‘Run Rabbit Run’ Ending Explained: What That Ambiguous Ending Means

Run Rabbit Run is Netflix’s latest attempt to give its subscribers nightmares. The new Australian horror movie, which began streaming today, stars Sarah Snook (aka Shiv from Succession) alongside the world’s creepiest child, played by the talented young newcomer Lily LaTorre. Seriously, this child is terrifying. At one point, she says, “I miss people I’ve never met all the time,” which is definitely one of the top ten scariest thing a little kid could possibly say.

Directed by Daina Reid, with a screenplay written by Hannah Kent, Run Rabbit Run first premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Like many psychological horror films before it, Run Rabbit Run comes with an eerie, ambiguous ending that may leave some viewers scratching their heads in confusion. If that was you, don’t worry: Decider is here to help. Read on for our analysis of the Run Rabbit Run plot summary and the Run Rabbit Run ending explained. Major spoilers ahead, obviously.

Run Rabbit Run plot summary:

Sarah (Sarah Snook) is a single mother grieving the recent death of her father. Sarah’s daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre) seems to have taken the death of her grandfather particularly hard. Mia begins demanding to visit her grandmother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), despite the fact that Mia has never met her, due to Sarah’s estrangement from her mother. Sarah finally does take Mia to the assisted living facility to meet her grandmother.

Sarah is told by staff Joan has dementia. As soon as Joan sees Mia, she begins sobbing and calling her Alice. Mia returns her embrace and tells her grandmother that she’s back. After that incident, Mia insists that her name is Alice.

We eventually learn that Alice is the name of Sarah’s sister, who went missing when she was 7 years old. It’s implied that Alice perhaps bullied Sarah, which is why she’s so sensitive to other children bullying Mia. Mia begs to see her grandmother again and after a conversation with Mia’s father Peter (Damon Herriman), Sarah agrees. This time, Joan is lucid, does not call Mia “Alice,” and seems confused and upset by Mia’s proclamation that she is Alice. It’s also revealed that Joan still believes Alice will someday come back.

Sarah takes Mia to the house where she grew up, with the intention of cleaning it out and selling it now that her dad is gone. Mia breaks into Alice’s old room and begins wearing Alice’s old clothes. Mia also keeps drawing disturbing drawings and getting nosebleeds. Speaking as “Alice,” Mia accuses Sarah of locking her up while the sisters were playing hide ‘n’ seek.

Sarah begins to lose her grip on reality. She hallucinates seeing blood on herself and on Mia. In one particularly scary incident, she sees a deep gash on Mia’s forehead and attempts to cut her hair to get a better look. She ends up slashing Mia’s arms before she realizes the gash is not real.

Run Rabbit Run ending explained:

In a flashback/dream sequence, it’s revealed that Sarah was the bully, not Alice. On the day Alice “disappeared,” Sarah locked her sister in a tool cabinet. After letting her out, Alice began to choke Sarah. Sarah hit Alice in the head with a metal tool. Alice ran to the edge of the cliff on their property, her forehead bleeding. Then Sarah pushed her sister over the cliff and killed her. She told her parents that Alice ran away. That’s why she became estranged from her mother—because of the guilt.

Sarah wakes up from the dream/flashback and finds herself scratching the floor, and Peter banging on the door. Mia is missing. Her parents frantically run around the property looking for her. For a split second, Sarah believes Mia has drowned in the river. But then they find Mia curled up safely on the shore. Phew!

After the incident, Sarah tries to confess to her mother that she killed Alice, but she can’t bring herself to do it. She returns home and crawls into bed next to Mia, and apologizes to her, as Alice, for hurting her and for lying. The next day, Mia sneaks out of bed, and Sarah follows her. In the last scene of the movie, Sarah watches in horror from the window as Mia meets up with another little girl outside. It’s Alice. Mia and Alice hold hands, as Sarah screams her daughter’s name. The two girls walk away, and with that, the movie ends.

So what does it mean? Run Rabbit Run wisely does not try to over-explain, and leaves it up to the audience to interpret that ambiguous ending. But the way I see it, there are two possible explanations. The first is that it was all in Sarah’s head. Her guilt over losing her sister resurfaced, and she imagined her daughter making all of those accusations as “Alice.”

The second explanation is that the ghost of Alice is real, and came back to haunt Sarah by befriending her daughter. Presumably, the ghost of Alice told Mia everything, and perhaps was even possessing Mia, causing those nose bleeds.

Again, the movie leaves it up to you to decide. Have fun with it.