Vanished Into The Night ending explained: Who took Pietro and Elena's children?

Vanished Into The Night is the latest thriller to arrive on Netflix, with the film centring around Elena and Pietro - two parents desperate to get their kidnapped children back. Having watched the twisted crime drama though, fans have been left confused by the film’s ending.

Vanished Into The Night follows Pietro (Riccardo Scamarcio), a devoted dad who is in the midst of a taut custody battle over his two children.

After they are kidnapped, he must work with her former wife Elena to recover them.

However, it isn’t long before he realises that the culprit is closer to home than he could have ever imagined.

Having watched the thriller's many twists and turns though, fans are still confused about the film's shocking conclusion.

Vanished Into The Night's ending explained

Vanished Into The Night ends with Pietro realising that Elena faked the kidnapping, with the shocking ruse being hinted at throughout the Netflix film.

In fact, Elena’s reason and method for the elaborate hoax are revealed in the thriller’s opening scene. As the couple’s lawyers argue over custody rights, viewers learn Pietro is in debt and Elena previously had an addiction to prescription painkillers.

Desperate to leave Italy with her children and get her money back from Pietro, the psychologist devises a twisted plan.

Elena uses her medication to sedate her children and smuggles them away from the farmhouse under the cover of darkness.

The desperate woman then hires a random man to pose as a kidnapper and demands 150,000 euros for their safe return.

In a bid to save his children, Pietro uses an underworld connection to get the huge sum before confessing this to his former wife.

As he struggles to understand the kidnapping, Elena threatens to expose Pietro's criminal dealings and blackmails him into signing over their children.

With the pair posed to meet at the airport, Pietro finds the pill packet that Elena had tried to flush away at the farmhouse. A call to the doctor confirms his theory, with traces of Oxycodone, a strong painkiller and sedative, found in the children’s hair.

As the evidence mounts against her, Elena confesses that she faked the kidnapping as her former husband had refused to compromise about the children’s custody.

While he doesn’t report Elena to the police, he refuses to let the children leave for New York with her and says, "I don't want them to know what their mother did to them."

The film ends with Pietro enjoying his life at the farmhouse, having used the money to pay off his debts and care for his children.

As they play in the living room, a person can be seen through the kitchen’s glass door: Elena.