The Others ending explained: Grace, the servants and the intruders
Spoilers ahead: this article discusses the ending.
The Others ending explained turns the haunted house story inside out: the family we have been watching are the ghosts. The Others ending explained in detail also reveals why the servants arrived, what the intruders were doing, and why Grace decides to stay.
Alejandro Amenábar's 2001 film stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart, a mother living in an isolated mansion with her two children, Anne and Nicholas, who suffer from a sensitivity to light. It was shot in Spain, including at the Palacio de los Hornillos in Las Fraguas, and stands with the best twist endings of its era.
The Others ending explained: the twist in plain terms
Grace, Anne and Nicholas are dead. The noises and voices in the house come from a living family, including a boy named Victor, who have moved in. To Grace, they are intruders; to them, the Stewarts are the haunting.
In the climactic scene, the living family hold a séance with a blind medium. Grace finds them gathered at a table while the medium writes out what happened in the house: Grace smothered her children with a pillow and then shot herself.
The servants were dead all along
The three servants who arrive at the start, led by Mrs. Mills, played by Fionnula Flanagan, are also ghosts. Anne finds their gravestones in the grounds, and the film reveals they died in a tuberculosis outbreak in 1891.
They came back to the house knowing what Grace did not. Their gentle hints through the film are attempts to prepare her for the truth rather than simply scare her.
Why Grace stays
Faced with the truth, Grace remembers the day she killed her children and herself. She had believed she was given a second chance at life. Instead, she accepts that they are all dead and refuses to leave, telling the living family that the house is theirs.
Victor's family eventually move out. The children, no longer harmed by light now that they understand what they are, stand at the window as the house falls quiet.
Clues you can spot on a rewatch
The film is built so the twist feels earned.
- The servants know the house and its rules before Grace explains them.
- Anne keeps insisting she has seen Victor and an old woman, which is the living family and the medium.
- Grace's husband Charles, played by Christopher Eccleston, returns from the war distant and confused, then leaves again.
- The fog that cuts the house off from the outside world never lifts.
Influences and what it means
Critics, including William Skidelsky in The Observer, have linked the film to Henry James's 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, with its governess, isolated house and children who may see what adults cannot. The bigger theme is denial. Grace's strict rules, locked doors and faith are ways of not facing what she did. The ending is the moment she finally looks at it.
The casting helps the trick. Kidman plays Grace as rigid and certain, so her collapse at the end feels enormous. Alakina Mann and James Bentley, as Anne and Nicholas, give the children a believable sibling rivalry, and Eric Sykes and Elaine Cassidy round out the quiet household staff. The film opened in the United States on August 10, 2001, and in Spain a month later.
Questions people ask
Were the servants ghosts in The Others?
Yes. Mrs. Mills and the other servants died of tuberculosis in 1891 and returned to the house as ghosts.
What did Grace do in The Others?
The séance reveals that she smothered her children with a pillow and then shot herself.
Who are the intruders in The Others?
A living family who moved into the house. To them, Grace and her children are the ghosts.
Do the children die in The Others?
Yes. Grace smothered Anne and Nicholas before shooting herself, and all three remain in the house as ghosts.