20 Amazing Movie Plot Twists That Never Get Talked About
19. Anthony Is Dead - Dead Man's Shoes
Shane Meadows' ferocious 2004 film Dead Man's Shoes follows Richard (Paddy Considine), a man who returns to his hometown seeking revenge against the drug dealers who abused his mentally impaired brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell).
Anthony is seemingly along for the ride with his brother throughout the film, except near the end of the story we learn that Anthony has actually been dead the entire time.
In the past, the gang gave Anthony LSD and tortured him, prompting him to take his own life. For the entirety of the movie, Richard has simply been imagining his late brother's presence. It's an absolutely devastating reveal which changes everything we thought we knew about Richard's revenge mission and the grim fate that awaits him once his job is done.
The "they were dead the entire time" twist was already feeling massively overdone by the mid-2000s, but execution is everything (pardon the pun), and Meadows absolutely made it feel freshly heartbreaking here.