‘All of Us Strangers’ Ending Explained: The Meaning Behind That Morbid Plot Twist

All of Us Strangers is now streaming on Hulu, and it’s a beautiful movie that will rip your heart right out of your chest. So, you know, make sure you’re prepared for that before you hit play!

Written and directed by Andrew High, the movie is loosely based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada. It’s a sort of quiet, fragile ghost story, about a lonely gay man who lost both of his parents in a car crash at the age of 12. The small cast features four phenomenal performances from Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, and Claire Foy.

Even though the movie was snubbed in the U.S. by the Academy Awards (I will avenge you, Andrew Scott!) it earned six BAFTA Award nominations across the pond, including a nomination for Outstanding British Film. (Which is like the British Best Picture.) All of Us Strangers was named by many critics as one of the best films of 2023, and if you didn’t get a chance to watch in theaters, you’ll definitely want to stream the movie on Hulu.

But be warned: All of Us Strangers comes with a twist ending that is devastating and, at times, confusing. Read on for a full breakdown of the All of Us Strangers ending explained, including analysis from the writer/director himself. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

All of Us Strangers plot summary:

Adam (Andrew Scott) is a writer who lives alone in London in a one-bedroom apartment, attempting to work on a script about his late parents. He’s not just alone in the apartment—he’s alone in nearly the entire building, which isn’t officially open yet, but has allowed a few select tenants to move in early. After a fire alarm causes Adam and one of his few neighbors to evacuate the building, that neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), pays Adam a visit.

Harry knocks on Adam’s door, wasted and drinking a bottle of Japanese liquor. Harry reveals he hates the quiet in the building, and asks to come into Adam’s apartment, for a drink… or for something more. “There are vampires at my door,” he tells Adam. But Adam turns him away.

After Harry’s visit, Adam decides to visit his old childhood home in the country. There, to his amazement, he finds both of his parents alive and as young as they were when he was a child growing up in the ’80s. He knows that’s impossible, as they both died in a car crash when he was 12. But he has dinner with them, has a lovely time, and promises to visit again.

Back in the apartment building, Adam runs into Harry again. This time, Adam invites Harry back to his place. The two men fall into a passionate love affair. Adam spends his time split between his new romance with Harry, and visiting the ghosts of his parents. After he and Harry have sex, Adam works up the courage to come out to his parents—but they don’t react well.

Harry reveals to Adam that even though he’s younger than Adam—and therefore grew up in a world more accepting of gay people—he still feels like an outsider in his family, and isn’t close with them. Harry and Adam go to a club together and do ketamine. Adam wakes up in his parents’ home. Then, he finds himself back in the city, back at the club. He is losing all sense of time and reality. He finally wakes up at his apartment, with Harry. Harry tells Adam it’s still the same day that they went to the club, and that Adam had a panic attack, so he took him home.

Adam brings Harry to his childhood home in the country but finds the house dark and empty. Harry, seemingly concerned for Adam’s sanity, wants to go home. When Adam peers in the window, he sees his mom and dad inside. He taps on the glass, pleading, “Let me in.” He wakes up in his parent’s house the next morning. They tell him that they saw Harry, but couldn’t let him in, because “it doesn’t work like that.” They also tell him it’s time to stop visiting. Their ghosts are interfering with Adam’s life, and he needs to move on.

Adam doesn’t want to say goodbye, but he does it anyhow. He takes his parents to his favorite diner and orders the family special. His parents express approval of Adam’s relationship with Harry, and they tell Adam that they love him. Mom makes Adam promise to try to make it work with Harry. Adam promises, and then his parents disappear for good.

All of Us Strangers ending explained:

Adam returns to his building and takes the elevator to Harry’s floor. But as soon as the elevator doors open, Adam senses something is off. He enters Harry’s apartment and is met with a horrible smell. He finds drugs and alcohol in the living room, and he finds Harry’s dead body on the bed, in the bedroom. The body has been dead for a while. He’s wearing the outfit and clutching the same bottle of alcohol that he was the night he and Adam met. Adam realizes that Harry must have died that night from a drug and alcohol overdose. His relationship with Harry, like his relationship with his parents, has been with a ghost.

Harry’s ghost enters the apartment and seems to only just realize in this moment that he is dead. Adam guides a distraught Harry up to his apartment, so he doesn’t have to look at his own corpse. Harry confesses that he is scared. Adam comforts him, and positions Harry in the same pose that he found his body—then hugs him from behind. Harry asks Adam to put on a record because he hates the silent. Adam quotes the song that was playing when he first met Harry, “The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which begins to play.

“I’ll protect you from the hooded claw, keep the vampires from your door,” Adam tells Harry. The song plays on, and the camera zooms out as Adam holds Harry’s body, which looks more stiff and corpse-like. The camera continues to zoom out until Adam and Harry become just a light, like a star in the night sky.

What does the All of Us Strangers ending mean?

Whew! That one was a doozy, right? There are a few ways to interpret the All of Us Strangers ending. I’ve seen a few theories that the entire story was just Andrew’s screenplay, which we see him writing at the beginning of the movie. For the record, while director Andrew Haigh has said he’s fine with that theory, that’s not his interpretation.

In an interview for RogerEbert.com, Haigh explained that he sees two possibilities for the movie: Either Adam the one who imagined both his parents and Harry, as a way to cope with his loneliness; or all the characters were imagining each other simultaneously.

“I did feel that Harry is a reflection of what Adam needs,” Haigh said. “I mean, if Adam has conjured up his parents, he’s also conjured up Harry. Or they’ve all conjured each other up. There are two ways I always saw it: Adam has conjured up everybody, or all of them have conjured up themselves from the ether to deal with their loss. All of them want the same things, and they’re all teaching each other the same kind of compassion.”

As for that tragic, twist ending, Haigh said that he hopes audiences can view it as hopeful—as a sign that Adam can move on from these ghosts, and start living his life. “The importance of that ending is that, once you’ve found love, you can find it again. Love remains. I don’t find that devastating. I’m always intrigued about who does and who doesn’t, because I think it says a lot about the life they’ve had. At a certain time, queer people lost their partners very, very young. And they really did lose them, and it was horrendous. Their love was important during that time, and they have gone on to love again. That was always on my mind. “

In a different interview with Time, Haigh further explained how Adam’s visions of his parents and his visions of his relationship with Harry informed each other.

“When he doesn’t let Harry into the apartment, the desperate longing that Adam has to connect with someone brings his parents back into existence,” Haigh explained. “There’s a subconscious longing that needs help in order to move forward. They feed on each other. Seeing his parents again, and feeling that warmth and comfort, allows him to then want to connect with Harry. But having sex with Harry feeds into what becomes the next scene with the parents, which is when he comes out to his mom.”

With this information from Haigh, I think we can view Adam as, basically, the sole living character in the movie, working through his grief and his loneliness with the help of some ghosts. But the conversations he has with these ghosts are real. Maybe Adam has the same “I can see dead people” powers as the kid in The Sixth Sense. Or maybe these particular ghosts just found a way to communicate with Adam. Either way, I’m crying.

Oh, and as for the song by Frankie Goes to Hollywood? Haigh chose that because it’s a personal favorite. “Because that song is about protection and comfort,” Haigh told RogerEbert.com when asked why it was the perfect song for Adam and Harry. “I bought that LP in 1984. I was 12, not realizing my sexuality fully, and I’d play that song over and over, in my bedroom. I would sing it, endlessly. It did something to me when I was 12. As I was writing the script, I knew what the song had to be.”