Planet of the Apes
It wasn’t the first time it was revealed to have been Earth All Along, but it’s certainly the most iconic, and the scene that led to so many copycats that the twist became a trope. When astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) lands on a distant planet 2,000 years in the future, he’s appalled to be enslaved by a society of sentient ape-men. But he eventually sizes his freedom and escapes, only to discover the Statue of Liberty, submerged in sand up to its neck, revealing… well, it was Earth All Along, clearly decimated by some nuclear war in the past. A despairing, bitter Taylor sums it up perfectly: “You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you!”
