Last and First Men

2020 Directed by Jóhann Jóhannsson

As the end approaches inexorably, the last humans, living millions of years into the future, send a message to the humanity of the present that is both a plea for help and a warning, but also an epic tale of evolution, decline and hope.

Tilda Swinton

Alternative Title

Paskutiniai ir pirmieji žmonės

drama science fiction

72 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by abdel ★★★★★ 13

"Great are the stars,
and humankind is of no account to them.
But humankind is a fair spirit
whom a star conceived,
and a star kills."
An ethereality and requisition of humanistic meditation; monumental work by Jóhann Jóhannsson. Monumental.
"What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and…
Review by josh lewis ★★★ 2

2 billion years from now tilda swinton is a disembodied voice in a computer hanging out on a misty mountain with her large, brutalist stone monument sons. not a cellphone in sight. just vibes. all kidding aside this is a neat little shadowy, architectural audiovisual poem completed by composer jóhann jóhannsson shortly before his passing. sturla brandth grøvlen's 16mm b&w cinematography is impressive (evoking a bit of tarr's style, a bit of tarkovsky's minimalist sci-fi) while jóhann's moody music certainly fits the eerie, ghostly, doom-laden tone that gives this transmission supposedly beamed from another time where extinction is imminent some weight, but ultimately i didn't quite feel this one as much as others clearly are. whole thing is a bit…
Review by Jack ★★★★ 6

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s first and last film, Last and First Men, is 70 minutes of utterly dreamy sounds and images. The grainy, black-and-white 16mm cinematography combined with Tilda Swinton’s beautiful narration make for a poignant film that discusses legacy, mortality and humanity’s inevitable doomsday. This is a unique cinematic experience and it’s incredibly sad we won’t be able to get more like this from Jóhannsson.
Review by Hibiscus ★★★★★ 3

Monumental.
It's hard to describe this film without doing so in paradoxes. An economical epic? A minimalist maximalist Science Fiction experience? Nauseating, yet enlightening?
This film left me physically shaking in my seat. This might very well be for the fact that I just came back from the hospital, after a sleepless night... Or maybe because of how hypnotizing and breathtaking this whole experience felt.
Jóhann Jóhannsson was a huge talent, and in my opinion one of the greatest modern film composers. This film was a promise for something great and even more impressive than his previous work, and I'm sure that he would've become a highly respected and influential filmmaker down the line.
This is his first, last and…
Review by Taylor Baker ★★★★★ 8

An experience that is monumental, epic, eponymous, statuary, evocative, Herculean, and human.
The directorial debut of the year, and the gravestone of one of our greatest modern artists in my lifespan. An incomparable piece of visual poetry.
Highly recommended. Farewell Jóhann.
Review by Shea Gallagher ★★★★½ 5

Black-and-white shots of imposing, brutalist structures, accompanied by a score that sounds like the volcanic sighs of some distant, cosmic creature, ominously narrated by Tilda Swinton as a supremely-advanced telepathic being sending us a message from the far future. I'm extremely happy to say that this completely delivers, and I eagerly look forward to seeing this on the big screen where its towering monolithic power can have maximum effect.
This is a monumental work of science fiction (pun intended). Based on the 1930 novel by Olaf Stapledon, it takes its concept of "future history" and uses the medium of film to convey something enigmatic and mystifying. How do the images, music and narration connect to each other? Any link is…
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 6

Olaf Stapledon's novel Last and First Men is a work of ginormous scale and imagination, surpassed only perhaps by his novel Star Maker. What this film keeps is the sense of humanity as a large project from which we are just specks. This is more an art installation than a film, limited to Tilda Swinton's ethereal narration and a series of black and white abstract images. It is nothing but surfaces and shapes, yet that means it is a film that always contains signs of human creation. This is a film about men but no person ever appears onscreen. Though what is humanity? How small are we within the grand universe of existence? In this moment, are we not just…
Review by Scorcaesar

Of course Tilda Swinton is one of the last people on earth, damn woman doesn't age!
Also, this is possibly the coolest posthumous album out there. Jóhannsson was a legendary composer - would've loved to see this in a cinema with state of the art speakers.
Review by Kaleb ★★★★★ 2

VIFF
Fucking beautiful. One of the best looking films I’ve ever seen. I love this so much. I’ll need time to write a full review, watch it if you can.
Review by PopcornIdeology ★★★ 2

Arrival but instead it's ASMR of Tilda Swinton reading HG Wells using the techniques of La Jetée. The score is amazing and Tilda Swinton did a good job talking I guess but I don't think this film is for me. It's challenging, incredibly minimalistic, and just not quite something I personally enjoyed. I guess I have a tumultuous relationship with experimental films and for some reason this one didn't really do much for me. It's simultaneously too dense and too sparse for my liking but if you enjoy it you probably have a higher IQ than me so congrats nerd.
6.0 / 10
Review by hector ★★★★

Amazing film and I was blown away. To anticipate 3 billion years into the future is a phenomenal achievement to actually put it in a film is beyond expectations. It does leave me with great wonder. I wanna see it again for sure as I feel I will get different things from it.
Review by Hutch ★★★★ 6

The Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s only film is an experimental hybrid: part science fiction, part documentary, and part meditation.
As a meditation, the film works as a beautiful visual accompaniment to his atmospheric score. Jóhannsson’s compositions arose to prominence in the early 2000’s after a formative period performing in a variety of rock bands before moving into more experimental musical collaborations from which he emerged as a composer. His music shares a little of the new spiritualism of Arvo Part, and a little more of the modern ambiance of his contemporary, Max Richter; while in film circles he is most famous for his work with Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario and Prisoners). But his compositional style is most distinctly identifiable as…

Recent reviews

Review by Iago Macedo ★★★★

um filme que acontece todo dentro da sua cabeça. muito interessante, lembra o ato de ler um livro com algumas poucas figuras.
Review by FatChecoD ★★★½

La ciencia ficción nunca había sido tan minimalista y desoladora... Hasta ahora.
Review by Noah Gibson-Baker ★★★★ 3

Last and First Men was directed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson in 2018 and posthumously released in 2020. He was a brilliant Icelandic melodist who composed for many Denis Villeneuve films and for a personal favourite film of mine, Darren Aronofsky’ mother!.
The storytelling is poetic and the tale is filled with melancholy while still being idyllic. A perfect balance is found when presenting themes, they’re explored with subtlety while still being crucial to the story. I’m not going to say anything about plot or story details as this whole film is about telling the story of a moment in time.
Shot by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen on beautiful black and white 16mm film and composed by both Jóhann Jóhannsson and…
Review by Silver4 ★★★½

The music and narration were so soothing, I dozed off several times watching it, and had to rewind each time I fell asleep. It made the experience so weird, like a strange half-awake dream/nightmare you keep falling back into. But somehow it worked for me, it's very much a sensitive experience, like the kind of conceptual movies you see in dark rooms at modern art exhibitions (ha! remember museums?), and you get out of the museum like "I understood absolutely nothing, but it was cool". This is this kind of movie.
Review by Alxumo ★★★½

Todo usuario de filmin tiene que ver una de estas de vez en cuando para que no le quiten el carnet.
Review by Monique ★★★★

Hauntingly beautiful

"We are the wreckage of our former selves."
Right at the moment I knew how will my feelings will turn. Mind is blown and started to question myself once more towards humanity. Jóhann Jóhannsson eccentric obscure craft Last and First Men is a black and white beauty of a film with slow phase composition shots that creates subtle dullness and surprise. A moment of calm and sudden tense feeling makes me shiver and still. I'm not sure how to address this incredible craft in a much more depth sense due to its originality, I can feel more emotions going through my veins right now filled with guilt, shame, embarrassment, worry, pity and many others that I just can't…
Review by TimRW ★★★★★

I am generally not much of a fan of experimental or experimental-like films, but this was truly a piece of art.
Not at all for everyone, but I absolutely loved it.
Review by [leo] ★★★½

basically me coping with the fact that i saw a bigger splash today and tilda swinton couldn't talk (!!) by watching a film with exclusively her voice --
Review by tomdods ★★★★

LAST AND FIRST MEN is effectively a piece of visual poetry. It combines slightly grainy 16mm footage of weird, brutalist Soviet architecture framed at odd angles, with a cataclysmic and alien sounding score which builds and builds to an overwhelming state across the film’s running time. On top of this, the clipped, articulated voice of Tilda Swindon narrates passages of Olaf Stapleton’s novel, building a fantastical story of a future species coming to terms with their pending destruction.
The combined effect is mesmerising and utterly unique. This is a film deserved to be seen in a cinema - I imagine it would be enormously loud.
Review by Titus ★★★★★

so moving and emotional for me. the absolute future was so interesting to hear and try and conceive. i loved the sculptures/architecture visually, and the narration was an incredible combination. i loved this so much ohmygod
Review by Liv ★★½

I really wanted to like this because I think the concept is interesting but i think it would function much better as a short film or something in an art installation, because as a film it’s ultimately Tilda Swinton talking about our impending doom over a slideshow of cool looking architectural shots.
Review by Alex East ★★★★★

There are two moments in this film that floored me. This film is a trip and I wish everyone sees it