A sudden dinosaur invasion in Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor’s suburb? Sounds like stupid fun. But The End of Oak Street was written and directed by the guy who made 2014 classic horror benchmark It Follows, David Robert Mitchell, so it’s much smarter and well-directed stupid fun than you might expect.
Now streaming on HBO Max, Oak Street enjoyed modest theatrical success ($122 million worldwide) and good reviews (86 percent at Rotten Tomatoes), which slightly underplay my assertion that it’s one of the most entertaining movies of 2026, thanks to several memorable and brilliantly executed set pieces. It’s rip-roaring fun, essentially fueled by the spirit of that all-timer of a Calvin and Hobbes strip about tyrannosaurs in F-14s.
It also has a batshit-bonkers ending that might put your brain in a Cuisinart set to “confusimicate.” And that’s why we’re here today explaining the WTF of it all as this plot backslides and navigates hairpin turns along the space-time continuum. So yes, of course, SPOILERS DEAD AHEAD, mateys.
What is ‘The End of Oak Street’ about? ‘End of Oak Street’ plot summary:
The setting: an affluent neighborhood in suburban Detroit, never mind it doesn’t look at all like Michigan. A cul-de-sac, specifically. The Platts are a happy family in the snotty, ironic Ramones sense: Dad Greg (McGregor) hasn’t explained to Mom Denise (Hathaway) that he’s delivering pizzas not as a side gig, but because he got canned recently. Meanwhile, Denise has a secret of her own. She hides in the basement banging out a novel about an unhappy suburban mother who keeps a suitcase packed at all times in case she feels like suddenly running away. Middle America, 1982!
Their daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) yearns to study astronomy at Cornell — and don’t overlook how she namedrops Carl Sagan in casual conversation, cuz it might have something to do with the third-act rigamarole. Her younger brother Brian (Christian Convery) is a bit of a neighborhood scamp; he busted another kid’s arm, and now is the target of his vengeful older brother. Brian’s beloved pooch Starbuck — please note the quality nerd reference here — is also a bit of a neighborhood scamp, since he serially digs under the fence and dooks all over their uptight-bunghole neighbor’s yard.
As the big D hangs in the air — that’s “divorce,” thank you, ye of filthy minds — the Powell family watches Love Boat and participates in the neighborhood block party and doesn’t pay a lick of attention to a radio news report about bizarre ripples in space or something. They do, however, scratch their heads at weird phenomena ranging from bright blinding lights to the sudden backyard appearance of flora that’s been extinct for hundreds of millions of years. Curious!
One fateful night, a storm rumbles and the lights go out. It’s not the yoozhe power outage, though. Remember that massive pile of poo in the uptight-bunghole’s yard from a couple of scenes ago? That wasn’t from Starbuck. I mean, it’s the size of like eight Starbucks. In fact, it resembles what Laura Dern went elbow-deep into in Jurassic Park 30 years ago. A dinosaur has transformed Bungholio’s lawn into a latrine, it seems.
A dinosaur? In this economy? Yep. Greg and Denise venture into the ’hood hoping to find a runaway Starbuck, but instead encounter rather large furry/feathered bird-reptiles rummaging through garbage cans and/or feasting on the neighbors. Predators gonna pred, right?
They round up the kids and try to drive outta town, but soon realize that their entire neighborhood seems to have been cookie-cuttered off this plane of existence and plopped right smack into an ancient jungle. They dash home and as they board up the windows to a score that brings to mind the original Planet of the Apes, the camera makes sure to show us an old framed photo of Denise holding a rifle and a trophy, thus explaining why she’s such a good shot.
That evening, Greg and Denise are too busy arguing to notice that the kids are gallivanting all up and down Oak Street, against all good sense. Starbuck dashed off — Starbuck, you little pain-in-the-ass plot catalyst, you! — and Brian went after him and then Audrey took off after him. Anybody else notice how the parents of Gen Xers are really taking a beating here?
So they’re doomed, right?
Of course not! During their midnight romp, Audrey and Brian befriend Jeannette (Jordan Alexa Davis), the new girl in the neighborhood, distraught and freshly orphaned. They escape danger and hole up in an empty house. Meanwhile, Greg and Denise discover a big wobbly bubble that appears to be a portal to, well, where exactly? Anyplace without dinosaurs would be preferable. Even more crucially, they discover two massive herbivore dinos in the midst of marital relations, and Denise takes a funny Polaroid of Greg posing with the humping beasts in the background. Hmm. Maybe if Greg and Denise did more of that — banging outside against the garage in broad daylight — their marriage might be a little better? Just a thought.
Now here’s where I make a confession: I lied. They’re doomed. Actually, just Greg is doomed. A goldanged effing ALLOSAURUS chases them and eats Greg’s head and torso off as his wife and kids gawk, paralyzed by the sight. And it happens with such sudden terror that we gawk right along with them.
Denise and Audrey and Brian and Jeanette escape and make their way home, in utter disbelief that they’d be in a movie that has the gonads to kill off a main character played by a star so famous his CV includes several Star Warses. Here we glance at our watches and realize there’s about a half-hour of movie left, and we’re worried that it just peaked. Now what?
Here’s what: It hasn’t peaked. Far from it. They get back to the Platt family homestead and start packing some essentials. A fire rapidly consumes the neighborhood and Denise wants to find another bubble-portal whatchmajig in the hopes that it’s their way out of this nightmare. Their momentary solace is disrupted when an albino snake roughly the size of a sewage drainpipe slithers through the window and tries to eat Brian, prompting Denise to scream her face off as she stabs it 186 million thousand times with a butcher knife. Jesus. H!
Suffice to say, they can’t R-U-N-N-O-F-T fast enough. They spot the bubble-portal over yonder and make it over yonder but have to leap off a roof to enter it, which Jeannette does successfully. But when Brian tries he misses and whumps onto the ground and becomes a target for a flying dinosaur which swoops down and grabs his foot as he’s screaming and crying but all of a sudden here he comes here he comes it’s Starbuck leaping into the air and chomping the beast and it lets go and Brian is saved, saved I tell you! Phew!
‘The End of Oak Street’ Ending Explained:
But! It’s not over! Denise and Audrey and Brian and Starbuck have to elude and fight some alligators from hell to get back to the bubble-portal and this time they leap and VZWORP and KERSPLASSHH they fall into some confused lady’s backyard pool. It seems they’ve zapped back in time to the moments before the power outage. Jeannette is there. They look down at their neighborhood, and Audrey asks the zillion-dollar question, “Are we down there? Another version of us?”
Denise runs to a phone booth and orders a pizza. And guess who shows up to deliver it but Alternate Universe Greg! They ARE a happy family! And they embrace as they watch from afar as their neighborhood’s enveloped in a big energy dome that swaps it with a chunk of the Cretaceous period or whatever. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
We then get a postscript set two years after these events. A news report plays on the TV on the anniversary, explaining what happened. Denise called several of her neighbors, even Bungholio, urging them to leave the neighborhood, saving their lives; she’s hailed as a hero. She sits happily in her home office, typing, with copies of her amazing bestselling true story The End of Oak Street on her desk. Some new framed photos hang on the wall: Audrey in the Cornell astronomy club, and the Polaroid of Greg goofy-grinning next to two commingling dinosaurs.
Outside, Alternate Universe Greg grills some BBQ. Brian plays with Starbuck. Audrey and Jeannette seem to be a couple now. Then Alternate Universe Jeannette walks into the frame with her Alternate Universe Parents. Holy crap there are TWO Jeanettes! How does everyone feel about this? What does Alternate Universe Greg think about adopting Not Quite His Own Family? Don’t ask these questions! THE END.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
