The ending of Avengers: Infinity War is the snap: Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet with all six stones and half of all life in the universe turns to dust. Thanos does not die, he does not lose the stones, and he retires to a quiet planet certain that he has finished his task.
Who survives? Thor, Rogers, Romanoff, Banner, Rhodes, Rocket and Nebula are left grieving. Who vanishes? Bucky, T'Challa, Wanda, Peter, Strange and the Guardians, among others. Gamora had already been lost on Vormir, and Vision dies when the Mind Stone is torn out of him.
In my opinion, the smartest choice is how the loss is built from the heroes' own decisions. Strange hands over the Time Stone to save Stark, and Thanos later uses that same stone to undo Wanda's destruction of the Mind Stone. Without those two moments, Wakanda is a win. It could be argued that the Russos use the stones as a ledger of mercy, with every kindness feeding Thanos's final tally.
The closing images support that reading. Thor lands a heavy blow, yet it arrives a moment too late. The final shot belongs to Thanos at his sunrise, which makes him the only character who gets a quiet ending, and it is an unsettling choice for a blockbuster. Nick Fury's last act, sending a distress signal before he too vanishes, tells you the story is not over. The next chapter, Avengers: Endgame, begins five years on.
As a verdict on the structure, I would rate this ending among the boldest in the saga. If you want the story in sequence, the Marvel timeline shows where it lands.
