Into the Wild - Ending Explained

The film concludes with Chris's tragic death by starvation, accelerated by accidentally eating Hedysarum alpinum (wild potato) seeds that had become toxic due to mold, though the film implies he mistook them for a poisonous lookalike. The true tragedy revealed is that Chris attempted to return to civilization but was trapped by the thawed, impassable Teklanika River. In his final moments, the film uses a blinding white light and a vision of him running into his parents' arms, suggesting a spiritual reconciliation and a final understanding that the connection he fled was the very thing that would have saved him.

Critics and audiences often split into two camps: the Romantic Interpretation, which views Chris as a heroic visionary whose death was a tragic but enlightened accident; and the Cynical Interpretation, which sees him as a selfish, mentally unstable young man whose death was a result of hubris and a lack of respect for nature. Some modern readings also focus on generational trauma, interpreting Chris's journey not as a search for nature, but as a desperate, failed attempt to run away from the psychological damage inflicted by his abusive father.