Knives Out Real Killer & Ending Explained (In Detail)

Rian Johnson’s twisty murder mystery Knives Out has a lot of surprises, and the Knives Out ending reveals the true tragedy behind the death of famous author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). The film stars Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a private investigator hired to investigate Harlan’s apparent suicide following a birthday party at his home. Over the course of the film, Benoit discovers that every member of Harlan’s family had a motive to kill him — whether it was covering up a secret affair or securing a stake in his enormous fortune.

While each of them is guilty of one sin or another, only one of them actually plotted to kill Harlan: his grandson, Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans). The reveal in the Knives Out ending comes from flashbacks and several twists and turns throughout the movie’s final act. Just as Rian Johnson sets up a twisty murder mystery in Knives Out, he does the same in its sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but the twist-heavy final act remains the most talked about. Since the final act moves along at a rapid pace, things can get confusing

What Actually Happens In The Knives Out Ending

Ransom Is Caught And Marta Is Innocent

The third act has Marta visiting Fran, who knows that Ransom is the killer and has a photocopy of Harlan’s blood test to prove he isn’t innocent. Fran is dying when Marta finds her, and the nurse is obviously set up by the real killer. Scared that she is causing more deaths, Marta confesses to accidentally injecting Harlan with morphine to Blanc, and Fran is rushed to hospital. Marta almost confesses everything to the Thrombey family too, but after seeing the blood test, Blanc realizes that Marta is innocent.

What follows is a classic murder mystery ending, as the already iconic Benoit Blanc expertly deduces everything that happened during the night of Harlan’s death, including Ransom returning to the house, climbing the trellis, and switching the medication. After it’s all laid out in front of him and Marta lies about Fran’s survival, Ransom confesses, believing he’s going down due to Fran’s testimony.

However, it’s revealed that Fran died, but Marta recorded the monologue on her phone. After a failed attempt to kill Marta, Ransom is taken into custody, and Marta takes the keys to the mansion and everything else that Harlan owns.

Harlan’s Death In Knives Out Explained

Harlan Kills Himself To Protect Marta

Rian Johnson surprises audiences by showing how Harlan died very early on in Knives Out. Harlan is being given his nighttime medication by his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas) when the medication is knocked over. Marta picks up the vials but, after giving Harlan the injections, realizes she has switched the vials and accidentally given him a lethal dose of morphine. To make matters worse, the antidote is strangely missing from her medicine bag.

Knowing that she would be blamed for his death and her mother could be deported amid the scandal, Harlan gives Marta careful instructions to be seen leaving the house, then return later so that she could go downstairs disguised as Harlan. This would pin his hour of death to a time after Marta had already left.

Before the morphine overdose could kill him, Harlan slit his own throat to make his death look like a suicide rather than an accident. However, the ending of Knives Out reveals that his death was no accident. It was brought about through the actions of Ransom, who conspired to have Marta accidentally kill his grandfather.

Like the rest of his family, Ransom had been cut out of Harlan’s will, which instead left everything to Marta. But if Marta appeared to have murdered Harlan, the new will would have been invalidated and the fortune would have been divided up among the Thrombey family — Ransom included.

How Harlan Thrombey Died (& Who Killed Him)

Why Ransom Was Still Guilty

The literal answer to the question of who killed Harlan Thrombey is that he killed himself, cutting his own throat with a knife. The tragedy of his death is that Harlan hadn’t actually been given a morphine overdose at all, and there was no need for him to kill himself. Ransom planned to have Marta give Harlan the overdose by switching the labels on the medicine in her bag and then stealing the antidote so that his grandfather’s life could not be saved.

However, when the medication was accidentally knocked over, the two vials were switched again, so Marta actually gave Harlan the correct and safe doses. Throughout the film, Mart is riddled with the guilt of believing that she killed Harlan through her carelessness in not checking the labels on the medicine. Instead, not checking the labels is what would have saved his life. Marta knew by the consistency of the liquids which medicine was correct, and she gave him the right doses on instinct. As Benoit Blanc explains, she got it right despite Ransom’s tampering because Marta is a good nurse.

Although Harlan’s death was technically at his own hands, Ransom is undoubtedly to blame in the Knives Out ending. Had he not switched the labels on the medicine, Marta would never have believed that she had accidentally given Harlan a morphine overdose, and Harlan would never have killed himself to cover for her. But even if Ransom was only guilty of attempted murder towards Harlan, he seals his fate by killing Fran to try and cover his tracks.

Ransom’s Plan & Fran’s Murder

Ransom’s Original Plan To Kill Harlan Was Changed

Ransom’s original plan was simple. On the night of Harlan’s death, after storming out over the will change, he returned to the house and climbed up the trellis to avoid being spotted. He switched the labels on the medicine in Marta’s bag and took the antidote for a morphine overdose. He then climbed back down the trellis but was spotted by Harlan’s mother, Greatnanna Wanetta (K Callan) Ransom then snuck back into the house during Harlan’s funeral, when he knew it would be empty, to switch everything in the medicine bag back and avoid suspicion.

Ransom anonymously hired Benoit to investigate Harlan’s death, believing that Benoit’s detective skills would pin Marta as the killer. This plan went awry in three ways. The first was that Fran (Edi Patterson), the housekeeper, spotted Ransom tampering with the medicine bag the second time and realized that something was afoot. The second was that Ransom could not possibly have predicted that the medicine vials would be knocked over and that Marta would mix them up all by herself. The third was Harlan’s decision to kill himself to ensure that Marta wouldn’t get in trouble.

After Marta “confessed” to Ransom that she had killed Harlan, Ransom realized the murder of Harlan could be uncovered when Harlan’s blood tests showed up as perfectly normal, showing no morphine overdose. The death would be ruled a suicide, Marta would receive Harlan’s fortune, and Ransom would get nothing. To ensure that the blood test results couldn’t clear Marta’s name, Ransom burned down the lab where the tests were held. However, there was another fly in the ointment: Fran

Fran took the medicine bag from the crime scene and sent Ransom a photocopy of the blood test, revealing that she had her own copy, with the warning, “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID,” and instructions to come and meet her. He sent the note to Marta so that she would believe she was being threatened with a blood test that proved a morphine overdose. Ransom emailed Marta telling her to come to the meeting place after the originally designated time. He met Fran first, gave her a fatal morphine overdose and set Marta up to find her.

Why Ransom’s Plan Failed

Marta’s Genuine Goodness Foiled Ransom

This new plan went sideways as well. Fran initially survived the overdose, waking up when Marta found her and telling her, “Hugh did this,” Marta misheard this as “You did this,” still assuming that the blood test showed a morphine overdose and that Fran was accusing her of killing Harlan. However, instead of letting Fran die, Marta called an ambulance to have her taken to the hospital. She then confessed to Benoit, accepting her fate, and showed him Fran’s secret stash in the Thrombey mansion, where the copy of the blood test was hidden.

Before Marta could confess to the family, Benoit looked at the blood test and realized that Marta was innocent. The Knives Out ending then becomes a classic murder mystery accusation scene. Benoit instructs every member of the family except for Ransom to leave the drawing room and lays out all the clues to Ransom’s whole twisted scheme from start to finish.

Marta receives a call from the hospital and triumphantly tells Ransom that Fran has survived and will be able to testify. Believing he’s doomed anyway, Ransom admits his crimes. Marta reveals she was recording him, Fran actually died of the overdose, and Marta tricked Ransom into confessing.

The Real Meaning of Knives Out’s Ending

Marta’s Triumph Over The Thrombey Family Is A Satisfying End

Despite the grim subject and tragic nature of Harlan’s death, the Knives Out ending has an optimistic outlook. Marta escapes being framed for Harlan’s murder and going to prison because, ultimately, she’s a good person. She initially tried to cover up how Harlan died less to protect herself, and more to protect her family and carry out Harlan’s final instructions.

However, she was wracked with guilt over the cover-up and decided it had gone too far once someone got hurt. Had Marta let Fran die and chosen not to confess to Daniel Crag’s Benoit Blanc, Ransom would have gotten away with everything. Marta’s inherent goodness is symbolized by the fact that she can’t tell a lie without vomiting. Her humility is strongly contrasted with the spoiled and entitled Thrombey family.

Knives Out takes aim at the idea of privileged white people considering themselves to be “self-made” despite relying on inherited wealth and family connections for their success. Walt (Michael Shannon) runs the family publishing company but was given the job by his father. Harlan’s daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) has been sponging off him for years. Meg (Katherine Langford) is outwardly progressive and feminist and pretends to be a friend to Marta, but with just a little nudge is ready to manipulate her.

When the Thrombeys find out that Harlan has left his entire fortune to Marta, they are outraged, feeling that something has been stolen from them. However, Harlan’s wealth was never theirs to begin with. Harlan chose to leave his fortune to Marta because she was kind to him without having an agenda, and she had worked hard her whole life for very little reward.

In pitting Marta against the Thrombeys, the Knives Out ending challenges the idea of inherited wealth and entitlement. All Marta has to do to scupper those plans is to be what she already is: a good nurse and a good person.

How The Knives Out Ending Was Received

Knives Out Finds A New Way To Trick The Audience

When it comes to building a satisfying murder mystery movie, the ending and the reveal of the killer is essential. Knives Out is regarded as one of the best murder mystery movies ever made, which speaks to how effective the ending is. One of the elements that makes for a good mystery ending is that it is something the audience understands yet something they did not predict.

Modern audiences love to try and solve the mystery themselves and have countless other movies of the genre to draw from in order to predict the killer. However, Knives Out brilliantly finds a way to prevent the audience from guessing by seemingly presenting the identity of the killer in the movie’s first act. Redditor marineman43 admitted that the early ruse worked on them while giving an intriguing new approach to the genre:

The “reveal” of Marta as the killer so early in the movie was intriguing and a cool direction for the genre. Managed to actually misdirect me for awhile, as I began to think the rest of the whole movie would be about her subtly sabotaging the investigation to avoid suspicion.

Throwing the audience off the chase for a killer allowed the truth about Ransom to be more of a fun twist. Had Marta not been revealed as the supposed killer early on, Ransom would have been the most likely suspect. However, when he is suddenly revealed to be the real villain of the story, clues suddenly fall into place. It is the kind of movie that audiences can rewatch over and over, finding new clues each time.

Watching Benoit Blanc put all the pieces together and discover the truth is a hugely entertaining moment that helps cement him as one of the best movie detectives. However, the ending also works so well because of the victory it means for Marta, a character who made mistakes but proved throughout the movie that she was a good person.

How The Glass Onion Mystery Compares To The Knives Out Murder

The Benoit Blanc Mysteries Continue

The first Knives Out movie and the Glass Onion sequel both feature a murder mystery in which everything is not what it seems in the end, but the approach to those mysteries is very different. The humor in both movies is part of that. In Glass Onion, the humor is more over the top, allowing the mystery to appear more simplistic than that of Knives Out. While the audience is busy paying attention to the larger-than-life performances and jokes, they’re missing the small details.

Both utilize the juxtaposition of flashbacks with the present moment. The women at the center of the mysteries both appear calm and controlled as the truth is slowly unraveled for them, but the real truth is that neither of them is truly calm. Marta finds herself vomiting every time she attempts to lie and perpetually terrified that her family will pay for her crime.

Glass Onion’s Helen as Andi (Janelle Monáe) runs around in a panic trying not to be discovered. She manages to do that until the truth is finally revealed, only then allowing herself to explode. That leads to a literal explosion, making Glass Onion’s ending much bigger than that of Knives Out.

The mystery and the clues laid out in Glass Onion are a bit more streamlined than those in the first Knives Out movie as well. While Knives Out has to repeatedly backtrack on its own mystery to give the audience all the pieces, that’s not the case with Glass Onion. Regardless, both the Knives Out ending and the Glass Onion ending are satisfying conclusions for the main characters and the audience.