10 Best Films With Unreliable Narrators

Con-man Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint is presented as the viewpoint character through whose eyes we are seeing the story of the events that led up to a massacre and fire on a ship after a drug heist. He recounts his version of what happened during an interview with US Customs Agent Kujan, where he presents himself as very much a side character, involved with a group of criminals led by a Turkish crime lord called Keyser Söze.

As the viewer, we are essentially in the same position as Kujan as we find out the details of the story as Kint is relaying them. There is no hint throughout the flashbacks in the film that he is anything other than what he says until he is released on bail and we realise, along with the agent, that the whole story has been an elaborate lie and Kint is in fact Keyser Söze.

The film makes good use of voiceovers, which help to unravel the jumps in timeline and also have the effect of separating events into presumable reality, with scenes containing Agent Kujan, and possible fiction, with sections told by Kint.