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Warning! Spoilers ahead for the 2026 Wuthering Heights movie!
Let’s unpack the ending of Wuthering Heights for everyone still trying to catch their breath after the movie is over. For everyone wondering why Cathy and Heathcliff’s romance ended the way it did, let’s examine the filmmakers’ decisions, including how this incarnation of Wuthering Heights compares to past versions, and the novel.
The latest 21st-century film based on Emily Brontë’s 19th-century novel makes some drastic updates to the source material.
When it comes to the ending, though, the new Wuthering Heights stays pretty faithful to Brontë’s vision. That includes preserving the novel’s most haunting, emotionally evocative moment, as Heathcliff mourns Cathy right after her death.
What Happens To Cathy And Heathcliff At The End Of The New Wuthering Heights Movie?
The Emotional Final Moments Of The Film, Explained
First, to briefly recap what happens at the end of writer/director Emerald Fennell’s 2026 Wuthering Heights adaptation. Catherine, played by Margot Robbie, becomes pregnant with her husband Edgar’s child. This leads her lover, Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff, to marry another woman, Isabella. Catherine spirals into depression, and complications from a miscarriage prove fatal.
At the end of the movie, Heathcliff races to see Cathy before she dies, but arrives too late. He can only cradle her body and, in the film’s biggest emotional gutpunch, cry out for her to haunt him for the rest of his days. From there, Wuthering Heights flashes back to an earlier moment in the film, from Cathy and Heathcliff’s childhood.
That is, the movie chronologically ends with Heathcliff clinging to the lifeless Cathy, who is now the great lost love of his life. It’s a resonant climax, because it reflects the big and small tragedies that make up life, many of which share a similar theme: there’s always more time, until one day there isn’t.
There’s More To Heathcliff & Cathy’s Story In The Wuthering Heights Novel
Why The Movie Ends Where It Does
The creative decision to leave Heathcliff mourning Cathy, and end with a moment that reaffirms their “true love” status, is an important one. Because there’s more to the story in Emily Brontë’s novel, and in many of the previous film adaptations of the book. But Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights wisely chose not to go beyond the threshold of Cathy’s death.
In the book, Heathcliff does make it to Catherine before she dies, and rather than a miscarriage, she gives birth to a daughter, also named Cathy. From that point on, Wuthering Heights becomes a generational tragedy. A story about the tragic aftermath of Catherine’s death, which play out over the course of decades.
Like Wuthering Heights 2026, many previous screen versions focus on Cathy and Heathcliff’s ill-fated romance. However, earlier films have often go a step beyond Cathy’s death to show Heathcliff’s as well, in one form or another. This is frequently followed by the couple’s spiritual reunion, something the modern version has no interest in.
The New Wuthering Heights Movie Ends With Cathy’s Death For Good Reason
Wuthering Heights (2026) Is Laser-Focused On Heathcliff & Cathy’s Love Story
The new Wuthering Heights has received somewhat mixed reviews so far, but there is one thing it nails: Heathcliff’s grief over Cathy’s body at the end. This is the moment that takes the story from an above-average Victorian era tragic romance to an epic, Shakespearean level. It is a perfect climax for their doomed love story.
A Wuthering Heights TV adaptation, or a sequel, could suitably take the story beyond that moment in a satisfying way. For a film, by contrast, the goal is to distill the story down to the essence that has kept it relevant for over 150 years. That is Cathy and Heathcliff’s story.The latest film version gets that.
Cathy Is The Central Character Of Wuthering Heights; Ending With Her Death Was The Right Move
Wuthering Heights Hinges On Margot Robbie’s Performance
Catherine’s death is the defining tragedy of Wuthering Heights. Yet even the original novel operates at a certain distance from the character. In Emily Brontë’s novel, Cathy and Heathcliff’s story is told by another character, the servant Nelly, a frame story that most films, the new one included, omit completely.
Making Catherine’s death the end of the story is a step toward centering her. Still, the make or break part of Wuthering Heights 2026 is whether it can make viewers emotionally invest in Cathy as a character while she’s alive, in order for her death to be a tragedy for the audience, rather than just for Heathcliff.
The Latest Cinematic Take On Wuthering Heights Will Be Remembered For Its Ending
A Fitting Finale For Jacob Elordi & Margot Robbie’s Version Of The Classic Tale
Adapting a novel like Wuthering Heights is a challenge. It has been put on screen by every generation of filmmakers, often multiple times. How does a filmmaker deliver the familiar story while offering something new to the audience? Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights achieves this, even if not all viewers are thrilled with how.
How Fennell stages the ending, and where she leaves the characters, is among the film’s stand-out moments. In a movie that consciously evokes a bygone era of cinema, while striving to make the tragedy of Wuthering Heights contemporary, the closing sequence feels like a key to understanding the director’s vision for the timeless story of Heathcliff and Cathy.
Heathcliff cursing himself to be haunted by Cathy’s ghost is an effective, but passing moment in Wuthering Heights, the novel. It has been adapted for the screen before, but for Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie’s versions of Heathcliff and Cathy, it is their defining image. It is the thing fans of the film will hold on to years after seeing Wuthering Heights.
