Few films coming out this year have been as hotly anticipated as Jordan Peele’s third movie, Nope. His debut feature, the racial horror parable Get Out, was a cultural phenomenon that netted him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. His sophomore attempt, Us, an eerie doppelganger flick starring Lupita Nyong’o, was also a hit. The first trailer for Nope, which reunites Peele with Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya and co-stars Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, and Brandon Perea, didn’t reveal much — only that the film takes place on a horse ranch, and that it might have something to do with aliens.
Now, Nope has finally arrived in theaters, and spoilers about its twists and turns have been revealed. Viewers have come to expect intricate plotting, clever symbolism, and sharp humor from Peele’s films, and they won’t leave disappointed. Nope also features his most expansive action sequences and affecting relationships between characters: In short, it’s a sensational summer movie spectacle, one viewers shouldn’t miss.
But how does the movie end? Find out below. (Spoilers abound.)
How does Nope end?
Throughout the film, the Haywood siblings OJ (Kaluuya) and Emerald (Palmer) are menaced by what appears to be a flying saucer, which flies low over the remote California hills where they live, sucking up horses and then people at a nearby theme park through a tornado-shaped funnel of dust. OJ realizes that the object isn’t a spaceship but an organism, and that the animals and people aren’t being teleported — they’re being eaten.
OJ and Emerald, along with enthusiastic IT guy Angel Torres (Perea) and veteran nature film director Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), concoct a plan to lure the organism out in the daylight, so that they can film it and reap the monetary rewards (and get famous, as a bonus). Over the course of the film, they discovered that the creature cuts out nearby electricity and only eats things it looks in the eye. To entrap it, they set up air dancers across their ranch, which will collapse when it’s overhead. OJ, who will act as bait, wears a hoodie with two reflectors attached to the back of the hood, which will double as eyes. He rides his trusted horse Lucky (whose eyes are covered) out of their house and onto the ranch while Emerald monitors surveillance cameras inside and Antlers and Angel film the scene with a non-electrical camera from above.
The plan gets complicated when a journalist from TMZ shows up at the ranch, asking about recent disappearances. Against the siblings’ warnings, he drives his motorcycle at full speed toward the electrical blackout zone, and flies off the bike and onto the road when he hits it. He doesn’t die immediately, and OJ attempts to rescue him — but he doesn’t manage it before the creature gobbles him up.
Directly after, OJ races back down toward the house, his hoodie-with-reflectors pulled up, leading the creature behind him. Antlers gets the shot, and OJ escapes just in time. But Antlers, seduced by the thrill of the chase, abandons the precautions they’ve set up and reveals himself to the creature in order get the perfect shot in the perfect dusk light — a decision that leads to him being eaten, too.
The creature goes on a rampage, damaging the Haywoods’ house and almost killing Angel, who escapes by virtue of being wrapped in barbed wire. Emerald and OJ both try to escape, but she can’t get away on the journalist’s motorcycle unless OJ rides Lucky in the opposite direction, effectively sacrificing himself. He convinces her to let him do this, and she drives at full speed to the now-abandoned theme park.
After Emerald’s escape, the creature expands, unwrapping itself into long tendrils that look more like a butterfly or ghost than a flying saucer. Emerald lets loose a large balloon in the shape of a man at the theme park, hoping the creature will fall for its fake eyes. When it does, she uses a camera built into one of the theme park’s attractions to photograph it just before the act of digesting the balloon’s compressed air explodes the creature once and for all.
Emerald is left dazed at the park as police and media arrive. In the film’s final moments, she sees her brother appear on his horse in the entranceway, surrounded by fog. Is he really alive, or is he just a vision? Peele ends the movie before giving a definitive answer either way.
