Megalopolis (2024)

A deep, resonant voice opens the film, reciting a cautionary proverb about an empire that will fall if its leaders ignore the lessons of history. In New Rome, an alternate American metropolis modeled after the classical city, architect Cesar Catilina stands on the lip of a skyscraper and moves into an impossible stillness: as he shifts his weight just beyond the brink, the clamor of the city freezes and he walks without the wind or the fall. Fundi Romaine, his long-time aide, speaks in voiceover about the fragile balance between invention and ruin as Cesar surveys the skyline.

On the other side of the urban hierarchy, Julia Cicero, the idle but curious daughter of Mayor Franklyn Cicero, drifts through the city's elite social scene. She keeps company with cousins Clodio and Clodia Pulcher; Clodio watches her with a possessive, disquieting intensity. Mayor Cicero is at his desk, reading scandal sheets that chronicle Julia's nightlife, displeasure cooling his features. Downtown, Cesar stages a demolition: using his wealth and influence he brings down a ruin and, at the instant of collapse, halts time to control the debris. A limousine idles nearby with Julia inside; she looks on, untouched by the temporal pause. Cesar is publicly celebrated as the creator of Megalon, a revolutionary building material that has earned him a Nobel Prize and the promise of reshaping the city.

Fundi presses Cesar toward a public forum: Cesar must present his master plan to Mayor Cicero and the public. Television celebrity Wow Platinum reports from the scene. Hamilton Crassus III, Cesar's moneyed uncle and chief financier, sits in the audience alongside Cicero's fixer, Nush Berman. Cesar stages a theatrical presentation in which he unveils modular models and sweeping renderings of a new urban utopia he calls Megalopolis, built from Megalon. Mayor Cicero counters, invoking the long shadow of Cesar's past: he reminds listeners that Cesar's wife disappeared years before amid an insulin overdose and drowning, and that Cicero, then a district attorney, once arraigned Cesar for murder. The remark chills the room.

After the event, Cesar leaves with Wow. Their relationship, intimate and complicated, has cooled into a recurring affair. Julia delivers a scathing letter to Cesar at his firm and confronts him in a meeting full of sharp retorts. Cesar invites her to examine a meticulous scale model of his plan for New Rome; he explains urban codes and aesthetics with an intensity that breaks through Julia's skepticism. Enticed by his conviction, she commits to work with him despite her father's fury.

Julia's curiosity turns investigative. She digs into old newspaper records and legal files and learns that Franklyn Cicero once prosecuted Cesar after his wife's body was found at sea with an insulin overdose. The prosecution failed, but the stain remains in public memory. Curious and unsettled, Julia follows Cesar through the city with a companion. As they trail him, New Rome's familiar monuments distort: bronze equestrian statues seem to breathe and fractures spider across façades. Julia tracks Cesar to a quiet space where he performs small rituals for his late wife; she sees that his eccentricities are forms of grief and devotion rather than malice.

Cesar's family life and fortunes intersect with New Rome's spectacle when Wow marries Hamilton Crassus III. The reception takes place in the Colosseum, staged as both gala and political theater. Guests include Constance Crassus, Cesar's sister, and Teresa Cicero, the mayor's wife. Young pop phenomenon Vesta Sweetwater headlines the event with the publicity stunt of auctioning her virginity. The games begin with a chariot race followed by staged wrestling. Backstage, Cesar succumbs to psychedelic substances; he seeks escape in intoxication and memory. During the celebration, Clodio Pulcher projects a compromising video that appears to show Cesar in a sexual encounter with Vesta. The crowd reacts violently: Cesar, already disoriented from drugs, is assaulted as the stadium turns on him. Fundi hustles him toward safety and into a car with Julia, but police intercept them and arrest Cesar in the melee.

Julia refuses to accept the narrative and turns to her cousin Clodia for help. Together they interrogate the claims about Vesta: they discover that Vesta is not underage--she is twenty-three, not seventeen--and that the footage presented at the Colosseum is a montage, a doctored clip that superimposes Vesta's face onto another woman. Julia brings this evidence; authorities clear Cesar of statutory rape. After his release, Cesar tells Julia he has lost the uncanny ability to stop time. He and Julia test the claim; when she steps close and he touches her, the temporal faculty returns. In the intimacy of that moment they kiss and their relationship deepens into love.

Clodio, humiliated and ambitious, begins to exploit public unrest. He harnesses the anger that erupted at the Colosseum and converts it into organized opposition to Megalopolis. Nush warns Mayor Cicero that the populist tactics could undermine the mayor's re-election; Cicero worries about political fallout. Meanwhile an even larger catastrophe intercedes: Carthage, a Soviet-era satellite, fragments in low orbit and its debris rains into New Rome. Chunks of the satellite strike buildings; fires and rubble spurt across districts. In the wake of destruction, Cesar holds a press conference and seizes the moment to advance his project. He stands amid ruin and argues that Megalon and his vision of Megalopolis can rebuild the city better than piecemeal repairs. Julia steps forward at the press conference to declare that she is pregnant with Cesar's child. He reacts with unguarded joy, envisioning family and purpose.

That evening Cesar and Julia bring the news to Mayor Cicero and Teresa at a private dinner. Franklyn responds with cold skepticism; he cannot readily swallow the architect's redemption story. Clodio amplifies the mayor's doubts into political ambition, campaigning for alderman on the promise that Megalopolis will divert funds away from ordinary Romans. The struggle for the city's future escalates after Nush dies in a sudden building collapse. The collapse fuels rumors and rage on the streets--some see an accident, others suspect sabotage--but the event intensifies the public's fear and strengthens Clodio's populist appeal.

As tensions rise, Cesar becomes a physical target. Aram, a fixer in Clodio's orbit, manipulates a twelve-year-old to pull a trigger. The boy fires a shot that strikes Cesar's skull. In the hospital, surgeons and medical teams use Megalon's regenerative properties to reconstruct his shattered bone and tissue; within days, Cesar's wound knits together. Clodio rebukes Aram and the boy, worried that an assassination will create a martyr rather than silence a cult figure. When Cesar emerges from the hospital, he discovers his bank accounts frozen; the liquidity for his projects evaporates. He appeals to Hamilton Crassus at the bank for immediate aid. Crassus, confined to a bed with declining health, does not move to help.

Wow sees an opening. She entices Clodio into a scheme to seize control of Crassus's fortune. Between them they maneuver the board at the bank into removing Hamilton Crassus as CEO. The transition unseats the old guard and consolidates the Pulcher faction's power. In the following months spring brings a new arrival: Julia gives birth to a daughter, whom they name Sunny Hope. The infant quickly becomes a talisman; Mayor Cicero, who had been icy toward Cesar, finds himself softened by his granddaughter.

Clodio's campaign hardens into outright rioting. His followers swarm streets, burning barricades and attacking civic buildings. Clodio and Wow confront Crassus in his bedroom suite in the bank's tower, expecting to intimidate him into final surrender. Hamilton Crassus feigns frailty--he appears inert in his bed--but when Wow approaches him he moves with unexpected violence. Crassus, who had been pretending to be incapacitated, produces a bow and arrow hidden beneath the sheets. He draws and fires a shaft into Wow's chest; the arrow penetrates her torso and she collapses, chest punctured, bleeding out. Crassus aims again at Clodio during the scramble and shoots him twice in the buttocks as the nephew flees. Clodio crashes through a doorway and escapes into the night, wounded and humiliated.

On the streets, disorder swells. Protesters march toward the unfinished frames of Megalopolis and toward City Hall. Cesar goes out among them, climbing onto an elevated platform in the ruined downtown and delivering an unguarded speech about the tangible possibility of reconstruction and dignity. He appeals directly to those who have lost homes and livelihoods. His voice, amplified, reaches thousands; one by one his words defuse the anger. The crowd that moments before hurled bricks and curses into the air turns. They seize Clodio's followers and drape their ringleader upside down in the public square, tying his legs and suspending him as the mob reviles him. Clodio dangles, jeered and defeated but alive.

Hamilton Crassus watches the spectacle and recalculates. The spectacle of Cesar's address and the crowd's shift prompts the elder financier to inject capital once again. He reinstates funding for Cesar's vision, and construction resumes in earnest.

Months pass and Megalopolis rises from the skeletal ruins. Towers of gleaming Megalon converge into plazas and public spaces, and Cesar oversees the final installations with Julia by his side and Sunny Hope in their arms. Mayor Cicero, who once prosecuted Cesar and now holds the infant granddaughter, stands with his wife and concedes to collaborate on rebuilding the civic institutions. Families, workers, and former protesters gather as the city marks the completion of the project.

On New Year's Eve the assembled citizens and patricians stand in the main plaza, counting down to midnight beneath the new skyline. Cesar stands at the edge of the crowd, holding Julia and gazing at his daughter. At the last moment before the clock reaches twelve he performs his old, private trick: the world around him pauses. People freeze mid-gesture; fireworks hang like static blossoms in the sky. Yet across the plaza, Sunny Hope toddles and claps, unaffected by whatever temporal restraint Cesar deploys. She moves through the suspended air, the only motion unbound.

The film's final images show Cesar watching his child as the city holds its breath, then releasing the pause so the countdown finishes and the revelry resumes. The last shot focuses on the family--Cesar, Julia, Sunny Hope--surrounded by a rebuilt New Rome, as people begin to step forward into the new year and into the work of a reconstructed metropolis.

Short, Simple Narrative of the Ending

In the final act of Megalopolis, Cesar Catilina, the visionary architect, survives an assassination attempt and, with the help of the miraculous material Megalon, quickly recovers. His plans to transform New Rome into a utopian city are met with fierce opposition from Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who tries to bribe and threaten Cesar into abandoning his vision and Julia, Cicero's daughter, who is pregnant with Cesar's child. Meanwhile, Clodio, Cesar's cousin and rival, orchestrates a financial coup against the city's billionaire power broker, Crassus, with the help of Wow Platinum, Cesar's former mistress. The city remains divided, with Cesar's utopian dream still unrealized but alive, and the personal and political conflicts unresolved as the credits roll.

Expanded, Chronological, Scene-by-Scene Narrative of the Ending

The climax of Megalopolis unfolds in a series of tightly interwoven scenes, each marked by high stakes, personal betrayals, and the clash of old and new visions for the city of New Rome.

Scene 1: The Assassination Attempt and Aftermath

The city is still reeling from the spectacle of a Soviet satellite, "Carthage," breaking apart and raining debris onto New Rome. Amid this chaos, Clodio, Cesar's ambitious and resentful cousin, conspires with his associate Aram to eliminate Cesar. Aram arranges for a 12-year-old boy to shoot Cesar in the head during a public appearance. The gunshot echoes through the crowd; Cesar collapses, blood pooling around him. The city holds its breath. But Cesar, through the power of the mysterious material Megalon, is healed almost instantly, emerging from the hospital with only a scar and a renewed sense of purpose. The assassination attempt backfires, turning Cesar into a martyr in the eyes of many citizens, much to Clodio's frustration. Clodio publicly condemns Aram's actions, distancing himself from the violence while privately seething at Cesar's survival.

Scene 2: Personal and Political Maneuvering

Cesar, now a symbol of hope and resistance, finds his bank accounts frozen--a move orchestrated by his enemies to cripple his plans. He approaches Crassus, the city's billionaire CEO, for help, but Crassus, aligned with the old guard, refuses. Meanwhile, Julia Cicero, the mayor's daughter and Cesar's lover, reveals to Cesar that she is pregnant with his child. They share a tender, hopeful moment, but their joy is tempered by the knowledge of the political storm gathering around them. At a tense family dinner, Julia announces her pregnancy to her parents. Mayor Cicero is visibly displeased, his face hardening as he realizes the depth of his daughter's connection to his rival. Cicero attempts to bribe Cesar with information about the truth concerning his late wife, hoping to drive a wedge between Cesar and Julia. Cesar, however, refuses the offer, his loyalty to Julia and his vision unshaken.

Scene 3: Seduction and Financial Coup

Wow Platinum, Cesar's former mistress and a cunning TV reporter, shifts her allegiance. She seduces Clodio, appealing to his ambition and resentment, and convinces him to help her take control of Crassus's vast fortune. Clodio, eager for power and revenge, agrees. In a carefully orchestrated meeting, Clodio presents a plan to the board of Crassus's bank, manipulating events so that Crassus is forced out of his position as CEO. The old billionaire, outmaneuvered, is left powerless, his empire now in the hands of Clodio and Wow. The city's financial landscape shifts dramatically, with the balance of power tilting toward new, unpredictable players.

Scene 4: The City's Fate and Character Resolutions

As the film draws to a close, New Rome remains a city divided. Cesar's utopian vision for Megalopolis is not realized within the timeframe of the story; the physical cityscape does not transform, and the societal conflicts are unresolved. Cesar, though physically healed, faces ongoing opposition from the political and financial elite. Julia, torn between her love for Cesar and her loyalty to her father, is left to navigate her pregnancy and the city's turmoil alone, her future uncertain. Mayor Cicero, thwarted in his attempts to control both the city and his daughter, is left embittered, his authority challenged but not yet broken. Clodio, now in control of significant financial resources, emerges as a new power broker, his motives ambiguous and his alliance with Wow suggesting further intrigue. Wow, having played all sides, secures her position in the city's elite, her loyalty to no one but herself. Crassus, once the city's most powerful man, is humiliated and sidelined, his legacy in tatters.

Final Moments

The film ends not with resolution, but with tension. The city of New Rome stands at a crossroads, its fate hanging in the balance. Cesar's dream of a better future remains alive, but unrealized. The personal and political conflicts that have driven the story--between vision and tradition, love and loyalty, ambition and integrity--are left unresolved, echoing the film's central theme: the struggle to imagine and build a better world in the face of entrenched power and human frailty. The characters, each marked by their choices and losses, step into an uncertain future, the city's skyline a silent witness to their hopes and failures.

The movie Megalopolis (2024) does not have a post-credits scene. The film ends without any additional footage or tags during or after the credits, so viewers do not need to wait through the credits for any extra scenes or reveals.

There is, however, a special dedication at the start of the credits to Francis Ford Coppola's beloved wife Eleanor, but no narrative or teaser content follows the main story in the credits. The ending of Megalopolis is kept intact as the final statement of the film without any post-credit additions.

Cesar Catilina, the visionary architect, has the ability to stop time in a Neo-like manner and works with a magical material called Megalon, which he uses in his efforts to build the utopian city of New Rome.

Julia Cicero, the mayor's daughter, is torn between her loyalty to her father, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, and her love for Cesar Catilina. This romantic conflict divides her loyalties and forces her to confront what she truly believes humanity deserves, adding emotional and political tension to the story.

Clodio Pulcher, Cesar Catilina's cousin, also has feelings for Julia Cicero, which complicates the personal and political dynamics. He opposes Cesar's vision and is part of the struggle over the future of New Rome.

Hamilton Crassus III is a multi-billionaire power broker in New Rome and the father of Clodio Pulcher. He becomes involved with Cesar's mistress, a TV reporter named Wow Platinum, which adds layers of intrigue and power struggles to the narrative.

The conflict centers on the future of New Rome: Cesar Catilina dreams of building a utopian city that redefines society, while Mayor Franklyn Cicero is committed to maintaining the regressive status quo characterized by greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Their battle represents the clash between visionary change and entrenched power.

Megalopolis (2024) is not family friendly and is rated R due to multiple mature and potentially upsetting elements for children or sensitive viewers. Key content warnings include:

• Sexual content and nudity: Several graphic sex scenes with partial nudity, including coercion, implied infidelity, and a falsely implied sex scene involving a minor. Provocative dancing and sexual remarks are frequent. There is also a lewd incestuous relationship depicted.

• Violence: Scenes include a man shot in the face by a child (non-fatal), a woman shot with an arrow (fatal), a man beaten by a crowd, riots, and other brutal acts. Some violence is graphic, such as arrows entering bodies with blood spray, and a woman drowning in a car.

• Strong language: Over 20 uses of the F-word and other strong profanity throughout, including during sex scenes.

• Drug and alcohol use: Frequent depiction of adults drinking, smoking, and using various drugs.

• Other disturbing elements: A woman's unclothed corpse is shown multiple times, and there are themes of murder, suicide, and political corruption.

Overall, the film contains graphic sexual scenes, intense violence, strong language, drug use, and mature themes that make it unsuitable for children and potentially upsetting for sensitive viewers.