunfire) settle, Clarence is still with us. Alabama helps Clarence up, they take off with the money, and True Romance ends with the two of them on the beach in Mexico, with their son named Elvis.

This ending was the only major point of contention between Tarantino and Scott. Per the 15th anniversary oral history published by Maxim, Tarantino's original script ended with Clarence dying. Alabama would take off with the money, and essentially every other character would be left dead. The original ending is far more bleak , one that Tarantino thought was necessary for the film to keep its edge. Tarantino was concerned that Scott was making the change in order to appeal to commercial attitudes about filmmaking, to appease studioheads , as opposed to appeasing his own artistic vision. But he explained to Maxim that Scott "convinced me 100% that he wasn't doing it for commercial reasons."

Tony Scott Wanted 'True Romance' to Have a Fairytale Ending

Scott expressed to Tarantino that he viewed True Romance as a fairy tale more than anything else. It certainly is a love story, it is in the name after all. Scott simply fell in love with the characters , and he stated in Maxim that he did not want to see them die after falling in love with them. So Scott did not spare Clarence to appease anyone but himself and the characters. To Tarantino's credit, while he insists that his own version of this film would definitely keep the original ending, he does now understand why Scott wanted to make the change. Tarantino may have taken some convincing during production, but he says that as soon as he saw the film, he had to admit that the new ending worked far better for Scott's vision of the story.

True Romance is a lesson in the things you have to let go of when you turn your story over to another person . But unlike Natural Born Killers , this is one where the result is a refreshing, beautiful work that honors the heart of the work even when changes are made. Scott and Tarantino have a great deal of respect for one another, and although both have incredible résumés outside of this movie, True Romance is a collaborative effort that brought out the best in both of them.

True Romance is available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

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"Redeeming Love" is based on a best-selling novel by Francine Rivers , set during the California Gold Rush and inspired by the Biblical story of Hosea, a prophet, who married Gomer, an unfaithful woman. Publisher’s Weekly said about the book, “Writers like Rivers are why people buy Christian fiction,” and, as with the film, for some people that will be a recommendation and for others a warning. The novel has a lot of passionate fans who will want the movie to be exactly what they imagined on the page, and that is what they will find. It is sincerely made, with exceptionally attractive actors who give heartfelt performances in some beautiful settings, in a story that fits comfortably and reassuringly into a particular spiritual world view. For those who do not share that view or the storytelling traditions of giving oral testimony about horrific challenges leading to a connection to God, the film will not be as satisfying.

The title makes it clear that there will be no ambiguity about where it is going. First there will be sin and then there will be redemption through prayer. As Shakespeare said, though, the heroine in this story is “more sinned against than sinning.” She is called Angel (the angelically lovely Abigail Cowen ) and the man who will help her find redemption is Michael Hosea ( Tom Lewis ). I already pointed out the lack of ambiguity, but just to be even clearer, in the spirit of a movie that really spells everything out, it begins with a bunch of people panning for gold in the muck, one jubilantly finding a shining nugget. 

Angel is the most sought-after prostitute in the town, so prized that there is a daily lottery to be with her. We first see her gazing dully out of the window as behind her a man puts money on the table before he leaves. One of the other young women from the brothel tells her, “You’ve got to hope for something more in this world.” Angel says she gets by because “I never look back and never look forward.” That is not exactly true as there are a bunch of flashbacks as she does look back, giving us several flashbacks to see the horrific abuse she has suffered. 

Michael is a farmer who prays for a wife. He is led to Angel. He goes to the brothel and pays for her time but just talks to her. She is so traumatized that she is incapable of responding to kindness or even simple decency. He does not give up, though he wryly admits, “The next time I pray for a woman to share my life I’m going to be much more specific.” Finally, he gets her to marry him. Though she goes with him to the farm, she tells him she will only “play along until I pay you what I owe you.” He is so gentle and respectful that she begins to trust him, and so she leaves because she cannot be the woman she thinks he deserves. There will be more abuse and more healing before, well, see the title.

The relentlessness of the litany of tragic pain and loss inflicted on Angel, including incest, suicide, theft, abortion, child molestation, abandonment, sex trafficking, arson, and much more, may come across as unsettling to those not schooled in this specific form of Christian storytelling. Those from more fundamentalist traditions will be more at home with the “ Hell House ”-style fascination with (and amplification of) the sins of the world and the eternal damnation that is the consequence. Whether innate or learned, there are narrative beats familiar from most mainstream stories that make “Redeeming Love” uncomfortably unbalanced for audiences who are from other faith traditions or secular.

Cowan and Lewis make a very appealing couple, warm and natural even with the most heavy-handed dialogue. It's impossible not to root for them, and Lewis somehow makes Michael’s near-saintly patience and gallantry seem human. But the other characters are barely sketched-in props, the storyline is wildly melodramatic, and the movie is at best casual and at worst an endorsement of lynching (guilty) people accused of crimes. The biggest problem is that the most touching moments are hammered so hard. "Redeeming Love" could have tried to reach a broader audience but settles for preaching to the choir.

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Nell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com.

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Film credits.

Redeeming Love (2022)

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexual content, partial nudity, and strong violent content.

134 minutes

Abigail Cowen as Angel

Tom Lewis as Michael Hosea

Logan Marshall-Green as Paul

Nina Dobrev as Mae

Famke Janssen as Duchess

Eric Dane as Duke

Wu Ke-Xi as Mai Ling

• D. J. Caruso

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• Francine Rivers
• D.J. Caruso

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• Rogier Stoffers
• Brian Tyler
• Breton Vivian

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[Movie Review] Timing, trust, and true love in Tune in for Love

By missvictrix.

It’s not often that I’ll leave dramaland in favor of a movie, but the premise and cast of Tune in for Love pulled me in. The film was released a few months ago in late 2019, but being mostly set in the recent past, it seems almost timeless.

The two-hour long story is told in a series of chapters, so to speak, each with a pause in between, and a span of a few years. In each chapter we meet our main characters at different parts of their life. And though their circumstances change, what remains consistent is their intersecting stories. In a way, the film is the story of our two leading characters slowly finding their way to each other.

The two leads are CHA HYUN-WOO ( Jung Hae-in ) and KIM MI-SOO ( Kim Go-eun ) — and admittedly, it’s this pairing that made the film appeal to me. Both have given some beautiful performances (in both drama and film), and I was excited to see what they would be like together. And really, they were magic.

When you’re in dramaland too long, you forget what it’s like to watch a story that leaves storytelling space. This space means room for nuance, subtly, and inference, and in Tune in for Love , this space was half by design (the tone and direction) and half by necessity (with a decade-long tale to tell in a running time of two-ish hours, there’s a lot of ground to cover). This space in the narrative was utterly refreshing — and seeing these two actors operate in this environment was the same. With all the gaps in the storytelling and timeline, it made the moments when our characters did come together all the more meaningful.

The film opens up in 1994. Our heroine Mi-soo works at her old family bakery with Eun-ja, an unni that’s like her family. We see glimpses of Mi-soo’s morning routine, get a sense of the history that the bakery holds for her, and we learn of her fondness for radio. That particular morning is Yoo-yeol’s first time hosting his show, and it’s the same morning that our two characters meet for the first time — Hyun-woo walks into the bakery asking for some tofu. As it turns out, he’s on parole from juvenile detention, and though we learn little about the event that put him there, the event hovers over him, and the story as a whole. Similarly, Yoo-yeol’s show is another thread established early on that also stitches their story together.

Hyun-woo starts working part time at the bakery, and soon he, Mi-soo, and Eun-ja have formed their own little adorable family unit — but before long, this chapter of the narrative closes. Hyun-woo runs off with his hoodlum friends, and we don’t meet our characters again until 1997.

If there’s one thing that stood out the most in this film, it’s the warm and authenticity to the story and setting — so strong, in fact, that it makes me wonder how it’s possible to do so much with so few scenes. Tune in for Love is rich with history — not only the history of the different years/eras it depicts, but the history of our couple’s relationship as well.

Years later, Hyun-woo and Mi-soo accidentally cross paths again one night in front of the closed down bakery, and it’s my favorite scene in the film. The three years that have passed in the story are incredibly palpable — in fact it’s hard to imagine it’s only been three minutes since you last saw them together on screen — that’s how real the actors make the stretch of time feel.

How does a production add so much emotional weight to the depiction of time? I often wonder what it is that can sometimes make the passage of time seem rich and compelling — versus the opposite effect (a cheap trick to push the story forward) that we run into so often in dramaland.

For one, in Tune in for Love , the passage of time is an intrinsic part of the storytelling. Though the film used all of the usual mechanisms to show us the time lapse (on-screen text, shifting seasons, different hairdos, clothes, and technology), there is something Tune in for Love was able to capture that I haven’t seen depicted so vividly in a while.

The emotions that run through the drama also helped this authenticity. Since our main characters are mostly apart, we see them experiencing the passage of time between their reunions, whether it’s the ache to see each other again, or the hope of it happening.

Stories of timing, connection, and romance are fairly common, but one way the setting of Tune in for Love set it apart was that their long periods of separation were largely based on the difficulty of actually finding each other. This wasn’t done the way we might see in a K-drama, with narrow misses and malicious second leads keeping our OTP apart. In Tune in for Love , their challenge to connect is because of the limitations of their circumstances.

It’s sometimes hard to believe how much the world has changed in the last decade or two, and how digital technology has revolutionized the way we connect and communicate with each other. In Tune in for Love , and especially in the first half, we’re presented with a story where if someone you like rides off with his friends, you might never see him again. There are no cellphones, social media, and barely any Internet. If you haven’t exchanged home addresses or phone numbers, there’s nothing but a vacuum.

That’s exactly what our heroine faces when she crosses paths with Hyun-woo for the second time in 1997. The two share a deep connection, but the timing is off once again: the very next day is the start of Hyun-woo’s military service. Mi-soo creates him an email account so they can stay in touch — but when she forgets to give him the password, years go by before they connect once again. It’s amazing how something so simple can have such drastic repercussions on the maturation of their relationship.

Whether it’s missed connections due to technological failures — or fate — their relationship continues to be challenged, even after Hyun-woo’s return from the military. Hyun-woo gets a cellphone, but when it breaks, Mi-soo only has a dead number with no answer. When Hyun-woo visits her old apartment from years ago hoping to find her, she’s moved out long ago.

In a different genre or medium, these little impasses and hiccups could come off as contrived, or even ridiculous, but in Tune in for Love , each event is believable. The circumstances and events that interrupt Mi-soo and Hyun-woo’s budding relationship are as authentic as they are realistic, and the understated way they’re presented only helps them feel more real.

The acting and the script give this film its authentic feel, but the direction is also a huge part of this. Throughout the film, I admired again and again how a plot that could have been messy or flimsy in less capable hands actually became something lovely.

There’s an intimacy in the film that’s hard to explain — some of it is from the intense quiet (you can hear the actors swallow and breathe most of the time), some of it is the way the camera holds on our characters a few beats longer than we expect, and some of it is because we join Mi-soo and Hyun-woo on their decade-long journey to each other.

It’s not until many false starts (and years) later that Hyun-woo and Mi-soo are finally together long enough to have a “real” relationship. And here, as expected, they have to deal with a lot of baggage from the past before they can truly find each other. It’s a nice statement to the fact that being in a relationship with someone is about more than being in their physical presence every day — it’s about trust, understanding, forgiveness, love, and all those good things.

I’ve read some critiques that Tune in for Love feels long and plodding — perhaps these folks were not drama watchers. We’re used to being with characters for about eight times as long as any movie, so often (at least for me) movies tend to leave me feeling a little flat.

But with Tune in for Love , I got everything I had hoped to out of the story; it’s a great little film. I watched Hyun-woo and Mi-soo’s story grow before my eyes, I got all the character development and complexity I wanted — and the simplicity of the storytelling made it all the more enjoyable.

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January 7, 2020 at 6:10 PM

I really liked this film too. I honestly liked that it didn’t have much dialog and that the actors just had space to act. The dialog it did have was succinct, to the point, not rambling. Really, a great screenplay. It was all about nuances, glances, looks. This movie is set in my timeline as well. I felt like I was them. They were in high school when I was, came of age when I did. The soft visuals also appealed to me too, like living in a memory or dream, which, I think, was exactly the point.

January 7, 2020 at 7:11 PM

Thematically, it reminded me of "On Your Wedding Day", but with less comedy.

January 8, 2020 at 1:31 AM

Gosh! I was about to say that! The main similarities between the two about lost opportunities and weird timings is uncanny.

January 8, 2020 at 5:16 PM

I liked that film too! Kim Young Kwang and Park Bo Young was a pairing I didn’t know I meeded

January 7, 2020 at 7:31 PM

@missvictrix I thought this movie will miss your radar, but I am so glad it didn't. What a fully nuanced script. I was feeling desperate for the Hyun Woo and Mi Soo every step of the way. So bittersweet. I loved the movie.

January 7, 2020 at 7:34 PM

I never thought about movies feeling flat (to me) because I’m accustomed to spending 16 rather than 2 hours with the characters, thank you! That makes so much sense.

January 7, 2020 at 8:22 PM

I'm glad you wrote this review.

I've totally forgotten how life was in my childhood, teens and later on and it reminded me of that time. Because of no social media, cellphones, computers (they've been huge boxes and very expensive) there was more time to read, search for things, people, to reflect, to deal with things more creatively, to love with having more personal space, etc. It's such a wonderful reminding of that time that'd disappeared. I'm glad I was part of it and maybe I should step back little bit to find my mental drive and force and sleeping talents from before.

January 7, 2020 at 8:39 PM

I loved this film! Thanks for the review. It was a slow-paced movie but I think it was part of the charm. Just wanted to point out that I prefer Jung Hae In in films than in dramas... And also, by the end of the film, I was shipping the leads IRL... 😉

January 7, 2020 at 11:02 PM

Kim Go Eun is my fav but I still haven't watched it yet. This review made me even more excited to watch. I love melancholic films.

January 8, 2020 at 12:15 AM

Thanks for the review. I just saw this movie two weeks ago, and I loved it: it’s slow rhythm, how the story was told, the connection between these two souls, their struggles... I also felt it was part of my timeline: I was a teenager in early 90s, I lost some people and then found them thanks to technology years later, we reconnected, some are still important in my life. I lost a love, I found another. It felt real.

9 hazelnuts

January 8, 2020 at 12:41 am.

I am so happy you wrote this review! I mean, I know! I felt it! Every silence, every close-ups of these wonderful actors was so palpable I felt their pain and longing through this screen. 😭 Missing their timing and all has led them to a much wonderful and meaningful reunion. 💙

January 8, 2020 at 12:58 AM

This movie was a slow burn. I really liked it. JHI and KGE really did well : portraying the different areas and their chemistry. I mostly love their relationship with her "sister", she was a great character.

January 8, 2020 at 1:10 AM

I've also watched it for main leads, I'd love to see them in drama together. after watching so many dramas I have problem with to flat or shallow characters in movies since they don't have much time. So I am skeptic towards movies which cover long time but this one was pretty good.

January 8, 2020 at 5:17 PM

They were in Goblin together! But I know what you mean!

January 8, 2020 at 1:19 AM

Comment was deleted

January 8, 2020 at 1:30 AM

This movie seems like something I would really enjoy. I like Kim Go-eun but haven't watched Jung Hae-in's dramas (except 'While you were sleeping' which I still haven't finished), so I'm interested in seeing him again on my screen. Thanks @missvictrix for the review, I'll definitely give this one a try.

January 8, 2020 at 4:14 AM

Felt it was a silly little movie with immense artificiality in the loss of connect. How could nobody in the neighborhood of the shop and home knew contact of Mi Soo. Hyun Woo's insistence on hiding the past was also considerably unpalatable. It was okay one time watch as Jung Hae-in fan.

January 8, 2020 at 8:46 AM

That's the point, in the past there were just landlines, no cellphones, no internet, just letters, booths or landline phones. It was really hard to communicate between people who lost contact. I doubt that anyone would be interested in someone who was in juvenile center before. He was an unwanted stranger. That's the beauty of it. Even for police or customs it wasn't easy to look for missing people. Crossing 2000 everything changed like a miracle. But still there was no Facebook addiction or Instagram nor Twitter. There were chatrooms and people were knowing each other or passing information through it.

15 Kafiyah Bello

January 8, 2020 at 5:14 am.

This was a cute movie. I happened on it while on Netflix and I'm glad I watched it. Slow and steady.

16 Islander north

January 8, 2020 at 9:06 am.

Thanks for the review; I usually watch only dramas and would have missed this otherwise. And it's on Netflix, so I'll be watching soon.

17 stellaness

January 8, 2020 at 9:15 am.

I really enjoyed this movie as well! I was at first interested in Tune in for Love because of the main leads but the story was so lovely and sweet. One of my recent favs~ I highly recommend this film on Netflix!

January 8, 2020 at 10:48 AM

Thanks for the review, sounds like a great film. Just watched monster starring Go-eun and Min-ki, I need time to recover from that film first!

19 commonwit

January 8, 2020 at 1:44 pm.

"I’ve read some critiques that Tune in for Love feels long and plodding — perhaps these folks were not drama watchers." LOL, I concur. This whole movie would have taken at least 6 episodes in a kdrama and most would have been ok with it.

Based on the comments thus far, there seems to be a universal love for this little gem of a film. Let me add my own sentiments to the bucket as I also loved it, and thought it was sweet and nostalgic. I like JHI and KGE individually, but here their chemistry was palpable. Let this comment serve as notice to the powers that be, that these two actors should do a longer project, i.e, a kdrama.

How about a romcom ... with a dollop of mistaken identity, a side of childhood history, a pinch of family abandonment and lots of romantic hijinks sprinkled throughout??? I know it sounds like every other recipe, but we all know it's how you cook it - the mixing, the stirring and the temperature of course!

20 neener ~ Inside the Magic Shop ~

January 8, 2020 at 10:40 pm.

Indeed the passage of time used in dramas and movie is different. To be able to express it this well without it feeling rushed or even pushed is hats off to the director and to the casts! I love how you pointed that out or else I would have just let it pass without thinking much. It was a great film!

21 Fly Colours

January 9, 2020 at 1:21 am.

So, this just popped up on my YouTube stream, must be from when they were promoting the movie... Just found it super embarrassing and cute: https://youtu.be/mFRN54vFWZ4

22 gbrmum50

January 9, 2020 at 10:41 pm.

I love both these actors so when the movie popped up on my Netflix feed I was in! Loved this movie so much. It kind of reminded me of Burning with it’s lack of dialogue, which wasn’t needed as they say “A picture is worth a thousand words”

23 Earl W,. Vanderpoort

April 27, 2020 at 12:10 pm.

Well done movie. Took me back in time; Windows 95! I wish I understood Korean, I'm sure I'm missing emotion and effect with only the Netflix sub-titles. The line by Mi-soo to Hun-woo after she gets out of the car something like "Don't follow anymore you'll just get hurt," simply killed me! My head went ballistic as if she told ME that! I had visions of her holding her sleazy boss's hand, him touching her everywhere, even sleeping with him! Augh! I don't know what that says about me, but that's the emotional level these actors took me too! Seeing that folded Pepsi T-shirt on the bed. Ahhhhh! Help me Jesus! I'm glad they got back together, wish I could have seen them back together a little longer t relive my stress.

24 Shmily Polaris

May 13, 2020 at 5:55 am.

I love this movie. So pure. Clear. So dear. It touches the very deep of my soul, a part that I forgot it even existed. The me when I have my first love. It's refreshing to get rid of layers we put to get along with society, for once in a while. And for that this movie have my sincere gratitude.

25 Qingdao: likes scented candles

August 6, 2023 at 2:43 pm.

Thanks for the review. I liked that kdrama viewing versus movie viewing can be different and comparing the two is irresistible. The "feels" from -this movie make it worth viewing---and JUNG HAE-IN!

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Aboard a steamship sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in 1874, widower John Andrews delights the restless minds of his two children with a tale of courage, hope, war, and true love that begin... Read all Aboard a steamship sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in 1874, widower John Andrews delights the restless minds of his two children with a tale of courage, hope, war, and true love that begins with the end of the world. Aboard a steamship sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in 1874, widower John Andrews delights the restless minds of his two children with a tale of courage, hope, war, and true love that begins with the end of the world.

• Kyle Portbury
• Aaron Hartzler
• Tommie-Amber Pirie
• Gregory Wilson
• Maddy Martin
• 3 User reviews
• 3 Critic reviews

• Mary (Nichols)

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• meeqwon-56036
• Apr 19, 2024
• How long is The Hopeful? Powered by Alexa
• April 17, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Official Site - Tickets US
• Ontario, Canada
• Hope Studios
• Kyle Portbury Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 1 hour 30 minutes

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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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