Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon is one of the biggest new movies of 2023, and if you read our Killers of the Flower Moon review you'll find out why we think it's probably one of the best movies of the year too.
It is also a movie that deals with a lot of info and characters, which can make it easy to miss a couple of things. So we're here to help with a breakdown of the Killers of the Flower Moon ending.
The movie is based on the true story of a period in the 1920s known as the "Reign of Terror." After finding oil on their reservation, members of the Osage tribe became some of the richest people in the world. However, that wealth brought in greedy people looking to claim some of it for themselves. This led to the murder of numerous people in the Osage tribe. If you want some more back story on the general history, a free PBS documentary offers some good insight.
Specifically, Killers of the Flower Moon follows the story of Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), whose husband Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) works with his uncle, William "King" Hale (Robert De Niro) to arrange it that the head rights — Mollie and her family's claims to oil — would come to them.
It's no secret that Ernest and Hale were orchestrating many of the murders of Mollie's family and other Osage, as the movie depicts their actions throughout. But as the movie heads into its final act the FBI, led by Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons), arrests Ernest and puts him and Hale on trial for their actions. So what happens to them and Mollie? Let's break it down.
SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven't watched Killers of the Flower Moon yet.
What happened to Mollie Burkhart, Ernest and King Hale?
Ernest and Hale didn't just work to kill Mollie's family members, they attempted to at least keep her under control, if not slowly kill her, by poisoning her diabetes medicine. At first, Molly suspects she is being poisoned by doctors and only wants Ernest to give her the medicine. Her faith in him is misplaced, though, as he continues to give her the poisoned insulin. It's only when Ernest is arrested that Mollie begins to recover.
At first, Ernest is not going to incriminate himself or testify against Hale, but when they reveal that one of his associates, Blackie Thompson (Tommy Schultz), has also been arrested and is cooperating, he makes the decision to testify, allowing the FBI to charge Hale as well.
However, Hale's attorney, W.S. Hamilton (Brendan Fraser), is able to convince Ernest to recant everything he told the FBI and not testify. He tries to convince Mollie that the crimes he confessed to were coerced out of him by the FBI and that he did nothing wrong. But when Ernest learns that his youngest daughter has died, in the hope of being able to keep his family together, he flips again and testifies for the prosecution.
After he testifies, he speaks with Mollie, again trying to convince her that he did nothing wrong and that his conscience is clear. Mollie has a question she wants to ask him though — what was in the shots that he kept giving her? He takes a moment, but then says insulin. Mollie knows that he is lying, gets up and leaves him in the room alone.
It is later shared that Mollie divorced Ernest and eventually married someone else. However, she died in 1937, only in her 50s.
Ernest was convicted of conspiring to murder along with Hale and Ernest's brother Byron Burkhart (Scott Shepherd). Ernest was released from prison in 1959 and lived with Byron in Cleveland, Okla. In 1965 he was given a full pardon by the then governor of Oklahoma, Henry Bellmon.
Hale, meanwhile, was originally sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 1947. According to the movie, he still attempted to claim himself as a friend of the Osage and visited Oklahoma after his release despite the conditions of his parole.
What's the radio show at the end of Killers of the Flower Moon?
Rather than give the above information to audiences in text at the end of the movie, as many historical dramas have done in the past, Scorsese delivers it through a recreation of a radio drama (which features the director making a cameo as one of the performers).
Radio dramas like this were popular before TV took over, and Scorsese's depiction shows how they would use different actors and sound effects to tell the story not just to those listening on the radio but for a live audience as well.
But why opt to end the movie with this elaborate information dump?
It could be a way of emphasizing how these murders were mostly forgotten or overlooked at the time; something that Hale says would happen. The radio production is sharing these details to an audience that is unfamiliar with it, even though it is three decades after the events happened.
It's not dissimilar to how many audiences may be feeling when they go see Killers of the Flower Moon, as before (and even after) David Grann's book that served as the source material for Scorsese's movie, this was still a mostly forgotten event in US history.
However, as the final image of Osage descendants performing a ritual indicates, it is not something they have forgotten and continue to carry with them.
Killers of the Flower Moon is now playing exclusively in movie theaters.
