Madelines (2022) Plot Summary & Ending Explained

A more sympathetic copy, Madeline 51, refuses to let the killing continue. She frees Owen, brings him to their investor Rory’s house, and convinces him to try sending him back in time to stop the original experiment. The plan goes horribly wrong: the machine throws Owen into the future instead of the past, dumping him into the desert where the first Madeline had vanished. There he finds the battered Madeline 115, the self‑appointed leader of the spawns, waiting to finish what Owen has done to her countless sisters.

In a brutal climax, Owen attacks Madeline 115, leaving the scar that later marks her face in the present‑day scenes. She retaliates, stabbing him to death. As his body disappears, another version of Owen spawns beside him, surrounded by an endless line of Madelines marching toward him with knives raised – a visual echo of the endless loop the machine has created.

The film closes with a brief “before” tableau: the original Madeline stands at the control panel, about to trigger the experiment, when a future version of herself steps out of the time vortex and pulls the plug. This fleeting glimpse suggests that the only way to break the nightmare is for a future Madeline to stop the first test, but it leaves the audience unsure whether Owen ever survives in any timeline. The ending thus folds the story back on itself, emphasizing how the reckless pursuit of time travel spawns endless copies of tragedy, each trying to rewrite the same fatal moment.