There is something deeply satisfying about watching a plan come together. And something even more devastating about watching it hollow out the person who executed it. How to Make a Killing — released on February 20, 2026 — is Glen Powell’s darkest, funniest, and most quietly gutting film yet. And its ending hits like a slow poison you didn’t realise you’d been drinking the whole time.
Table of Contents
How to Make a Killing Film at a Glance
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Title | How to Make a Killing |
| Release Date | February 20, 2026 |
| Director | John Patton Ford |
| Lead Cast | Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Jessica Henwick, Ed Harris, Bill Camp |
| Genre | Dark Comedy / Crime Thriller |
| Loosely Inspired By | Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) |
| The Fortune | $28 billion Redfellow family inheritance |
| Streaming | Currently in theatres |
| Rotten Tomatoes | Mixed-to-positive |
The Setup That Makes the Ending Inevitable
Becket Redfellow was born into wealth and immediately stripped of it. His teenage mother was disowned by the cold patriarch Whitelaw (Ed Harris) the moment she refused to give up her child. She raised Becket in near poverty, but never let him forget the fortune that was technically his — planting in him a quiet, decades-long obsession that eventually turns lethal.
When his childhood crush Julia (Margaret Qualley) glides back into his life and makes it clear she’ll be with him if he has the money, Becket begins picking off his seven Redfellow relatives one by one. The kills are absurdist — anchors, plane crashes, poison, arrows — but beneath the dark comedy is something genuinely sinister. At the same time, he falls for Ruth (Jessica Henwick), a warm, grounded schoolteacher who loves him as a person, not an heir. The contrast between these two women is the film’s moral backbone.
Why Becket’s “Victory” Is Actually His Ruin
In the final scenes, Becket sips champagne in a car, but the celebration rings completely hollow. He has traded Ruth — the only person who ever loved him for who he actually was — for a life in permanent debt to Julia, who now controls the very fortune he destroyed himself to obtain. Variety
The twist is devilishly constructed: Becket is convicted on death row for the one murder he didn’t commit — the killing of Julia’s husband. With four hours until his execution, Julia arrives and offers him the evidence to clear his name — at the cost of signing over the entire $28 billion inheritance to her. Faced with literal death or a life of hollow wealth under Julia’s thumb, he signs away his soul for survival. Variety
When he walks out of prison, Ruth is waiting. But after learning the truth about him, she leaves. Becket is haunted by an earlier conversation with Whitelaw about conscience — how one can soften that inner voice until it’s silenced forever. He silenced his. And now he’s paying the price. Variety
The ending perfectly mirrors the logic of its inspiration — Kind Hearts and Coronets, Robert Hamer’s 1949 British black comedy classic that pioneered the “murder-for-inheritance” satire. Like its predecessor, the real punishment isn’t legal. It’s spiritual.
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FAQ
Q: Does Becket keep the $28 billion inheritance at the end of How to Make a Killing?
No — Julia Steinway forces Becket to sign over the entire fortune to her in exchange for the evidence that saves him from execution, leaving him free but penniless and alone.
Q: What is How to Make a Killing loosely based on?
The film draws inspiration from the classic 1949 British dark comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, which also centres on a disinherited man who systematically eliminates his aristocratic relatives to claim a fortune.
