Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
But twists are even more central to theSawfranchise than to the oeuvre of M. Night Shyamalan.
Let the game begin.
Spoilers for every film in theSawfranchise follow, obviously.
10.Saw 3-D(2010)
10.
WhenSaw 3-Dhit theaters, the bar for the Saw franchise was on the floor.
You have to be invested to be surprised.
9.Saw IV(2007)
9.
But the big reveal comes when Hoffman reaches down and unbuckles his legs from the electric chair.
Youd be better off just reading the Wikipedia entry.
8.Saw X(2023)
8.
Im not mad; Im just disappointed.
After over a decade of failed reboot attempts,Saw Xpromised to be a return to form.
(Saw Xis set sometime betweenSaw IIandSaw III.)
But all of that would be forgivable.
What is unforgivable, however, is just how predictable this twist ending is.
When Kramer discovers the grift, its game on.
We also get a glimpse of Amanda going rogue, which will be her downfall inSaw III.
Amanda and Kramer tell him about the game and offer him the opportunity to play along.
Butof course,Sears is in on the con.
He turns his gun on Kramer, revealing that he and Pederson are lovers.
Rather than stay and watch the (literal) bloodbath, Pederson and Sears go looking for their money.
But Kramer is one step ahead.
A panel in the wall opens, just big enough for one persons head.
Kramer and Amanda watch as Pederson and Sears fight each other to breathe (relatively) fresh air.
Surprisingly sentimental?Absolutely.
John Kramer is many things, but too trusting is not one of them.
7.Jigsaw(2017)
7.
AfterSaw 3-Dtanked at the box office, many assumed that the franchise was dead for good.
But like this eighth installments namesake,Sawseemingly emerged from the grave with 2017sJigsaw.
Logan and Eleanor, for their part, suspect Halloran.
He was the first victim we saw (apparently) die.
The former is pretty standard Saw fare.
The latter is fun, sure, butSaw IIalready did the asynchronous timelines thing better and more cleanly.
6.Saw III(2006)
6.
Theres nothing technicallywrongwithSaw IIIs ending.
They end up just muddling each other.
The first twist is that the victims being put through separate Jigsaw tests are actually married to each other.
A trap around her neck is hooked up to Jigsaws heart monitor if he dies, she dies.
The second twist is that the entire thing has also been a test for Amanda.
Shes been going rogue, not playing by the rules.
Sure enough, Amanda refuses to let Lynn go after she completes her test.
Amanda shoots Lynn just as Jeff arrives, and he fires back.
As she bleeds out, Jigsaw tells Amanda that she was being tested too, and that she failed.
When taken individually, each twist is genuinely surprising with a dark irony that makes for a pretty goodSawtwist!
When squished together in the span of about three minutes?
5.Saw VI(2009)
5.
Look, isSaw VIa good movie?
The main victim ofSaw VIis the health-insurance executive William Easton (Peter Outerbridge), whose algorithm (?)
denied Jigsaw a potentially life-saving cancer treatment.
decides who lives or dies.
The test isnt for Easton its for them.
They get to choose his fate, just as he decided Harolds.
Its gruesome, its shocking, its silly.
4.Saw V(2008)
4.
Once Jigsaw dies, theSawfranchise gets pretty bogged down in building on his lore.
But when the final two players reach the exit, they learn that everyone could have survived.
3.Spiral: From the Book of Saw(2021)
3.
We can debate the merits ofSpiral: From the Book of Sawall day.
Rock stars as Zeke Banks, a detective investigating a series of Jigsaw copycat murders.
But the final twist is so gleeful in its execution that it elevates that fairly predictable reveal.
Zeke chooses the former, but as Marcus is being lowered, a SWAT team arrives.
Schenk had called 911 and said he was being chased by a shooter.
Apparently not seeing the wires and believing Marcus to be the shooter, the SWAT team opens fire.
It is the most bonkers thing this franchise has ever done, and thats saying a lot.
Plus, as much asJigsaw loves puppets, he has never turned a person into a gruesome human one.
Millennials really are so creative!
2.Saw(2004)
2.
Compared to some of the franchises later entries, the originalSaws plot is incredibly simple.
That seems like the climax the bad guy has been defeated.
He presses play and a familiar, sinister voice says, Hello, Zep.
It turns out that Zep was playing a game too.
Thats when the corpse stretches and stands up.
More flashbacks reveal that Jigsaw is actually John Kramer, a cancer patient of Dr. Gordons.
Kramer tells Adam that the key was in the bathtub he woke up in, long washed away.
He slams the bathroom door.
I wish I had seenSawin theaters.
Ofcoursethe movie launched a huge franchise.
An ending like that is just begging to be iterated upon.
1.Saw II(2005)
1.
Sequels are hard, especially when youre following up an auteur who worked on a tiny budget.
Compared toSaw,Saw IIcertainly looks more expensive and more polished.
That can be a double-edged sword (or … saw?
), in that youre working with more money but also an expectation to live up to the original.
Theres plenty to debate over whetherSaw IIas a film does that.
But its twist ending certainly rises to the challenge.
All he has to do is sit and talk to Jigsaw for two hours.
Matthews and Jigsaw watch surveillance footage as the eight victims are put through various games and traps.
Eventually Detective Matthews attacks Jigsaw, forcing him to take him to the house.
A safe and secure state.
Matthews is knocked out and chained to a pipe, waking up to a tape from Amanda.
She reveals that, as Jigsaws accomplice, she helped set up this test for him.
Amanda appears in the doorway and slams the door on him.
