‘The Woman in the Window’ Ending Explained: Amy Adams’s Thriller Ends With A Twist

Warning: This article contains major The Woman in the Window spoilers. Surely you knew that when you clicked on it, right?

Amy Adams will give you plenty to chew on in her new, twisty thriller, The Woman in the Window, which began streaming on Netflix today.

Based on the 2018 novel of the same name by A. J. Finn.—aka Daniel Mallory, aka that writer who came under fire in 2019 for lying to his colleagues about his personal life—The Woman in the Window is reminiscent of an old-school Alfred Hitchcock movie. And that’s not just because the movie shares a premise with Hitchcock’s Rear Window, though certainly, that’s a factor. Director Joe Wright never lets up on the suspense, and a gripping performance from Adams will have you on the edge of the seat from start to finish.

That said, like any Hitchcockian thriller, The Woman in the Window comes with a plot twist—several of them, actually. By the time you get to the final scene, you may find yourself a bit lost trying to keep track of who did what, who was pretending to be whom, and why so-and-so murdered someone else. Never fear, because Decider is here to help. Read on for The Woman in the Window plot summary and The Woman in the Window ending, explained.

What is The Woman in the Window plot summary?

Anna Fox (Amy Adams) is a child psychologist who suffers from severe agoraphobia. She spends her days holed up inside of her New York City apartment in Harlem, sometimes talking on the phone with her husband Ed (Anthony Mackie) and their young daughter Olivia (Mariah Bozeman), who live somewhere else and never seem to visit. She has a tenant named David (Wyatt Russell) who lives downstairs and brings her groceries.

Anna starts spying on the neighbors who move in across the street, Alistair Russell (Gary Oldman) and his family. Anna’s psychologist, Dr. Landy (Tracy Letts) takes this as a positive—her curiosity is a sign that her depression is ebbing. He also mentions that she’s been taking medication for her depression and agoraphobia and that she has previously attempted to kill herself. Anna fails to mention to her doctor that she has a drinking problem, and has been taking her medication with a tall glass of wine.

Anna becomes even more invested in the Russells after she is visiting by 15-year-old son Ethan (Fred Hechinger), and later by the woman whom she believes to be the boy’s mother, Jane Russell (Julianne Moore). She begins to suspect, from hints from both Ethan and Jane, that Alistair is an abusive father and husband. One night, while Jane is in a drunken and medicated haze, she witnesses the Russells fighting. Using a telescopic camera lens, she clearly sees the woman she believes is Jane Russell stabbed with a knife. She does not see who does it.

Anna calls the police, then stumbles fearfully into the street in an attempt to help Jane. But she is hit by a car, and wakes up in her apartment to two NYPD detectives (Brian Tyree Henry and Jeanine Serralles) who claim that Anna raised a false alarm. Alistair arrives and tells Anna that not only is his wife fine but that Anna has never met his wife. As proof, he brings her out. Now Jane Russell is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh—very much not the Julianne Moore version of Jane Russell that Anna met earlier. Even the teenager Ethan insists that Anna has never met his mom, and expresses concern for Anna’s mental well-being.

Anna spends a few weeks trying to prove she is not crazy by finding out everything she can about Alistair Russell. She discovers that Alistair had an assistant named Pamela Nazin who recently died, supposedly by falling from her terrace. She also discovers an earring—an earring she remembers the Julianne Moore version of Jane Russell wearing—in the room of her tenant, David. David, by the way, is apparently on parole and is living out of state illegally. He gets extremely aggressive with Anna when she accidentally discovers this.

It’s all very suspicious, but the deeper Anna goes, the less mentally stable she seems. Could it be that this was all in her head?

What is The Woman in the Window plot twist? How does The Woman in the Window end?

There are a few The Woman in the Window plot twists. The first comes after someone sends Anna a threatening email with an attached photo of her sleeping. In a confrontation with the police, Allistair, David, and the real Jane Russell, we learn that Anna’s family is dead. You know that husband and child that Anna talks to on the phone? It turns out they died in a car crash. Anna was driving, and survived. Her husband and child did not.

Anna apologizes to everyone for the trouble she’s caused. Because she realizes she was having imaginary conversations with her dead family, she assumes she has been imagining everything. Everyone forgives her, she confesses she’s been having a rough time to her psychologist, and that should be the end of the story… But it’s not.

Anna makes a new plan to kill herself and records a video goodbye letter in order to make sure her tenant David is not blamed for her death. But while looking at photos on her phone, Anna sees something: a reflection of a woman in a wine glass on the day that Julianne Moore visited. Aha! She didn’t imagine it after all!

Anna shows the photo to David. David confesses he had a one-night stand with Julianne Moore, whose real name is Katie. Katie is Ethan’s birth mother, and she ran away from Alistair Russell when she was eight months pregnant. Alistair found Katie and his son two years later in a meth house, and took Ethan. Katie went to prison, but eventually came back and wanted to see Ethan. Ethan and Alistair have been hiding from her. Katie is the woman that Anna witnessed being stabbed.

Having fulfilled his purpose as a red herring, David declines to go to the police with Anna and leaves. Then Anna hears something that makes her blood run cold—a sneeze. It’s Ethan, the son, who once said he was allergic to Anna’s cat. Dun dun dun!

What is The Woman in the Window ending explained?

The final Woman in the Window plot twist is that the killer was never Alistair Russell—it was his 15-year-old son Ethan.

Ethan descends on Anna with a knife in hand and explains that he killed David as payback for sleeping with his mom (Julianne Moore) and bringing her back into his life. Ethan also confesses that he killed his mother (again, Julianne Moore), and has been secretly living in Anna’s house for a week. He is the one who sent a photo of her sleeping.

Ethan also confesses that he killed before that, too—including his dad’s assistant, Pam—and had been planning to kill Anna since the time his family moved across the street. He watched Anna film her goodbye video and had been looking forward to watching her die. He’s a creepy little serial killer in the making! In a very Vertigo-esque sequence, Anna runs to the roof of her building. A tension-filled fight ensues, but, eventually, Anna gets the better of Ethan and pushes him through her glass sunroof. He falls and dies.

Anna wakes up in a hospital. The police detective (Brian Tyree Henry) apologizes for not believing her. Apparently, the real Jane Russell (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has confessed everything about her serial killer son, and authorities found the body of Katie (Julianne Moore). Anna is no longer a suspect. The detective allows Anna to delete her suicide video from her phone, to spare her the embarrassment of the video getting out.

The final scene of the film is an epilogue that takes place nine months later. Anna is moving out of her apartment, and she says a final goodbye to the home. “I miss you,” she says, and we understand she is talking to her dead family; the ones who used to live in that apartment with her. She steps out of her front door and into a taxi, now finally able to leave that chapter of her life behind.

What is The Woman in the Window book ending?

The Woman in the Window book ending is reasonably similar to The Woman in the Window movie ending. There have been some changes made from book to movie—one of the biggest being the involvement of Wyatt Russell’s character, David. Though he does exist in the novel, David is not present for the big reveal that Anna is not crazy, and he never is killed by Ethan. Another change is that, in the book, Ethan tells Anna his adopted mother Jane was the one who killed Katie, rather than Ethan himself killing Katie. But the basic plot stays the same: Anna’s family is dead, Ethan is the killer, he and Anna have a showdown, and Ethan falls through a glass sunroof.

Phew. Did you get all of that? To summarize, Amy Adams was suffering from agoraphobia and delusions as she processed the death of her family, but she really did witness a murder. Now she can finally go outside—and so should you.

Watch The Woman in the Window on Netflix