15 Indian Movies With Shocking Twists: ‘Drishyam’, ‘Kahaani’ And More

Written By: Entertainment Desk

Aug 29, 2026 15:48 IST ⓘ

From ‘Drishyam’ to ‘Kahaani’, discover 15 Indian movies with unforgettable plot twists.

A great screen twist does more than reveal the killer. It quietly rearranges everything the audience thought it knew, sends earlier scenes rushing back with new meaning and leaves viewers wanting to restart the film before the end credits have finished rolling. Indian cinema has produced plenty of such rug-pulls – from seemingly straightforward murder mysteries to psychological thrillers in which even reality cannot be trusted. Some of these films hide the culprit in plain sight.

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Others turn the investigator into the criminal, a ghost into a detective or an entire horror story into something even more audacious. This is not a ranking; it is a spoiler-filled celebration of films that made audiences gasp, argue and immediately call a friend with the warning, “Watch it before somebody ruins it for you.”

Spoilers ahead: Consider this your final warning – every killer reveal, secret identity and jaw-dropping ending is about to be exposed.

1. Drishyam

Released on 31 July 2015, Nishikant Kamat’s Hindi adaptation of Jeethu Joseph’s 2013 Malayalam film starred Ajay Devgn as cable operator Vijay Salgaonkar, alongside Tabu, Shriya Saran, Ishita Dutta, Mrunal Jadhav and Rajat Kapoor. When Vijay’s wife and elder daughter become involved in the death of Sam, the son of Inspector General Meera Deshmukh, the movie stops being a conventional whodunnit – the audience knows what happened – and becomes a nerve-shredding contest between a relentless police officer and a man whose film obsession has accidentally prepared him for the worst night of his life.

The famous reveal is not merely that Vijay manufactures an alibi by taking his family on the same trip a day later and planting memories with bus conductors, restaurant workers and theatre staff. His true masterstroke is the location of Sam’s body: beneath the floor of the police station that was still under construction. The institution hunting for the evidence has literally built itself over it. Sacnilk listed its worldwide gross at Rs 110 crore.

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2. Kahaani

Sujoy Ghosh turned Kolkata during Durga Puja into both a character and an accomplice in ‘Kahaani’, released on 9 March 2012. Vidya Balan played Vidya Bagchi, a heavily pregnant woman who arrives from London searching for her missing husband, Arnab. Parambrata Chatterjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saswata Chatterjee and Indraneil Sengupta completed the principal cast as her search gradually exposed a connection to wanted intelligence operative Milan Damji.

Then came Hindi cinema’s great disappearing act: Arnab Bagchi never existed, and Vidya was not pregnant. She was the widow of Arup Basu, who died in the poison-gas attack engineered by Damji, and the fake belly had helped her appear vulnerable while she guided the police and Intelligence Bureau towards her real target. When Damji attacks, she uses the prosthetic belly to disarm him before killing him and vanishing into the Puja crowds. A film that appeared to be about a woman searching for her husband was actually about a woman making the system conduct her hunt. It grossed approximately Rs 80 crore worldwide.

3. Andhadhun

Few films lie with as much enthusiasm as ‘Andhadhun’. Sriram Raghavan’s black comedy-thriller, released on 5 October 2018, starred Ayushmann Khurrana as Akash, a pianist who pretends to be blind because he believes it sharpens his music. Tabu, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan and Manav Vij joined him in a story that swerved into murder when Akash walked into the home of retired actor Pramod Sinha and saw Simi and her lover Manohar dealing with Pramod’s corpse. The catch, of course, was that the witnesses could not know their supposedly blind visitor had witnessed everything.

Sriram Raghavan does not stop at exposing Akash’s performance. Simi eventually blinds him for real, and the final account he gives Sophie – about a rabbit causing Simi’s fatal car crash – may itself be another performance. His rabbit-headed cane and the ease with which he kicks a can away suggest that he could have regained his sight and invented the rabbit story, but the film refuses to certify one explanation. The last twist is therefore not an answer but a question: after spending two hours with accomplished liars, why are we still trusting the storyteller? Boosted by its extraordinary China run, Andhadhun grossed about Rs 442 crore worldwide.

4. Badla

Released on 8 March 2019, Sujoy Ghosh’s ‘Badla’ placed Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu across a table and made conversation feel like combat. Taapsee played businesswoman Naina Sethi, accused of murdering her lover Arjun, while Big B appeared to be celebrated defence lawyer Badal Gupta. Amrita Singh and Tony Luke rounded out the central cast in this Hindi adaptation of the Spanish thriller ‘The Invisible Guest’.

Naina’s victim story collapses layer by layer. She admits that she helped conceal the death of a young man named Sunny, then finally reveals that Sunny was still alive when she pushed his car into the water – and that she killed Arjun to keep the truth buried. The biggest trick, however, belongs to the man interrogating her: “Badal” is actually Sunny’s father Nirmal in disguise, and his pen has recorded Naina’s confession while Sunny’s mother Rani listens from the building opposite. The real Badal arrives only after Nirmal has won the case that matters. The film grossed approximately Rs 140 crore worldwide

5. Gupt: The Hidden Truth

Long before spoiler discourse became a daily internet hazard, ‘Gupt’ gave 1990s audiences a reveal they guarded like state intelligence. Rajiv Rai’s thriller released on 4 July 1997 and starred Bobby Deol as Sahil, who is convicted of murdering his stepfather, Governor Jaisingh Sinha. Manisha Koirala played Sahil’s friend Sheetal, while Kajol appeared as his devoted childhood sweetheart Isha; Om Puri, Raj Babbar and Paresh Rawal featured in key roles.

The title’s hidden truth was that Isha was the killer. Her father had confessed to protect her, but the locket clenched in the governor’s hand eventually exposed the woman the film had encouraged viewers to treat as the loyal romantic lead. Isha’s possessiveness had turned murderous whenever somebody threatened to separate her from Sahil. Kajol’s casting was the perfect piece of misdirection: audiences trained to read her warmth as romantic goodness were not looking for a killer behind that smile. ‘Gupt’ grossed approximately Rs 33 crore worldwide.

6. Race

Abbas-Mustan did not so much insert a twist into ‘Race’ as install a revolving door. Released on 21 March 2008, the thriller starred Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna as wealthy half-brothers Ranvir and Rajiv, with Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif, Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy. What begins as sibling rivalry involving horses, romance and inheritance soon turns into an insurance scam in which practically everyone has a secret partner, a secret marriage or a secret plan to eliminate somebody else.

Rajiv recruits Sonia to kill Ranvir; Sonia appears to be helping Ranvir trap Rajiv, then pushes Ranvir from a building anyway. Sophia is revealed as Ranvir’s wife and heir, before the film reveals that she is actually Rajiv’s lover and accomplice. Just when the conspirators believe they have cleared the track, Ranvir returns alive: he had anticipated the betrayal, staged his death and enlisted investigator RD as an ally. The twists became so gleefully excessive that they were the entertainment. The film raced to approximately Rs 103.68 crore worldwide.

7. A Wednesday!

Neeraj Pandey’s directorial debut needed no exotic location or elaborate flashback – just two exceptional actors, several telephones and a city running out of time. Released on 5 September 2008, ‘A Wednesday!’ starred Naseeruddin Shah as an anonymous caller who claims to have planted bombs across Mumbai and Anupam Kher as Police Commissioner Prakash Rathod. Jimmy Sheirgill, Aamir Bashir and Deepal Shaw played other major roles in the compact thriller.

The caller demands the release of four imprisoned terrorists, leading both the police and the audience to assume that another terror operation is underway. His actual plan is the reverse: he has manoeuvred the authorities into delivering the men so he can kill them. He is neither their associate nor a grand criminal mastermind, but an unnamed citizen enraged by repeated attacks and institutional failure. The reveal is morally provocative rather than comfortably heroic, and the film wisely leaves his name – and therefore the communal identity viewers might attach to him – unstated. The critically acclaimed film made Rs 15 crore worldwide.

8. Talaash: The Answer Lies Within

For most of its running time, ‘Talaash’ looks like a melancholy police procedural. Reema Kagti’s film, released on 30 November 2012, starred Aamir Khan as Inspector Surjan Shekhawat, who investigates actor Armaan Kapoor’s strange late-night car crash while privately drowning in guilt over his young son’s death. Rani Mukerji played his grieving wife Roshni, Kareena Kapoor Khan appeared as the mysterious escort Rosie, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rajkummar Rao took important supporting parts.

The investigation eventually leads to Simran, a s*x worker left to die after an earlier crash and subsequently used as the foundation of a blackmail scheme. The shock is that Rosie is Simran’s ghost. She has been steering Surjan towards the truth and even saves him when his car plunges into the sea at the same location. The supernatural turn divided viewers precisely because the movie had trained them to expect a rational solution, but it also completed Surjan’s emotional journey: the detective solves a death only after accepting that grief cannot always be interrogated into submission. ‘Talaash’ grossed approximately Rs 176 crore worldwide.

9. Ittefaq

Two corpses, two suspects and two incompatible stories formed the neat puzzle at the centre of Abhay Chopra’s ‘Ittefaq’, released on 3 November 2017. Sidharth Malhotra played novelist Vikram Sethi, whose wife Catherine is found dead before he flees into the home of Maya, played by Sonakshi Sinha, where her husband Shekhar is also murdered. Akshaye Khanna’s Inspector Dev must decide which survivor is lying.

The apparent solution points towards Maya and her lover, but one tiny clue concerning Catherine’s heart medication overturns it. Vikram had increased her dosage after she threatened to expose his role in a rape survivor’s suicide, then deliberately sought out Shekhar – the lawyer helping her – and killed him too. He manipulated the crime scene, switched muddy shoes and used evidence of Maya’s affair to build a more tempting theory for the police. By the time he calmly confesses to Dev over the phone, he is already aboard a flight out of India. Sometimes the smartest culprit is simply the one who understands which lie the investigator most wants to believe. ‘Ittefaq’ grossed approximately Rs 56 crore worldwide.

10. Ugly

Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Ugly’ premiered at Cannes in 2013 but reached Indian theatres on 26 December 2014. Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh, Girish Kulkarni and Surveen Chawla led the story of ten-year-old Kali’s disappearance. The adults around her rapidly turn the case into an opportunity to settle grudges, extort ransom, steal money and punish former partners; the missing child nearly becomes a supporting character in her own kidnapping.

Its final revelation is not clever in the crowd-pleasing sense – it is devastating. Kali really was taken by the toy seller encountered near the beginning. He hid her in the sidecar of a motorcycle and then died while Rahul and Chaitanya chased him, leaving her trapped as everybody else exploited the case for six days. The police finally find her body in the very area they could have searched much earlier. The twist makes the title land with full force: the ugliest thing is not a criminal genius, but a roomful of adults too consumed by themselves to save a child.

11. Haseen Dillruba

Vinil Mathew’s ‘Haseen Dillruba’ premiered on Netflix on 2 July 2021 and starred Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey and Harshvardhan Rane, with Aditya Srivastava playing the police officer determined to unravel its murder mystery. Taapsee’s Rani is suspected of killing her husband Rishu after an explosion destroys their home, particularly as the investigation exposes her affair with his cousin Neel. With Rishu’s tattooed hand recovered beside an unrecognisable body, the evidence appears to confirm that he died in the blast.

The corpse, however, belongs to Neel. After Rani kills him while trying to save Rishu during a fight, the married couple borrows an idea from her favourite crime novel and stages Rishu’s death. Rishu cuts off his own tattooed hand and leaves it beside Neel’s body before escaping, while Rani helps destroy the remaining evidence in the explosion. The supposedly murdered husband is alive, the suspected wife is his accomplice and their dangerously dysfunctional romance survives – minus one hand. The Netflix film’s popularity led to the 2024 sequel ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’.

12. Pizza

Karthik Subbaraj’s feature-directing debut ‘Pizza’ was released on 19 October 2012 and starred Vijay Sethupathi as delivery rider Michael, with Remya Nambeesan as his partner Anu; Adukalam Naren, Karunakaran and Bobby Simha appeared in supporting roles. Michael returns from a delivery bloodied and terrified, then describes being trapped in a bungalow with dead bodies, vanishing lights and a ghostly child named Nithya. For a long stretch, the film plays like an exceptionally efficient haunted-house nightmare.

The nightmare is a con. Michael and Anu invented the entire ordeal after discovering diamonds that his employer was trying to move out of the shop ahead of a police raid. Anu disappears with the stones, while Michael uses her absence and her unfinished horror story to sell his trauma. Then Subbaraj twists the knife once more: on a later delivery, Michael enters a home where details from his fabricated tale begin occurring for real, including the arrival of a child named Nithya. The horror story becomes a heist and may become a horror story again.

13. Maharaja

Nithilan Saminathan’s Tamil thriller ‘Maharaja’, released on 14 June 2024, announced its mystery with an apparently absurd complaint. Vijay Sethupathi played a barber who begs the police to recover “Lakshmi”, a metal dustbin stolen during a break-in, and even offers a substantial bribe. Anurag Kashyap, Sachana Namidass, Natarajan Subramaniam, Mamta Mohandas and Singampuli featured in the principal ensemble. The film’s shuffled chronology makes the audience treat cause as effect and the past as the present.

Lakshmi is a decoy. Maharaja is really using the complaint to identify the men who assaulted his daughter Jothi, and the events he describes as happening to him actually happened to her. The final blow lands when gangster Selvam recognises Jothi as Ammu, his biological daughter, whom Maharaja rescued and raised after an accident killed her mother. Selvam had unknowingly participated in the attack on his own child. It is a brutal revelation, and one that forces viewers to mentally rebuild the entire timeline. After its China release, ‘Maharaja’ finished with an estimated Rs 199.20 crore worldwide gross.

14. Mumbai Police

Rosshan Andrrews’ Malayalam thriller ‘Mumbai Police’ released on 3 May 2013 and starred Prithviraj Sukumaran, Jayasurya and Rahman as police officers Antony Moses, Aaryan Jacob and Farhan Aman. Antony tells Farhan that he has solved Aaryan’s murder, crashes before he can explain it and loses his memory. He is then sent back through his own investigation, effectively following clues left by a version of himself he can no longer remember.

The detective and the murderer are the same man. Antony discovers that before the crash he had killed Aaryan with a remotely triggered rifle after Aaryan learned about his relationship with another man and Antony became paranoid about being exposed in a deeply homophobic environment. Farhan already knows because pre-accident Antony confessed during the interrupted phone call; the renewed investigation is meant to recover the motive and evidence. The revelation was daring for a mainstream star vehicle, though its linkage of a closeted identity, shame and murder has also prompted more critical readings over time. The shock is not Antony’s s**uality but the discovery that the hero has been hunting himself.

15. Lucia

Pawan Kumar’s crowdfunded Kannada psychological thriller ‘Lucia’ arrived in Indian theatres on 6 September 2013 after premiering at the London Indian Film Festival. Sathish Ninasam played Nikki/Nikhil opposite Sruthi Hariharan, with Achyuth Kumar in a key role. One strand follows an insomniac cinema usher who takes a pill that enables vivid dreams of being a movie star; another follows the star’s glamorous but unhappy existence, with colour and monochrome helping viewers separate the two realities – or so they think.

The ending reverses the labels. The movie star Nikhil is the real man, while the humble usher Nikki and his romance are the dream into which he retreats to escape fame. The visual scheme has not simply separated reality from fantasy; it has encouraged the audience to assign them incorrectly. The recovered Nikhil ultimately chooses the ordinary life he had imagined, giving the twist emotional purpose beyond its technical cleverness. Reportedly, the film raised Rs 51 lakh from supporters in just 27 days and went on to become a milestone in Kannada independent cinema.

Honourable Mentions

Several other films deserve recognition for keeping their biggest secrets until audiences had comfortably believed the wrong story. Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Kaun?’ turned Urmila Matondkar’s seemingly frightened woman into the danger lurking inside the house, while ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’, ‘Table No. 21’ and ‘404: Error Not Found’ used psychological revelations to transform their narratives.

‘Monica, O My Darling’ delivered a deliciously tangled conspiracy involving different killers, and ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ made viewers watch a known traitor become trapped by his own mounting lies. Tamil thrillers ‘Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru’ and ‘Ratsasan’, Telugu films ‘Evaru’ and ‘Awe!’, Kannada mystery ‘U Turn’, and Malayalam titles ‘Memories’, ‘Anjaam Pathiraa’ and ‘Iratta’ also produced memorable shocks.