Revisiting the Romantic Drama’s Final Twist

Two decades after The Notebook was first released in theaters on June 25, 2004, its heart-wrenching ending is still etched into fans’ memories.

The iconic Nicholas Sparks movie chronicles the love story of Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams), a wealthy teenager, and town local Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) until her parents drive them apart. The Notebook concludes with an epic plot twist about the pair’s relationship in their later years.

According to actor James Marsden, who plays Noah’s romantic rival Lon Hammond and one of Allie’s two great loves, the movie’s surprise ending left some fans torn. “That’s a movie that I still get talked about to this day, when people [are] saying, ‘I’m Team Lon,’ ” Marsden told PEOPLE in 2022. “We had hoped that it was going to be a touching romance movie, but we did not see how iconic of a movie that would become.”

Gena Rowlands, who played the older version of Allie in the film, shared a similar sentiment with Variety ahead of her 2024 death. “I think it was such a big hit because it was about the realization that love can last your whole life,” she said. “In most films you don’t get to see a story like that go from the beginning to the end with the possibility that love can be perhaps eternal.”

Keep reading to find out what happens to Noah, Allie and Lon at the end of The Notebook, and who she ties the knot with in the end.

Warning: The Notebook spoilers ahead!

How does The Notebook end?

Throughout the film, James Garner plays the role of a narrator reading the tale of Allie and Noah’s summer romance to a woman with Alzheimer’s disease (Rowlands) in the senior facility where he lives.

Just ahead of the movie’s end, however, the woman has a moment of lucidity in which she remembers that she is Allie, the narrator is Noah and the notebook he’s been reading from has been the story of their lives together.

The twosome spend just a few minutes reminiscing on their shared memories before she forgets who he is and becomes upset, at which point Noah suffers a heart attack.

Upon his recovery, Noah sneaks into Allie’s room and climbs into her bed, where they share a moment of remembrance and a kiss before falling asleep together. In the morning, a nurse discovers that the pair have died holding hands.

Who does Allie marry in The Notebook?

Unlike the book, which explicitly states that Allie marries Noah after breaking things off with fiancé Lon and that the couple stay together for 49 years, the film is more subtle about their marriage status.

Their nuptials are not shown, but their wedding bands, which are visible at various points in their elderly timeline, imply that they tied the knot somewhere along the way to having their children and sharing their lives together.

In the film, the couple’s three kids visit them at their living facility, though the book states that they had five children, one of whom died.

What happens to Lon at the end of The Notebook?

In the final chapters of Noah’s book, Allie breaks things off with Lon, whom she had become engaged to after initially losing touch with Noah.

She confesses that she has been unfaithful to Lon and that her heart still belongs to her first love.

Marsden told PEOPLE that he believes Allie ended up with the right guy. “The dynamic between [Allie and Noah] and their chemistry was undeniable,” he said.

The actor doesn’t believe his character wound up alone, however. “There’s another lady out there for him, I’m sure, that’s very happy,” he teased.

Previously, Marsden told Screen Rant in 2022 that he thought Lon would be doing “well,” all things considered. “I feel like he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” he said, joking, “We’ll have to see, a Lon spin-off.”

Does The Notebook’s ending differ from the book?

The film version of The Notebook has several major differences from the book, including the ending.

In the novel, Noah and Allie do not die. Instead, when he sneaks off to her hospital room, she awakens to find him there, her memory still intact. She then begins undoing his shirt buttons, which is suggestive of an intimate moment between the two.

The film also has an alternate on-screen ending that was shown to U.K. audiences on Netflix in 2019, in which the couple’s deaths are cut out. In the new version, the scene in which a nurse finds Noah and Allie’s bodies was replaced by an ambiguous scene that showed a flock of birds flying over a lake.

Fans were outraged at the change and blamed the streaming service, prompting Netflix to address the controversy on X. The company wrote: “We did not edit The Notebook. An alternate version exists and was supplied to us. We are getting to the bottom of it ASAP.”

Netflix U.K. later updated fans that the film had been uploaded with the original ending intact.

Will there be a sequel to The Notebook?

While there have been many rumors of a movie sequel being filmed in various locations over the years, no official project has ever been announced.

Sparks left the door open for a new book-to-movie adaptation, however, with his literary follow-up to The Notebook called The Wedding.

Published in 2003, the sequel is centered on Allie and Noah’s son-in-law and real estate attorney Wilson Lewis, who is struggling to connect with his wife of 30 years ahead of their own daughter’s wedding.

Though the couple have drifted apart, Lewis still loves Jane and must find his way back into her heart. Noah, who is still alive, is also a character in the book.