movie review the last seduction

The Last Seduction

There is a kind of deliciousness to the great movie villains. By setting out to do evil, they tempt our own darker natures. By getting away with it, they alarm us: Is there nothing safe or sacred? In crime pictures and thrillers, the villains are almost always more interesting than the heroes, and there is a kind of unconscious sigh in the audience when a really intriguing villain is defeated. Harry Lime doesn’t even appear in the first 80 minutes of “ The Third Man ,” and yet is more fascinating than anyone on the screen.

John Dahl ‘s “The Last Seduction” knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules. It gives us a diabolical, evil woman, and goes the distance with her. We keep waiting for the movie to lose its nerve, and it never does: This woman is bad from beginning to end, she never reforms, she never compromises, and the movie doesn’t tack on one of those contrived conclusions where the morals squad comes in and tidies up.

The woman is named Bridget Gregory, although she goes under other names as the plot develops. She is played by Linda Fiorentino , with a hard voice and cold eyes and a certain fearsome sexiness; she plays Bridget as the kind of woman who has the same effect on a man as a bucket of ice in the bathtub. Her motivation is simple: She wants to get her hands on large amounts of money, and is willing to play any game with any man who will help her. “Are you still a lawyer?” she asks her attorney. “Yeah,” he says. “Are you still a self-serving bitch?” As the movie opens, she and her husband have made a big haul – $700,000 in illegal funds. Then he makes the big mistake of hitting her in the face. He knows it’s a mistake: “Hey, you can hit me anywhere, hard.” During the course of the movie she will accept his invitation, in her own way.

The plot takes her to a small town, where she meets a guy named Mike ( Peter Berg ). He tries to pick her up in a bar. This is one of the more unwise moves in his life. She rejects him, then casually decides to toy with him, and eventually ends up recruiting him as an accessory to murder. He never quite catches on to the full depth of her deception.

It would not be fair to “The Last Seduction” to say much more about the plot, which only gradually reveals itself even to Bridget (she has a gift of improvising, moving from one crime to another as a jazzman might sample various melodic lines). Like Billy Wilder’s classic “ Double Indemnity ,” where Barbara Stanwyck mesmerized Fred MacMurray with his own lust, “The Last Seduction” is about the way even a smart guy gets dumb when he starts thinking tumescently.

“The Last Seduction” is the second amazing film I’ve seen this year by John Dahl, whose “ Red Rock West ” was a sleeper hit in the late spring. Who is this guy? He makes movies so smart and cynical that the American movie industry doesn’t know how to handle him.

I loved “Red Rock West” when I saw it in 1993 at the Toronto Film Festival, but distributors wouldn’t touch it, and it went to cable and video without a theatrical release. Then a theater in San Francisco started showing it, and set a house record, and soon it had returned from its video grave to play in theaters all over the country. Now comes “The Last Seduction,” with the same story: Passed over by distributors, played on cable, etc. And then it opened in London and got some of the best reviews of the year. Now it’s in American theaters.

What is it? Do distributors think American audiences are so dumb they can’t appreciate a smart woman who unspools a criminal plan of diabolical complexity, while treating men like disposable diapers? Are they afraid of a female character who is really evil – not just pretend-bad, like the saucy heroines of the glossy Hollywood slasher movies? (There’s a pop psychology theory that women are weak in American movies because Hollywood executives are terrified of strong women.) The great quality in “The Last Seduction” is the dry humor with which Linda Fiorentino puts across the role. Look at this movie just a little sideways, and it’s a comedy, although you can never quite catch Dahl or Fiorentino smiling. It must have been a lot of fun for her to play the role; there are several scenes where the men in the movie simply cannot believe she’s really serious. You mean this broad is really going to go through with that? She is.

Fiorentino has played other roles like this. She has a quality about her. In “VisionQuest” (1985), a silly wrestling movie, there was nothing silly about her scenes. In Martin Scorsese’s “ After Hours ,” she was the black widow waiting in the net that the hapless hero stumbled into. What’s crucial is that she plays these roles with relish: She seems to enjoy the freedom a script like “The Last Seduction” gives her, and the result is a movie that is not only ingenious and entertaining, but liberating, because we can sense the story isn’t going to be twisted into conformity with some stupid formula.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Linda Fiorentino as Bridget Gregory
• Peter Berg as Mike Swale
• J.T. Walsh as Frank Griffith
• Bill Nunn as Harlan

Directed by

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The Last Seduction

Where to watch.

Rent The Last Seduction on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Like Body Heat , The Last Seduction updates film noir techniques for a modern era, imbuing this erotic film with '90s snark.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Linda Fiorentino

Bridget Gregory

Bill Pullman

Clay Gregory

Frank Griffith

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FILM REVIEW: THE LAST SEDUCTION

FILM REVIEW: THE LAST SEDUCTION; A Femme Fatale Who Lives Up To the Description

By Janet Maslin

• Oct. 26, 1994

A hired assassin, an innocent fall guy and a husband and wife intent on killing each other made a sterling film noir spectacle out of "Red Rock West," John Dahl's recently released sleeper. Now Mr. Dahl, whose work will never again fall into the sleeper category, is back with "The Last Seduction," which makes his earlier miscreants look like a collection of cream puffs. "Red Rock West" was memorably smart and steely. But it's a walk in the park picking buttercups compared with this.

Nothing else about "The Last Seduction" is as polite or colorless as its title. Certainly not Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino), the hot, slinky monster who is this film's central character. There were 1940's noir heroines with Bridget's brand of undiluted self-interest, but she also throws in a few tricks from the "Basic Instinct" school of interpersonal relations. Only in the insect or animal worlds are there comparable models for feminine behavior. And the female praying mantis is nicer to her mates than Bridget is to the men in this movie.

It takes about five minutes for Mr. Dahl to establish Bridget's breathtaking ruthlessness, as she robs her husband Clay (Bill Pullman) of the proceeds from a drug deal. Maybe she does this because Clay treated her a little badly, and maybe she's just ready for new scenery. Anyway, Bridget takes the money and leaves New York City, winding up in Beston, a friendly little town near Buffalo. No one in Beston has ever seen anything like Bridget, and neither have you.

Both Mr. Dahl, who directs this film with stunning economy, and Ms. Fiorentino, whose performance is flawlessly hard-boiled, exult in the sheer wickedness of Bridget's character. What make this easy to do are Bridget's stony seductiveness and her spellbinding talent for getting exactly what she wants. For instance, she soon appropriates Mike Swale (Peter Berg), a naive Beston resident who's wowed by Bridget's drop-dead sophistication. Their meeting alone, with Bridget unceremoniously unzipping Mike's pants in a crowded barroom, is guaranteed to make every man in the audience squirm. And wonder what's next.

Bridget, now using the name Wendy, lures Mike into one-half of an intense affair. (She herself remains maddeningly aloof.) Meanwhile, she puts down a few tentative roots in Beston, despite the fact that the neighbors' neighborliness is enough to make her cringe. She rents a house in suburbia (Mr. Dahl has great fun with that little contrast) and finds a job at the insurance company where Mike works. But she wants to keep their relationship a secret, so she slaps Mike when he tries talking to her at the office. "A woman loses 50 percent of her authority when people find out who she's sleeping with," Bridget declares.

Bridget will not be mistaken for a crusading feminist. Her outlook is much too selfishly pathological to have a political edge, and her glamour is too scarily seductive. Besides, Bridget is a more darkly fascinating anomaly, with old-style killer instincts along with a liberated aggressiveness that suits the present day. The audience can only sit back and watch in astonishment as Bridget embroils Mike in an intricate, deadly scheme that harks back to James M. Cain, while also doing her best to keep Clay off her trail.

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Movie Review: 'The Last Seduction'

Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino), the lethal Natasha Fatale at the center of John Dahl’s stylish, slithery new bit of film noir, The Last Seduction , is the kind of magnetic man-eater Sharon Stone might give her pointy eyebrows to play. But she’d be too late: Fiorentino has nailed the territory. Her Bridget, a Camel-smoking swindler who dresses in kick-ass shades of black, white, and smoke-gray, is married to a New York City medical student-cum-drug-dealer called Clay (Bill Pullman), a creepy piece of work himself, who slaps ”Bridge” around once too often for her kinky tastes. So she steals a bundle of dough from his most recent haul, skips town, and gets as far as Beston, a small burg outside of Buffalo, where she pauses at a bar to plan her divorce or murder of her husband, whichever comes first. There she meets Mike Swale (Peter Berg), a pleasant, naive local guy, none too bright, with a secret in his past. Flick go Bridget’s fingers on the fly of his pants. Goinnnng go all of Mike’s marbles as he falls into her trap, a goner forever. Yowwww go the men in the movie audience, shielding their laps and popping their eyes. Hmmmm go the women who love them, taking notes.

The Last Seduction first aired a few months ago on HBO, as did Dahl’s previous film, the well-received sleeper Red Rock West . His brand of noir is cheeky: Dark things happen on all-American streets (in Beston, where strangers chirp ”Good morning!,” Bridget plots her treachery in a perky suburban split- level), and characters snap at each other, in an acid script by Steve Barancik, like discontented lizards. But the TV screen suits Dahl’s vision fine: For all its considerable, enjoyable verve and attitude, for all its sexy nastiness, this is a small-screen-size plot — and one that unravels precariously just as the antiheroine pries open Mike’s secret and closes in on her prey.

Still, my oh my, that Fiorentino: She can make even holding a pen look dirty. And she’s well matched in intensity by Pullman, Berg, and, as her shady lawyer, the always satisfying J.T. Walsh. Taking over Mike’s kitchen while he lies spent after their first night together, Bridget pulls out a plate of pie from the fridge as she talks to her lawyer on the phone. Bored, she smokes. Bored, she takes a bite with her fingers, then spits it back onto the plate. Bored, she hangs up the phone and stubs her cig out in the pie — right near the note on the dish that reads ”Love, Grandma.” Noshing was never so thrillingly heartless. B+

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The Last Seduction Review

12 Jun 1998

109 minutes

Last Seduction, The

This is one of those thrillers (like Blood Simple) that keeps coming up with genuinely surprising plot twists. Under the credits, we meet Bridget (Fiorentino), a hard-as-nails New York bitch, and Clay (Pullman), the gutless intern husband she has bullied into stealing and selling a cache of pharmaceutical drugs. Clay celebrates with a touch of spouse abuse, whereupon Bridget takes the cash and runs out on him, going to ground in a small town where she plans on sitting out the time till her shifty lawyer (J.T. Walsh) gets her a divorce. In a bar she picks up Mike (Berg), an amiably dumb small town failure whom she exploits for quick sex and then ensnares in her plan to be rid of all her personal ties. Clay has hired a private eye (Bill Nunn) and is on Bridget's trail, but she sees ways she can get away with the cash and return to her beloved city.

Dahl did good work on the small-scale noirs Kill Me Again and Red Rock West, but this (which benefits from a superb screenplay) is his best movie to date. Fiorentino's Bridget, introduced in a spectacularly cynical sequence as she works as a whip-cracking slave driver for a telephone sales company, is an authentically wonderful monster. She is funny when demonstrating her direct perfidy, but also makes marvellous little turns out of her various sob stories and deceptions.

It's not just a star turn, however, since Berg and Pullman are also perfectly cast, bringing different brands of male inadequacy to the roles of Bridget's fall guys. There are strange sex scenes, sustained stretches of quotably cynical dialogue and an ending you'll be hard put not to find funny even if you're ashamed of it.

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The last seduction.

Directed by John Dahl

Most People Have a Dark Side. She Had Nothing Else.

A devious femme fatale steals her husband’s drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.

Linda Fiorentino Bill Pullman Peter Berg Bill Nunn J.T. Walsh Mike Lisenco Brien Varady Dean Norris Michael Raysses Zack Phifer Donna W. Scott Mik Scriba Erik-Anders Nilsson Patricia R. Caprio Herb Mitchell Renee Rogers Bill Stevenson Walter Addison Anne Flanagan Serena Michelle Davison Jack Shearer

Director Director

Producers producers.

Jonathan Shestack Nancy Rae Stone

Writer Writer

Steve Barancik

Casting Casting

Debra Zane David Rubin

Editor Editor

Eric L. Beason

Cinematography Cinematography

Jeffrey Jur

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Eric Heffron Michael J. Moore

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

W.M. Christopher Gorog

Lighting Lighting

Austin Goss

Production Design Production Design

Linda Pearl

Art Direction Art Direction

Dina Lipton

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Kathy Lucas

Special Effects Special Effects

John C. Hartigan

Stunts Stunts

Glory Fioramonti Eric Chambers Bill Erickson

Composer Composer

Joseph Vitarelli

Sound Sound

Robert L. Harman Patrick Cyccone Jr. Jon Johnson

Costume Design Costume Design

Terry Dresbach

Makeup Makeup

Camille Henderson

Hairstyling Hairstyling

ITC Entertainment

Releases by Date

26 may 1994, 29 jul 1994, 28 oct 1994, 12 jan 1995, 10 may 1995, 15 sep 1995, 13 jun 2001, 15 sep 2020, releases by country.

• Theatrical 15+
• Theatrical 10
• Physical DVD
• Physical Blu-Ray
• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical M/16
• Theatrical R

110 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Patrick Willems ★★★½ 3

It’s fun to watch this movie and every so often think “hey that guy onscreen went on to direct Battleship”

Review by Will Menaker ★★★★★ 2

Linda Fiorentino, for this role as a sexual-style sociopath and most evil woman ever, you are my Letterboxd Baddie of the Month!

Review by Nakul ★★★★ 3

John Dahl's The Last Seduction is an excellent neo-noir erotic thriller, told from the femme fatale’s perspective. Such a clever, darkly-funny and under-discussed movie. Linda Fiorentino gives an astonishing performance, as one of cinema's most memorable femme fatales. Such a shame Fiorentina disappeared off the scene. Bill Pullman gives a brilliantly sleazy performance, wish he had more screen time in the film. This & Body Heat would make for a great double bill.

Review by Steven Sheehan ★★★★ 22

So the world wants to know; what in the hell happened to Linda Fiorentino? Did she just give up acting? Did Hollywood not know what to do with her? Or is it just Kevin Smith's fault? After starring in Men In Black her output steadily decreased, making seven films in the next 12 years before stopping. No announcement or scandal, just dead silence. Not only is it a little strange but also a real shame.

The Last Seduction is Fiorentino's film from top to bottom and it takes a matter of minutes to be introduced to the cold heart of her character Bridget. There's no packing of suitcases or scooping up of carefully hidden items whilst her husband jumps in…

Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 2

There are only three basic narratives in drama: Linda Fiorentino vs. man, Bill Pullman vs. nature, and Peter Berg vs. himself. Discussed on Episode 17 of The Suspense is Killing Us .

Review by KYK ★★★½

rude and sexy and problematic — a '90s erotic thriller, alright!

Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★½ 19

Quintessential ‘90s Neo-Noir What makes for a memorable noir? It all starts and ends with the femme fatale. This seductive seductresses usually is very bad news for a naive bloke who thinks more with his little head than his big one. She literally charms the pants off him and more times than not, she is the direct cause of him committing a sin that lands him in deep hot water. Linda Fiorentino is the femme fatale in John Dahl’s The Last Seduction. And let me tell you something, she’s one of the most fatal of them all.

Fiorentino oozes empowerment and sex. She’s in total control of her body and her actions. Everything happens because she wants it to. She’s…

Review by Shane McAvoy

If you take a drink every time Linda Fiorentino tells a guy to “whip it out” you’ll have two drinks and a nice evening at the movies.

Review by Hesse ★★★★★ 4

New fave movie to just throw on and I like it more every time.

 Incredibly well shot, would expect no less from Jeffrey Jur, the cinematographer of another gorgeous and secretly brilliant movie, Dirty Dancing. So many inexplicably smokey interiors, so many shots taken at hip-level, always moving, with very shallow focus that never wavers, literal shots from the hip that are miraculously accurate, echoing the plan of our beautiful queen.

The vibe is amazingly fun from start to finish, which is, I think, what sets it apart from other erotic thrillers of the era. We’re having as much fun as her! I love that every review from the men I follow on here calls her a scary unlikable BPD…

Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★ 12

I can't help bit feel like the film industry has failed Linda Fiorentino in some way.

Her career has been a stop-start one where on four different occasions she has been given roles and given performances where it has looked as though she's going to deservedly hit the big time - only for it to never quite happen. The follow-ups to The Last Seduction were the most disappointing period of her career though.

The bright sparks out there, after seeing her sex-charged and sultry performance here, decided that bunging more such roles her way would be a fine idea - and as such she ended up following the most notable role of her career with Bodily Harm and Jade. It…

Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★

Today I learned the guy who directs shitty Mark Wahlberg movies is a pretty good actor!

The Last Seduction is a really fun take on the noir genre, with all the sex and moral ambiguity that couldn’t be portrayed in old Hollywood.

Linda Fiorentino delivers an insane performance, with her Gene-Tierney-from-Laura hair. If she were any less sexy you wouldn’t buy her ability to manipulate men the way she does. Sometimes I wondered if her irresistible power was realistic, then you get so caught up in her charisma, you realize you would also do very illegal things to keep her in your life.

Funny in a very dry and dark way, yet frightening at times, it far surpasses its production value, which at times looks like a 90s sitcom. Very compelling film!

Review by theironcupcake ★★★½ 26

"Could you leave? Please?" "Well, I haven't finished charming you yet." "You haven't started!" "Give me a chance."

(Warning: spoilers ahead, including the ending.)

In the words of Kristen Yoonsoo Kim: "rude and sexy and problematic — a '90s erotic thriller, alright!"

John Dahl's The Last Seduction is a lot of fun for a neo-noir, at least until the third act when it's not. As I think practically every person with a pulse would agree, Linda Fiorentino absolutely owns the film from start to finish as its femme fatale, Bridget/Wendy, an Ava Gardner for the 90s with her lacquered locks and cool resolve. This is a world in which a fortune can be made off of the black market for…

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What it's about.

Never has evil been so darn fun to watch. Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) is such a captivating villainess, you'll actually find yourself rooting for her at times in this noirish take on..., I don't know what, but it involves drug money, double-crosses, lots of witty repartee and cat-and-mouse manipulation that will make your stomach hurt. The script is tight, the acting is all testosterone driven and crisp and you'll hear some choice words come from nice guy Bill Pullman (as Bridget's husband Clay) that you never imagined he could say. Peter Berg (Mike) is fantastic as the guy's guy determined to earn his Alpha-dog badge by subduing the fierce and wickedly intelligent heroine, Bridget. Fiorentino won a BAFTA award for her performance and was nominated, along with Director John Dahl, for several others. The movie did not qualify under Academy rules for the Oscars, but it would have been a strong contender.

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The Last Seduction

Time out says, release details.

• Duration: 110 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: John Dahl
• Screenwriter: Steve Barancik
• Linda Fiorentino
• Bill Pullman
• Herb Mitchell

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Last Seduction, The (United States, 1994)

Linda Fiorentino's Bridget Gregory does things to men that most of us wouldn't consider for what we scrape off the sidewalk. Using the word "bad" to describe her is as mammoth an understatement as calling the Sistine Chapel "nice" or the Grand Canyon "big". It has been decades since someone the likes of Bridget has graced the screen (Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity comes to mind, although her language was never this colorful), and who knows how long it will be until our next opportunity?

Director John Dahl has fun with this material, filming the modern-day noir potboiler with such gusto that it's impossible not to fall under its spell, nor under the influence of its sultry, completely conscienceless leading lady. Dahl, the man behind the twisty Red Rock West , saturates this picture with atmosphere. Every time Bridget takes another pull on her cigarette, we're reminded of a time when 98% of new releases where in black-and-white.

Sap #1 is Bridget's husband, Clay (Bill Pullman). At her prompting, he gets involved in a drug deal that nets him $700,000. He thinks that he and his wife are going to use this to feather their nest egg, but Bridget has other plans -- why split what she can have all to herself? No sooner has Bill gone into the shower than she grabs the money and runs, heading for the small upstate New York town of Beston, where people always say "hello", "please", and "thank you", and no one locks their doors at night. Sap #2 is Mike Swale (Peter Berg), a Beston native who thinks the town is too small for him -- until Bridget arrives. To her, he's a means to an end, something to use up and throw away. To him, she's the love of his life, and he means to make her love him in return, regardless of the cost. Big mistake.

The Last Seduction 's dialogue, scripted by Steve Barancik and spoken by the likes of Fiorentino, Pullman, Berg, and J.T. Walsh, is scintillating, often hilarious, and occasionally insightful. The best lines are about Bridget -- "Anyone check you for a heartbeat lately?" and "I love you... I'm sure you feel the same way - I'm sure you love you, too" -- or from her -- "Spare me your brainless, countrified morality."

The Last Seduction is an entertaining motion picture to immerse oneself in -- significant chunks of the plot fall apart on close examination, but it holds up well enough during the watching, and nothing can dispel the power of Fiorentino's performance. It's great to see a woman getting this sort of plum role, and it proves that you don't have to go way over-the-top like Lena Olin in Romeo is Bleeding to ooze nastiness - or, in Bridget's case, to spew it.

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The Last Seduction (1994)

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• 85   Metascore
• 1 hr 50 mins
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On the lam carrying illicit-drug money, a willful insurance executive (Linda Fiorentino) takes refuge in a small town. Peter Berg. Clay: Bill Pullman. Frank: J.T. Walsh. Harlan: Bill Nunn. Bob: Herb Mitchell. Shep: Dean Norris. Directed by John Dahl.

An updated noir thriller that decisively puts the fatale back into femme fatale, THE LAST SEDUCTION is a dark, expertly contrived display of paranoid nastiness; it's so gleefully mean that only the most tender-hearted viewer could resist going along for the ride. Ambitious Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) and her malleable husband Clay (Bill Pullman), a doctor, have just pulled off a drug deal that's left them with $700,000, which Clay intends to use to pay off his gambling debts. While Clay's in the shower, she coolly takes the money and runs, ending up in a friendly little town called Beston. There she sizes up local stud Mike (Peter Berg) in a bar and, having deemed him adequate to her purposes, rocks his world and sets about guaranteeing her future with deadly precision. Released theatrically after limited airings on the HBO cable channel, John Dahl's THE LAST SEDUCTION joined a growing handful of films--including Tamra Davis's GUNCRAZY and Dahl's previous picture, RED ROCK WEST (both 1993)--to have transcended the stigma attached to made-for-TV movies. Unlike such bloated erotic thrillers as BASIC INSTINCT, which wallow in their own excesses, THE LAST SEDUCTION gets straight to the cold heart of classic noir: life is a stacked deck and only the most twisted, cunning, and ruthless stand a chance of survival. Jeffrey Jur's photography is excellent, dark and smoky at night, crisp and misleadingly clear during the day, and the production design is a marvel of smoky bars and bland suburban houses. But what really makes THE LAST SEDUCTION cook is the performances, especially Linda Fiorentino's praying-mantis-in-lace turn as the amoral Bridget. Though the film made many critics' Ten Best lists and Fiorentino was frequently singled out as an Oscar candidate, THE LAST SEDUCTION could not be included on Academy Awards nomination ballots because it debuted on television.

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The Last Seduction

• A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.
• Bridget Gregory has a lot going for her: she's beautiful, intelligent, and married to a doctor. But, as her husband Clay discovers, all of this is not enough. After persuading him to sell medicinal cocaine to some drug-dealers, she takes off with the money, almost a million dollars, and goes undercover in a mid-American small town. Because Clay must pay off a loan shark who will otherwise damage him severely, he keeps sending detectives after her, trying to retrieve the money. When Bridget meets Mike Swale, a naive local who is blinded by her beauty and directness, she devises an elaborate, almost diabolical scheme to get rid of Clay once and for all. — Peter Zweers <[email protected]>
• In New York, cunning and seductive telemarketing manager Bridget Gregory convinces her husband, Dr. Clay Gregory, to sell a load of cocaine for medical use to drug dealers. Clay raises US$ 100,000.00 with a loan shark and makes US$ 700,000.00 selling the drugs. However, she steals the money and flees to Beston, in Buffalo. She goes to a bar and has one-night stand with a local, Mike Swale. The next morning, she applies for a position of insurance-company manager using the name Wendy Kroy and finds that Mike works in the same company. The naive Mike has just left his wife Trish that he briefly married in Buffalo because of his crush on "Wendy." The manipulative woman sees in Mike the instrument to get rid of Clay and plots a sophisticated evil scheme using Mike. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Bridget is a "femme fatale" who steals her husband's money and leaves from New York. She meets Mike, who falls in love with her and they become lovers. But Mike has no idea about Bridget's past and her plans to use him to get rid of her husband... — Chris Makrozahopoulos <[email protected]>
• The film opens on busy traffic in New York City, quickly moving to a lead generation room where Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) oversees the callers. She clearly expects results, offering bonuses and insulting the callers reminding one of them "ask for the sale four times, every time. Got it?" When one of the salesmen makes a sale she offers him either $100.00 or $1000.00 worth of rare commemorative coins. When he chooses the $100.00 she says "Wise man." Meanwhile, Bridget's husband, Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman), is meeting some drug dealers under a bridge with a case full of "pharmaceutical cocaine." He hands them is case, and tries to take the case of money from one of the money only to have a gun pulled on him. He lets go and starts sobbing "one stupid mistake." assuming he's either getting busted or robbed. It turns out it's neither, they just don't want to give up the case, and they dump the money out, leaving it on the ground for him. Bridget gets to her and Clay's apartment, finding a message from Clay that his meeting was moved back. She's excited when he comes home, asking if he got the money. Clay starts pulling the bills out of his shirt and Bridget remarks on his appearance, "Do you walk the streets like that? You're an idiot!" Clay responds by slapping her and then quickly apologizes, telling her he's on edge from dealing with "scary people." and offering to let her hit him anywhere, hard. He remarks "this is what we worked for" and reminds her that she's a "criminal mastermind" He also mentions that he'll pay off the loan shark tomorrow, to which Bridget says "maybe he'll forget." Clay goes off to the shower, yelling into the living room for Bridget's opinion on dinner plans. "Whatever you want" she says, as she writes a note, (backwards) takes the money and leaves. Clay realizes she's gone and finds the note which he reads in the mirror, says "How are we supposed to celebrate?" He calls out to her in the street "You better run!" Bridget takes a cab to her own car, takes off her ring and drives out of the city, for Chicago, stopping in Beston when she gets low on gas. Before leaving she stops into a Beston bar, where Mike Swale (Peter Berg) is chatting with his friends about a recent trip he made to Buffalo, which didn't work out, landing him back in Beston. When a girl hits on Mike, he hushes his friends from ooohing about it saying "These women are anchors. You get too close to one, Beston's got you for life." This is clearly a regular thing for Mike as his friends react saying "Here we go again." One of Mike's friends says "Tell me about the wife." pointing out Mike's wedding band. Mike complains that he can't get it off. Mike starts complaining about being stuck in Beston again, and his friend asks when he'll leave. Mike answers "How long's it take to grow a new set of balls?" Mike then notices Bridget enter the bar. The bartender intentionally snubs her, asking if anyone in the bar needs a drink while she's asking for one. Mike tells his friend, "This might be my new set of balls." Mike orders her a drink which the bartender is happy to get now. Trying to make small talk, Mike says "You're not from around here?" and Bridget answers "Fuck off." before grabbing a table for herself. Mike approaches her table and is told to go away. Mike: Well, I haven't finished charming you yet. Bridget: You haven't started. Mike: Give me a chance. Bridget: Go find yourself a nice little cow girl, make nice little cow babies and leave me alone. Mike: [leaning in] I'm hung like a horse. Think about it. Bridget: Let's see Mike: Excuse me? Bridget: Mr Ed. Let's see. Mike: Look, I tried to be nice. I can see that's something you're not... Bridget: Now I'm trying. I can be very nice when I try. Sit down. Mike is shocked when she check's out his horse claim as soon as he sits down. saying "I never buy anything sight unseen" She then quizzes him about his past. Mike claims he's had twelve lovers, no prostitutes, and emphasizes that he's never slept with a man. She then asks about his place. Mike says he also has a name prompting Bridget to say "No names. Meet me outside." Mike wakes up looking for her, and finds Bridget talking on his phone and checking out his fridge. She calls her lawyer, Frank (J.T. Walsh) and explains her situation. Frank tells her her husband is entitled to half of anything bought with the cash, so to keep it in cash until a divorce can be finalized which he estimates could take two years. he also advises her to stay put as Clay will know to look for her in Chicago. She runs out without saying good bye to Mike, and he runs outside yelling after her. Bridget picks up a newspaper and finds a job opening in the classifieds for a Lead Generation Manager at Interstate Insurance Company. The employer is impressed with her resume, and she tells him a story about her husband beating her, which is forcing her to hide and use an assumed name. She choose the name Wendy Kroy. She runs into Mike in the hallway, who works at the same company. She tells him to act as if the sex never happened. Bridget rents a place and calls Frank again from her office. Frank tells her that Clay called talking about "a loan shark and his thumb." He adds "Anyone check you for a heartbeat lately?" He tells her that if she won't send Clay some cash to tell him to quit calling. She says she'll call Clay and Frank tells her to be careful as he might trace it. She responds "He's not that clever." She gives Clay a call and we see that Clay's thumb is bandaged. The operator asks if he'll take the call and Clay asks "Is this Bridget in Chicago or Bridget in Dallas?" Bridget tells the operator to disconnect. After work she goes to the bar again, where Mike immediately sees her. She takes him outside to have sex in a not very hidden spot behind the bar. Mike takes the opportunity to ask "Where do I fit in?" and isn't pleased when she says "You're my designated fuck." They meet for sex regularly and Mike keeps pushing for information which she doesn't give. He continues to complain about being "kept at arm's length." She continually makes light of his need for more than sex. Bridget calls Clay from the office again and asks him to get the number from a pay phone down the block and she'll call back. We see that Clay has a guy, Harlan (Bill Nunn) there to trace the call. Clay runs around the apartment to sound winded and when she calls back he gives her a number he already has. Clay runs in place again holding a cordless phone given to him by Harlan, while jumping rope in the apartment. When Bridget remarks it sounds quiet, he opens a window. He asks for the money back and Bridget says "It's mine, you hit me." Clay tells her the $100,000.00 he borrowed from the loan shark is now $150,000.00. She offers to pay off the loan shark and his private detective and leave him ten grand. The phone rings in the apartment tipping her off and she hangs up. The trace turns up the area code, giving them the city she's in. Frank advises her to stay put since she has an alias and it's not likely they'll find her. Bridget and Mike show up to work at the same time and Bridget explains that "a woman loses 50% of her authority when people find out who she's sleeping with." Mike protests, but when they get in the building she slaps Mike and acts as if he's groping her. Harlan and Clay discuss finding Bridget and Harlan explains he doesn't have enough information to do anything. Their talking is interrupted by a "customer" buying prescription drugs from Clay. Harlan tells Clay that she likely has an alias. Clay sees a "New York" poster in the mirror, and recalling Bridget's backard writing skill, tells Harlan that she's using "Wendy Kroy" because all she's thinking about is getting back to New York. Bridget approaches Mike at the bar five days after the office incident. Mike is still complaining about wanting more. Mike tells Bridget about his job as a claims adjuster, which she finds boring until he mentioned he talked with a woman whose husband died, and the woman remarked that she should have killed him years ago. Mike also explains that he knew the husband was cheating from his credit report, as he had credit cards for women other than his wife. Bridget convinces Mike that they should make a list of women with cheating husbands, who have big insurance policies. She then calls one of the numbers and sells the woman her husband's murder, before telling the woman it was a joke. She then tells Mike that she's using the activity to be more than sex partners when he doesn't want to play along. Mike does a call of his own and she lets him come back to her place for the first time. In bed, Bridget asks Mike to tell her about his wife. He asks "How'd you know?" and she says "I didn't." She prompts him to talk about her wife but he isn't forthcoming saying "It was a mistake." Mike implies that Bridget coming to town was significant and when pressed about it he says "You've been out there. You came here, and you chose me. So I was right, I'm bigger than this town." Bridget: So what's wrong? Mike: You can't stop reminding me that you're bigger than me. Bridget gets to work the next day and hears in a hush hush tone from the receptionist that "There was a black man here to see you." She asks what he wanted and the receptionist says "Wouldn't say. He was black though." Bridget can't get ahold of Frank and later that night at Mike's place, she reveals that she's on the run. She tells him she "made a sale." referring to murdering cheating husbands. Mike isn't at all interested and turns her down going off to play hockey without her. She gets into her car to leave and Harlan gets into the car with her holding a gun on her. Bridget offers to share with him instead of Clay and banters with him about leaving her money. She teases him asking "Is it true what they say about size?" when she doesn't let up he unzips his pants. She speeds up while he does this and slams the car into a telephone pole counting on the drivers side airbag to protect her, although Harlan gets thrown through the windshield and killed. At the hospital she tells the police that Harlan had planned to rape her. Mike shows up at the hospital and asks how hockey was, playing up his guilt. She pushes him about the murder for hire again. He won't agree and she tells him she'll do it herself rather than stay there forever. Bridget calls Clay and he remarks that he heard about Clay. He tells her that he's hired a local PI to watch her, parked outside her house. He tells her that now that he knows where she is he's willing to hire a sociopath to take her out. Bridget offers to buy a week, paying the loan shark while she settles things. Clay asks "What made you do this?" Bridget: I don't know. You slapped me. Clay: That's just an excuse Bridget: You're probably right, but I get to slap you back. Clay agrees to her proposition as long as the local PI keeps tailing her. Back at the office, she tries to make travel arrangements without giving her name. Mike listens outside the door and seems concerned that she's going away. She tells him she's just going to New York for the weekend. At her place, Bridget bakes cookies for the PI, dropping one and putting a board with nails under his tire when she picks it up. A cab pulls up and she asks to go to Buffalo. She visits city hall and gets the name of Mike's wife, Trish Swale. She then visits Mike's wife and heads home. Back at the bar, one of Mike's friends tells him that Bridget asked what Mike's secret was, and propositioned him. Mike hits his friend who then says that he came onto her and she shot him down. Mike is distraught and drunk, calls Bridget from a payphone while drinking from a paper bag, leaving her a confessional message about loving her and having a hard time trusting himself after Buffalo. Bridget listens to the message and scribbles a note with Mike's name in a heart. Mike drives over later to erase the message and finds the scribbling while Bridget watches from under the bed. She leaves a ticket for Mike to find coming in, that makes it appear that she went to Miami. Mike assumes she killed the guy she'd talked about. Mike pulls out the note, to prove that she loves him, but Bridget kicks him out. She can't help but laugh afterwards. Mike approaches her at the office, asking for details about the guy she killed, telling her that he's trying to accept what she's done. She tells him she's leaving without him and he asks what he can do to convince her to take him. She tells him that he needs to do what she did and that would make them equals. She presents him with information on a guy named Cahill. Mike refuses again. and as he leaves Bridget smiles and writes a letter claiming to be from his wife Trish, telling him she got a job at Interstate Insurance. We see Mike opening and reading the letter. Mike shows up at Bridget's place, exclaiming that he'll do it as long as they never come back to Beston. Bridget calls the police and claims the PI watching her exposed himself to local kids. While the police hassle the PI, Bridget and Mike take off. On the ride to New York, Bridget grills him about the details of the murder, which involve restraining and gagging Cahill and acting as if he's robbing the place and stabbing him to death. He asks why he has to shut the lights off afterwards and she tells him it's psychology, to tell himself he's finished an unpleasant chore. We see Mike find Cahill on the mailbox tag. He enters the apartment and we see that he's in Clay's apartment. Clay doesn't seem intimidated, and offers some wisecracks. He critiques Mike's methods telling him if he's gagged he can't tell him where everything is. Mike can't bring himself to stab Clay and he exclaims to himself "I can't do it Wendy! I just cant!" This prompts an outburst from the gagged Clay, which catches his interest. He lets Clay explain. He gives Mike the details and he tells Mike to find something else in the apartment that says Cahill. Clay explains that she is planning to finger him for the murder, and figures that the cops are already on the way. assuming he's to signal her somehow, which they realize is the reason that Mike is to shut the lights off. Bridget watches the window from the street and when the lights go off she heads up. Mike kicks a wedding picture across the floor to her and confronts her about her plan. Clay is still bound as Bridget has the handcuff keys. She sprays mace down his throat, killing him and tells Mike that now they have a future. She then suggests they "roleplay" although Mike is stunned at what just happened. She tells him "You killed my husband and raped me!" Mike pushes her away and holds the gun on her, telling her she's going to jail. He picks up the phone and Bridget tells him that Trish wasn't coming to Beston. We see in flashback that Trish is actually a man. Bridget taunts him about it, and he slaps her and dares him to rape her. Mike is over the edge now and gives in, not realizing that Bridget has dialed 911 while laying over the desk. Bridget makes sure to yell, "You killed my husband!" while he says "You want to be raped! I'll rape you!" the 911 operator of course hears everything. Mike is in prison talking to his lawyer, who tells him that the man Bridget claimed to kill is still alive and that the case against him is airtight and there's nothing he can do without one piece of evidence. He mentions that he's likely facing the death penalty. He tells the lawyer, "There might be one thing." We then see Bridget in a limo handling the tag that reads "Cahill" She burns it with her lighter as the limo drives her away.

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The Last Seduction is a 1994 neo-noir erotic thriller film directed by John Dahl, and features Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, and Bill Pullman. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and distributed by October Films. Fiorentino's performance generated talk of an Oscar nomination, but she was ineligible because the film was shown on HBO before it was released to theatres. October Films and ITC Entertainment sued the Academy, but were unable to make Fiorentino eligible for a nomination.

The 1999 sequel The Last Seduction II featured none of the original cast and starred Joan Severance as the character Fiorentino originated.

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Home > The Last Seduction Ending Explained

• The Last Seduction Ending Explained
• UPDATED: September 25, 2023

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“The Last Seduction” is a neo-noir thriller film directed by John Dahl and released in 1994. The movie follows the story of Bridget Gregory, played by Linda Fiorentino, as she manipulates and seduces her way through a web of deceit and betrayal. The film’s ending has left many viewers puzzled and questioning the true motives of its characters. In this article, we will attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding “The Last Seduction” ending.

*Spoiler Alert*

At the beginning of the film, Bridget convinces her husband, Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman), to sell drugs for a large sum of money. However, instead of sharing the profits with him, she takes off with all the cash, leaving Clay empty-handed. This sets in motion a series of events that lead Bridget to a small town where she meets Mike Swale (Peter Berg), a naive man who falls under her spell.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Bridget is not just an ordinary femme fatale but a master manipulator who will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. She uses her charm and intelligence to control those around her, including Mike and his friend Harlan (Bill Nunn). However, things take an unexpected turn when Mike discovers Bridget’s true identity and realizes he has been played all along.

In the final act of the movie, Mike confronts Bridget about her deceitful actions. He demands that she return the money she stole from Clay or face the consequences. Bridget agrees to meet him at a motel to hand over the cash but has other plans in mind.

When Mike arrives at the motel room, he finds Bridget lying on the bed seemingly lifeless. Panicked, he calls an ambulance and tries to revive her. As he frantically performs CPR, Bridget suddenly opens her eyes and reveals that she faked her own death to escape Mike’s grasp.

This twist ending leaves viewers shocked and questioning Bridget’s true intentions. Did she plan to kill Mike all along, or was this just another manipulation tactic? The film intentionally leaves this open to interpretation, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions.

One possible explanation is that Bridget saw no other way out of the situation. She knew that if she didn’t fake her death, Mike would continue to pursue her and potentially harm her. By faking her demise, she gains the upper hand and can disappear without a trace.

Another interpretation is that Bridget genuinely cared for Mike in her own twisted way. Faking her death could have been a desperate attempt to protect him from the dangerous world she had entangled him in. By making him believe she was dead, she hoped he would move on and live a normal life away from her destructive influence.

Regardless of Bridget’s true motives, “The Last Seduction” ending leaves a lasting impact on its viewers. It challenges our perceptions of right and wrong, blurring the lines between hero and villain. The film’s complex characters and unexpected twists make it a standout in the neo-noir genre.

In conclusion, “The Last Seduction” ending remains open to interpretation, leaving audiences with lingering questions about Bridget Gregory’s true intentions. Whether it was an act of self-preservation or a twisted act of love, one thing is certain: this film will continue to captivate viewers long after the credits roll.

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‘the end’ review: tilda swinton and michael shannon in joshua oppenheimer’s ambitious, uneven post-apocalyptic musical.

The last family on Earth finds their careful facade disrupted by a stranger in this narrative debut from the documentarian, also starring George MacKay and Moses Ingram.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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In December 2023, a report came out that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was building a sprawling underground bunker on a secluded stretch of ranch land on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The project is shrouded in layers of NDAs, but it’s supposedly 5,000 square feet and will have its own energy and food supplies. When the end of civilization comes, Zuckerberg, like many billionaires, will be sheltered from impact. 

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In Oppenheimer’s striking feature narrative debut, it’s a combination of all the above. The Act of Killing director uses an allegorical family to probe a different kind of psychological violence, one padded by the illusory comfort of money. Mother ( Tilda Swinton ), Father ( Michael Shannon ) and Son ( George MacKay ) live in a Zuckerberg-like bunker 25 years after an environmental catastrophe has left the Earth uninhabitable. Their routines, observed early in the film, include a communal breakfast, learning piano (Mother), building a miniature model of the old world (Son), emergency drills (everyone) and rearranging the expensive art (Mother, again) in the parlor. Through these moments, Oppenheimer tours the palatial bunker that he constructed with production designer Jette Lehmann. Each room, with its harsh, bright lighting and ornate decorations, reflects the family’s delusions.

Unlike his parents, Son does not know the old world. He was born in the bunker, and his understanding doesn’t stretch beyond the compound. That naïveté is a boon for Father, a cagey and erudite man whose role at an energy company contributed to planetary disaster. He enlists his son to help him write a memoir — a hagiographic and revisionist history of the family.

The End opens with humorous observations of how the family maneuvers this intricate obfuscation. Oppenheimer introduces music immediately: A strained ballad between Father, Son and eventually Mother signals the kind of songs that will be featured. The director wrote the lyrics for each number (Josh Schmidt composed the music) and most of them are somber and melancholic. This is, after all, a musical about the end of the world. But pay attention to when, and about what, the characters sing. The lyrics aren’t particularly memorable, but they do reveal how music facilitates their avoidance of reality.

This allergy to difficult feelings is most apparent when Girl ( Moses Ingram ) enters the bunker. Her presence disrupts the carefully curated existence of the family, especially as she and Son start to fall in love. Coming from the outside world, Girl carries the weariness and curiosity of a survivor. She asks questions and attempts, often unsuccessfully, to bring up emotional topics.

At first, the family tries to kill her, but then they just accept her existence. The abrupt switch comes naturally to this group of people never asked to account for their actions. The End doesn’t confront the racial dynamics of Girl, a black woman, being thrust into the shelter of a white family, but it does gesture at her alienation. “I don’t understand why she is here,” Mother says at one point. “She is a stranger.” 

Deeply committed performances from the cast are a major strength of The End . They sing, dance and leap (with choreography by Sam Pinkleton and Ani Taj) around the bunker trying to dodge accountability through increasingly histrionic songs. MacKay’s portrayal of an overly sheltered adult is particularly compelling, as is Ingram’s slow transformation into a hollowed-out version of herself.

The End requires complete submission to the off-kilter rules that govern this family and to Oppenheimer’s ambitions to radicalize the musical genre. It’s an admirable if uneven endeavor. The choice to tell this story as an allegory proves limiting in the film’s second act, which, after an energetic start, languishes. Without more details about the characters, investment in their post-apocalyptic playground wanes.

Oppenheimer’s film does pick back up in the final moments, invigorated by renewed questions about the stories we might feel compelled to tell ourselves when the end does indeed arrive.

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‘The End’ Review: Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon Took Shelter, but 20 Years Underground Starts to Get Tedious

For his narrative debut, Joshua Oppenheimer hatches a sui generis musical morality play in which survivors deep underground (and even deeper in denial) consider their future.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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With “The Act of Killing,” director Joshua Oppenheimer approached the documentary form in a radical, seemingly unthinkable way, inviting his subjects — Indonesian gangsters who had once served on the country’s death squads — to reenact their crimes on camera. Why should his narrative debut be any more conventional?

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The resulting fable surely would have benefited from some kind of suspense — say, a thriller element that threatens its tight group of survivors — but Oppenheimer stubbornly resists such concessions. In the end, “The End” is less a musical as we might imagine than a handsome highbrow drama interspersed with melancholy original songs (fewer than you might think), penned by Oppenheimer, then set to music by Joshua Schmidt (a theater composer making his big-screen debut).

Identified simply as “Son,” the young man was born in this doomsday shelter and knows no other reality, though his parents have spent the past two decades repeating their self-serving version of events. Mother ( Tilda Swinton ) reminisces about her time with the Bolshoi, though it’s doubtful she ever performed. “We’ll never know if our industry contributed to rising temperatures,” says his energy-baron father (Michael Shannon), who’s clearly in denial about the world they left behind — a world they helped to destroy.

Down here, safe from whatever horrors befell humanity, the boy’s parents have maintained whatever sense of culture they can, with the help of a personal doctor (Lennie James), a butler (Tim McInnerny), a maid (Danielle Ryan) and an old friend (Bronagh Gallagher) from those earlier times. Mother spends her days rearranging the priceless artwork on the walls — including Renoir’s “The Dancer,” Monet’s “Woman With a Parasol” and awesome, enormous landscapes — and fussing over details like cracks in the plaster.

It’s been 20 years since they retreated to this self-sufficient bunker, and any notions of “normalcy” have long since been rendered irrelevant. They still observe all the holidays, putting on small, absurd pageants. Otherwise, “each day feels exactly like the last,” Swinton sings nearly two hours in, as part of her shattering (if shrill) “Dear Mom” solo. Their routines include swimming lessons and emergency drills, as survival is their priority — but to what purpose?

That seems to be the driving question of “The End,” which implies that people like these would have done better to prevent the apocalypse than to plan for it. For a time, the film plays like the extended womp-womp of a sad trombone at the end of a disaster movie, in which seven characters make it while the rest of the world perishes. Then what? Mother and Father raised the boy in their own image, making him the historian for their distorted truth while warning him of the danger of “strangers.”

And then one arrives, identified only as “Girl” (Moses Ingram). She expresses guilt for abandoning her family, which in turn dredges up long-suppressed emotions among the others, who made impossible sacrifices during the early days of the end. “Mom, in the beginning, did you see the people trying to get in?” her now-skeptical son asks. Such questions are not just inconvenient for the family, but also reflect the generational schism unfolding now in America, as young people judge find their parents’ actions tough to forgive.

Together with “Melancholia” production designer Jette Lehmann, Oppenheimer presents an elegantly drab bunker, buried deep in a salt mine but built for comfort — not unlike the Elon Musk-inspired base seen in last year’s “A Murder at the End of the World,” a project that delivers its big-brain ideas through effective genre devices. Oppenheimer would have done well to take a similar approach, though his resistance to such choices earns “The End” the imprimatur of capital-A art (at the expense of capital-ist entertainment).

Who will see “The End”? Premiering at the Telluride Film Festival , it feels destined to flop, while also being championed by those critics and audiences who rightly feel that such risks are to be encouraged. Oppenheimer’s audacity (and that of his backers) is to be commended, though his portrait of a certain highly idiosyncratic form of foolishness can’t help feeling foolish itself. Before any musical finds its way to Broadway, it is workshopped and tested to within an inch of its life. This one seems to have breezed past such steps, trusting the vision of its maker over the needs of its audience.

There may never be another film like “The End,” and that alone makes it special, though surely all involved would prefer for it to be seen. As it is, the film feels like an obtuse missive, hidden in plain sight, just waiting for intrepid seekers to unearth it.

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Aug. 27, 2024. In Telluride Film Festival. Running time: 148 MIN.

• Production: (Ireland-Germany-Italy-Sweden-Demmark-U.K.) A Neon release of a Neon, the Match Factory presentation of a Final Cut for Real production, In co-production with The End MFP, Wild Atlantic Pictures, Moonspun Films, Anagram, Dorje Film, in association with Shoni Productions, Iambic Dream Films, Making Movies Oy, Bray's Run Productions, Finite Films and TV, with the support of Danish Film Institute - Film Consultant Mikkel Munch-Fals, the West Danish Film Fund, FilmFyn, Film i Skåne, The Swedish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, DR, YLE, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, DFFF, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, MIC,DOHA Film Institute, Field of Vision, Bertha Doc Society, Sicilia Film Commission and Regione Sicilia - Assessorato Turismo Sport e Spettacolo e Piano Sviluppo e Coesione Sicilia, Regione Siciliana, Sicilia Film Commission, PSC, Eurimages. Producers: Jeff Deutchman, Tom Quinn, Emily Thomas, Elissa Federoff Efe Çakarel, Michael Weber, Jason Ropell, John Keville, Macdara Kelleher, Andrea Romeo, Alberto Fanni, Joakim Rang Strand, Marcus Clausen, Waël Kabbani, Greg Moga, David Unger Sandra Whipham, Charlotte Cook, Jens von Bahr, Sam Mendes, Ramin Bahrani, Werner Herzog, Raffaele Fabrizio, Caterina Fabrizio Alessandro Del Vigna, Dana Høegh, Christian Bruun Melinda Quintin, Michael Quintin, Spencer Myers, Amy Gardner, Jean Doumanian, Ilya Katsnelson, Kaarle Aho, Celine Haddad, Greg Martin. Co-producers: Viola Fügen, Conor Barry, Flaminio Zadra, Tracy O’Riordan, Ann Lundberg.
• Crew: Director: Joshua Oppenheimer. Screenplay: Joshua Oppenheimer, Rasmus Heisterberg. Camera: Music: Joshua Schmidt. Lyrics: Joshua Oppenheimer. Score: Joshua Schmidt, Marius de Vries. Music supervisor: Fiora Cutler.Choreography: Sam Pinkleton, Ani Taj.
• With: Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Michael Shannon, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James, Danielle Ryan.

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