The Greatest Crime Epic’s Final Line Officially Changed the Genre

Martin Scorsese’s *Killers of the Flower Moon* ends with his cameo as a radio presenter reading Mollie Burkhart’s obituary and noting that it makes no mention of the murders. The article argues that this line challenges the way crime films can make perpetrators compelling while leaving victims and their lives in the background.

The film centres on the murders of Osage people in Oklahoma, carried out for wealth and power, and shifts attention from the FBI investigation in David Grann’s book to the relationships between Mollie, Ernest Burkhart and William Hale. After the radio-play epilogue, it closes on a present-day Osage gathering. The article presents this ending as a critique of crime storytelling, including Scorsese’s own long career depicting criminals.