12 Greatest Red Herring Movie Endings

12. Kerbal Kint's Story Is A Total Lie - The Usual Suspects

usual suspects kevin spacey
Gramercy Pictures

In effect the entirety of Bryan Singer's mystery-thriller is one big avalanche of red herrings, centred around the identity of the mysterious crime kingpin known as Keyser Söze.

The audience is led to believe that Verbal Kint's (Kevin Spacey) long-winded, hyper-convoluted testimony to customs agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) will eventually result in Soze being unmasked. While it technically does, it's not at all in the way either Kujan or the audience expects.

The iconic ending reveals that Soze has been sitting in front of Kujan the entire time, with Kint bluffing up a story on-the-fly using elements from the bulletin board in the interrogation room until his bond is posted.

Some might argue that 97% of the movie being a series of fabrications for both the audience and the protagonist makes it a tough movie to re-watch, but it's an undeniably genius work of misdirection that works brilliantly on several levels.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.