Doctor Strange 2016: Cast, Plot, Villain and Ending Explained

The full plot of Doctor Strange 2016 follows Strange from a ruined surgeon to the protector of the New York Sanctum, and it ends with a time loop instead of a punch.

The film opens in Kathmandu, where Kaecilius and his followers raid Kamar-Taj, kill the librarian and steal pages from a ritual book that belongs to their former teacher, the Ancient One. In New York, Stephen Strange loses the fine use of his hands in a car accident. After modern medicine fails him, he hears of a former paralysis patient who healed himself, and he travels to Nepal to find out how.

The Ancient One shows Strange the astral plane and other dimensions, and he becomes a student beside Mordo, while Wong guards the library. Strange secretly reads forbidden texts and learns to bend time with the Eye of Agamotto. Through these studies he learns that Kaecilius serves Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension, and wants to pull Earth into it.

Kaecilius destroys the London Sanctum, and his zealots then attack the New York Sanctum, where Strange is badly hurt and is treated by his former colleague Dr. Christine Palmer. Strange also discovers that the Ancient One has been borrowing power from the Dark Dimension to prolong her life, which sours Mordo on her. Kaecilius fatally wounds her, and she dies after a last conversation with Strange.

In Hong Kong, the Dark Dimension begins merging with Earth and Wong is killed. Strange turns back time to undo the damage, then confronts Dormammu inside a time loop that kills him again and again. Worn down by the repeats, Dormammu agrees to leave Earth and take Kaecilius and his followers with him if Strange will end the loop. Disillusioned, Mordo gives up magic and walks away, and Strange settles into the New York Sanctum to keep training and protecting the world.

The ending of Doctor Strange 2016 is Strange beating Dormammu by trapping him in an endless time loop until the being surrenders and leaves Earth. Kaecilius and his zealots are taken into the Dark Dimension as part of that bargain, Mordo quits the order, and Strange returns the Eye of Agamotto to Kamar-Taj and takes up his post at the New York Sanctum.

In my opinion, the finale works because it pays off the character instead of the spectacle. Strange begins the film as a man whose entire identity is precision and control, and he wins by accepting that he will die over and over without ever landing a blow. A surgeon who cannot stand to lose finally learns to lose repeatedly, and that is a more specific victory than a bigger explosion would have been.

The cost is the part people tend to miss. Mordo had already lost faith in the Ancient One for borrowing power from the Dark Dimension, and Strange's use of time to reverse the damage in Hong Kong looks, from where Mordo stands, like another rule broken for a good reason. It could be argued that this is the moment the film plants its next villain, and the post credit scene confirms it.

The ending also does a lot of franchise work. It hands Strange a permanent home, it links him to Thor and Loki through the mid-credits scene, and it feeds the larger Infinity Stone storyline that avengers infinity war later pays off. If you are following the bigger picture, the infinity stones page shows where this film fits.

Two extra scenes follow the main story of Doctor Strange 2016: one partway through the credits and one after they finish.

The first finds Thor inside the New York Sanctum, asking Strange for help. Loki has arrived on Earth, and Strange agrees to join the hunt for Odin. This is the scene that leads into thor ragnarok, where Cumberbatch's Strange turns up again.

The last scene belongs to Mordo. He confronts Jonathan Pangborn, drains away the magical power Pangborn has been using, and declares that the world has too many sorcerers. It marks Mordo's turn against the order, and Chiwetel Ejiofor carries that thread into doctor strange in the multiverse of madness.