Katniss surveys the devastated ruins of District 12, which has been leveled by a Capitol firebombing attack that killed most of its residents.

Katniss decides to become the Mockingjay after Gale explains that accepting Peeta's ceasefire plea would simply restore Capitol rule over all the districts.

Katniss agrees to serve as the Mockingjay only after Coin grants Peeta full immunity and gives Katniss the exclusive right to execute Snow herself.

Capitol bombers attack District 8, destroying a makeshift hospital full of wounded rebel fighters and civilians.

After the District 8 bombing, Katniss addresses the Capitol on live camera and vows that if the rebels burn, the Capitol will burn with them.

During a hijacked broadcast, a beaten Peeta warns that District 13 will be attacked and urges everyone to flee before morning.

Coin authorizes a covert rescue mission to free Peeta Mellark and Annie Cresta from Capitol imprisonment.

The rescue mission succeeds, but the returning Peeta immediately attacks Katniss and tries to strangle her to death.

Gale's plan to collapse the Nut's entrances with rockslides succeeds, destroying the Capitol's last military stronghold and delivering District 2 to the rebels.

Boggs triggers a hidden bomb in the Capitol streets, loses both legs, and transfers control of his Holo to Katniss just before dying.

Finnick Odair is decapitated by Capitol mutts in an underground tunnel while the surviving squad members escape to the surface.

Capitol hovercrafts drop bombs on children gathered near Snow's mansion, and Prim is killed in the second detonation while rushing in to help the wounded.

Katniss wakes from severe burns to learn the war is over, Snow is captured, and Coin has seized power as the new president of Panem.

Snow tells Katniss that Coin, not the Capitol, ordered the bomb attack near his mansion that killed Prim and the children.

At Snow's scheduled public execution, Katniss turns her bow on President Coin and shoots her instead, ending the rebel cycle of tyranny.

Katniss Everdeen returns to the ashes of District 12 and agrees to become the Mockingjay, the symbolic face of the rebellion against the Capitol. She films propaganda pieces that unite the districts, while Peeta Mellark, held captive by Snow, is used as a counter-propaganda tool. After a daring rescue mission, Peeta returns brainwashed and violent, having been tortured into perceiving Katniss as his mortal enemy. The rebels push their campaign into the Capitol itself, suffering devastating losses including the death of Finnick Odair in the city's underground tunnels. The war ends with the bombing that kills Prim, after which Snow reveals that Coin engineered the strike to guarantee her own rise to power. Katniss executes Coin instead of Snow and eventually rebuilds her life with a recovering Peeta back in District 12.

The headline events of the rebellion from start to finish.

Katniss finds a fresh white rose left by President Snow in her childhood bedroom inside the ruins of District 12.

Katniss discovers her Capitol prep team shackled and starving in a District 13 dungeon, imprisoned for stealing bread.

Coin announces Katniss's acceptance of the Mockingjay role at a district assembly and warns that immunity will be revoked if Katniss defects.

Katniss attempts to deliver a scripted propo line on stage and fails completely, prompting Haymitch to declare she will ruin the rebellion.

After Katniss's first successful propo airs across Panem, rebel forces immediately seize District 11, a key food-supplying region.

District 13 residents shelter in underground bunkers for three days during a relentless Capitol missile assault on the district.

Katniss and Finnick film a distraction propo to hold the Capitol's attention while rebel forces carry out the rescue mission in the Capitol.

Beetee explains that the Capitol hijacked Peeta using tracker-jacker venom, overwriting his memories of Katniss with terror and violent hatred.

Gale and Beetee show Katniss their double bomb design, engineered to wound victims first and then kill the first responders who rush to help.

Katniss is shot by an unknown assailant while addressing a crowd of survivors on the steps of District 2's Justice Building.

Finnick and Annie's wedding ceremony is broadcast across Panem by Plutarch as a propaganda event designed to raise rebel morale.

After soldier Leeg 2 is killed by a mislabeled pod in the Capitol, Coin personally assigns Peeta to replace her on Unit 451.

The Capitol airs a broadcast declaring all members of Unit 451 dead, which the rebels also believe, giving the squad unexpected cover to hide.

The surviving squad members take refuge in a hidden cellar beneath the Capitol shop of a former stylist named Tigris.

Katniss is briefly imprisoned after killing Coin and later freed after a televised trial in which friends argue that war trauma deranged her.

While Katniss serves as the Mockingjay, the rebel effort is shaped by smaller but pivotal events that reveal the true cost of the war. Snow's warning roses and Coin's brutal treatment of Katniss's prep team signal early on that the rebel leadership is willing to use the Capitol's own cruel tactics. The propaganda war escalates as rebel propos topple districts and boost morale, even as Beetee's explanation of hijacking exposes the psychological horrors Snow has inflicted on Peeta. In the Capitol, Unit 451 navigates deadly booby-trapped streets and Coin's calculated political maneuvering before being declared dead by the Capitol broadcast system. Finnick and Annie's joyful wedding provides a rare moment of hope before the final battle, and even after victory is won, Katniss must survive one final reckoning in a public trial before she can go home.

The supporting moments that built and broke the rebellion.

Prim tells Katniss that her importance to the rebellion means she can demand almost anything from Coin in exchange for her cooperation.

Katniss and Finnick secretly watch Peeta's second Capitol interview together and realize the Capitol has been torturing him for months, not days.

Katniss sings her father's ballad 'The Hanging Tree' in District 12's woods during a propo shoot and realizes the film crew has been recording her.

Prim reassures a frightened Katniss during the bunker lockdown that Snow will not kill Peeta because Peeta is the last leverage Snow holds over her.

During a filmed distraction propo, Finnick reveals that Snow forced victors into sexual exploitation and has been poisoning political rivals for decades.

Observed from a viewing room, Peeta screams that Katniss is a Capitol-made mutt and blames her entirely for the destruction of District 12.

Gale proposes triggering rockslides to seal the Nut's entrances, openly acknowledging the plan will trap and suffocate everyone inside including civilians.

A restrained Peeta meets alone with Katniss in the hospital and asks her directly whether she ever truly loved him.

Boggs privately tells Katniss that with the districts unified, Coin now wants her dead so that she can become a martyr for the rebel cause.

Peeta attacks soldier Mitchell during a hijacking episode, launching him into a barbed-wire pod that kills him instantly.

After Boggs dies, Katniss falsely claims Coin gave her a secret mission to execute Snow and becomes the squad's de facto leader.

Katniss kisses a destabilizing Peeta in the Capitol tunnels and begs him not to let Snow take him from her.

Katniss shoots and kills a Capitol resident without hesitation to prevent the woman from alerting authorities to the squad's hiding place.

Coin calls a vote among surviving victors on whether to hold one final Hunger Games using the children of Capitol citizens as tributes.

Katniss decides she no longer needs Gale's cold vindictiveness, severs their relationship entirely, and chooses to rebuild her life with Peeta.

Mockingjay is driven by a chain of revelations that force Katniss to question who she is truly fighting for and what she is willing to become. Early insights from Prim and a secret viewing of Peeta's tortured interview clarify the brutal stakes of her role as a propaganda symbol. The moral boundaries of the rebellion begin to dissolve as Finnick exposes Snow's crimes and Gale proposes tactics that treat civilian lives as acceptable losses. In the Capitol's streets and tunnels, Katniss is pushed past her own limits, killing an innocent civilian and barely surviving Peeta's repeated attempts to murder her. Snow's final revelation that Coin engineered Prim's death using Gale's own bomb design forces Katniss to abandon her fixation on Snow and redirect her arrow at the greater threat. Her choice to kill Coin rather than seek revenge defines who she is, and choosing Peeta over Gale finally closes the door on the life she lived before the Games.