Greek filmmakerYorgos Lanthimosis known for his unique style, with multiple Oscar-nominated movies featuring deadpan protagonists and baroque black comedy. With his ninth directed feature,Kinds Of Kindness, releasing on July 14, 2025, many are looking back on Lanthimos' other projects, including his mind-bending 2017 horror-thriller,The Killing of a Sacred Deer. StarringColin Farrell(who also led Lanthimos’The Lobster),Nicole Kidman, andBarry Keoghan,The Killing of a Sacred Deertells the story of a doctor named Steven (Farrell), who introduces his family to a perplexing young man named Martin (Keoghan), and subsequently finds his children falling ill from a mysterious sickness. So, after all the bleeding eyes and eerie spaghetti dinners,how doesThe Killing of a Sacred Deerfinally end, and who survives?
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
What Is Yorgos Lanthimos' ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ About?
The Killing of a Sacred Deercenters on the cardiothoracic surgeon Steven Murphy, who has a chance encounter with the peculiar teenager Martin Lang. Although he is initially disturbed by Martin’s strange behavior, Steve feels an obligation to take care of the boy because he feels partially responsible for the death of Martin’s father, on whom he performed open-heart surgery a few years prior. Although Steven initially only offers to give him temporary help,Martin slowly begins toinfiltrate the Murphy family.He forms a particular fascination with Steven’s daughter, Kim (Raffey Cassidy), which disturbs his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman).
Like inmany of Yorgos Lanthimos' projects,The Killing of a Sacred Deercreates tension by showing the lack of emotion within its characters.Understandably, Steven does not often express his feelings, as he does not want to distress any patients who trust him with their lives. However, the fact that he takes this approach to every aspect of his life leaves his family unable to address any sense of dysfunction. This explains why Martin’s odd comments never seem to disturb Steven; after Martin fails to make Steven uncomfortable by discussing why his mother finds him attractive, he begins developing more psychotic tendencies.
Barry Keoghan’s Martin Infiltrates Colin Farrell’s Family in ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’
The real dilemma inThe Killing of a Sacred Deercomes whenMartin then tells Steven that he is there to “balance things” by forcing him to kill a member of his family. Anna discovers through Steven’s partner, Matthew (Bill Camp), that Steven was likely drunk during Martin’s father’s surgery — explaining how Martin sees this as a means of providing equal punishment. Martin tells him that his family will become sick, and will all eventually die if Steven does not make a decision. Subsequently, Kim and Steven, son Bob (Sunny Suljic) are unable to eat, and begin to ingest food through feeding tubes, and later lose their ability to walk and instead drag themselves across the floor with their hands.
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After Anna chastises her husband for not adequately dealing with the situation, Steven decides to kidnap Martin and tie him up in their basement.Although Steven ends up shooting Martin in the leg, this does not elicit any reaction. Steven realizes he has to follow Martin’s game, and a dispute among the family starts, as they argue over who Steven actually prefers. Lanthimos even injects some moments ofhis signature dark humor, as Steven asks the principal of his children’s school which of his children has the most potential. Anna even suggests that he kills one of the children, as she could easily bear another baby. Eventually,Bob begins bleeding from his eyes, with Martin saying that he is only hours away from death.
From a nuts-and-bolts storytelling standpoint, Lanthimos and co-writerEfthymis Filippou’s screenplay has its characters say exactly what’s going to happen and then proceeds to let it happen. And thankfully, thefilm is not interested in the mechanics of how Martin can mystically will this family to undergo these horrors. While the film ramps up its pace as Steven tries to stop Martin’s actions, even resorting to kidnapping and torture, there is never a plot to uncover the “how” of his actions. There is nogrand conspiracy, no examination of Martin’s past, no revelation of mythological superpowers.
Who Does Steven Kill in ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’?
Steven refuses to choose which of his family members to kill, ultimately deciding that the best course of action is to have his family sit around him in a circle while he blindly fires a rifle. Steven spins around with a hat covering his eyes,firing randomly and eventually hitting Bob, killing him. Although he’s heartbroken, Steven does not feel responsible for Bob’s death, as he did not “choose” what happened. In the final scene, we see the Murphy family — minus Bob — at a diner. Martin walks in, looks at them without their youngest, and, satisfied, exits the diner and leaves them be. Although there are a few awkward glances between them, there’sno acknowledgment of what actually happened. Once again, the characters are unable to cope with the truth or take any responsibility.
‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ Is Based on a Greek Tragedy
“Fate” is not a word chosen lightly.The Killing of a Sacred Deeris directly concerned with fate, with cosmic punishment of human hubris, and our so-called free will crumbling at the uncaringly cruel hands of the universe. In exploring these themes, the film isreminiscent of amodern update on a Greek tragedy. And wouldn’t you know,The Killing of aSacred Deerisinspired by an ancient Greek tragedy: Euripides’Iphigenia in Aulis(called out by Lanthimos and Filippou directly, in revealing that Kim wrote an essay onIphigeniafor her high school class).
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In the play, part of a trilogy Euripides wrote in his final years on earth, Agamemnon ponders whether to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis, who is purposefully stopping proper winds for Agamemnon’s fleet to successfully complete their invasion of Troy. Unfortunately, Agamemnon’s fatal sin is vanity — after the first wave of battles against Troy, he boasted that he was as skilled a battler as Artemis herself. As you might imagine, Artemis didn’t like that too much, demanding the blood sacrifice to bring Agamemnon back to earth.After a furious debate among his family and fellow generals, Agamemnon decides to go through with the sacrifice, reasoning that angry Greeks eager for victory would kill his entire family if he didn’t.
‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ Improves the Story It’s Based On
In some manuscripts and translations of the play (though it’s up for debate whether it’s part of Euripides' original texts) Agamemnon surprisingly decides to pull a final trick on this plan, replacing his daughter Iphigenia with a sacred deer. Applying this ancient story to Lanthimos' work feels like enough of a direct translation to begin with. Steven is Agamemnon. His sin of hubris translates into Steven’s reckless drinking and displays of wealth.Martin is both Artemis, desiring the balance-restoring sacrifice, and the Grecians, threatening to kill Steven’s familyif he doesn’t go through with said sacrifice. But Lanthimos and Filippou aren’t interested in justadapting this Greek myth.In fact, they’re interested in correcting it.There’sno switch for a sacred deer in the final moments ofThe Killing of a Sacred Deer. There are no tricks, no weaseling out — even though it pains him, and it isn’t his choice, Steven kills his son.
After spending nearly two hours agonizing over how to best the unwavering hand of fate and ignoring the voices of “reason” around him (i.e. his daughter falling in love with Martin and begging to be the one sacrificed),Steven gives in to as pure a fate as he can muster. Namely, he puts on a damn hat and spins in a damn circle to decide who he’ll kill. That’s about as random, as meaningfully meaningless, as admitting subservience to controllers beyond our control as you can get — Artemis wins.
What Does the Ending of ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ Mean?
In several moments of the film, Steven’s family tries to reassert Steven as the man in charge, rather than Martin, to try and pivot to another method of escaping fate. Anna “logically” points out that killing one of the children is a better choice because they can have another. Bob cuts his own hair, placating Steven’s early-film grumblings that his hair is too long. Even in the face of an unblinking God, we humans will search for any Earthly source of relief telling us it’s okay to blink. From the first shot to its last,YorgosLanthimos’TheKilling of a Sacred Deeris here to remind us that the universe will come to collect, and its eyes are forever wide open.
