25 years ago one of the last great films of the 1990’s hit theaters. Fight Club, however, was not an instant success. Far from it.

Critics panned it, audiences mostly stayed home, and those who saw it didn’t understand it. David Fincher’s Fight Club was thought at the time to be too violent and glorified chaos. Roger Ebert said of the film, “I think it’s the numbing effects of movies like this that cause people go to a little crazy. Although sophisticates will be able to rationalize the movie as an argument against the behavior it shows, my guess is that audience will like the behavior but not the argument.”

It wouldn’t be until the movie’s home video release that a cult following would begin to grow. And it would be 10 years after its initial release before the New York Times would refer to it as “the defining cult movie of our time.”

So what is it about Fight Club that still has us breaking the first two rules of Fight Club all these years later? For me, it’s the ending.

(Warning Spoilers)

The Ultimate Twist

When the bartender first called the Narrator Tyler everything in Fight Club changed. The whole movie became about something else. Something other than a bro film. In that moment Fight Club was more than rule-breaking and upsetting the status quo. This was a man’s descent and arrival into madness. But is that Fight Club’s twist ending?

Learning Tyler and the Narrator are two personalities in the same body is surprising enough. In that moment of truth between the two we begin to understand that the Narrator was responsible for everything. And all because he felt simultaneously disconnected from society and a nameless cog that kept the consumerism machine moving. He hated himself and everyone around him so he created Tyler to deal with them for him.

However, a more subtle and deeper twist occurs in the film’s last few minutes. In a final confrontation between Tyler and the Narrator, the Narrator shoots himself to kill Tyler and end his insanity once and for all. But something else occurs.

The Narrator doesn’t die. Tyler is gone, but the Narrator survives. Not only does he survive but when he sees Marla brought in by members of Project Mayhem his usual nervousness and anxiousness is gone. He is more calm and sure of himself as he assures them he is ok and when he orders them to let Marla go.

What we are seeing is the Narrator assuming control of Project Mayhem. Accepting that everything has been his doing all along. And as he and Marla hold hands and watch the buildings explode and collapse across the city we realize the Narrator has also assumed ownership of Tyler.

He and Tyler are the same person, and even though “Tyler” made all the plans, the Narrator really does hate consumerism. He truly was fed up with his mundane job. And maybe people shouldn’t be in debt to others.

From the moment the Narrator woke up after being knocked out in the parking garage by Tyler he no longer mentioned the bombs throughout the city. His main concern was getting rid of Tyler. He makes no attempts to stop the explosions nor pretends to even try. Instead, he and Marla hold hands and watch.

The real twist of Fight Club isn’t the Narrator’s battle with madness but rather his acceptance of it and leaning into it. This would set the standard for unreliable narrators in later films like Inception and Shutter Island, and the TV series Mr. Robot.

A Legacy of Chaos: Why Fight Club Still Resonates 25 Years Later

Initially dismissed as nihilistic and glorifying violence, Fight Club has become more known for its commentary on identity, consumerism, and societal pressures that lead to disillusionment. All these years later Fight Club challenges our sanity, control, and the human condition.

Is the Narrator free from Tyler’s chaos philosophy? Or has he simply accepted a darker truth about himself? Fight Club is about facing the parts of ourselves we fear, and if in doing so we become the very thing we fear.

Fight Club forces us to wrestle with these disconcerting truths, tapping into our shared societal stressors and anxiety; and leaves us with a twist we’re still unraveling long after the credits have rolled. Even after 25 years, we can’t stop talking about fight club–or maybe we just don’t want to.