What really happened to Chris Kyle?

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper overcame loads of criticism (and one ridiculous prop baby) to earn six Academy Award nominations, placing it amongst the actor and director’s most lauded films. This week, the adaptation of Chris Kyle’s memoir landed on Netflix, where it quickly climbed the streamer’s charts.

Bradley Cooper leads the film as the late Kyle, a former Navy SEAL whose bestselling 2012 memoir, American Sniper, declares him “the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.” In the book, Kyle claims to have 160 “confirmed kills,” though even he’ll admit that the Navy goes “back and forth on what the number is.” In a cruel twist of fate, Kyle was murdered in 2013.

In Entertainment Weekly‘s review of American Sniper, which tracks Kyle across four tours in the Iraq War and the vet’s struggles to adapt back home in Texas, our critic wrote that it “treats killing with videogame impersonality, then tries all too quickly to reckon with the psychological fallout of those acts.” After watching it, he posited, audiences may find themselves “wrestling with whether it’s powerful, profound, or propaganda.”

As you’re figuring out where you land, join us as we unpack American Sniper‘s ending and the real story of what happened to Chris Kyle.

What is American Sniper about?

American Sniper follows Chris Kyle from childhood to death, beginning with his early life hunting and working as a rodeo cowboy in Texas, then building to the final moments he spent with his family before being killed by a fellow veteran.

As the film tells it, Kyle enlists in the military after seeing news footage of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Soon, he joins a chosen few to become a sniper with the U.S. Navy SEALs. Following the September 11 attacks, he embarks on his first tour of Iraq. Three more tours follow, each finding Kyle racking up his kill count. His fellow soldiers give him the nickname “Legend,” while enemy insurgents issue bounties on his head.

Throughout the film, we see how Kyle’s time on the battlefield — and his resulting PTSD— impacts his home life, including his relationship with wife Taya (Sienna Miller) and their children.

“Ultimately, it is a war film,” Miller told EW in 2014. “At the same time, you have romance: humanity grounded by a love story. The dilemma of life at home. Leaving that high-adrenaline, high-intensity situation behind and trying to be a father and husband. This is a man whose priorities in life are God, country, and family — in that order.”

What happens at the end of American Sniper?

Kyle is absent when he returns from his fourth tour, which he’s decided will be his last. As his kids play around him, their playful shrieks blend with the screams and explosions of war. During a party in his backyard, Kyle nearly kills the family’s dog when he mistakenly thinks it’s attacking his son.

He goes to see a psychiatrist at a VA hospital following the incident, and is pressed about his PTSD. “Do you ever think that you might have seen things or done some things over there that you wish you hadn’t?” the doctor asks.

As Kyle explains it, “I was just protecting my guys.” He adds that he doesn’t regret all the people he killed, saying, “The thing that haunts me are all the guys I couldn’t save. Now I’m willing and able to be there, but I’m not. I’m here. I quit.”

The psychiatrist encourages him to work with fellow veterans at the hospital, which proves fruitful for Kyle. His mood gets better, as does his relationship with his family. We see him hunting with his son, goofing around with his daughter, and flirting with Taya.

The film ends rather abruptly, with Kyle telling Taya that he’s going to the shooting range with a fellow vet. After saying goodbye and getting into his truck with the young man, we’re informed that “Chris Kyle was killed that day by a veteran he was trying to help.”

Images of the real Kyle and his memorial at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex., are set against the closing credits.

Does Chris Kyle die in American Sniper?

Kyle’s death is mentioned in a postscript in American Sniper, but it’s not shown onscreen.

In a 2018 interview with the New York Daily News, screenwriter Jason Hall revealed that it wasn’t included in the finished film due to a request from Taya, Kyle’s widow.

Hall said, “Five days after Chris was murdered, [Taya] called and said, ‘This is going to be how my children remember their father, so I want you to get right.'” The screenwriter admitted that the scene was written and rewritten several different ways, but that the filmmakers ultimately decided to honor Taya’s wish.

“In the end, I think we felt that this was a film about Chris’ life and not about his death,” Hall told the outlet, adding, “I didn’t want it to be the thing that was hanging over [his children’s] heads for the very rest of their lives as the film that showed their father getting shot.”

What happened to Chris Kyle?

In February 2013, a little over a year after the publication of American Sniper, 38-year-old Kyle and a friend, 35-year-old Chad Littlefield, were murdered by a fellow veteran, Eddie Ray Routh, at a shooting range near Chalk Mountain, Tex.

As seen in the film, Kyle spent his post-combat years helping traumatized veterans. In 2011, he collaborated with Fitco Cares Foundation, which focused on veterans’ physical and mental health by providing exercise equipment and counseling. According to the New York Times, Kyle’s trip to the range with Littlefield and Routh was as a favor to Routh’s mother, who asked Kyle to help her son.

As the Washington Post reported in 2016, Routh shot Kyle six times and Littlefield seven times using two of Kyle’s own guns.

What happened to Eddie Ray Routh?

After killing Kyle and Littlefield, Routh fled in Kyle’s truck and drove to his sister’s house, where he told her about the murders. She called the cops, and authorities were waiting for Routh when he arrived home.

According to the Post, a “tense, 30-minute standoff” ensued between police and Routh, who stayed put in Kyle’s truck. He eventually sped off, leading law enforcement on a high-speed chase that ended after an officer rammed the pickup off the road, incapacitating it.

During Routh’s 2015 murder trial, it was revealed that the ex-Marine had previously been treated for mental health issues and diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. His lawyers tried to argue that Routh was legally insane at the time of the murders, according to NBC News, with a psychiatrist testifying that Routh claimed Kyle and Littlefield were “pig assassins, hybrid pigs sent here to kill people.”

But the jury was not convinced of Routh’s insanity defense, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Gene Cole, a former sheriff’s deputy, testified that Routh told him from his jail cell that he killed the men because “they wouldn’t talk to me,” as reported by the Post. As Cole put it, Routh said, “I was just riding in the back seat of the truck, and nobody would talk to me. They were just taking me to the range, so I shot them. I feel bad about it, but they wouldn’t talk to me. I’m sure they’ve forgiven me.”

Where can I watch American Sniper?

American Sniper is currently streaming on Netflix. It’s also available to rent via Amazon Prime and other on-demand services.

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