Warning: This article contains spoilers for To Catch a Killer. 

To Catch a Killer didn’t make much of a splash when it hit theaters in 2023, grossing just $3.1 million in its limited release. Currently, though, it’s climbing the Netflix charts after being added to the streamer this month.

It’s worth checking out, too. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Damián Szifron’s thriller about a young beat cop swept up in the case of a deadly sniper attack is a work of style and substance, though it can certainly feel overwrought and underbaked. The cast, however, shines, with Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo, and Ralph Ineson all delivering compelling performances.

Regardless of your experience with To Catch a Killer, though, it’s likely you’ll come away from the ending with a handful of thoughts pinging around your brain. We certainly did, so we sought to unpack the ending and muse on what the film is trying to say about bureaucracy, mental illness, and nihilistic acts of violence.

What is To Catch a Killer about?

To Catch a Killer is about Eleanor Falco (Woodley), a Baltimore cop with a troubled past and a history of addiction who gets recruited by a team of FBI agents to help track down a sniper responsible for the murders of several New Year’s revelers.

Eleanor works closely with the case’s lead investigator, Agent Lammark (Mendelsohn), but their manhunt is hobbled by a number of obstacles, including political pressure, bureaucratic interference, poor communication among departments, and gun nuts who want to capitalize on the murders for their own purposes. The local police, meanwhile, zero in on a teenager with suspicious internet activity, despite Lammark’s protestations. Not only is the kid innocent, we learn, but their raid leads to his suicide.

All these delays allow for another mass shooting that unfolds in a mall, leaving several more dead and the eventual firing and suspension of Lammark and Eleanor, respectively.

The pair only find their way to the real killer after they’ve been cut loose.

What happens at the end of To Catch a Killer?

Through forensic evidence, profiling tactics, and interviews, Eleanor and Lammark begin to suspect a man named Dean Possey (Ineson). They visit his mother’s house, but Mrs. Possey (Rosemary Dunsmore) claims not to have seen him in years. She also reveals that Dean was accidentally shot by his father as a child, and that he became angry following the incident. He learned how to shoot from his father, but was rejected from by the Army as being “unfit for service.”

It’s at this point that Eleanor spots a shed out back and realizes Mrs. Possey is lying. Dean is in the shed and his gun is trained on Lammark, who he shoots and kills. A horrified Eleanor asks Dean’s mother to try and get him to come out, giving Mrs. Possey her phone and gun to show she means no harm. When Mrs. Possey walks outside, though, she turns the gun on herself. “If you won’t go with them, come with me,” she says before killing herself.

Dean then emerges and comes into the house. He and Eleanor have a tense conversation in which he reveals his frustrations stem not from any kind of personal agenda or slight, but rather a misanthropic distrust of modern society. He says he’d like to die lying next to his mother, and asks Eleanor to shoot him after he’s fallen asleep next to Mrs. Possey’s corpse.

She agrees, but then they hear police sirens in the distance. Assuming she called them, Dean takes Eleanor into a basement and rigs the shed with a series of bombs. Cops surround the shed, and Dean sets off the bomb. In the chaos, Eleanor bites his neck. He allows her to live, grabs a gun, and wanders into the woods. When the cops find him, he wearily pulls a gun on them, prompting a hail of gunfire that kills him.

The final scene finds Eleanor meeting with the mayor. They offer her an FBI position in exchange for her silence about how the case was handled. She accepts, but demands honors for Lammark and for his pension to be transferred to his husband.

Before the credits roll, we see Eleanor walking towards FBI headquarters as Lammark’s voiceover intones, “We get this guy, this all goes away and we can both do the job we were meant to.”

What does the ending of To Catch a Killer mean?

To Catch a Killer works as a standard thriller, but there are a few threads you can pull in search of deeper meaning.

Mendelsohn touched on one key aspect of the film in an interview when he described Lammark as “a guy that’s deeply frustrated and sad and aggrieved by the machine of the bureaucracy that he’s in.”

What we see throughout To Catch a Killer is a law enforcement apparatus so steeped in bureaucracy, red tape, and departmental politics that the actual investigative work is impacted, resulting in collateral damage. It’s not one thing, but many things.

In the end, there’s no effort made to learn from one’s mistakes or change how the apparatus operates. Instead, it’s about saving face. The powers that be rewrite history and offer promotions in exchange for silence. As such, the people who secure power are rarely the kind who wield it responsibly or efficiently.

Lammark acknowledges this in the film, telling Eleanor, “Power is disputed between people who deserve it and people who adore it,” he says. “It’s a perpetual fight. I can’t say we’re winning right now.”

These ideas dovetail with Dean’s disillusionment. “This whole planet’s a f—ing prison,” he laments, declaring that his crimes are about stealing back some of the power that’s been hoarded by the executive class. “I don’t know how to make money. I don’t know how to win votes. But who has the real power? Life and death from a thousand feet away. I might not find peace, but I can deliver retribution.”

His murders are not righteous, of course, but his bloodlust comes from a grand frustration with the state of society — not one thing, but many things.

Is To Catch a Killer based on a true story?

To Catch a Killer is not based on one particular true story, though Szifron’s film clearly takes inspiration from the mass shootings that have plagued the U.S. over the last several decades, particularly the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002.

How to watch To Catch a Killer?

To Catch a Killer is currently streaming on Netflix. It’s also available to rent or purchase via Amazon Prime.