10 Movies That Cleverly START With Huge Twists
5. Moon
The opening scenes of Moon show space-miner Sam Bell going about his work. Employed by Lunar Industries to harvest fuel from the moon's soil, Sam's job means that he's completely isolated, living out of the Sarang Mining Base until his three-year contract ends.
While the operation is running smoothly, Sam has started suffering from headaches, and you get the sense that he's slowly losing the plot due to his mundane daily routine, and the fact that his only source of conversation is a robot AI, GERTY, who helps him out around the base.
But - as revealed by the film's early twist - Sam isn't as alone as he thinks he is.
Shortly after he crashes his lunar rover, he encounters a doppelganger of himself, learning that Lunar Industries has been cloning the original Sam Bell (and killing them once their contract expires) in order to avoid the hassle of training new staff.
The great thing about putting this twist so early in the film is that you'd normally expect a "he's a clone!" reveal to come in the end portion of the story. By placing it near the start instead and creating such a seismic shift in Sam's perception of his own little world, Moon felt truly unpredictable - and fittingly, the rest of the story unfolds in a whole host of startling ways.