10 Recent Movies That Totally Tricked Audiences

8. Avengers: Endgame Killed Thanos In The First 20 Minutes

As you'll see throughout this list, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has mastered the art of misleading audiences in a way that's actually satisfying and entertaining, rather than trying to deceive viewers because they know they've got a dud on their hands.

And no MCU movie has done it better than Avengers: Endgame, a film rightly shrouded in secrecy in the lead-up to its release, and one which Marvel Studios expertly marketed to avoid revealing specific spoilers or even basic context.

For starters, who would've predicted that Thanos (Josh Brolin) would actually die in the first 20 minutes of the movie?

Given that the trailers focused on showing the second Thanos who travels through time from 2014, seeing the Mad Titan's head parted from his body by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) early on was a genuinely shocking moment.

Speaking of Thor, his entire physical transformation was cleverly obscured in trailers, with his presence even being digitally removed from certain shots to retain the surprise.

And given that just about everyone expected Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) to show up and categorically save the day by herself, it was refreshing to see her largely kept on the sidelines save for a few cool marquee moments, allowing the O.G. Avengers to hog the limelight one last time.

Even though Endgame's time travel plot was leaked over a year before the movie came out, the Russos impressively still served up a ton of clever sleights of hand, upending expectations in so many exciting and creative ways.