What happens at the end of Cruel Intentions? The real revenge is served at a funeral

Here's exactly how it ends, and why the last five minutes are the whole point.

The bet that starts it

Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wagers her step-brother Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) that he can't seduce Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), the headmaster's virtuous daughter. The stakes: if he loses, Kathryn gets his vintage 1956 Jaguar Roadster. If he wins, he gets Kathryn.

The problem — for both of them — is that Sebastian actually falls in love.

How it all collapses

• The break-up — Kathryn convinces Sebastian that love has made him a laughing stock, and he cruelly dumps a devastated Annette.
• The refusal — with Annette gone, Kathryn refuses to honour the bet anyway. She never intended to. It was always about destroying them both.
• The journal — Sebastian hands Annette his private journal, documenting every scheme, then goes to win her back.
• The car — Kathryn tells Cecile's boyfriend Ronald (Sean Patrick Thomas) just enough poison to send him after Sebastian. In the street brawl that follows, Sebastian pushes Annette out of the path of a taxi — and takes the hit himself.

He dies with Annette beside him. Kathryn, as ever, walks away spotless (for about a week.)

The funeral

At Sebastian's memorial service, Kathryn delivers a glowing, tearful eulogy about her beloved brother — and midway through, the pews start emptying. Outside, the entire school is reading bound photocopies of Sebastian's journal, distributed by Annette and Cecile (Selma Blair). Every manipulation is in there. So is Kathryn's cocaine habit — and when the headmaster examines the crucifix she wears around her neck, out comes the stash she'd hidden inside it.

Her mascara runs. Her reputation doesn't survive the afternoon. The film's cruellest operator is undone in front of everyone she spent the story fooling — at a funeral she was using as a stage.

The final shot

Annette drives off down the highway in Sebastian's 1956 Jaguar — the exact car Kathryn schemed a whole movie to win — wearing his sunglasses, the journal on the passenger seat, The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" swelling underneath. She got the boy's heart, the confession, and the car. Kathryn got the eulogy nobody stayed to hear.

For the record: the film turned a $10.5 million budget into roughly $76 million worldwide, spawned two straight-to-video follow-ups and a short-lived 2024 Prime Video series, and won Gellar and Blair the Best Kiss prize at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards.

Not bad for a story that ends at a wake.