What happens at the end of Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood's 2004 film Million Dollar Baby won four Oscars and left audiences in bits.
If you haven't seen it yet, turn back now — the ending is the sort of thing that hits harder when you don't see it coming.
The setup
Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) is a scrappy waitress from a dead-end background who talks ageing boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) into taking her on. Against all odds, she becomes a genuine contender. The film's first two acts are a proper underdog story — Maggie rises through the ranks, and Frankie, long estranged from his own daughter, gradually comes to see Maggie as family.
What goes wrong
Maggie earns a title shot against Billie "The Blue Bear" Osterman, a dirty fighter with a nasty reputation. During the bout, Billie throws an illegal punch after the bell. Maggie falls awkwardly, her neck strikes the corner stool, and her spinal cord is severed. She's left paralysed from the neck down — a quadriplegic on a ventilator.
The ending
Maggie's condition deteriorates. She develops severe bedsores, and doctors are forced to amputate one of her legs. Her own family turn up only to try and get her to sign over her money. Maggie, unable to move or live the life she fought for, asks Frankie to help her die. She tells him she's already got what she needed — she got to hear the crowd chanting her name.
Frankie, a devout Catholic, is torn apart by the request. He speaks to his priest, who tells him it would be a mortal sin. But after Maggie bites through her own tongue in a suicide attempt, Frankie makes his decision. He goes to her room at night, tells her what her boxing nickname — Mo Cuishle — really means ("my darling, my blood"), switches off her ventilator, and injects a lethal dose of adrenaline.
The film's narration, provided by Scrap (Morgan Freeman), turns out to be a letter he's writing to Frankie's estranged daughter Katy, explaining what sort of man her father really was. The final shot shows a figure who appears to be Frankie sat at the roadside diner he and Maggie once visited together — a place he'd once talked about buying.
Frankie is never seen again.