Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Christophers’ Ending Explained: Why Julian Sklar’s Final Act Changes Everything

Steven Soderbergh’s latest black comedy has audiences talking, and it is not because of a flashy twist. ‘The Christophers’ pits Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel against one another as an aging artist and the forger hired to complete a key project from his past. The film has quietly become one of the year’s most discussed art world dramas, and its finale is the reason why.

Directed by Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025, before arriving in limited US theaters on April 10, 2026, through Neon. With that context in place, here is what actually happens at the end of ‘The Christophers’ and why it lands the way it does.

‘The Christophers’ Plot Explained (Before The Finale)

Julian Sklar is introduced as a once celebrated London painter who completed two series of paintings called ‘The Christophers’ in the 1990s, based on a former lover, while a third series remained unfinished for years. His reputation has faded with age, and his current income comes largely from recording Cameo style videos for fans.

His children Barnaby and Sallie, described as unscrupulous, hire Lori Butler, a young artist who has not exhibited in years, to pose as Julian’s assistant and secretly finish the ‘Christophers’ behind his back so the paintings can be sold for a fortune after his death. Lori is not just any struggling painter either, she has a reputation for forgeries that have quietly hung in museums and sold at auction as originals.

The dynamic gets more complicated once it becomes clear Julian was the same judge who once humiliated a nineteen year old Lori on a reality competition series called ‘Art Fight.’ That history gives Lori a real motive for revenge, which makes her choices later in the film carry far more weight.

What Happens to Julian Sklar and the Unfinished Paintings?

Julian eventually orders Lori to shred the unfinished ‘Christophers’, but instead of destroying the real works she forges doubles of each painting and shreds the fakes in their place. The move is a quiet test of both her loyalty and his resolve, and it does not take long for Julian to catch on.

Sharper than he initially lets on, Julian eventually deduces that Lori is a professional artist working for his children, and once she confesses, their bond only grows stronger as she proves how deeply she understands his work. That shift matters because the film’s climax hinges on Julian burning the original sketches himself, out of spite toward the children circling his estate, rather than letting anyone else profit from them.

Despite ordering others to burn the paintings, Julian himself cannot bring himself to destroy them, and the only way he manages to let go is by finishing the pieces his own way, layering unnatural paint, feathers and glitter onto the canvas specifically so his children cannot cash in on them. It is a petty, funny, and oddly moving solution that fits the film’s tone perfectly.

‘The Christophers’ Ending Explained Through Lori’s Choice

Once the physical sketches are gone, Lori recreates the paintings anyway, turning what began as a mercenary heist into something closer to a tribute. Several reviews stress that the ending intentionally avoids a conventional con movie payoff, with the finale turning on Julian’s refusal to let his unfinished work become an inheritance product and Lori’s shift from hired imitator into something closer to a steward of his legacy.

After Julian’s death, Lori forges a letter in his name granting ownership of the paintings to his muse, and the muse later presents the works at a public exhibition, which restores Julian’s standing in the art world.

At that same exhibition, Lori quietly debuts her own modern art installation built from clips of Julian’s Cameo videos, a gesture that seems to honor him while exposing the private man behind the public persona he curated for so long.

The film closes with Lori receiving a package from Julian’s masseuse containing an unfinished self portrait he had been painting specifically for her, discovered after his death. The painting is signed ‘for Lori’ on the back, leaving the exact nature of their bond intentionally unresolved even as it confirms how much she meant to him.

Themes Behind ‘The Christophers’ Ending

Julian does not exit the film redeemed so much as exposed, forced to reckon with both his fading relevance and the impact he still has on the people around him, while Lori emerges as the story’s moral center without ever becoming a conventional hero. The ending ultimately suggests that art cannot be separated from the people who make it, or from the damage they leave behind, and that ownership in this story is emotional rather than strictly legal.

Critics have generally framed the story as beginning with forgery and ending as an intimate meditation on art, with the relationship between the two leads evolving into an uneasy but lasting connection rather than a clean resolution. The title itself gains extra weight by the finale, since Christopher is revealed to be a real person who mattered deeply to Julian and hurt him, which explains why the paintings sat unfinished for so long and why his first instinct was to bury them.

By the end, Julian fully recognizes Lori’s insight into his work, and that mutual recognition is what the film has been building toward the entire time. The response so far backs that reading up, with the film opening to unusually strong reviews anchored by the McKellen and Coel pairing.

Between Julian’s petty final masterpiece and Lori’s quiet act of devotion, ‘The Christophers’ leaves plenty of room for debate over who really wins in the end, so which character do you think walked away with the truer legacy, Julian or Lori?