Cloud Atlas ending explained

What happens

All six stories reach their crises together, and each hero's act of courage is completed. Zachry and Meronym send their signal and leave Earth. Years later, on another planet, they tell the story to children under the stars.

The last image

Zachry and Meronym sit with children on another world, watching the stars as they tell the story.

What it says

Each act, however small, echoes long after the person is gone, and the final crosscutting makes you feel it. Freedom and love are passed forward by testimony and art. That is why the ending is hopeful, even though many of these lives end in loss.