Frankenstein’s Endgame: The Monster’s Final Fate Explained

Spoilers ahead for Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' (2025).

Guillermo del Toro just made a 'Frankenstein' where the so-called monster isn’t the villain, the creator is a wreck, and the last image is a sunrise on Arctic ice. It’s chilly, brutal, and yes, surprisingly tender. Here’s how it all lands, where it diverges from Mary Shelley’s book, and whether that ending is actually setting up more.

The Creature's last chapter

Jacob Elordi’s Creature chases Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein across the Arctic, and by the time they’re within reach of each other, Victor has already taken a mortal hit and been hauled aboard a ship by its captain. When the Creature finally catches up, we get a shock of quiet: Victor sees the truth. The way he created this being, abandoned him, and repeated the violence he grew up with makes him realize the real monster has always been the human in the mirror.

He asks for forgiveness. The Creature gives it. Victor is left to die from his wounds, but he dies calm, which is very del Toro: the cycle of abuse breaks, not because the abuser deserves it, but because the abused chooses grace.

The love story you did not expect

Del Toro sneaks in a tragic romance via Mia Goth’s Lady Elizabeth Harlander, who is engaged to William Frankenstein (Victor’s younger brother). Elizabeth treats the Creature with basic humanity, which, for him, might as well be a miracle. He develops feelings he doesn’t know what to do with. Victor, being Victor, storms in, tries to shoot the Creature, and instead the bullet kills Elizabeth.

'I was never meant for this world.'

She dies with the Creature beside her. And because the Creature is immortal here, there’s no comforting afterlife reunion on the table. It’s a straight-up heartbreaker.

So what happens to Victor?

Isaac’s Victor is all sharp edges and cruelty shaped by his own abusive father. He builds life out of pain, abandons it in fear, then spends the rest of the film chasing the consequence. On that ship in the ice, he finally owns it, asks forgiveness, gets it, and slips away. Whether you buy that as redemption is up to you; the film frames it as peace in his mind, not some grand moral absolution.

Book vs. movie: where the paths split

If you’re keeping score with Shelley’s novel: in the book, an Arctic expedition rescues Victor, he tells his story, and then he dies on the ship before he can ever speak to the Creature again. The Creature boards, talks to the captain, regrets everything, and vows to burn himself on a funeral pyre at the farthest northern point before drifting away into the ice, presumed dead.

Del Toro tweaks that. In the film, the Creature actually reaches Victor before the end, forgives him, and then walks off into the frozen horizon as the sun lifts. He’s free of his creator, and because this version can’t die, he’s left to wander the world. It’s an ending that rejects the book’s self-immolation for something more ambiguous and, honestly, more hopeful.

Is that a sequel tease?

Kind of. The Creature striding into a new dawn is an easy doorway to more story. But del Toro has said he’s taking a break from monster movies, so don’t expect a follow-up soon. The door’s unlocked; nobody’s walking through it right now. If there’s a future, it likely means both del Toro and Elordi coming back down the line. For now, the story closes on an open horizon.

Quick facts

• Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
• Cast: Jacob Elordi (the Creature), Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein), Mia Goth (Lady Elizabeth Harlander)
• Year of release: 2025
• Produced under: Double Dare You
• Current scores: IMDb 7.3/10; Rotten Tomatoes 81%
• Release plan (USA): In select theaters now; hits Netflix on November 7, 2025