Film

Last Days

Gus Van Sant's elliptical meditation on celebrity, addiction and withdrawal. Michael Pitt drifts through Seattle like a ghost in his own life—brilliant, hollowed out, surrounded by hangers-on and his own noise. It's less narrative than mood: beautiful, glacial, unsettling. For those who prize atmosphere and ambiguity over plot.

TMDb rating2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like films that treat wandering as the subject itself, where long silences, an unhurried camera and a thin thread of plot let a mood settle over you until it feels like a lived afternoon.

Skip it if you need a story that moves, since very little happens here and the repetition of scenes can feel like being stuck in someone else's head for ninety-seven minutes.

What it asks of you: Long, drifting takes and sparse, half-heard dialogue set a pace so slow that ninety-seven minutes feel longer and quieter than that.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Wrestler2008

Darren Aronofsky's portrait of a performer in freefall, clinging to the one thing that gave him meaning. Like Last Days, it finds humanity in self-destruction and refuses easy answers. Devastating.

But Repetitive by design—same motels, same desperation, same small mercies. If you want momentum, this will frustrate you.

The Wrestler poster

Come and See1985

A Soviet war film that documents the obliteration of human decency in real time. Like Last Days, it watches someone empty themselves out, moment by moment, until nothing recognizable remains.

But Genuinely one of the most disturbing films ever made. Not a viewing experience; an ordeal.

Come and See poster

I'm Still Here2010

Casey Affleck documents Joaquin Phoenix's retreat from public life in this docudrama blur. It has Last Days' fascination with watching someone disappear behind a persona, frame by frame.

But The ambiguity about what's real and what's performed will either intrigue or infuriate you. Some find it pretentious.

I'm Still Here poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Last Days

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Gerry2002

Both are Van Sant essays on disappearance. But where Last Days watches through a half-open door, Gerry removes the door entirely. It's Last Days' logic taken to its absolute end.

Van Sant's most radical film: two men walk through the desert for 103 minutes. No dialogue. No destination. It's the sound of Last Days' isolation made into a single, hypnotic image. A test of faith in cinema itself.

But This is basically watching someone's real-time boredom. It will feel like punishment if you're not ready for it. Many aren't.

Gerry poster
More like this (7)

Requiem for a Dream2000

Aronofsky again, this time on addiction itself—how desire hollows you out whether you're chasing drugs, thinness, or meaning. It shares Last Days' refusal to look away.

But Relentless and exhausting. The style can feel like punishment. Not cathartic; corrosive.

Requiem for a Dream poster

My Own Private Idaho1991

Van Sant's earlier study of marginal youth and impossible belonging. If you loved Last Days' texture and sympathy for the unmoorable, this is essential. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.

But River Phoenix's screen presence can't quite anchor an episodic, sometimes formless narrative. Some scenes feel more poetic than coherent.

My Own Private Idaho poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Charlie Kaufman's chamber piece about art, self-erasure, and the impossibility of ever capturing the truth of a life. Shares Last Days' fascination with watching someone disappear into their own work.

But Deliberately obscure and recursive. If you're looking for clarity or resolution, you've come to the wrong place.

Synecdoche, New York poster

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers watch an ordinary man come undone while the world refuses to explain itself. Shares Last Days' dark comedy about powerlessness and the illusion of understanding.

But Its grim view of faith and meaning isn't everyone's cup of tea. The black comedy can feel mean-spirited.

A Serious Man poster

The Elephant Man1980

Van Sant again, this time watching a tragedy assemble itself in real time through multiple perspectives and long, patient takes. It has Last Days' commitment to observation over judgment.

But The subject matter—a school shooting—makes some viewers uncomfortable regardless of approach. Others find the style evasive.

The Elephant Man poster

Closer2004

Both watch intelligent people sabotage intimacy. Last Days does it through withdrawal; Closer does it through weaponized honesty. Same wound, opposite cautery.

Mike Nichols' surgical dissection of four people failing to connect. It has Last Days' intelligence and bleakness, but it's verbally vicious rather than silent—everyone's articulate about their loneliness. Brutal in a completely different register.

But The dialogue is sharp to the point of cruelty. Some find it misanthropic. Others think it's a sentimental film pretending to be cynical.

Closer poster

Enter the Void2010

Both films are interested in the space between presence and absence. Last Days makes it quiet; Enter the Void makes it psychedelic. Same philosophical question. Opposite answers about how to film it.

Gaspar Noé's hallucinogenic nightmare about a man adrift in Tokyo after death. Visually, it's Last Days run through a kaleidoscope—but it has the same patience with emptiness, the same refusal to sentimentalize or hurry.

But Two and a half hours of neon hazing into abstraction. If you want narrative, conventional beauty, or a stable sense of what's happening, this will infuriate you.

Enter the Void poster

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