Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Nickel Boys!

Nickel Boys is one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2024, and here’s what happens at the end of the film, including the fates of Turner and Elwood, explained. Since its release, Nickel Boys has been nominated for all kinds of awards, including the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. The mᴀssive film tells a complex story that spans decades, and here’s what occurs at the end of the film as well as what it all means.

Nickel Boys tells the story of two African American boys, Elwood Curtis and Turner, as they develop a friendship while being held at Nickel Academy. Set in the 1960s, the film chronicles their attempts to first better the reformatory before realizing that they must escape the school and the Jim Crow South as a whole. Meanwhile, Nickel Boys also features flash forwards, with them following an adult Elwood as he investigates the unmarked graves that have been found near Nickel Academy. However, things are not as they seem in Elwood’s adult life.

What Happens In Nickel Boys’ Ending

Turner Escapes, But Elwood Is Killed

After having been mistreated at Nickel Academy for what seems to be months, Elwood and Turner decide that they must escape. It is revealed that Elwood has been logging the mistreatment and cruelty of Nickel Academy in a journal, with him hoping to use the book to get Nickel Academy shut down. The boys give it to a government inspector, although nothing positive happens. Instead, the higher ups at Nickel Academy discover Elwood’s plan and hold him prisoner in the sweatbox, with them planning to kill him like the many boys they have killed before.

Turner manages to free Elwood before he is killed, with the two boys finding bikes and getting away from Nickel as quickly as possible. However, armed Nickel Academy employees eventually catch up to them. The boys attempt to flee into a field, but one of the employees shoots Elwood. Elwood dies in the field, but Turner manages to make it to the woods. Turner finds Elwood’s grandmother and tells him about what happened, with Turner taking up Elwood’s name and living as him into his adult life.

Why Did Turner Take Elwood’s Name?

He Wants To Honor His Deceased Friend

Nickel Boys features a lot of flash forward scenes, with them featuring an adult man researching the Nickel Academy murders. Eventually, it is revealed that this man is named Elwood, with it being ᴀssumed that he is a grown-up version of the protagonist of Nickel Boys. However, when Elwood is killed, it turns this storyline on its head. It is revealed that Turner actually took up Elwood’s name, with him continuing to use it decades after his escape from Nickel Academy.

Although it isn’t explicitly explained in Nickel Boys, it seems that Turner taking Elwood’s name is a symbolic way for the boy to honor his deceased friend. Turner’s usage of Elwood’s name allows him to carry on the memory of those who died at Nickel Academy, with him vicariously living out the rest of Elwood’s life. This move means that Nickel Academy couldn’t rob Elwood of his legacy, even if they did rob him of his freedom and his literal life.

Why Nickel Boys Is SH๏τ in First-Person

It Has A Thematic & Aesthetic Purpose

One of the most interesting creative choices seen in Nickel Boys is that the film is sH๏τ in first-person point-of-view. Throughout the film’s 1960s scenes, the events of the film are always either seen through Elwood or Turner’s eyes, with the characters not appearing on-screen together. Symbolically, this allows the audience to experience the horrors of Nickel Academy through the eyes of its victims, rather than seeing it as an outsider looking into the past. According to EW, it also allowed the film to have a more dreamy quality, as the director explains:

“The form of the film — the shooting technique and the editing — is a direct lift from Hale County This Morning, This Evening. The idea here was doing it inside a genuinely traditional narrative in which I could not make my own decisions about what to exclude and include,” Ross says. “But Hale County This Morning, This Evening was about a lack of clear narrative continuity, and this one needed it. That challenge elevated the imagery and the concept to be even more humanistic. The greatest gift is that Colson’s writing and clarity of structure, character, and intent is just so crystallized that you can distill it.”

Did Elwood’s Actions Lead To Nickel Academy Being Shut Down?

& If Not, What Did?

In the world of Nickel Boys, Nickel Academy is eventually shut down. Sadly, it seems like Elwood’s plans to report Nickel Academy’s abuses had nothing to do with it. As the film explains, the government inspector was given the book of abuses by Turner. However, the inspector did nothing about it besides informing the Nickel administration, who then put Elwood in the sweatbox.

When Nickel Boys flashes forward, it is revealed that Nickel Academy has closed down sometime since Elwood’s death and Turner’s escape. However, it is never revealed if Elwood’s death or Turner’s actions had anything to do with it. Many of the real-life academies that the fictional Nickel Academy is based on, such as the Dozier School for Boys, were simply closed decades later for budgetary reasons. Thus, it can be speculated that this is why Nickel Academy was shut down too.

How Nickel Boys’ Ending Compares To The True Story Inspiration

It Was Based On A Real Academy

The story of Nickel Boys is fictional, with the movie adapting the 2019 Colson Whitehead novel The Nickel Boys. However, both the book and the movie were inspired by true events. Nickel Academy is a fictionalized version of the Dozier School for Boys, a school that was located in Marianna, Florida and first opened in 1900. The reform school was notorious for allowing the murders, Sєxual ᴀssaults, and overall mistreatment of its African American students, although very little was done about it until the Florida Department of Law Enforcement finally began to investigate these claims in 2010.

While the characters of Elwood and Turner are fictional, they are based on all kinds of real-life accounts of Dozier’s victims. Within two years of beginning its investigation, the state of Florida discovered 55 unmarked graves, with them finding more as time went on. The abuses that Elwood and Turner suffer in Nickel Boys parallels the real-life mistreatment that many suffered, with this being one of the main thematic purposes behind the film.

The Real Meaning Of Nickel Boys’ Ending

It Highlights Things About The Past & Present

One of the main points of Nickel Boys was to raise awareness about the horrors that African American students faced at these boarding schools for decades, with this being something that isn’t talked about enough. Since these abuses didn’t begin to get properly investigated until decades after they happened, there is still very little coverage about them. Luckily, Nickel Boys does not hold back from showing the horrors of the school, pulling the abuses that the boarding school administrators allowed into the light.

On top of that, Nickel Boys also attempts to show how traumatic events like this can continue to affect people well into their adult life. Although Elwood is much older in the film’s flash forward scenes, he was forever altered by his time at Nickel, with him being a different person thanks to his name change. While tragic, Nickel Boys is an important film that attempts to highlight important issues from our past and how they have created a ripple effect that continues to impact people to this day.