Last Night

R

Released Sep 11, 1998

1 hr. 36 min.

Comedy

Drama

List

85%

52 Reviews

Tomatometer

85%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

In this Canadian drama by Don McKellar, various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring, for reasons explained, at midnight. While widower Patrick Wheeler (McKellar) braces for his fate, he meets Sandra (Sandra Oh), the wife of a businessman, who is intent on committing suicide. Meanwhile, Patrick's friend Craig Zwiller (Callum Keith Rennie), embracing a hedonistic approach to the apocalypse, decides to have as much sex as he can while there is still time.

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Critics Consensus

An engrossing, poignant film, Last Night examines the end of the world through humorous and thought-provoking dialogue.

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wayne k

Around the turn of the 21st century, I remember people freaking out over the so-called ‘millennium bug'. Last Night takes that contemporary fear and examines it on a human level. The film is based on an intriguing questions: If you knew, definitively, that the world was going to end that very day, how would you spend your final few hours? Would you get together with family members, throw a massive party, tick some items off your bucket list or simply stay home alone and do nothing? These are all among the choices made by the characters within the film, as the clock approaches midnight and the end of the world beckons. I was worried it was going to be a pretentious art house flick, where nobody is an individual, and are instead simply vessels for spewing gratingly smug dialogue and obnoxious platitudes. But no, the characters involved feel like real people. They talk and act differently, interact with each in different ways and come to learn their own lessons as the story goes on. When they talk to each other, particularly Sandra and Patrick, it feels like 2 human beings having an honest and frank discussion. It seems like writer/director/actor Don McKeller wanted the characters to have an odd flippancy about their inevitable doom, as many players act like the coming apocalypse will be some minor inconvenience in an otherwise routine day. But I think the point he was trying to make is that we get so wrapped up in our own lives and troubles that we rarely get a chance to fully see what's going on around us. It does feel slack and ambling at times, but then again so do its characters. The film ends at just the right time, and when it's over there's a sense that you've really gotten to know the people who've just been wiped from the face of the earth. I've never heard anyone speak about it, and I can see it not being to everyone's tastes, but it's a film that, thanks to focussing on the end of the world rather than just the end of the millennium, has granted itself a kind of immortality. The 90s were chockfull of great flicks, and I can safely say that Last Night is one of them.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

dave s

The fact that global annihilation is just moments away could be the reason why it is sunny at midnight in Toronto but, in the long run, that's neither here nor there. Don McKellar's Last Night is a surprisingly intimate and wryly humorous end of times movie. With only hours left before the unspecified disaster ends life on Earth, Patrick (McKellar) is intent on spending his final moments alone. However, things change when he meets Sandra (Sandra Oh), desperate to find her husband in order to fulfil a suicide pact. The movie manages to evoke the required sense of desperation as the various characters try to find some sense of solace in their final moments, ranging from a reliance on faith to the fulfilment of a sexual bucket list. While not without its warts (the lighting always seems off, among other things), Last Night is surprisingly refreshing when considering the subject matter.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Lucy M

One of my favorite movies. Excels on every level.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/29/22

Full Review

Audience Member

An unusual end of the world drama that's ponderously paced and doesn't suit the 4:3 aspect it's filmed in, but is oddly affecting by the end.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Best movie ever! Absolute must see!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/03/23

Full Review

Audience Member

While Hollywood was churning out films about aliens and natural disasters threatening life on earth which always ended with an American hero saving the world, this more thoughtful Canadian film was considering "What would you do with yourself if you knew the world was ending and there was no way to stop it?" It follows the final hours of different people and how they choose to spend it, in all the diverse ways people might behave in the face of the end.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

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Don McKellar

Director

Don McKellar

Patrick Wheeler

Sandra Oh

Sandra

Callum Keith Rennie

Craig Zwiller

Sarah Polley

Jennifer 'Jenny' Wheeler

David Cronenberg

Duncan

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Steve Murray

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For all its wry humor, it concludes as a heart-piercing affirmation of life and love in the face of death.

Feb 21, 2004

Full Review

Jeff Strickler

Minneapolis Star Tribune

McKellar is a good storyteller, and he demonstrates a clever -- albeit dark -- sense of humor. But much of it goes for naught because of the movie's sterile patina.

Rated: 2/4

Nov 6, 2002

Full Review

James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Last Night succeeds where so many other films have failed because it concentrates on the element that its predecessors have ignored: the human factor.

Rated: 3/4

Aug 18, 2002

Full Review

Robert Bell

Exclaim!

Last Night suggests that we're all just meandering through life without really addressing annihilation anxiety...

Jan 30, 2023

Full Review

Christopher Kelly

Out Magazine

McKellar occasionally drifts into sentimentality, but his able cast and strange vision of a community struggling to come to terms with its limitations prove deeply affecting.

May 24, 2022

Full Review

Kathi Maio

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

A gem of a small Canadian film...

Mar 6, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

In this Canadian drama by Don McKellar, various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring, for reasons explained, at midnight. While widower Patrick Wheeler (McKellar) braces for his fate, he meets Sandra (Sandra Oh), the wife of a businessman, who is intent on committing suicide. Meanwhile, Patrick's friend Craig Zwiller (Callum Keith Rennie), embracing a hedonistic approach to the apocalypse, decides to have as much sex as he can while there is still time.

Director: Don McKellar
Executive Producer: Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta
Screenwriter: Don McKellar
Distributor: Lionsgate Films
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 11, 1998, Original
Release Date (Streaming): May 23, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $493.5K
Sound Mix: Dolby
Aspect Ratio: 35mm

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