8 Movies That Successfully Subverted Audience Expectations

Warning: This list contains major spoilers for several movies.

The idea of a movie that subverts expectations has taken on a completely new meaning in recent years, and it is not always a good thing. With the massive amount of media available today, moviegoers are more familiar than ever with popular tropes that usually comprise effective storytelling, making it all the more difficult to surprise them. Writers and directors who desperately want to shock their audience might choose to include an objectively surprising plot twist that ruins a movie’s story.

However, some movies still defy expectations and do something original that still makes sense, often by addressing the major tropes in a meta way. Taking a different approach to an established genre worked well for movies like Knives Out and Everything Everything Everywhere All at Once. On the other hand, movies including Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Spectre use nonsensical plot twists that are generally derided by audiences.

8

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Blade Runner 2049 effectively continues the story with an interesting plot twist.

Blade Runner 2049 did surprisingly well living up to a movie that came out 35 years earlier. Despite being advertised as a major part of the legacy sequel, original actor Harrison Ford doesn’t appear until almost 2 hours into the movie. The setting is also new and strange, utilizing modern CGI to expand the world without overwhelming it with tacky graphics. However, Blade Runner 2049 is recognized as a movie that subverts the sci-fi genre’s tropes because of how it handles its chosen one storyline.

The audience probably feels fairly confident in deducing that the protagonist K himself is the replicant child he has been assigned to retire, being the most obvious explanation for his memories. However, Blade Runner 2049 subverts this when K turns out to be an average replicant with implanted memories and another character is Rick Deckard and Rachael’s child. While some people might still have guessed it, it at least avoids the pitfalls of the most obvious conclusion to this storyline.

7

Spectre (2015)

Spectre’s twist and villain are generally considered disappointing.

The team behind Spectre went through a lot of trouble to conceal its final villain twist — and the very identity of said villain. They denied that James Bond’s iconic nemesis Blofeld would be appearing in the movie, despite many having already figured it out. Not only did they turn out to be right, but Spectre threw a narrative curveball with the reveal that Blofeld is Bond’s adopted brother.

While actor Christopher Waltz defends Spectre’s Blofeld plot twist, it is generally regarded as contrived and unnecessary. It probably would have been better to let the cinematic return of the iconic Bond villain stand on its own. However, Spectre buckled under the pressure to live up to the anticipation of this moment and took a risk that did not pay off. Years later, even No Time To Die makes fun of the Blofeld twist with a sly comment during Blofeld’s brief cameo.

6

Knives Out (2019)

Knives Out brilliantly deconstructs the conventions of the whodunit genre.

At first glance, Knives Out has a fairly straightforward whodunit premise. After the death of the patriarch of a wealthy family, a famed detective arrives to interrogate the scheming family members, all of whom could be guilty. The writers do not try to force anything too outlandish or clichéd with the private investigator character himself, letting Daniel Craig make the most out of Benoit Blanc’s Southern gentleman detective persona. However, Knives Out’s biggest strength is in how it tells the story from an unexpected perspective, creating several new twists based solely on who has the information and when.

The story leads the audience to believe that they have been told who the killer is shockingly early — which should have been the first clue that there was still more to be unveiled. Even Knives Out’s final climatic moment of a third attempted murder is subverted in a way that is humorous, creates perfectly over-the-top tension, and makes sense for the characters. The Knives Out’s series’ biggest problem now is that it has created its own signature formula and has to subvert itself all over again.

5

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3’s villain twist undermined its story and marketing.

The marketing for Iron Man 3 built up Ben Kingsley’s version of the Mandarin as the terrifying, ultimate threat who would finish off Tony Stark’s solo trilogy. What the character is revealed to be completely unravels this premise. Iron Man 3’s original villain plan was for Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen to be the main antagonist, which might have been a less convoluted story. Kingsley’s character Trevor Slattery seems to be there mostly for more comedic beats.

However, Robert Downery Jr. can carry the comedy of any Iron Man movie all on his own — the villain just needs to serve as a strong obstacle to overcome. Additionally, it is revealed that Wenwu is the “real” Mandarin in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is generally a better movie. Trevor’s character was a divisive moment in the history of the MCU, but it is telling that Iron Man 3 is not high in almost any ranking of the MCU’s movies.

4

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Avengers: Endgame at least managed to not be exactly what people expected.

Almost every MCU movie is met with high anticipation. This was especially true for Avengers: Endgame, the culmination of the Infinity Saga and one of the biggest movie events of the decade. Avengers: Infinity War did the unthinkable by killing off more than half of the MCU’s established characters, but the general expectation was that Endgame would reverse this.

With the surviving Avengers setting out to accomplish this task, it seemed unlikely that they would fail twice in a row. Additionally, several of the characters who “died” were slated to appear in upcoming movies. However, Endgame at least managed something not entirely expected with the five-year time skip, showing the characters forced to come to terms with their loss before they can reverse it. It is not the most shocking narrative feature, but it facilitates some character development.

The other biggest subversion of Endgame is the decision to depict time travel into the past as not affecting the present. Frankly, it would have been too complicated for the writers and the audience to figure out the ripple effect of every change in the past throughout the entire MCU franchise. The time travel plot serves as more of a tour of the MCU’s biggest moments before the final battle. In many ways, Endgame sells itself not as a movie but as a cinematic spectacle.

3

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 (2012)

Breaking Dawn’s final battle sequence surprised and angered Twilight fans.

Stephenie Meyer did not make things easy for the filmmakers who wanted the Twilight movie franchise to have a climactic ending. In the Breaking Dawn novel, the Cullens resolve their conflict with the Volturi peacefully when the latter group is forced to recognize that Renesmee is not a threat to vampire-kind. However, this is hardly the way to end a multimillion-dollar franchise, leading to the notorious fake-out battle sequence where several main characters are killed before it is revealed to have only been Alice’s vision of a potential future.

This moment was thrilling, divisive, and certainly shocking. In all fairness, the filmmakers made the best out of the source material they were given and probably thought Twilight fans would be upset if the movie’s plot strayed too far from the book. However, the dramatic, 10-minute fight sequence gave rise to the argument that Breaking Dawn — Part 2 could have fixed the book’s ending if the battle had been real.

2

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Everything Everywhere All at Once stands out among other multiverse movies.

Everything Everywhere All at Once was served well by coming out within a couple of months of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, leading to comparisons that favored the former. Doctor Strange shows off many flashy alternate universes that ultimately have no meaning in the greater plot. Each world makes a brief appearance to attempt to impart some semblance of creativity to the audience. Other multiverse adventure properties run the same risk where none of the storylines matter.

Everything Everywhere All at Once was a surprise and a breath of fresh air because it explicitly addresses the question of whether anything matters in the story. Evelyn’s different lives are all treated as though the audience is supposed to care what happens in each one. As a standalone movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once uses the multiverse plot as a means to explore the individual characters and family relationships rather than worrying about a larger franchise.

1

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

The Last Jedi divided the Star Wars fandom with unexpected storylines.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi took Star Wars fans through many narrative twists and turns. Rey and the other Jedi characters are seen using the Force to do things it has never been used for before. The supposed main villain of the trilogy is killed off at the end of the second act. Poe’s rebellion against his new commanding officer is proven to be ill-conceived. Most importantly, The Last Jedi undercuts expectations that Rey is an established character’s child (later to be undone by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker).

While the stunning visuals and surprising storylines are at least engaging, every unexpected plot point in The Last Jedi divided Star Wars fans. If the franchise had committed to these storylines, they might have become more accepted with time. However, J.J. Abrams undid several of them when he returned to the franchise with The Rise of Skywalker. If a writer or director is going to take a risk to subvert expectations, they should at least believe in it enough to follow through.