10 Final Movie Scenes That Changed Everything
5. The Power Of The Dog
The Power of the Dog's mesmerising final reveal elevates the film from greatness to sheer brilliance. In the final stretch, cruel rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) suddenly falls ill and dies, with the doctor believing the cause to be anthrax poisoning from handling diseased cattle.
As Phil's brother George (Jesse Plemons) tries to make sense of how his ever-diligent brother would make such an uncharacteristically careless mistake, we cut to Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the timid, retiring son of George's troubled new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst).
Throughout the story, Peter and especially Rose have been the target of Phil's torment, and in the final scene, Peter is shown handling a lasso with gloves.
This is the very same lasso that Phil was making for him, albeit without the knowledge that Peter had acquired the rawhide material for it from a diseased animal.
Peter then looks out the window of his room to see his mother and George happily embrace, causing him to smile, the implication being that Peter intentionally poisoned Phil in order to cause his death and free both himself and his mother from Phil's grasp.
It's an ending which caused a surprising amount of confusion among viewers upon release, yet places an eerie little bow on what's already a terrifically enthralling Western drama, proving there was a lot more to the shy, effeminate Peter than his harmless exterior suggested.