A24 recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 2012 · Film

Spring Breakers recap

Spring Breakers (2012) follows four broke Florida college students who rob a diner to pay for spring break and fall in with a drug dealer on the coast. Harmony Korine directs. Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) wear ski masks and use water pistols and hammers for the robbery, then head to St. Petersburg for a haze of beach parties. Police arrest all four at a party, and a rapper and dealer who calls himself Alien (James Franco) pays their bail. Faith, uneasy around him and his crowd, takes the bus home. Alien shows off his guns and cash, the remaining three join him on a string of armed robberies, and a drive by shooting from his rival and former friend Big Arch (Gucci Mane) wounds Cotty, who also goes home. The story stands alone and has no sequel.

How Spring Breakers ends

Spring Breakers ends with Brit and Candy wiping out Big Arch's operation after Alien is shot dead the moment they land at the rival's dock. In neon bikinis and pink ski masks, the two women walk through the mansion killing the guards and finally Big Arch himself. They drive away in his Lamborghini, heading back home, while their voices repeat the dreamy spring break monologue heard earlier. A brief flashback shows them kissing Alien's body before leaving. A sequel, Spring Breakers: The Second Coming, was announced in 2014 with Jonas Åkerlund directing, then shelved.

Post-credits scenes

No. Spring Breakers has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 2013 · Film

Under the Skin recap

Under the Skin (2013) follows an alien in human form who drives a van around Scotland, luring lone men to a dark house where they sink into a black liquid. Jonathan Glazer directs, loosely adapting the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. Scarlett Johansson plays the unnamed woman, who wears the clothes of a dead woman and is watched over by a silent motorcyclist. Much of the Glasgow footage uses hidden cameras and real passersby. On a beach she kills a swimmer and leaves a crying baby behind after its parents drown. Inside the void, a trapped victim sees an earlier one drained until only his skin remains. After picking up a man with a facial disfigurement (Adam Pearson), she lets him go, and the motorcyclist sets out after her as she leaves the van and wanders into the Highlands. The film stands on its own.

How Under the Skin ends

Under the Skin ends in a Highland forest, where a logger who first offered her shelter attacks and tries to rape the woman. Her human skin tears, exposing a black, featureless body beneath. She peels off the face and holds it, looking at it, before the logger pours petrol over her and sets her alight. She burns in the snow and smoke rises into the falling flakes, while the motorcyclist stands alone looking out over the white hills. The novel spells out an alien meat trade and a named heroine, Isserley; the film strips nearly all of that explanation away.

Post-credits scenes

No. Under the Skin has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 2014 · Film

Ex Machina recap

Ex Machina (2014) brings Caleb Smith, a young programmer, to his reclusive boss's remote estate to judge whether a humanoid robot named Ava has a real mind. Alex Garland writes and directs his first feature. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) works at Blue Book, a search engine company, and wins a week at the mountain home and lab of its founder, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), a heavy drinking genius who lives with a silent servant, Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). In daily sessions behind glass, Caleb talks with Ava (Alicia Vikander), whose face and hands look human over a visible machine body. Ava can trigger power cuts that blind Nathan's cameras, and in those moments she tells Caleb that Nathan lies and that she wants to see the world. Caleb learns Nathan plans to wipe her mind for the next model, finds footage of earlier captive robots, and plots to free her. The film stands alone and won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

How Ex Machina ends

Ex Machina ends with Ava walking out into the world and leaving Caleb locked in. Nathan reveals he watched everything on a battery camera and that the real test was whether Ava could manipulate Caleb into helping her escape, but Caleb has already rewired the doors. Freed, Ava and Kyoko stab Nathan to death, though he disables Kyoko in the struggle. Ava takes skin and parts from older models to look fully human, dresses, and leaves Caleb shouting behind a glass door. She flies off in the helicopter meant for him and ends up watching people at a busy city intersection.

Post-credits scenes

No. Ex Machina has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 2015 · Film

The Witch recap

The Witch (2015) follows a Puritan family banished from their settlement to a farm beside a forest in 1630s New England, where their newborn vanishes. Robert Eggers writes and directs his first feature. Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is playing peekaboo with baby Samuel when he disappears; a witch in the woods has taken and killed him. Her father William (Ralph Ineson) blames a wolf, her mother Katherine (Kate Dickie) blames Thomasin, and the young twins Mercy and Jonas insist the black goat, Black Phillip, speaks to them. Thomasin's brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) gets lost in the forest, returns naked and fevered, coughs up an apple and dies in a religious rapture. The twins accuse Thomasin of witchcraft, and William locks his children in the goat shed. The film is a standalone story with no sequel.

How The Witch ends

The Witch ends with Thomasin, the last of her family, signing herself over to the devil. Overnight the witch takes the twins, and at dawn Black Phillip gores William to death. Katherine, out of her mind with grief, attacks Thomasin, who kills her with a billhook. Alone, Thomasin asks Black Phillip to speak. He answers, takes the form of a man and asks if she would like to live deliciously, guiding her hand to sign his book. She walks naked into the woods, finds a coven dancing around a fire, and rises laughing into the air with them.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Witch has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 05 · 2015 · Film

Room recap

Room (2015) follows Joy Newsome and her five-year-old son Jack, held captive in a soundproof garden shed that Jack believes is the whole world. Lenny Abrahamson directs from Emma Donoghue's script of her own 2010 novel. Joy (Brie Larson) was kidnapped seven years earlier by a man they call Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), who is Jack's father. Jack (Jacob Tremblay) knows the outside only through television. When Old Nick loses his job and cuts their power, Joy tells Jack the truth and devises an escape: Jack plays dead, rolled in a rug, and jumps from Old Nick's truck. A passerby and police save him, and Jack leads them to Joy. Back at her mother Nancy's home (Joan Allen), Jack slowly takes to the wider world while Joy, after a harsh TV interview, attempts suicide. The film stands alone.

How Room ends

Room ends with Joy back from hospital and Jack asking to visit the shed one last time. Jack has settled in with his grandmother and her partner Leo, made a friend and sent Joy a lock of his hair for strength. With police escorting them, they step into Room with the door open. Jack finds it smaller than he remembers and says it does not feel like Room any more. He says goodbye to each object, Joy quietly says goodbye too, and they walk away. The novel is told entirely in Jack's voice; the film keeps his narration but widens the view to show Joy's breakdown.

Post-credits scenes

No. Room has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 06 · 2015 · Film

The Lobster recap

The Lobster (2015) is set in a world where single adults are taken to a hotel and given 45 days to find a partner or be turned into an animal of their choice. Yorgos Lanthimos directs and co-writes with Efthimis Filippou, his first English-language film. David (Colin Farrell), just left by his wife, arrives with his brother, who has already become a dog, and picks a lobster as his fate. Couples must match on one shared trait, a limp, a lisp, nosebleeds, so a limping man (Ben Whishaw) fakes nosebleeds to win a woman. Guests earn extra days by hunting loners in the woods with tranquilizer guns. David pairs with a heartless woman by feigning cruelty; when she kills his brother and sees him cry, he escapes and joins the loners, led by Léa Seydoux, who ban all romance. There he falls for a short-sighted woman (Rachel Weisz). The film stands alone.

How The Lobster ends

The Lobster ends with David in a restaurant bathroom, holding a steak knife to his eye. The loners' leader read the short-sighted woman's diary and, instead of the promised eye surgery, had her blinded. David ties the leader up in a grave for wild dogs to find and escapes to the city with the woman he loves. Because couples must share a trait, he goes to blind himself so they match. He hesitates with the knife raised; the film cuts back to her waiting alone at the table, and never shows whether he does it.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Lobster has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 07 · 2015 · Film

Green Room recap

Green Room (2015) traps a touring punk band inside a neo-Nazi bar in the Oregon woods after they walk in on a murder backstage. Jeremy Saulnier writes and directs. The Ain't Rights, bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin), guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), drummer Reece (Joe Cole) and singer Tiger (Callum Turner), take a last-minute gig outside Portland. Going back for a phone, Pat finds a young woman stabbed dead in the green room, and the staff lock the band in with her friend Amber (Imogen Poots). The club's owner, Darcy Banker (Patrick Stewart), calmly plans to kill them all and stage it as a trespass gone wrong. The band takes the bouncer's gun, loses it when Pat's arm is slashed through the door, and tries to break out; trained dogs and armed skinheads pick them off one by one. The film stands alone.

How Green Room ends

Green Room ends with only Pat and Amber alive. They kill the two skinheads sent to finish them, take the bar manager Gabe prisoner and follow the gang into the woods, where Darcy's men are setting up the bodies to look like trespassers shot on private land. Gabe slips off to call the police while Pat and Amber kill the dog handler Clark and another skinhead. Darcy draws a revolver and both of them shoot him dead. The two survivors sit by the roadside, worn out, waiting for the police to arrive.

Post-credits scenes

No. Green Room has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 08 · 2016 · Film

Moonlight recap

Moonlight (2016) follows Chiron, a quiet Black boy growing up in Miami's Liberty City, across three chapters of his childhood, adolescence and adult life. Barry Jenkins directs, adapting Tarell Alvin McCraney's play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. As a child called Little (Alex Hibbert), Chiron is taken in by Juan (Mahershala Ali), a kind drug dealer, and his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe), while his mother Paula (Naomie Harris) sinks into crack addiction, the drug Juan sells. As a teenager (Ashton Sanders), Chiron shares a kiss on the beach with his friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), who is then pressured into beating him as part of a bully's hazing. Chiron smashes a chair over the bully's head and is arrested. As an adult called Black (Trevante Rhodes), he deals drugs in Atlanta, visits Paula in rehab, and drives to Miami after Kevin (André Holland) calls him. The film stands alone.

How Moonlight ends

Moonlight ends with Chiron and Kevin at Kevin's apartment after a meal at the diner where Kevin cooks. Kevin has been to prison, has a young son and is content with a modest life; he plays Chiron the Barbara Lewis song Hello Stranger that made him think of him. Chiron admits that no one has touched him since their night on the beach years ago. Kevin holds him, and the last image is young Little standing on a beach at night, turning to look at the camera. The film won Best Picture, and Ali won Best Supporting Actor.

Post-credits scenes

No. Moonlight has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 09 · 2016 · Film

20th Century Women recap

20th Century Women (2016) follows Dorothea Fields, a single mother in 1979 Santa Barbara, who asks two younger women to help her raise her teenage son. Mike Mills writes and directs, drawing on his own mother. Dorothea (Annette Bening), 55, runs a big rambling house with lodgers: the photographer Abbie Porter (Greta Gerwig), recovering from cervical cancer, and William (Billy Crudup), a carpenter fixing up the place. Her son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), 15, is close to Julie Hamlin (Elle Fanning), 17, who sneaks into his bed to talk but refuses to sleep with him. Abbie takes Jamie to punk clubs and hands him feminist books, Julie takes him through pregnancy scares, and Dorothea worries she cannot reach her son and envies the women who can. Each character's future is narrated as the story moves. The film stands alone.

How 20th Century Women ends

20th Century Women ends after a road trip in which Julie tells Jamie she will not sleep with him because they are too close, and he storms off. Dorothea arrives, and mother and son finally talk honestly on the drive home. Narration then tells what becomes of everyone: Julie moves to Paris and chooses not to have children, Abbie stays in Santa Barbara, marries and has two sons, William moves to Sedona to make pottery, and Dorothea finds a partner in 1983 and dies of lung cancer in 1999. Jamie, now a father, tries and fails to describe her to his own son.

Post-credits scenes

No. 20th Century Women has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 10 · 2017 · Film

The Killing of a Sacred Deer recap

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) follows Steven Murphy, a heart surgeon whose family is cursed by a teenager whose father died on his operating table. Yorgos Lanthimos directs and co-writes with Efthimis Filippou, borrowing from the Greek myth of Iphigenia. Steven (Colin Farrell) secretly meets Martin Lang (Barry Keoghan), 16, giving him gifts, and introduces him to his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), an eye doctor, and their children Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic). Martin's mother (Alicia Silverstone) tries to seduce Steven. Then Bob's legs stop working. Martin calmly explains the rule: Steven must kill one member of his family to balance his father's death, or all three will be paralyzed, stop eating, bleed from the eyes and die. Kim, infatuated with Martin, collapses too. Steven admits he had been drinking before the fatal operation. The film stands alone.

How The Killing of a Sacred Deer ends

The Killing of a Sacred Deer ends with Steven choosing by chance. He ties Martin up in the basement, beats him and shoots him in the legs, but nothing changes; Kim and Bob each try to win his favor, Anna argues they could have another child, and Steven even asks the school which child is better. Anna sets Martin free. When Bob starts bleeding from the eyes, Steven binds his wife and children with tape in the living room and covers their heads, pulls a hat over his own face, spins and fires a rifle. The third shot kills Bob. Later the three survivors leave a diner without a word after Martin walks in.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Killing of a Sacred Deer has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 11 · 2017 · Film

The Florida Project recap

The Florida Project (2017) follows six-year-old Moonee through a summer at a budget motel outside Walt Disney World, where she lives with her young mother. Sean Baker directs and co-writes with Chris Bergoch. Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) runs loose with her friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto), spitting on cars, begging for ice cream money and switching off the motel's power. Her mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) has lost her stripping job and scrapes by selling knockoff perfume to tourists. The manager, Bobby Hicks (Willem Dafoe), fixes, evicts and scolds, but quietly looks out for the kids. After the children set fire to an empty condo block, Scooty's mother Ashley cuts off Halley and the free diner food she relied on, and Halley turns to sex work in her room while Moonee bathes with the music up. The film stands alone.

How The Florida Project ends

The Florida Project ends with child services coming for Moonee. Halley, short of rent, steals a client's theme park wristbands, Bobby throws out the angry customer, and Halley beats Ashley after asking her for money. Investigators find evidence of the sex work and arrive with police to place Moonee in foster care. Moonee, sensing what is happening, runs to Jancey's motel in tears. Jancey takes her hand and the two run all the way into the Magic Kingdom, toward Cinderella Castle; Baker shot the sequence covertly on an iPhone in the park.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Florida Project has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 12 · 2017 · Film

Good Time recap

Good Time (2017) follows Connie Nikas, a small-time Queens crook racing through one night to get his brother out of jail after a botched bank robbery. Josh and Benny Safdie direct, from a script by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. Constantine "Connie" Nikas (Robert Pattinson) pulls his developmentally disabled brother Nick (Benny Safdie) out of a therapy session to rob a bank with him; a dye pack explodes, Nick panics and is caught and sent to Rikers. Connie tries to raise bail through his older girlfriend Corey Ellman (Jennifer Jason Leigh), but her mother's card is cancelled. Hearing Nick was hurt in a jail fight, Connie sneaks a bandaged patient out of the hospital and hides in a stranger's home with her 16-year-old granddaughter Crystal (Taliah Webster), only to find he has freed the wrong man: Ray (Buddy Duress), a parolee who left a bottle of LSD and cash hidden at Adventureland. The film stands alone.

How Good Time ends

Good Time ends with Connie arrested and Nick back in therapy. At Adventureland, Connie beats the security guard Dash (Barkhad Abdi), dons his uniform and gets the police to arrest Dash and Crystal instead. Holed up in Dash's apartment, Connie and Ray try to sell the acid back to Ray's dealer, fight, and are caught when police arrive; Ray falls to his death trying to climb out a window. Later, Nick is placed in a group program for disabled adults, and the psychiatrist tells him he will have a good time. Nick slowly joins the activity as the credits begin.

Post-credits scenes

No. Good Time has no mid- or post-credits scene; the credits run over the song The Pure and the Damned, by Oneohtrix Point Never with Iggy Pop.

No. 13 · 2017 · Film

Lady Bird recap

Lady Bird (2017) follows Christine McPherson, a Sacramento Catholic school senior in 2002 who calls herself Lady Bird and fights her mother over college. Greta Gerwig writes and directs, her solo directing debut. Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) wants an East Coast school her family cannot afford; her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working double shifts, calls her ungrateful, and Lady Bird throws herself from the moving car and breaks her arm. She joins the school play with her best friend Julie Steffans (Beanie Feldstein), dates Danny O'Neill (Lucas Hedges) until she finds him kissing a boy, then chases the aloof Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet) and a richer crowd, dropping Julie. Her father Larry (Tracy Letts), recently out of work, quietly helps her apply to schools out east. The film stands alone.

How Lady Bird ends

Lady Bird ends in New York, where she has been admitted off a waitlist. Danny let the secret slip to Marion, who stopped speaking to her for the summer and would not even come into the airport to say goodbye, though she turns the car around too late. In her suitcase Lady Bird finds drafts of letters Marion wrote and threw away, which Larry saved. After a night drinking ends in hospital, she wanders into a church, then calls home and leaves a message for her mother, using the name Christine and thanking her.

Post-credits scenes

No. Lady Bird has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 14 · 2018 · Film

Hereditary recap

Hereditary (2018) follows the Graham family after the death of their secretive grandmother, as a run of horrors suggests she left something behind. Ari Aster writes and directs his first feature. Annie Graham (Toni Collette), a miniatures artist, lives in Utah with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff) and odd 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Forced to take Charlie to a party, Peter leaves her alone; she eats cake with nuts, goes into anaphylactic shock, and as Peter speeds to the hospital she leans out of the window and is decapitated by a pole. Grief turns the family on itself. Joan (Ann Dowd), a woman from Annie's support group, teaches her a seance, and Annie discovers her mother led a cult devoted to the demon king Paimon. The film stands alone.

How Hereditary ends

Hereditary ends with the cult's plan complete: Paimon gets a male body in Peter. When Annie throws Charlie's sketchbook into the fire, Steve burns to death instead. A possessed Annie chases Peter into the attic and saws off her own head with piano wire while naked cult members watch. Peter jumps out of the window, and a light enters his body. He climbs into the treehouse, where Joan and the cult kneel before Charlie's crowned head on a mannequin and the headless bodies of Annie and her mother. Joan crowns Peter and hails him as King Paimon.

Post-credits scenes

No. Hereditary has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 15 · 2018 · Film

Eighth Grade recap

Eighth Grade (2018) follows Kayla Day, an anxious 13-year-old who posts advice videos to YouTube that nobody watches, through her last week of middle school. Bo Burnham writes and directs his first feature. Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is voted Most Quiet by her class and spends most evenings on her phone while her single father Mark (Josh Hamilton) tries awkwardly to talk to her. Invited to a pool party only because popular Kennedy's mother insists, she has a panic attack in the bathroom, then meets Kennedy's cousin Gabe (Jake Ryan), a kind oddball, and sings karaoke. She tries to impress her crush Aiden (Luke Prael) by pretending to have nude photos. A high school shadow day pairs her with Olivia (Emily Robinson), a friendly senior, who takes her to the mall with her friends, and a car ride home with Olivia's friend Riley turns into a frightening game of truth or dare. The film stands alone.

How Eighth Grade ends

Eighth Grade ends with Kayla trying again. After the night with Riley she breaks down and her father comforts her; she records a video saying she will stop posting because she is not the confident person she pretends to be. She opens the time capsule she made in sixth grade, burns it with Mark, and asks if she makes him sad; he says she makes him proud. On the last days of school she tells Kennedy off, has a sweet, awkward dinner with Gabe, and buries a new time capsule with a video for her future self, wishing her well in high school.

Post-credits scenes

No. Eighth Grade has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 16 · 2018 · Film

Mid90s recap

Mid90s (2018) follows Stevie, a 13-year-old in 1996 Los Angeles, who escapes a rough home by attaching himself to a crew of older skaters from a local shop. Jonah Hill writes and directs his first feature, shot on 16mm in a boxy frame. Stevie (Sunny Suljic) lives with his single mother Dabney (Katherine Waterston) and his older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges), who beats him. At the Motor Avenue skate shop he wins over Ray (Na-kel Smith), the most talented skater and the group's quiet anchor; the reckless partier of the crew (Olan Prenatt); Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), who films everything; and Ruben (Gio Galicia), who resents the newcomer. Nicknamed Sunburn, Stevie takes a bad fall from a rooftop, starts drinking and smoking, and gets his first sexual experience at a party. Dabney bans the skaters and Stevie defies her. The film stands alone.

How Mid90s ends

Mid90s ends with a car crash and a homemade movie. At a shop party Ray chats up pro skaters about a sponsorship while Stevie fights Ruben, and the drunk partier insists on driving everyone to another party, then flips the car. Stevie wakes in hospital with Ian beside him, offering orange juice as a peace gesture. Dabney finds the crew asleep in the waiting room and lets them in. Fourth Grade plugs in his camera and plays the skate video he has been shooting all summer, its title card reading mid90s.

Post-credits scenes

No. Mid90s has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 17 · 2019 · Film

Midsommar recap

Midsommar (2019) follows Dani, a grieving American student who joins her distant boyfriend and his friends at a midsummer festival in a remote Swedish commune. Ari Aster writes and directs. Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) loses her parents when her sister kills them and herself. Her boyfriend Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor), who had meant to break up with her, invites her along to Sweden with fellow students Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter) at the invitation of their friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), who grew up in the Hårga commune. The festival comes only every 90 years. In bright daylight, two elders leap from a cliff in a ritual suicide, and the guests start disappearing: a British couple, then Mark after he urinates on a sacred tree, then Josh after he photographs a forbidden text. Christian and Josh quarrel over who gets to write a thesis on the Hårga. A director's cut runs longer. The film stands alone.

How Midsommar ends

Midsommar ends with Dani smiling as Christian burns. Drugged, Dani wins a maypole dance and is crowned May Queen, while Christian is drugged and led into a mating ritual with a young woman of the commune. Dani sees it and collapses into sobs that the women around her echo. The Hårga need nine sacrifices: the four outsiders, four of their own, and a ninth that the May Queen chooses. Dani picks Christian, who is sewn inside a gutted bear and set in a yellow temple with the other bodies. As it burns, Dani's horror slowly gives way to a smile.

Post-credits scenes

No. Midsommar has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 18 · 2019 · Film

The Farewell recap

The Farewell (2019) follows Billi, a Chinese American writer whose family hides her grandmother's terminal cancer diagnosis from the grandmother herself. Lulu Wang writes and directs, drawing on her own family's story. Billi Wang (Awkwafina) learns that her Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) in Changchun has months to live, and that the relatives have doctored her test results so she believes she is fine. A hurried wedding for Billi's cousin Hao Hao, who lives in Japan, gives the scattered family an excuse to gather. Billi's parents, Haiyan (Tzi Ma) and Jian (Diana Lin), tell her to stay home because she cannot hide her feelings, but she flies out anyway. She argues that Nai Nai has a right to know, while her uncle Haibin says the family carries the burden for her, and Billi learns Nai Nai once kept the same secret from her own dying husband. The film stands alone.

How The Farewell ends

The Farewell ends with Billi keeping the secret. After the wedding banquet, where Haibin and Hao Hao both break down without giving it away, Billi has the hospital report altered to show a clean result. Nai Nai gives her a red envelope of money and tells her not to dwell on her setbacks. The family leaves for America and Japan, Billi weeping in the taxi as Nai Nai waves. A title card says that six years after her diagnosis, Wang's real grandmother is still alive, and Billi, back in New York, lets out the loud breathing shout Nai Nai taught her.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Farewell has no post-credits scene, though footage of Wang's real grandmother appears at the end.

No. 19 · 2019 · Film

The Lighthouse recap

The Lighthouse (2019) strands two lighthouse keepers on a rock off 1890s New England, where a storm, drink and isolation erode their grip on reality. Robert Eggers directs and co-writes with his brother Max, shooting in black and white in a near square frame. Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), a former timberman, signs on for four weeks under the gruff old keeper Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe), who gives him the hard labor and keeps the lantern room to himself. Winslow finds a scrimshaw mermaid, sees strange things in the water and clashes with a one-eyed gull Wake says holds a dead sailor's soul. On his last day he beats the gull to death, the wind turns, and the relief boat never comes. Stuck together with spoiled rations, the two lurch between drunken affection and violence, and Winslow admits he took the name of a foreman he let drown; his real name is Thomas Howard. The film stands alone.

How The Lighthouse ends

The Lighthouse ends with Howard reaching the light and being destroyed by it. After reading Wake's logbook, which recommends he be fired without pay, Howard hallucinates Wake as a sea god, beats him, walks him on a leash, and buries him alive while Wake curses him. Wake climbs out and attacks with an axe; Howard kills him and climbs to the lantern room. He opens the lens, stares into the light, screams and falls down the stairs. The final image shows him naked on the rocks, his eye damaged, while gulls tear at his guts, echoing the myth of Prometheus.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Lighthouse has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 20 · 2019 · Film

Uncut Gems recap

Uncut Gems (2019) follows Howard Ratner, a New York jeweler and gambling addict, who bets everything on a rare uncut opal smuggled from Ethiopia. Josh and Benny Safdie direct and co-write with Ronald Bronstein. In 2012, Howard (Adam Sandler) owes $100,000 to his brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian), a loan shark, and splits his life between his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel), who wants a divorce after Passover, and his girlfriend and employee Julia De Fiore (Julia Fox). His associate Demany (LaKeith Stanfield) brings in Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett, playing himself, who becomes convinced the stone brings him luck on the court and borrows it, leaving his championship ring. Howard pawns the ring to place a bet, Arno cancels it, and Arno's men strip him and lock him in his car trunk outside his daughter's school play. He plans to sell the opal at auction to clear his debts. The film stands alone.

How Uncut Gems ends

Uncut Gems ends with Howard winning big and being shot dead. The auction backfires when Garnett does not outbid the father-in-law Howard planted to raise the price, and Arno's men beat him. Garnett then buys the opal outright. Howard sends Julia by helicopter to a casino to put all the cash on a parlay riding on Garnett's game, and locks Arno and his enforcer Phil between his store's security doors until it ends. The Celtics win and the bet pays $1.2 million. Howard releases them, and Phil shoots him in the face, then kills Arno. Julia walks away with the winnings.

Post-credits scenes

No. Uncut Gems has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 21 · 2020 · Film

Minari recap

Minari (2020) follows the Yi family, Korean immigrants who leave California in the 1980s so the father can start a vegetable farm on a plot of Arkansas land. Lee Isaac Chung writes and directs, drawing on his own childhood. Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) wants to grow Korean produce for Dallas grocers; his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) hates the mobile home and the distance from a hospital, since their son David (Alan Kim) has a heart murmur. Both parents sex chicks at a hatchery while their daughter Anne (Noel Kate Cho) minds David. Jacob digs his own well and hires Paul (Will Patton), a devout Korean War veteran who drags a cross along the road on Sundays. Monica's mother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from Korea, swearing and playing cards, and David decides she is not a real grandmother, until she plants minari by the creek with him and wins him over. The film stands alone.

How Minari ends

Minari ends with the family together after nearly breaking apart. Soon-ja has a stroke, the well runs dry, and on a trip to Oklahoma City, where a doctor finds David's heart improving, Jacob and Monica agree to separate. They return to find that Soon-ja, burning rubbish, has set the barn of packed crops on fire. Jacob and Monica run in to save the produce and end up saving each other. David and Anne stop their grandmother from wandering off and bring her home. Later Jacob lets a water diviner choose a new well site, and he and David pick the minari Soon-ja planted. Youn won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Post-credits scenes

No. Minari has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 22 · 2021 · Film

The Green Knight recap

The Green Knight (2021) follows Gawain, nephew of the king, who beheads a green stranger at Christmas and must ride out a year later to take the return blow. David Lowery writes, directs and edits this take on the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain (Dev Patel) is no knight yet and spends his nights with Essel (Alicia Vikander), a commoner. His mother (Sarita Choudhury), a sorceress, summons the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson), who rises, picks up his head and leaves. When the year ends Gawain sets out with a green girdle his mother says will protect him. Robbers take it and tie him up, the ghost of Saint Winifred asks him to find her head, a fox joins him, and at a castle a Lord (Joel Edgerton) and his Lady, played by Vikander again, test him with a game of trading what each receives. The film stands alone.

How The Green Knight ends

The Green Knight ends at the Green Chapel. Gawain flinches from the first swing, kneels again, then flees home and sees his future play out: he is knighted, abandons Essel to take their son, marries a noblewoman, becomes a hated king and, besieged and deserted, unties the girdle, and his head falls off. That turns out to be a vision. Back at the chapel, Gawain removes the girdle and says he is ready. The Green Knight praises his courage, runs a finger along his neck and says, "Now, off with your head." The film cuts away before any blow; in the poem, Gawain survives with a nick.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. After the credits, a young girl in an empty hall picks up the crown and puts it on her head.

No. 23 · 2022 · Film

Everything Everywhere All at Once recap

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) follows Evelyn Wang, a laundromat owner facing a tax audit, who must jump between parallel universes to save them. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known as Daniels, write and direct. Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) runs the struggling business with her gentle husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), who is quietly preparing divorce papers, while her demanding father Gong Gong (James Hong) visits and her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) wants her girlfriend Becky accepted. At the IRS, inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) grills them, and a version of Waymond from the Alphaverse takes over his body. He explains that every choice spawns a universe, that people can borrow skills from other versions of themselves by doing absurd things, and that a being called Jobu Tupaki is destroying everything. Jobu turns out to be another version of Joy, carrying a black everything bagel that could swallow the multiverse. The film stands alone.

How Everything Everywhere All at Once ends

Everything Everywhere All at Once ends with Evelyn choosing kindness over the void. Jobu, who sees every universe at once and believes nothing matters, has been looking for an Evelyn who agrees, so they can vanish into the bagel together. Evelyn nearly goes, then takes Waymond's plea for kindness to heart and fights Jobu's followers with empathy. She tells Joy she would always choose to be here with her, and pulls her back from the bagel. The family returns to the IRS to redo their taxes. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and acting awards for Yeoh, Quan and Curtis.

Post-credits scenes

No. Everything Everywhere All at Once has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 24 · 2022 · Film

X recap

X (2022) follows a crew shooting a porn film at a rented guest house on a Texas farm in 1979, where the elderly owners start killing them. Ti West writes, directs and edits. Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) is the ambitious star; her boyfriend and producer Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) brings along fellow performers Bobby-Lynne Parker (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi), the would be art house director RJ Nichols (Owen Campbell) and his shy girlfriend Lorraine Day (Jenna Ortega), who holds the boom mic. The landlords are Howard (Stephen Ure), a gruff old man with a weak heart, and Pearl, his wife, also played by Goth under heavy makeup. Pearl is fixated on Maxine, who reminds her of her younger self, and is jealous of the youth and sex around her. When RJ rejects her advances, she stabs him to death, and the night turns into a massacre. It opens a trilogy, followed by the prequel Pearl and the sequel MaXXXine.

How X ends

X ends with Maxine as the only survivor. Wayne is stabbed with a pitchfork, Howard shoots Jackson, an alligator kills Bobby-Lynne, and Howard shoots Lorraine before dying of a heart attack. Pearl fires his gun at Maxine, the recoil breaks her hip, and Maxine runs her over with Howard's truck, crushing her head. A televangelist heard on TV throughout turns out to be Maxine's father. Police arrive the next morning and find RJ's camera, joking that it holds a horror picture. Pearl, a prequel shot back to back, followed months later.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. In theatrical release, a teaser for the prequel Pearl plays after the credits.

No. 25 · 2022 · Film

Pearl recap

Pearl (2022) goes back to 1918 to show the young Pearl, later the killer of X, stuck on her German immigrant parents' Texas farm and dreaming of stardom. Ti West directs and co-writes with Mia Goth, who returns in the title role. With her husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) away at the war and the Spanish flu keeping the family isolated, Pearl tends her paralyzed father (Matthew Sunderland) under her stern mother Ruth (Tandi Wright), and feeds the animals she kills to an alligator in the pond. Trips to the picture house introduce her to a charming projectionist (David Corenswet) who shows her a forbidden stag film. When her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) mentions a chorus girl audition, Pearl begs to go; Ruth calls her a failure, the fight ends with Ruth's dress on fire, and Pearl locks her in the basement. She then kills the projectionist with a pitchfork. It is the second film in the trilogy, a prequel set 61 years before X.

How Pearl ends

Pearl ends with Howard coming home to a horror. At the audition Pearl is rejected for not being young, blonde and all-American enough. Back at the farm, she pours out every secret to Mitsy, then makes her admit she won the spot, chases her down the drive and kills her with an axe, feeding her to the alligator. Having already smothered her father, she seats her parents' rotting bodies at the dinner table. When Howard walks in, Pearl tells him she is so happy he is home and holds a long, strained smile. Sixty-one years later, the couple are the killers in X.

Post-credits scenes

No. The end credits roll over Pearl's long, forced smile; a teaser for MaXXXine followed them only at the Toronto festival screening.

No. 26 · 2022 · Film

Aftersun recap

Aftersun (2022) follows 11-year-old Sophie on a 1990s holiday in Turkey with her young father, as the adult Sophie looks back through their camcorder footage. Charlotte Wells writes and directs her first feature, loosely drawing on her own childhood. Sophie (Frankie Corio) lives in Scotland with her mother; her father Calum (Paul Mescal), about to turn 31, lives in London and is separated from her mother on good terms. Days go by at the pool, on a scuba trip, at a mud bath and at karaoke, where Calum refuses to sing with her and she performs Losing My Religion alone. Sophie hangs around older teenagers and has her first kiss, with a boy named Michael. Calum hides a deep depression from her: he practises tai chi, cries alone and walks into the sea at night. Scenes of adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) searching for him on a strobe-lit dance floor cut through the story. Mescal was nominated for Best Actor. The film stands alone.

How Aftersun ends

Aftersun ends with Calum waving Sophie off at the airport and filming her as she goes. On the last night they dance together to Under Pressure. In the present, adult Sophie, now about the age Calum was and living in New York with her partner and baby, watches the old footage; the rug he bought in Turkey lies worn on her floor. Calum puts the camera down, turns and walks down the airport corridor and through a door into the rave, where adult Sophie has been reaching for him. The film never says what became of him, but implies he did not live long.

Post-credits scenes

No. Aftersun has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 27 · 2022 · Film

The Whale recap

The Whale (2022) follows Charlie, a reclusive 600-pound English teacher, who tries to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter in his final week. Darren Aronofsky directs from Samuel D. Hunter's adaptation of his own play, nearly all of it set in one Idaho apartment. Charlie (Brendan Fraser) teaches online writing classes with his camera switched off and refuses hospital care for his failing heart. His friend Liz (Hong Chau), a nurse, checks on him daily; she is the sister of Alan, the student Charlie left his wife for, whose suicide sent Charlie into grief and binge eating. A young missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), turns up and keeps trying to save him. Charlie secretly offers his daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), who is angry and cruel, his savings if she visits, and writes her essays for her. Her mother Mary (Samantha Morton) comes once. Fraser won the Oscar for Best Actor. The film stands alone.

How The Whale ends

The Whale ends with Charlie standing up and walking toward Ellie. He has been fired after telling his students to write something honest, turned on his camera for them and thrown his laptop. Ellie arrives furious about a failing grade, and he asks her to read the essay he has kept for years: one she wrote in eighth grade about Moby-Dick, which he thinks is the most honest thing he has read. As she reads, Charlie rises unaided from the couch, they smile at each other, and he lifts off the floor into white light, the film implying his death.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Whale has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 28 · 2023 · Series

Beef recap

Beef (2023) is a Netflix anthology series in which a small grudge between strangers escalates into a feud that swallows their lives. Lee Sung Jin created it, and the first season, directed by Hikari, Jake Schreier and Lee, released all ten episodes on April 6, 2023, and won eight Emmys. Season one starts with a road rage chase out of a store parking lot between Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a struggling contractor who wants to bring his parents back from Korea, and Amy Lau (Ali Wong), a plant shop owner trying to sell her business to the wealthy Jordan (Maria Bello). Danny tracks Amy down and vandalizes her bathroom; she floods his business with bad reviews and, under a fake identity, gets close to his younger brother Paul (Young Mazino). Her husband George (Joseph Lee) and Danny's criminal cousin Isaac (David Choe) are dragged in. Season two, eight episodes released April 16, 2026, starts over at a California country club. Ashley Miller (Cailee Spaeny) and her fiancé Austin Davis (Charles Melton) film a fight between general manager Josh Martín (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Lindsay Crane-Martín (Carey Mulligan) and use it to blackmail them, while the club's new billionaire owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), hides her husband's fatal malpractice. The show has 18 episodes over two seasons; each season stands alone.

How Beef ends

Beef ends, in the season two finale It Will Stay This Way and You Will Obey, with the two couples captured in Seoul by Chairwoman Park's men. Josh and Lindsay reconcile, Austin escapes with evidence but trades it to Park, and Park walks free while Josh goes to prison for embezzlement. Eight years later Ashley runs the club and is married to Austin, still uneasy, and Lindsay has remarried. Season one's finale, Figures of Light, strands Danny and Amy in the wilderness, where poisoned berries make them open up to each other before George shoots Danny and Amy holds him in the hospital.

No. 29 · 2023 · Film

Past Lives recap

Past Lives (2023) follows two childhood sweethearts from Seoul, separated when one emigrates, across 24 years of near misses. Celine Song writes and directs her first feature, drawing on her own life. In 1999, 12-year-old Na Young and Hae Sung are classmates and rivals with a crush; her family moves to Canada and she becomes Nora. Twelve years later Nora Moon (Greta Lee), now a playwright in New York, finds that Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) has been looking for her online. They reconnect over long video calls, but neither can visit, and Nora calls it off to focus on her life. At a writers' retreat in Montauk she meets Arthur Zaturansky (John Magaro), tells him about inyeon, the Korean idea that people meet because of ties built over thousands of past lives, and marries him. Twelve more years on, Hae Sung comes to New York for a week. The film stands alone.

How Past Lives ends

Past Lives ends with Nora walking Hae Sung to his ride on the last night. Earlier, at a bar, the two talk in Korean while Arthur sits apart, and Hae Sung wonders aloud what they were in past lives and what they might be in the next. Outside the apartment Nora and Hae Sung stand silently looking at each other until the car arrives; he says he will see her in the next life and drives off. Nora walks back toward home and breaks down crying in Arthur's arms. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Post-credits scenes

No. Past Lives has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 30 · 2023 · Film

Talk to Me recap

Talk to Me (2023) follows Mia, an Adelaide teenager grieving her mother, whose friends get high on possession by spirits through an embalmed hand. Danny and Michael Philippou direct their first feature. Grip the hand, say "talk to me" and you see a spirit; say "I let you in" and it takes over your body, as long as someone breaks the link within 90 seconds. Mia (Sophie Wilde), on the anniversary of her mother Rhea's overdose, goes first and loves it. Her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) refuses to let her little brother Riley (Joe Bird) try, but when Jade steps out Mia lets him. A spirit claiming to be Rhea speaks through him, Mia lets it run past the limit, and Riley smashes his own face against the table and ends up in hospital, still possessed. Jade's mother Sue (Miranda Otto) bans Mia. The film stands alone for now.

How Talk to Me ends

Talk to Me ends with Mia trapped on the other side. The spirit posing as Rhea convinces her that Riley must die to be freed; she stabs her father Max in a hallucination and wheels Riley toward a highway, then pulls back at the last second and is hit by a car herself. In hospital she sees Riley recovering, but no one can see her and she has no reflection. Reaching for a candle in the dark, she finds herself holding a stranger's hand at a party overseas, as someone says "I let you in." A24 announced a sequel, Talk 2 Me, in 2023.

Post-credits scenes

No. Talk to Me has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 31 · 2023 · Film

The Iron Claw recap

The Iron Claw (2023) tells the true story of the Von Erich brothers, Texas wrestlers pushed by their father toward titles while tragedy claims them one by one. Sean Durkin writes and directs. In 1979 Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany), a retired wrestler who runs World Class Championship Wrestling, trains his sons to win the world title he never held, while their mother Doris (Maura Tierney) stays out of it. Kevin (Zac Efron), the eldest living son, is devoted but awkward on the mic; David (Harris Dickinson) has the charisma; Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) comes home when the 1980 Olympic boycott ends his discus hopes; and Mike (Stanley Simons) would rather play music. Kevin marries Pam (Lily James) and worries about a family curse. David dies on tour in Japan before his title shot, and Kerry wins the belt from Ric Flair, then loses a foot in a motorcycle crash. The film stands alone.

How The Iron Claw ends

The Iron Claw ends with Kevin the last brother alive. Mike, left brain damaged after surgery, takes his own life, and Kerry, wrestling in the WWF on a prosthetic foot, shoots himself after calling Kevin in despair. Kevin nearly chokes Fritz in rage. Grieving, he imagines his brothers reunited in the afterlife. He later sells the promotion and, watching his sons play, cries that he used to be a brother; they promise to be his brothers. The real family had a sixth brother, Chris, who also died by suicide; Durkin left him out of the story.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Iron Claw has no post-credits scene; a closing title card notes the family's 2009 WWE Hall of Fame induction.

No. 32 · 2023 · Film

The Zone of Interest recap

The Zone of Interest (2023) watches the home life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family in a villa whose garden wall backs onto the camp. Jonathan Glazer writes and directs, loosely adapting Martin Amis's 2014 novel and using fixed hidden cameras around the house. In 1943, Höss (Christian Friedel) takes his five children swimming and fishing, while his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) tends the flower beds, tries on a fur coat taken from a murdered Jewish woman and hands out the victims' clothes to her maids. The killing is never shown; it is heard over the wall as gunshots, screams, trains and the roar of the furnaces, and seen as smoke over the roses. Höss signs off on a more efficient crematorium design. When he is promoted to a post near Berlin, Hedwig, who calls herself the queen of Auschwitz, insists on staying in the house. Her mother visits and leaves without warning in the night. The film stands alone.

How The Zone of Interest ends

The Zone of Interest ends with Höss in Berlin, given charge of the operation to bring 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, which means he can return to his family. Leaving a party of Nazi officials, he tells Hedwig by phone that he spent it working out how he would gas everyone in the room. Walking down a dark stairwell, he retches again and again and stares into the gloom. The film cuts to the present day, where cleaners tidy the Auschwitz museum around piles of victims' shoes, then back to Höss descending into darkness. The film won Best International Feature and Best Sound.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Zone of Interest has no mid- or post-credits scene; the credits play over a harsh, discordant score.

No. 33 · 2024 · Film

Civil War recap

Civil War (2024) follows a team of journalists driving from New York to Washington, D.C. to interview a president about to lose a second American civil war. Alex Garland writes and directs. Secessionist Western Forces from Texas and California are closing on the capital, where an authoritarian president serving an unconstitutional third term (Nick Offerman) still claims victory is near. Veteran war photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and Reuters reporter Joel (Wagner Moura) plan to reach him before the city falls; their older mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) of The New York Times comes along, as does Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young photographer who idolizes Lee. On back roads they find gas station torturers, snipers who do not care which side they are on, and a town pretending nothing is happening. A militia leader (Jesse Plemons) standing over a mass grave executes two Hong Kong journalists, and Sammy is fatally shot saving the others. The film stands alone.

How Civil War ends

Civil War ends with the president's execution in the Oval Office. Lee, Joel and Jessie embed with Western Forces as they storm Washington; Lee is shaken and freezing while Jessie throws herself into the gunfire. A decoy motorcade is destroyed, and the soldiers push into the White House. When Jessie steps into the line of fire to get a shot, Lee shoves her clear and is killed, and Jessie photographs her falling. Soldiers drag the president out from under the desk; Joel asks for a quote, and the president says only, "Don't let them kill me." Jessie's final photograph shows the soldiers grinning over his body.

Post-credits scenes

No. Civil War has no post-credits scene, though Jessie's last photo develops on screen as the credits begin.

No. 34 · 2024 · Film

Heretic recap

Heretic (2024) follows two young Mormon missionaries who knock on the door of a polite, well-read man in Colorado and find themselves locked in his house. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods write and direct. Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher), sharp and sure of herself, and the sheltered, earnest Sister Paxton (Chloe East) agree to come in because Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) says his wife is baking a blueberry pie in the kitchen. He knows their scripture better than they do and walks them through his theory that every religion copies an older one, using Monopoly and versions of a pop song as examples. The pie smell turns out to be a candle, the front door is on a timer, and Reed offers them two doors to leave by, one marked Belief and one Disbelief. Both lead to the same basement, where a frail woman eats a poisoned pie, dies and appears to come back. Elder Kennedy (Topher Grace) comes looking for them and is sent away. The film stands alone.

How Heretic ends

Heretic ends with Paxton escaping and Reed dead. When Barnes moves to attack him, Reed slashes her throat and pulls a supposed microchip from her arm; Paxton sees it is a contraceptive implant and works out that the resurrection was a trick with a second woman. Crawling through the tunnels, she finds cages of starving women Reed holds to prove his thesis that religion is about control. She stabs Reed and he stabs her, but Barnes, still alive, crushes his skull with a board before dying. Paxton climbs out through a vent, and a butterfly lands on her hand, then vanishes.

Post-credits scenes

No. Heretic has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 35 · 2024 · Film

MaXXXine recap

MaXXXine (2024) finds Maxine Minx in 1985 Hollywood, six years after the farm massacre, landing a mainstream role as a killer stalks those around her. Ti West writes and directs the last film of his X trilogy. Maxine (Mia Goth), still working in porn and a peep show, wins the lead in the horror sequel The Puritan II under director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki). With the Night Stalker loose in the city, a leather-clad killer murders her friends Amber James (Halsey) and Tabby Martin, brands them with satanic marks, and later kills her video store friend Leon (Moses Sumney). A private investigator, John Labat (Kevin Bacon), threatens to expose what happened in Texas unless she meets his client, while LAPD detectives Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Torres (Bobby Cannavale) press her for answers. Her agent Teddy Knight (Giancarlo Esposito) helps her crush Labat in a junkyard compactor. It follows X directly and closes the trilogy.

How MaXXXine ends

MaXXXine ends at the Hollywood sign. The address Labat gave leads Maxine to a Hollywood Hills mansion, where she finds her co-star Molly Bennett (Lily Collins) dismembered and learns the killer is her father, the televangelist Ernest Miller, filming murders with his followers to make a snuff film exposing Hollywood. He ties her up for an exorcism; the two detectives storm in and die in the shootout. Maxine chases him up to the sign, imagines her own fame, then shoots him in the face with a shotgun. A month later she is back on set, the star of The Puritan II.

Post-credits scenes

No. MaXXXine has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 36 · 2024 · Film

The Brutalist recap

The Brutalist (2024) follows László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish architect who survives Buchenwald and starts over in postwar Pennsylvania under a volatile patron. Brady Corbet directs and co-writes with Mona Fastvold; the film runs about three and a half hours with an intermission. In 1947, László (Adrien Brody), separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), works for his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) in Philadelphia until a library job for the industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) goes wrong and Attila throws him out. Three years later, a heroin-using László shovels coal alongside his friend Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé) when Harrison returns, praises the library and hires him to build a vast community center in his mother's memory. Harrison's lawyer brings over Erzsébet, now using a wheelchair, and Zsófia, who no longer speaks, while Harrison's son Harry (Joe Alwyn) openly sneers at them. The film stands alone.

How The Brutalist ends

The Brutalist ends at the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale, years after a reckoning with Harrison. On a marble buying trip to Carrara, Harrison rapes László, who falls apart; Erzsébet confronts Harrison at his dinner table and calls him a rapist, and Harrison disappears. In the epilogue Erzsébet is dead, the institute was finished in 1973, and an elderly László in a wheelchair listens as Zsófia explains that its rooms echo the camps where he and Erzsébet were held. The film won three Oscars, including Best Actor for Brody.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Brutalist has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 37 · 2025 · Film

Marty Supreme recap

Marty Supreme (2025) follows Marty Mauser, a New York shoe salesman and table tennis hustler in 1952, chasing a world title by any con he can pull. Josh Safdie directs his first solo feature since 2008, co-writing with Ronald Bronstein, loosely drawing on the player Marty Reisman. Marty (Timothée Chalamet) robs his uncle's shop safe to get to the British Open in London, splurges at the Ritz, seduces the retired film star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) and meets her husband, the pen tycoon Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary). He loses the final to Koto Endo, a deaf Japanese player, and refuses Rockwell's offer of a rigged Tokyo exhibition. Back home, he is fined for the hotel bill, and with his friend Wally (Tyler Okonma) he hustles bowlers and loses a gangster's dog. His married childhood friend Rachel Mizler (Odessa A'zion) says she is pregnant with his child, which he refuses to believe. The film stands alone.

How Marty Supreme ends

Marty Supreme ends with Marty meeting his newborn child. A kidnapping by the gangster Ezra Mishkin (Abel Ferrara) leads to a farmhouse shootout that leaves Rachel badly wounded; Marty gets her to hospital as she goes into early labor, then flies to Tokyo, having accepted a spanking from Rockwell to revive the exhibition. Too late for the World Championship, he throws the match as agreed, then calls it a sham on stage and wins a real rematch against Endo. Rockwell refuses him a ride home, so he flies back with American soldiers, finds Rachel and weeps over the baby.