In Defense of That ‘House of Dynamite’ Ending (Or Lack Thereof)

For nearly two hours, A House of Dynamite keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, waiting with bated breath to see whether a nuclear bomb obliterates they city of Chicago. Thanks to the film’s non-linear narrative—which recounts the same 18 minute countdown from three different point-of-views—by the film’s end, we’ve watched the minutes-to-impact clock reach zero three times. And we still don’t know what happens next.

Spoiler alert: You’ll never know what happens next. Because Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim opted to end their film—which released via Netflix after an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run last Friday—on the biggest cliffhanger of all time. The third countdown once again cuts to black just as the clock reaches zero, moments before the President of the United States (Idris Elba) issues his orders to either launch a retaliatory nuclear weapon, or not. Did the bomb detonate in Chicago, or did it malfunction, as we’ve been told sometimes happens? Did the president launch nuclear weapons at the U.S. adversaries in response, despite not knowing who launched the missile at Chicago?

We simply don’t know. The last shot of the movie is Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos)—the military officer in charge of the launch the of Ground-Based Interceptor, which failed to intercept the missile—on his knees, outside the Fort Greely base. Then the credits roll, with a pointed “Directed by Kathryn Bigelow” that feels a tad like a middle finger.

At a press screening of A House of Dynamite at the 2025 New York Film Festival, this ending—or lack thereof—was met with audible groans of frustration. I was among them. I left the theater amped up, feeling like I could run a marathon. I immediately sent my partner a string of back-to-back texts to complain. “THE MOVIE JUST ENDS,” I wrote, all caps. “NO RESOLUTION.”

Now that A House of Dynamite is streaming on Netflix, more and more viewers are experiencing that same frustration. But after a few hours of obsessing, I calmed down and realized—hear me out—the House of Dynamite ending is good, actually. Maybe even perfect.

A House of Dynamite is a movie that faces, head-on, a reality we’d all rather ignore: Nuclear weapons exist, and can obliterate the world as we know it at any time. It doesn’t matter if the people in charge are cool, calm, and collected, as the officials in House of Dynamite are. (Perhaps the most unrealistic part of the film, given the current state of the U.S. government.)

It doesn’t matter if we follow the protocol. It doesn’t matter if—as one of the military officers exclaims in desperation—we do everything right, in those 18 or so minutes from detection to impact. Our fate, at that point, is up to chance (Will the bomb detonate?) , and the impossible decision made by a single, ill-informed authority (Will the president retaliate?).

This is a movie about nuclear anxiety—a very real existential threat that’s only growing every year, as the U.S. international relations get worse and the nuclear technology of countries like North Korea, China, and Russia get better. That anxiety is not something gets to have resolution or catharsis. It certainly doesn’t get a happy ending. For Bigelow and Oppenheim, the lack of resolution is exactly the point. Unless we do something to de-escalate the real-world nuclear arms race, that existential threat will continue to loom.

In an email to Decider, screenwriter Noah Oppenheim called the ending “a call to attention and an invitation to a conversation. No matter what final outcome you imagine, you’ve already seen a horror unfold.And in the real world, these weapons and all the processes you’ve just seen are still lurking in the background of our lives. Are we comfortable with that reality or should we do something about it?”

If A House of Dynamite ended with a huge, nuclear explosion, it would have cut the simmering tension that the film spent two hours building. A mushroom cloud is not a happy ending, but it is an ending. Audiences would leave the theater devastated, perhaps, but not buzzing with the kind of energy that had me firing off angry texts. There is no resolution in A House of Dynamite because there is no resolution in the real-world horror the movie conveys. What happens next? Maybe that’s up to us.