Netflix’s ‘Brick’ 2025 Movie Ending Explained: Breaking Down the German Sci-Fi Thriller

The new Netflix movie Brick (2025)—not to be confused with the 2005 Rian Johnson movie of the same name—presents viewers with a chilling question: What if you woke up to find a brick wall blocking off your apartment door and windows?

Written and directed by Philip Koch, Brick is a German mystery thriller starring Matthias Schweighöfer, a German actor and director who is known to American audiences for his role as the master lock pick in Netflix’s Army of the Dead franchise. German actress Ruby O. Fee—who also appeared in the Army of the Dead spin-off film, Army of Thieves, directed by Schweighöfer—co-stars as Schweighöfer’s on-screen girlfriend, who attempts to storm off in the middle of the night… only to be met by a mysterious, impenetrable brick wall.

How did the wall get there? How will they get out? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out. That, or you could just scroll down and read Decider’s detailed analysis of the Brick 2025 plot summary and Brick 2025 ending explained.

Brick 2025 movie plot summary:

Tim (Matthias Schweighöfer) and Olivia (Ruby O. Fee) are a couple living in a building that is under renovation. Their creepy landlord, Mr. Friedman, promises the building will be “much better” from now on. Also, there was a big fire across town. Hmmm.

But Tim and Olivia have bigger problems: Olivia recently had a miscarriage. She wants to start a new life in Paris, and wants Tim to come with her. But since the miscarriage, Tim has thrown himself into his work as a game programmer. He tells her he is too busy to leave right now, maybe later. Olivia decides to go without him. She packs up her stuff in the middle of the night, and is ready to walk out on the relationship. But when she opens the front door to their apartment to leave, she discovers the apartment has been walled-in by strange, black bricks.

Tim and Olivia discover all of their windows are bricked in, too. They can not damage the bricks at all, even with a drill. Their cell phones have no reception and the internet is down. The water has been shut off (but, for some reason, the electricity still works). The mysterious brick wall is magnetic. When Tim and Olivia add a bunch of metal to find the strongest magnetic points, the metal starts to vibrate, then violently shoots back in the other direction, injuring Tim.

Tim and Olivia discover they can drill into the apartment next to theirs. Their neighbors, a couple named Ana and Marvin, are AirBnb guests who are also bricked into their apartment. They are drug users, and in their panic that they are going to die, do even more drugs. Later, Tim and Olivia hear sounds of struggle from Ana and Marvin’s apartment. They drill a hole big enough to enter, and find Ana bleeding. Marvin attacks Tim, and they restrain him. However, Ana insists Marvin was not trying to hurt her. Ana says she was trying to break down the wall and accidentally hit Marvin.

Tim and Olivia discover a sledgehammer in their neighbor’s apartment. Olivia, an architect, has an idea for escaping: Break holes in the floor and get to the basement of the building, where there is an old WWII bomb shelter that should have a tunnel connecting to the subway. Using the hammer, they break a hole into the floor, and make it to the first floor. In this apartment, they find an old man Mr. Oswalt, and his granddaughter. Though initially he threatens the intruders with a gun, Tim and Olivia convince Mr. Oswalt to help them get to the basement.

However, in Mr. Oswalt’s apartment, Tim discovers hidden cameras in the smoke detectors. They break into the landlord’s apartment, which is next door to Mr. Oswalt. There, they find the landlord, Mr. Friedman, dead, in a pool of blood, with bloody stumps on the end of both arms, and his hands nowhere to be found. They also discover Mr. Friedman’s creepy room full of monitors, where he apparently records and watches his tenants’ every move.

The group decides to keep going to try to reach the bomb shelter. They smash a hole into the basement apartment, where they encounter a conspiracy theorist named, Yuri, who believes the wall is there to protect them all from something, possibly some sort of chemical weapon that has been deployed in the outside world. Yuri says that his roommate Anton, a programmer, drove himself into a frenzy trying to “figure out” the brick wall. Yuri claims Anton had a weak heart, drove himself to a heart attack, and died.

Yuri tries to discourage the group from trying to escape, but they keep going anyhow. However, when they finally get to the bomb shelter tunnel that leads to the subway station, they discover yet another black brick wall. In despair, Marvin shoots at the wall. Just as the magnetized metal did at the beginning of the movie, the bullets hover, and then fly back in the opposite direction. Mr. Oswalt is not quick enough to duck. He is shot, and killed.

Next, the group decides to pour over Anton’s notes about the wall to see if they can find anything useful. They also make use of Mr. Friedman’s creepy room full of monitors to see if they can find anything useful on the recording. And they do find something useful: Video of Anton that reveals that he did something with his phone and was able to open the wall, for a brief moment. But before he could escape, Yuri choked him to death.

Unfortunately, when the group sees this tape, they have already left Yuri alone with Mr. Oswalt’s granddaughter. Yuri kills her, and burns all of Anton’s remaining notes on the wall. The group restrains Yuri, and he confesses that Anton worked for the company that designed the Nanotech bricks, which were being developed as a prototype defense system against various atomic, biological, and chemical attacks. Anton believed the walls were malfunctioning, because of the big fire across town. Yuri believes the threat is real, and the walls are keeping them safe.

Once Yuri is restrained, Tim studies the tape and realizes Anton program his phone to use the wall as a QR code reader. Tim is able to recreate the program, and using the program, he taps on certain square bricks as “buttons” on his phone. Each button makes a certain number of lights go off. The lights cause a reaction on the door, and it dissolves into a sort of opaque, shimmery mist. Ana sticks her arm in, and gets stuck. While trying to pull herself out, Ana’s whole torso gets stuck. Then the brick wall starts to re-solidify. Ana’s body is brutally split in two, and she dies. Now we know what happened to Mr. Friedman’s hands! He, too, must have watched the tape and tried to copy Anton’s escape method.

In despair, Marvin kills Yuri, and then himself. Now it’s just Tim and Olivia. Before they decide to try again, they clear the air on the whole miscarriage thing: Olivia felt abandoned by Tim when she needed him most. Tim felt he had to close himself off in order not to fall apart completely.

Brick 2025 movie ending explained:

With that pesky emotional catharsis out of the way, Tim and Olivia watch the tape again to determine the correct order to press the buttons, to make the right light flashes go off at the right time. However, before they can press the buttons themselves, they are attacked by Yuri. It turns out he’s not dead after all!

A big chase and fight ensues. Tim and Olivia end up back in front of the brick wall that closed off the bomb shelter tunnel. Tim fights off Yuri, and tells Olivia to open the wall using the code, and she does. Tim shouts for Olivia to leave without home, but she doesn’t. Instead, she smashes Yuri in the head with a sledgehammer. She helps Tim up, and together the couple escapes through the tunnel.

Tim and Olivia are able to reach the outside world. There, they discover that not just their building, but all of the b uildings in the city are covered with the strange black brick. The streets seem abandon. Oh, man. Is there a chemical weapon after all?

Nope! In the very last scene of the film, Tim and Olivia steal a car. On the car radio, we hear a news report claim that this whole thing was a malfunction of the nanotech security system, due to the fire. There was never any danger in the outside world. Anton was right, and Yuri was wrong. Glad we cleared that up!