‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Ending Explained: Is Sandra Guilty?

Anatomy of a Fall took home the two Golden Globes on Sunday night: Best Picture – Non-English Language, and also for Best Screenplay. It was a big win for the French courtroom drama, and a good sign for the film’s chances at the Oscars in March. If you want to find out what all the buzz is about, it’s easy to watch Anatomy of a Fall at home. The film is currently available to rent for $5.99, or to buy for $14.99, on digital platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Vudu, and more.

The film, which is in both French and English, was written and directed by French filmmaker Justine Triet. It’s already won the Palme d’Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. But now it’s American award season, and Americans are finally paying attention. The story is a riveting whodunnit, but the Anatomy of a Fall ending may not provide the clarity that viewers are craving.

Don’t worry, because Decider is here to help. Read on for a full analysis of the Anatomy of a Fall ending explained, including whether Sandra killed her husband in Anatomy of a Fall.

Warning: Major Anatomy of a Fall spoilers ahead. Obviously.

Anatomy of a Fall plot:

We meet our protagonist, Sandra (played by Sandra Hüller), in her remote home in the mountains, as she is being interviewed by a student. It’s established that Sandra is an author who often blends fiction with true events from her life—like an accident that rendered her son partially blind. Sandra playfully redirects the student’s questions back at her, asking the student about her life and interests.

The interview is suddenly interrupted by someone blasting an instrumental version of “P.I.M.P.” by 50 Cent. Sandra tells the student it’s her husband, Samuel, who is working on insulating the attic upstairs. At first, they attempt to continue the interview, but then the song restarts, this time even louder. Sandra ends the interview and promises the student she will meet her in the French city of Grenoble soon, to finish up.

As the student leaves in her car, she sees Sandra and Samuel’s son, Daniel (played by Milo Machado Graner) headed out for a walk with his guide dog, Snoop. We follow Daniel on his walk with his dog. When Daniel returns to the house, he and Snoop discover his father’s dead body lying in the snow, a pool of blood around his head. Daniel screams for this mother, and she comes running out, and calls for an ambulance.

From there, the movie plays out as a whodunnit of sorts, but there are only two suspects: Sandra, and Samuel himself. Did Sandra kill her husband? Did he fall accidentally? Or did Samuel kill himself?

Sandra meets with her lawyer, Vincent (Swann Arlaud), and tells him what she told the police: After the student left, she had a calm conversation with Samuel about his day. Then she put in earplugs to get some work done in the bedroom, and fell asleep. She woke up when she heard Daniel screaming for her. Sandra implores her lawyer to believe she did not kill her husband, and that she believes he feel. Vincent responds that it doesn’t matter what he believes, but that no jury would believe that Samuel simply fell. He says their best defense will be that he committed suicide.

Later, after considering what Vincent has said, Sandra calls her lawyer to recall what she believes was a previous suicide attempt: She once came home to find Samuel passed out in his vomit, which contained white spots that Sandra believes were the result of an aspirin overdose. The judge on Sandra’s case already seems to believe that Sandra killed her husband, and asks Daniel some leading questions about whether he heard his parents arguing on the day of his father’s death. Daniel insists that they were not arguing, and that he heard them speaking in calm voices. He tells the judge that while he does leave the house when his parents argue, he simply felt like a walk on that particular day. He says he was outside the open bedroom window when he heard them talking, and he was sure it was not a fight.

The judge does not believe Daniel’s claims, and he recreates the scene—with the loud music playing—with Daniel standing below the window outside. When Daniel is unable to hear the conversation during the reenactment, he tells the judge he made a mistake, and that he was actually inside when he heard them talking, not outside. In another blow to Sandra, the judge tells her that all of the evidence and testimony will be translated to French, because that’s “easier for everyone.” Sandra, who is German, is not fluent in French and always spoke to her husband in English. To have her words translated means she has even less control over her testimony.

Things really start looking bad for Sandra when it’s revealed that authorities discovered a recorded argument between Sandra and her husband, recorded the day before his death. Sandra didn’t tell her lawyer about the argument because she hadn’t realized Samuel was recording it. Before the recording was recovered, Sandra said she got bruises on her arm from bumping the counter. After the recording comes out, she admits she got the bruising in the fight.

Because Daniel is a key witness in the court case, the court assigns a “court monitor” to stay with Daniel, to make sure Sandra does not try to influence his testimony. Sandra is ordered to only speak to her son in French while the court monitor, Marge (played by Jehnny Beth) is there. During the trial, Daniel is forced to hear many upsetting things about his parents’ marriage and his father’s mental health. He learns of his father’s medication and his therapy sessions. He learns of the alleged suicide attempt. He hears about how his father, also a writer, resented his mother for being more successful, and how he felt she ought to help him parent Daniel more to give him more time to write. And he hears the recording of an explosive argument between his parents, which ends in violence.

Before the verdict, the judge announces that Daniel insists on making one final testimony on Monday. Over the weekend, Daniel requests that his mom leave the house. She goes to a hotel, leaving Marge to watch over Daniel. In the middle of the night, Daniel feeds aspirin to Snoop, causing him to go unresponsive. In a panic, Daniel calls for Marge and she quickly Googles how to make dogs vomit (salt water!). They manage to force Snoop to vomit, and the dog recovers.

Daniel tells Marge that he fed Snoop aspirin because he recalls a time that he found Snoop nearly unresponsive and that he smelled like vomit. At the time, Daniel assumed that Snoop was sick and vomited himself. But after watching how Snoop behaved after eating the aspirin—the exact same way he had been before, including the lethargy and the excessive water drinking—he thinks maybe Snoop had previously eaten his father’s vomit. Thus, this seems to verify the theory that Samuel was suicidal, and once attempted to take his own life via an aspirin overdose. He admits he wasn’t sure if he believed his mother before, but now he feels she’s telling the truth.

In the court, Daniel recounts his experiment with the dog. The prosecutor dismisses the experiment because it was not done in a controlled setting. But Daniel has one more thing to say to the jury: A story about his dad driving his dog to the vet, when Snoop was sick. Daniel says his father told him that he should be prepared for Snoop to die someday. He recalls his dad saying, “He’s not just any dog. He’s a great dog. An outstanding dog. […] He spends his life imagining your needs, thinking about what you can’t see. Maybe he’s tired. Always caring for others. Maybe one day, he’ll be done.” Daniel tells the jury he believes his father was talking about himself.

This story from Daniel sways the jury, and Sandra is acquitted. Daniel is not in the courtroom for the verdict. When Sandra calls Marge after the trial and asks to speak to Daniel, she is told he doesn’t want to speak to her. Sandra goes out to dinner to celebrate with her lawyers and admits that she doesn’t feel as relieved as she thought she would feel.

Anatomy of a Fall ending explained:

In the final sequence of the movie, Sandra returns home from drinking with her legal team. Marge the court monitor helps Sandra put her son to bed, and she lets Sandra know that Daniel fell asleep trying to wait up for her. Marge tells Sandra she’ll be taking off, and Sandra seems disappointed that Marge won’t be spending the night. It’s a subtle little indication that Sandra won’t be dedicating more time to her son in the future, despite the fact that his testimony saved her from prison.

After Marge leaves, Daniel tells his mother, in French, that he was afraid of her coming home. Sandra replies, also in French, that she was afraid to come home, too. Sandra hugs Daniel—but in a way that makes it seem like Daniel is the one comforting his mother. Then Sandra goes into her late husband’s office. She looks at an old photo of herself and Samuel, where they look happy. Sandra lies down on the office futon, where she is joined by the dog Snoop. She smiles and hugs Snoop—who, like Daniel, played an important role in winning Sandra’s case—and with that, the movie ends.

Did Sandra kill Samuel in Anatomy of a Fall?

We don’t know, and that’s the point. Much like the jury in the courtroom, the audience will never know for sure whether Sandra did or did not kill Samuel. This purposefully ambiguous ending puts viewers in the position of both Daniel and the jury: We have to decide on what we believe.

It’s exactly what Marge told Daniel when he begged her for help: “When we lack an element to judge something, and the lack is unbearable, all we can do is decide. You see? To overcome doubt, sometimes we have to decide to sway one way rather than the other. Since you need to believe one thing, but have two choices, you must choose.”

Then, when Daniel asks Marge if that means he has to pretend to be sure, when he’s not, Marge replies, “No, I’m saying decide. That’s different.”

By not giving us confirmation on whether Sandra was innocent or not, Justine Triet is saying the same thing to the audience that Marge said to Daniel: You must decide what to believe.

If want the two cents of this film reporter: I believe Sandra did kill her husband, but I believe it was an accident—the result of a violent struggle, like the argument we heard on the tape from the day before his death. After all, Sandra herself told her lawyer that she believes her husband fell, rather than kill himself. I believe Daniel did leave the house that day to take a walk because his parents were fighting, and that he did not witness them speaking in calm voices, as he said. It seems more likely that Daniel simply need to convince himself that his mother was not responsible for his father’s death, in order to cope with that loss.

That said, I also believe Daniel did the right thing in covering for his mother. Her going to prison would leave him parent-less. And it’s clear that, despite faults, Sandra is a good mother to Daniel.

But hey, that’s just what I decided to believe. If you decided to believe something different, let us know in the comments.