A good plot twist can make or break a movie. Give the audience too many clues, and they’ll figure out the surprise too early; have the surprise make no narrative sense, and viewers will feel like you’ve wasted their time. A great twist surprises you the first time around and inspires you to watch the film again through new eyes. The best twists not only do this but continue to blow your mind even after they’ve been explained. I must admit I’m a sucker for an ending that subverts my expectations, but many of them are only good for that initial thrill, and that’s it. The twists on this list not only stand up to repeat viewings but still manage to thrill you even if you know what’s coming.

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I tried to pick only films that took a turn that still haunts me to this day. Some of these you’ll see coming a mile away, but I’m hoping at least a couple will throw you for a loop — I mean, we are talking about twists, after all. So, without further ado, here are seven movie twists that still nuke my brain. Oh, and it goes without saying, but spoilers, obviously.

Fight Club: Tyler and The Narrator Are One Person

I was lucky enough not to have read the book before I went to see Fight Club for the first time back in 1999, so when the big reveal happened — that Brad Pitt was just a facet of Edward Norton’s personality — my jaw hit the floor. Like the best movie twists, clues for Tyler Durden’s true identity are seeded throughout the movie and are easy to pick out upon second viewing. But that first time, nobody, and I mean nobody, saw that twist coming.

The best part of Fight Club‘s twist is that it isn’t just a surprise for the audience but for the film’s unnamed protagonist as well (FYI, calling him “Jack” is a good way to get on my naughty list).

High Tension: Marie is the Killer

High Tension is not a movie for the faint of heart. Made as part of France’s “New Extremity” movement, the film is full of transgressive sex and violence meant to shock the audience. French college student Alex brings her friend Marie home to meet her parents, but what was supposed to be a quiet, calm weekend away becomes a terrifying bloodbath as a hulking brute of a psychopath violently murders the parents before turning his sights on Alex and Marie.

The movie follows the two girls as they attempt to evade the killer until midway through the film when it’s revealed that the killer isn’t a large, scruffy-looking man, but Marie herself. The twist recontextualizes the entire film, changing it from a story about a random slasher to an extreme case of unrequited love. It also leaves a truck-sized pothole in the story that fans debate to this day.

Sleepaway Camp: Angela is Really Peter

Sleepaway Camp may not have the prestige of some of its contemporaries, like Halloween or Friday the 13th, but the one thing it does have going for it is the most notorious twist ending in slasher — if not horror — history. Siblings Angela and Peter go on a boating trip with their father and his secret boyfriend when tragedy strikes. Everyone but Angela is killed in a freak boating accident, or so we’re led to believe.

Years later, after living with her aunt and cousin, Angela is revealed to really be Peter, raised by her aunt as the daughter she always wanted. This reveal would be crazy enough, but the way in which it’s done has gone down in history as one of the most shocking moments in cinema. After committing several murders at the titular overnight camp, Angela is found standing naked and screaming while holding a knife in one hand and a severed head in the other. It’s an image that once you see, you’ll never quite be able to get out of your head — and believe me, I’ve tried.

Memento: Leonard (Probably) Killed His Wife

Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) just wants to find his wife’s killer. Unfortunately, Leonard has a condition where his memory resets every five minutes. Using notes and tattoos, Leonard attempts to gain information that will lead him to find the man who murdered his wife. Only problem is that secretly it was him … probably.

Memento is one of those movies you can watch a dozen times and still not quite “get.” Not because it’s some kind of Lynchian fever dream but because Christopher Nolan’s early masterpiece does such a good job of giving you just enough clues in each direction that even when you’re 80% sure you know what happened, that 20% uncertainty won’t stop nagging at the back of your brain. It also doesn’t help that Memento runs backward, starting at the story’s end and backtracking all the way to the beginning. So, while I’m almost certain that Leonard is the one who killed his wife, I’ll always have a sliver of doubt.

Night of the Living Dead: Ben Dies at the End

Night of the Living Dead does a lot with very little. Made on a shoestring budget, the largely single-location film was both the first modern zombie movie and a compelling commentary on race relations during the Civil Rights era. It also has the saddest twist ending on this list. After a night of trying — and failing — to stop a horde of zombies from overrunning a farmhouse, the sole survivor and the film’s only person of color, Ben, retreats to the cellar to wait for some kind of rescue. The rescue comes the next day in the form of a redneck posse of beer-swilling zombie hunters.

When Ben comes up from the cellar to see what’s going on, he is shot right between the eyes by one of the rednecks. Imagine surviving a gang of undead flesh-eaters only to be taken out by a fellow human. Was he mistaken for a zombie, or did the shooter take an opportunity to kill an African American man with no consequences? I’ve been trying to answer that question for the last thirty years.

Planet of the Apes: It Was Earth All Along

Everyone knows how the original Planet of the Apes ends. Charlton Heston discovers the ancient ruins of The Statue of Liberty and realizes the “alien” planet he traveled to was Earth. Roll credits. Despite the infinite parodies and ripoffs, the Statue of Liberty reveal still gives me chills whenever I see it. It’s just such a great twist, and once you find out who wrote it, you understand why.

Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, wrote the screenplay for Planet of the Apes and, while doing so, decided to abandon the book’s original ending (where the main character gets back to Earth only to find it also taken over by apes) in favor of making a pointed commentary on humankind’s capacity to destroy itself. The result was one of the greatest twist endings of all time.

The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis Was Dead The Whole Time

Do I even need to explain this one? M. Night Shyamalan’s chilling ghost story remains one of his best films and his best surprise ending, hands down. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the moment Halie Joel Osment revealed to Bruce Willis — and the audience — that he was dead, the whole movie changed cinema forever. You might love twist endings, or you might despise them, but you have to admit the very nature of plot twists in film was never the same after The Sixth Sense.

It’s not that M. Night Shyamalan created the idea of the twist ending, but he definitely brought it into the mainstream. What was once a rare thing, usually relegated to horror films, became a staple of Hollywood movies regardless of genre. The ending of The Sixth Sense was such a big deal that it overshadowed Shyamalan’s other abilities as a filmmaker until he was basically only known as the twist guy. And while the quality of Shyamalan’s twist endings post-Sixth Sense has been hit or miss, the original still stands out as one of the most mind-blowing reveals I’ve ever seen.

Do you agree with my list, or were there some glaring omissions? Let me know in the comments!