Dont understand Tom's choice at the end.

As the novels progress there is talk that Tom Ripley is a disreputable character. People suspect but nothing is proven. In Ripley's Game it is clear that as a middle-age man Tom knows exactly what is said about him. He mocks them as "scurrilous rumors" and he does what he does anyway. Ripley doesn't exactly get away with it all unscathed but until people pay the price personally they aren't sure what to believe.

I see your point. He has to kill Meredith too. He had to kill her anyway, for the very reason you mention. For that reason, he also has to kill her family. He needs to kill multiple people on that boat. For that he needs time to himself, thus he must kill Peter. If he doesn't kill Peter, then he needs to concoct an excuse for being alone during the times necessary to kill Meredith and her family. But Peter will later put it together that Tom was gone during those times. That's why he needs to kill Peter, before killing Meredith and her family. We just don't see the later murders. Yea, stupid, but it's the best I can do.

I think it all hinges on how easy it is to dispose with Peter's body. When I watched the film, I assumed Tom had a plan which would make this fairly easy. Also, they may have been going to a place where nobody recognised Peter, so Tom might have been able to pass himself off as Peter or just carry on without him and pretend that they parted ways.

I think Tom shoves Peter overboard in the dead of night, debarked and gets lost in Europe. Easy to do in those days.

The sequel by the author is Ripleys Game where he in a common serial killer killing anyone who gets in his way. You have to suspend plausibility to some extent. This is about character development.

This is one of my all time favorite movies and I currently watching it again.

Yes, this is true. Luck will not aid him in this case as it has in the past. He was trapped, and because of his fatal isolation and distrust, he failed to take the one real exit that was open to him - trusting Peter, even to the limited extent of telling him that he had pretended to be Dickie when he met Meredith. Peter and Tom were bound together by their secret homosexual outsider status, Peter was in love with Tom, and it wasn't that preposterous. Tom could have invented any number of reasons for the ruse and Peter would have bought it.

As someone here said, Tom was clever but he wasn't that bright. I take that to mean he was quick-witted, but a poor strategist.

The point that I took from it was that with each murder he was taking one more step towards trapping himself, that eventually it wouldn't be possible for him to weasel his way out. Not that Peter's murder was the straw that would break the camel's back, but that he was getting close to that point. Anyway, I completely agree with you... I just didn't see it as a story flaw, something that the author hadn't taken into account.

But I think this is basically why this is the final scene of the movie? Because Ripley has travelled so far down into the basement if you will that there's now no possible way out, for him to live a normal happy life. He'll either be caught and convicted or run away and spend the rest of his days living in secret. It doesn't really matter either way, this is the end for him.

I like the ending, but I have to confess it's a little far-fetched. The unintended consequences, as you state, are more trouble than they're worth. Why not just confess to Meredith that he lied about being Dickie? Sure, it will be momentarily embarrassing, but it's a lot cleaner than killing again and having rumors of a "Dickie" sighting make their way back to Mr. Greenleaf and Marge.