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#10: The Blonde Woman
“Dressed to Kill” (1980)
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Brian De Palma’s erotic thriller was controversial for its frank depictions of sex, brutal violence against women, and transphobic twist. However, it’s hard to deny how well-crafted some of its suspense sequences are. One scene finds actress Angie Dickinson engaging in a sexy cat-and-mouse game with a strange man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s full of background details you might not see until a rewatch. Near the end of the sequence, we actually catch a couple of glimpses of the blonde killer in a trench coat and sunglasses. But the first time through, a viewer might not even notice her.
#9: Everything Makes Sense the Second Time
“Shutter Island” (2010)
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Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule start out as two US Marshalls ostensibly heading to a secluded mental hospital to investigate the disappearance of a patient. But the twist ending reveals that Teddy is actually a patient and Chuck is a doctor who simulated the whole thing to try to break Teddy from his delusions. Throughout the story, Chuck makes gestures to the staff and patients that seem out of place. However, these are usually in moments when Teddy is agitated, so our focus is on him. Chuck’s attempts to throw Teddy off by spouting conspiracy theories are filled with even more meaning. The impressive subtleties of actor Mark Ruffalo make him the one to watch on repeat viewing.
#8: Black Lingerie or White Lingerie?
“Psycho” (1960)
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Alfred Hitchcock was famously meticulous. Apparently, his attention to detail also extended to his characters’ undergarments. His most iconic film starts out like a noir mystery. A good woman gone bad, Marion Crane steals a great sum of money and hightails it out of town. The movie’s costume designer, Rita Riggs, said Hitchcock was a moralist with a sense of humor. So, he was very particular that Marion should wear a white bra before she stole the money and a black one after. It doesn’t sound that subtle when you explain it, but it goes a long way on screen.
#7: Faithful Reconstruction
“Zodiac” (2007)
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David Fincher and company went to great lengths to be faithful to the true story of the infamous Zodiac Killer. As the story takes place in the late 1960s and 70s, visually establishing the period was critical. The look of the movie is very authentic. That’s due in large part to the extra mile taken by the movie’s costume designer, Casey Storm. Using forensic evidence and crime scene photos the crew were given special access to, Storm was able to put an extreme level of accurate detail into the costumes. What ends up on screen is an almost 1 to 1 recreation of the characters’ wardrobe.
#6: Killer in the Crowd
“Copycat” (1995)
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In the first scene of this mystery thriller starring Sigourney Weaver, she is addressing a crowd of students on the likelihood of a serial killer sitting among them. On rewatch, viewers might realize just how true that is. The movie’s antagonist, Peter Foley, can be spotted standing among the potential serial killers in the crowd. This is long before the audience has seen him in action, so he doesn’t even register. He’s just as Weaver’s character describes. Good-looking, unassuming, and unremarkable. Yet, the detail only adds to the character’s sense of paranoia and obsession with patterns.
#5: The Zoom Call
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (2022)
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No one missed that Detective Benoit Blanc was playing Among Us with Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Natasha Lyonne and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. What you might not have put together so quickly was why these four people were chosen for cameos: Abdul-Jabbar has written several murder mystery books about Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock’s brother), Lyonne later starred in Johnson’s own murder mystery TV show “Poker Face,” and Angela Lansbury was of course the face of “Murder, She Wrote.” Perhaps the most subversive cameo is Broadway legend Sondheim: you may remember Blanc singing one of his songs in the previous movie. But it makes even more sense when you realize that “Glass Onion” borrows a lot, plot-wise, from a mystery movie Sondheim co-wrote.
#4: The Picture
“The Last of Sheila” (1973)
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This undersung 70s murder mystery was based on the real-life mystery games composer Stephen Sondheim would throw with actor Anthony Perkins for their famous friends. “The Last of Sheila” follows a group of Hollywood friends who know way too much about each other and play catty mystery games for fun. It plays out like a game for the audience, presenting evidence and clues for the characters and the viewer at once. Repeat viewings reveal more details each time, but the ingenious solution has been hidden in plain sight the whole time. A picture of the characters taken at the beginning of the film, with each one standing under a letter in the ship’s name, turns out to be the key to the whole mystery.
#3: In the Mirror
“Deep Red” (1975)
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Dario Argento’s classic giallo film gives away the entire mystery in the first twenty minutes, if you know where to look. The director’s affinity for gliding POV shots and jagged editing can be destabilizing for a new viewer. When the main character finds the first victim’s body, he passes a mirror in a side hallway containing several paintings. Marcus only realizes sometime later that one of these paintings was actually a reflection of the killer, framed in a way to make it seem she is part of a painting. Argento would revisit this kind of twist in later films, but this one remains the most shocking.
#2: Free Association
“The Usual Suspects” (1995)
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After a deadly shootout on a pier, police detectives work to reconstruct the events that led up to the mass killing. They interrogate their key witness, a man identified as Roger “Verbal” Kint, who leads them through a complicated narrative of the criminal activities that led to the event. The U.S. Customs agent responsible for the investigation realizes too late that not only is Kint the man responsible, but his false story was filled with details located all around the room. Even the brand name on the agent’s coffee cup somehow makes it into Verbal’s tall tale.
#1: Who’s Missing?
“Clue” (1985)
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This cult classic is famous for having three different endings. Clues to all three solutions are laid throughout the movie, which makes it hilariously convoluted. The biggest and easiest to miss clue is that certain characters seem to disappear in big crowd scenes. For example, Mrs. Peacock is absent during the scene where they all go check on the maid, Yvette. According to at least two of the endings, this turns out to be the moment when she was busy murdering the cook in the kitchen. Of course, according to one solution, this is kind of impossible. The logic is not exactly airtight, but it’s so much fun all the same.
