The Ninth Gate ending explained: Boris' rituals, the unnamed girl and the true meaning of nine gates

Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate is a film in the horror thriller genre that was released on August 27, 1999. It was based on The Club Dumas, a novel written by Arturo Perez Reverte. Polanski produced the film and co-wrote it with John Brownjohn and Enrique Urbizu.

Starring Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, and Frank Langella, among others, The Ninth Gate is about a collector of rare books who has been assigned to work on a book from the 17th century.

Here's the official synopsis:

A dealer of rare books finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text capable of summoning the devil.

Upon its release, the film received primarily mixed response from critics. However, it ended up becoming a major commercial success.

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What is the plot of The Ninth Gate?

The film follows Dean Corso, a dealer of rare books in New York. He gets in touch with a rich man named Boris Balkan, who is in possession of a book from the 17th century that can be used to summon Satan. Corso is tasked to look into the other two only surviving copies of the book. As he gets into the details, paranormal things start happening to him.

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What does the ending of The Ninth Gate mean?

Towards the end, Corso realizes that Boris has been following him throughout the journey. Later on, Boris kills the owner of one of the book's copies and goes to perform a ritual in the church. Dean follows him but is unable to stop the events. All the nine signs of the nine gates of hell have LCF written on them, which denotes Lucifer.

The ritual is performed and it gives Boris the strength that he was seeking. Corso then asks him to prove that he has the power of Satan. For that, Boris pours gasoline on himself, and he burns to death. Corso takes all the engraving and shoots Boris to end his pain. He realizes that the Devil cannot grant immortality to humans.

Meanwhile, there is an unnamed girl who follows and befriends Corso. Towards the end, they end up making love while the castle is getting burnt in the background. She tells him that the ritual failed because one of the engravings was fake. Later on, the lady disappears. He eventually finds the real engraving that depicts a girl who looks similar to the girl he was with. She turns out to be a biblical entity of Babylon, as mentioned in the Revelations book.

After getting the engraving, Corso has all the nine elements to finish the ritual. He returns to the castle and it looks similar to the one depicted in the engraving. A white light beams while the movie comes to an end. The makers have not made it clear if he was able to open the ninth gate. The ninth one is the last key required to open the gates of hell.

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