‘Drive’ Ending Explained: What Happens to Ryan Gosling’s Driver?

While the films of Nicholas Winding Refn are often divisive among critics and audiences due to their shocking content, his 2011 film Drive has been widely acknowledged as one of the best films of the past several decades. Drive proved that Refn wasn’t just a “style over substance” filmmaker. There’s certainly something inherently exciting about the film’s electrifying score and the propulsive action sequences, but at its heart, Drive is a love story that reinvents classic noir and western archetypes into a slick modern thriller. It’s almost strange for a filmmaker as notoriously flashy as Refn to show such male sensitivity with his lead character, but Drive leaves the audience emotionally overwhelmed until its shocking (if somewhat confusing) ending.