What is your favorite "final film"?

[skimpole]

That is to say the final film of a director?

Here's five

A Fish Called Wanda

Ivan the Terrible

That's Entertainment II

Gertrud

L"Argent

[hutz]

An Autumn Afternoon

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Un  Flic

Imitation of Life

The Night of the Hunter

[Vidor]

F.W. Murnau's "Tabu" is pretty good.  Of course it was only his final film because he was killed in a car wreck.

 

Alfred Hitchcock's "Family Plot" is fun.  His next-to-last film "Frenzy" is great.

[Swithin]

The Dead (1987)

John Huston's adaptation of James Joyce's story is a perfect final film and the director's best film.

 

[Vidor]

"Eyes Wide Shut" isn't a bad movie, but it's lesser Kubrick.

I'm hard-pressed to think of a director whose last film ranks as one of their best.  (Saying "Charles Laughton" is cheating.)

[filmnoirguy]

Billy Wilder:  Buddy, Buddy (1981)

Sidney Lumet:  Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Howard Hawks:  Rio Lobo (1970)

Cecil B. DeMille:  The Ten Commandments (1956)

Michael Curtiz:  The Commancheros (1961)

Elia Kazan:  The Last Tycoon (1976)

George Stevens:  The Only Game in Town (1970)

 

 

 

 

[hamradio]

I wouldn't call it a favorite but Douglas Sirk's  “Imitation Of Life” (1959) is the only final film I can think of at present.

 

[Vidor]

Apparently Quentin Tarantino was quoted very recently as saying that "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" would be his last film...he's probably BSing but if he isn't, that's a really good movie.

[Fausterlitz]

Red (1994) (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

[Tony Lockwood]

11 hours ago, Vidor said:

Apparently Quentin Tarantino was quoted very recently as saying that "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" would be his last film...he's probably BSing but if he isn't, that's a really good movie.

Not sure the quote you saw but Tarantino's claim is to stop after his 10th movie.  But he considers Kill Bill to be one movie so Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is actually his 9th by his accounting so there should be one more.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/quentin-tarantino-says-his-10th-final-film-will-be-epilogue-y-1230249/

 

[Tony Lockwood]

Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Charlie Chaplin: Limelight (1952)

Akira Kurosawa: Madadayo (1993)

[Stallion]

7 Women

What an interestingly different way for a director, John Ford, to wrap up a career. Although there was plenty of fighting going on, having women in the mission field as a story point was unique.

[TopBilled]

I'd go with Hitchcock's FAMILY PLOT (1976). 

If we were to answer with our favorite penultimate film, I'd say Hitchcock's FRENZY (1972).

And I'm a big fan of TOPAZ (1969).

I like his later stuff a lot. I think some of Hitchcock's earlier films are overrated and his later films are vastly underrated.

[Fausterlitz]

1 hour ago, Tony Lockwood said:

Charlie Chaplin: Limelight (1952)

In an ideal universe, that would have been a fittingly elegaic way to end his career.  Unfortunately, his final film as a director turned out to be the ill-fated A Countess From Hong Kong (1966).  😞

[Vidor]

5 hours ago, Tony Lockwood said:

Not sure the quote you saw but Tarantino's claim is to stop after his 10th movie.  But he considers Kill Bill to be one movie so Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is actually his 9th by his accounting so there should be one more.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/quentin-tarantino-says-his-10th-final-film-will-be-epilogue-y-1230249/

 

https://www.avclub.com/quentin-tarantino-is-strongly-thinking-about-ending-his-1847033734

[cinemaman]

Frank  Capra  Pocketful  of  Miracles  1961      David  Lean   Passage  To  India  1984    Anthony  Mann   A  Dandy  In  Aspic  1968    Robert  Wise  Rooftops  1989                                                Henry   Hathaway  Hangup  1974    Henry  King   Tender Is  The  Night  1962         

[Vidor]

"Pocketful of Miracles" was not very good.  The original "Lady for a Day" was much better.

[filmnoirguy]

22 hours ago, cinemaman said:

Frank  Capra  Pocketful  of  Miracles  1961      David  Lean   Passage  To  India  1984    Anthony  Mann   A  Dandy  In  Aspic  1968    Robert  Wise  Rooftops  1989                                                Henry   Hathaway  Hangup  1974    Henry  King   Tender Is  The  Night  1962         

David Lean went out on a high note with A Passage to India.  I had forgotten that was his last picture.

[Allhallowsday]

Darn!  I thought of actor's final films and immediately thought of BEING THERE (1979) the only film of PETER SELLERS' that I love. 

[cigarjoe]

One Upon A Time In America

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

 

[Dargo]

3 hours ago, Allhallowsday said:

Darn!  I thought of actor's final films and immediately thought of BEING THERE (1979) the only film of PETER SELLERS' that I love. 

Yeah, not a bad film, but while Stellers pretty much plays the Chauncey Gardner dolt of a character in a one note fashion, he's absolutely brilliant in all three different roles in that one satire about nuclear holocaust, wouldn't ya say Allhallows?

(...in other words, how can you NOT love Dr. Strangelove TOO, dude???)

[EricJ]

On 6/5/2021 at 1:50 PM, TopBilled said:

I'd go with Hitchcock's FAMILY PLOT (1976). 

You had to beat me to it.

On 6/4/2021 at 9:24 AM, Vidor said:

"Eyes Wide Shut" isn't a bad movie, but it's lesser Kubrick.

Eyes Wide Shut is a bad movie AND lesser Kubrick.

And I would have been fine with Rhapsody in August being Kurosawa's last one (it's not much, but occasionally haunting moments he threw in), but Madadayo is maddeningly self-indulgent, where it feels like Kurosawa is throwing his own retirement party and filming every bit of it--"A Life in Six Retirement Dinners".

[Allhallowsday]

2 hours ago, Dargo said:

(...in other words, how can you NOT love Dr. Strangelove TOO, dude???)

I don't think of it as a PETER SELLERS film.  I think of it as a STANLEY KUBRICK film.  Same with LOLITA, which includes favorite JAMES MASON.  KUBRICK film. 

[Dargo]

3 minutes ago, Allhallowsday said:

I don't think of it as a PETER SELLERS film.  I think of it as a STANLEY KUBRICK film.  Same with LOLITA, which includes favorite JAMES MASON.  KUBRICK film. 

Interesting, even with Being There being directed by Hal Ashby and not Sellers?

What's the difference? Well, OTHER than Kubrick being considered one of the "great auteur" directors and Ashby not.

Still though and my earlier point being that in Dr.Strangelove, Sellers ability to so believeably"stretch" into those these distinctly different roles in that film seems a far greater feat than what I've always felt was a "one-note" performance as the dolt in Being There.

(...and in fact, the only thing I've ever admired about his performance in the Ashby film was his ability to not crack himself up in his scenes by playing such a dolt, and which as I recall during its closing credits, shows the outtakes from the film in which he actually does)

[Allhallowsday]

24 minutes ago, Dargo said:

shows the outtakes from the film in which he actually does

That's correct, and PETER SELLERS reportedly hated that inclusion himself. 

 

26 minutes ago, Dargo said:

Still though and my earlier point being that in Dr.Strangelove, Sellers ability to so believeably"stretch" into those these distinctly different roles in that film seems a far greater feat than what I've always felt was a "one-note" performance as the dolt in Being There.

I see your point, particularly the title character.  However, there are other remarkable performances.  SELLERS is also remarkable as Claire Quilty, but KUBRICK films after SPARTACUS are quite detached and then maybe uniquely his own vision despite performances.