Nightmare Alley ending explained: Ron Perlman unravels dark twist

The film follows Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a man with a dark past who gets a job at a carnival and begins learning the art of being a convincing mentalist.

As a result of his time at the carnival, he finds love and also all the tricks he needs to be one successful conman.

However, as he enjoys his journey to stardom, Stan meets the psychologist Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and a chain of events is set into motion that results in violence, murder and shock twists.

So, what did the end of Nightmare Alley mean exactly and what is del Toro trying to tell us with its story?

**Spoiler warning for Nightmare Alley**

Nightmare Alley ending explained

The film begins as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle burns down his family home in the Midwest before getting a job helping carnival owner Clem (Willem Dafoe) dispose of his “geek”.

The “geek” (Paul Anderson) is a man who lives like an animal in filth and scares crowds by eating the heads off of live chickens, who Clem trapped in the role through the use of opioids in moonshine and promising the role would be temporary.

The carnival owner usually seeks out addicts to make “geeks” and the opioid exposure and terrible conditions soon drive them genuinely mad so they truly have become feral.

Stan is disgusted by the “geek” and how far a man can fall from normality into something so pitiful.

At the carnival, Stan becomes a lover of clairvoyant act Zeena (Toni Collette) and befriends her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn).

Pete tutors Stan in the secrets of the act - an elaborate and skilful language of codes and hints to read people for the act.

However, afterwards, the couple always make those they speak to aware that their act is entirely an illusion so as to avoid any upset.

While at the carnival, Stan falls in love with quiet but clever Molly (Rooney Mara), whose father was a fixture of the carnival before his death and who now has an act of her own.

After accidentally providing Pete with wood alcohol instead of his beloved moonshine, Stan is horrified to have killed his mentor.

In the aftermath, Stan decides to depart the carnival with his beloved Molly and start their own two-person act.

Despite the protest of protective carnival dweller Bruno (Ron Perlman) who sought to protect Molly from Stan, the couple depart.

The film then jumps forward two years to New York and shows that Stan has achieved great success with his psychic act “The Great Stanton” with Molly as his assistant.

One night, Stan is interrupted by the shrewd psychologist Lilith Ritter who seeks to expose the act as a deception but Stan outsmarts her and she is humiliated.

In the aftermath, he learns she was hired by the powerful Judge Kimball (Peter MacNeill) to allow him and his wife to communicate with their dead son, which Stan agrees to despite Molly’s objections.

Ritter invites Stan to her office and they begin an affair. The two schemers plot to swindle Kimball by using the personal knowledge that Ritter knows about him to feed Stan information for his act.

During their encounters, Ritter also delves into Stan’s past and records the sessions as he admits his guilt over killing Pete and also murdering his abusive alcoholic father by exposing him to the elements before burning his family home down and leaving - eventually joining the carnival.

The scamming continues when Kimball introduces Stan to the powerful and nasty Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins) who Ritter fears to con as he previously attacked her and left her scarred.

However, Ritter feeds Stan information so he plots a ghostly interaction for Jenkins with his dead lover Dory who died during a forced abortion.

Meanwhile, Molly discovers Stan’s affair and schemes and decides to leave him but agrees to help him one last time by posing as the ghost of Dory in a snowy encounter with Grindle.

However, the encounter goes awry when Grindle embraces “Dory” and realises she is acting.

Grindle is enraged and promises to end Stan’s career and ruin his life but Stan then murders him in response.

Grindle’s henchman Anderson (Holt McCallany) is fatally struck dead by Stan’s car as he and Molly make their escape.

After the violence, Molly decides to leave Stan for good and return to her loved ones at the carnival.

Elsewhere, the grief-stricken Mrs Kimball murders her husband Judge Kimball before taking her own life to reunite them with their dead son after believing they had spoken with him through Stan.

Stan flees to Ritter who he has been giving the cash from their con to stockpile and discovers she has been manipulating him all along when he finds only singles in the suitcase of money.

Ritter wanted revenge for his earlier humiliation of her and now has all of the money herself, whilst she also used Stan to get revenge on the abusive Grindle for assaulting her.

Ritter calls the police on Stan and threatens to use her recordings of their sessions against him before shooting him in the ear.

Stan tries to strangle Ritter to death but the arrival of the police sees him flee and the scheming Ritter survive.

Afterwards, the fugitive Stan stows away on a train to escape and becomes homeless and, like his father, falls into alcoholism.

Growing increasingly desperate, Stan turns up at another carnival and tries to get a job as a psychic act there.

Stan is rejected but is offered a drink by the carnival’s owner, who then offers Stan the humiliating and animalistic role of the “geek” at the carnival but, as Clem once explained he did himself when recruiting “geeks”, he's told the job is temporary.

A tearful Stan accepts the offers, responding: "Mister, I was born for it."

The film ends on the broken Stan - his downfall now complete.

What does the final scene of Nightmare Alley mean?

Speaking to RadioTimes.com, actor Ron Perlman - who plays Bruno in the film - discussed the meaning behind the bleak ending for Stan.

Perlman explained: “Well, the reason why I was so excited to share this story with del Toro, is because I come from a kind of classical theatre background, got a master's degree, I studied theatre for six years, all the way from the Greeks to Samuel Beckett - that's who was contemporary when I was going to school, which was 100 years ago.

“But Nightmare Alley reminded me more of classic Greek tragedy in a kind of metaphoric sense, because we don't have kings and queens, but we do have a version of royalty in terms of skill sets and Stan Carlisle is anointed with a set of skills that make him get the attention of the world the way royalty gets the attention of the world.

“And he gets so caught up in his powers - and loses his morality along the way, if he ever had any - that he has the ultimate smackdown. The universe says, ‘Sorry, pal’.”

The actor elaborated: “But there's an oracle out there that says ‘Know thyself’ and such a thing as hamartia, which is making mistakes in judgement, and hubris, which is mistaking your place in the universe.

“And when you do those things in Greek tragedy, you're going to pay a very violent price and that's what happens in this movie.”

Nightmare Alley is out now in UK cinemas. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide or visit our Movies hub for all the latest news and features.