Every Ending In The Fast And Furious Movies Explained

Despite functioning for most of its runtime as practically a beat-for-beat Point Break remake, The Fast and the Furious notably diverges from the iconic surfer thriller in its ending. While the 1991 film sees protagonist Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) release sympathetic antagonist Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) only to certain — albeit welcome — death, The Fast and the Furious has its law enforcement hero, Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), let his law-skirting frenemy go free, and even gives him an assist on his way out.

After initially getting close to Dominic "Dom" Toretto (Vin Diesel) only as a means to ferret out the details of his high-speed heist operation, Brian eventually comes to realize that, against his better judgment, he actually cares about Dom and his crew. Although Dom and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) feel betrayed when they learn Brian's true identity, and subsequently attempt to cut ties with him, Brian ultimately chases Dom down in a winner-takes-all quarter-mile drag race, with the implied stakes being that if he wins, Dom will cooperate with being arrested. Instead, even though Dom crashes his car and Brian wins the race, Brian opts to give Dom his own car, allowing him to escape instead of arresting him. The film ends with Dom driving free in Mexico, and Brian having chosen their friendship over his career as a police officer.

The only main Fast and Furious film not to center around Dom or Brian, Tokyo Drift follows teenage problem child Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), who is sent to Tokyo to live with his dad after destroying two cars and most of a subdivision in a drag race in Arizona. However, relocating to a different continent doesn't do much to curb Sean's speedster ways, and he quickly falls in love with the Japanese street racing scene, which takes things up a notch from what Sean is used to thanks to the Japanese drivers' use of drifting, which allows cars to maneuver around curves and corners using controlled skids.

After initially sucking at drifting, Sean eventually masters the skill with the help of a local racer with deep pockets named Han (Sung Kang). Unfortunately, not long after Han has taken Sean under his wing, the Yakuza come after Han for stealing from them. A high-speed chase ensues, and Han is (presumably) killed. The final act of Tokyo Drift sees Sean challenging a member of the Yakuza to a race, which will determine which of them is allowed to remain safely in Tokyo. Using his newfound drifting skills, Sean wins. Now established as the Drift King of Tokyo, Sean continues racing for fun, and the film closes with an American arriving to challenge him to a race — Dominic Toretto, who surprisingly claims that he used to work with Han.

Picking up directly on the heels of Fast & Furious, Fast Five opens with Brian and his accomplices breaking Dom out of prison, and together with Mia, the three of them flee to Rio de Janeiro. By this time, Brian and Mia have rekindled their romance from the first film, and during the course of the film, Mia reveals she's expecting their first child. While in Rio, Dom and Brian hatch a scheme to steal $100 million from a major crime lord, which requires them to recruit a crew to help pull off the heist. This includes Han from Tokyo Drift and Roman from 2 Fast 2 Furious, along with Tej (Ludacris), Gisele (Gal Gadot), Leo (Tego Calderón), and Santos (Don Omar). Meanwhile, Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and local Brazilian police officer Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky) are in pursuit of Brian and Dom, intent on arresting them.

However, after the crime lord's men murder Hobbs' team, he and Elena agree to join forces with Brian and Dom to help with the heist. In a spectacularly theatrical and destructive series of events that involves dragging a safe through the city streets behind fast-moving cars, the group is ultimately successful in stealing the money. After killing the crime lord in retribution, Hobbs agrees to give Brian and Dom a 24-hour head start, provided they leave the money. The duo agree, but only because they've already secretly swapped out the money. The real loot is divvied up amongst the crew, who scatter across the globe, each with a hefty pile of cash. At the end of the film, Dom and Elena (who are now romantically paired) relax on a beach with Brian and Mia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Monica Fuentes from 2 Fast 2 Furious gives Hobbs a file that shows that Letty is actually still alive.

The seventh Fast and the Furious film picks up just a little before the sixth film ends, showing Deckard Shaw stealing files of Dom's crew from Hobbs' office, where he fights and injures Hobbs in the process. Shortly after that, Shaw kills Han in Tokyo, which we previously saw both in the middle of Tokyo Drift and at the end of Fast & Furious 6. As Shaw targets the rest of Dom's crew, a mysterious government operative named Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) offers to help Dom stop Shaw if Dom's team can assist him in recovering a computer tracking program called God's Eye and its creator, a hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), who has been kidnapped by terrorists.

After rescuing Ramsey (who subsequently joins forces with Dom's crew), Dom's team manages to help Nobody stop the terrorists and subdue Shaw, who is taken into custody by Hobbs. In the process, Letty finally regains her memories, revealing that she and Dom actually got married before they parted ways in the fourth film. Meanwhile, Mia has announced that she's pregnant again, and Brian decides that it's time for him to walk away from his dangerous life of heists in order to spend time with his family. The film ends with the crew bidding a fond farewell to Brian as he drives off into the sunset, as Dom thinks back on all the happy memories they've shared together. This ending also served as an emotional eulogy for Paul Walker, who died in an unrelated accident during the film's production.

Following the events of The Fate of the Furious, Deckard Shaw learns that his sister, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) — an MI6 agent — has disappeared along with a programmable supervirus, and is tasked by the CIA to team up with Hobbs in order to find her. However, once they locate Hattie, they learn that she only infected herself with the virus in order to keep it from falling into the artificially enhanced hands of Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a terrorist who has been cybernetically augmented with superstrength. Brixton frames both Shaw siblings along with Hobbs as terrorists, and the trio flees to Hobbs' childhood home in Samoa to figure out their next steps, with the help of his estranged family.

There, they prepare to make their stand against Brixton's organization, Eteon, alongside Hobbs' many brothers. As they work to defeat Brixton and his soldiers, one of Hobbs' brothers figures out how to extract the virus from Hattie, a process which takes up much of the battle but is ultimately successful. After his defeat, Brixton is killed remotely by the unseen director of Eteon, his own organization, who then insinuates that they'll be coming after Hobbs and Shaw. However, Hobbs and Shaw are unintimidated by Eteon's threats, and the film ends with the Shaw siblings breaking their mother out of prison and Hobbs learning about the existence of another, potentially even more dangerous supervirus.