The Last Days

Cinephile deep dive

The take

James Moll directs. Hans Zimmer scores. James Moll cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in German, Hungarian, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 187 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.
• 228 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
• 3Dialogue crosses 3 languages: German, Hungarian, English.
• 4Original score by Hans Zimmer. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 5Editor James Moll shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 6Bill Basch and Martin Basch and Randolph Braham carry the top of the cast.
• 7Marketing tagline: "Everything you're about to see is true.".
• 8IMDB entry: tt0174852 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Original score

Hans Zimmer

Editing

James Moll

Sound

Gary Alexander

Runtime

87 min · 1h 27m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Box office

$421,432

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

PG-13

IMDB

The Last Days (1998) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

96% 🍅 Fresh

Metacritic

85/100

IMDB rating

7.9/10 · 5,946 votes

MPAA

PG-13

Also by

James Moll

• 
  Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

  2011 · ★ 7.6
• 
  Auschwitz

  2015 · ★ 7.4
• 
  Running the Sahara

  2007 · ★ 7.2
• 
  Inheritance

  2006 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Price for Peace

  2002 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Obey Giant

  2017 · ★ 6.6

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  The Last Days Trailer (2021 Remastered)

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• badelf2022-07-31
  ★ 9/10

  Putting aside how significantly important it is for us to remember the past in order for us to have a better future; and how impressive to have the personal voices of Holocaust survivors - I love the way James Moll constructed a time slice of history by the splicing these memories of together.

  Read full review ↓
• CinemaSerf2026-09-03
  ★ 7/10

  Can anyone imagine trying to buy a loaf of bread with a diamond? It's contemporaneous stories like that from five ladies who survived the Holocaust and made it to the safety of the United States that gives this harrowing tale an additional degree of detail that's usually missing from more archival based accounts. That's not to say that there isn't archive here - there is plenty, and in many ways the fact that the Nazis arranged to film their atrocities in the trenches and the ovens seems to make their behaviour even more calculating! By the time these women get involved, it's the spring of 1944 in Hungary and though it is facing the prospect of defeat, the Reich is still as determined as ever to cleanse the continent of getting on for half a million Jews (and others deemed undesirable). So often any survivors put up some sort of essential psychological wall between their experiences and their modern lives, so it is especially poignant that these people have sat in front of a camera to offer us a chronology of just how their lives and freedoms were encroached upon before their property seized and themselves shipped to labour camps from which they were never expected to survive. They don't embellish what they describe; nor is their language especially angry or bitter - it's more of a faithful and factual account from people who experienced hell but who still appreciate that they survived when others did not. They illustrate to us an apalling lack of humanity and decency and there are also contributions from both their rescuers and a couple of their remarkably unapologetic oppressors and what's also interesting is just how readily their erstwhile neighbours turned on them indicating that complicity in this eradication policy wasn't just knowingly committed, but responsibility could also be laid at many unwitting doors who might have done more, or even something, to protest the removal of those they'd known for years. It's quite astonishing how we take happy memories for granted and at just how sustaining they proved to be for so many who had quite literally nothing else.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• KE

  Ken Lipper/June Beallor Production

• SH

  Shoah Foundation

• SU

  Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation

Key crew

• ProducerKen Lipper
• ProducerJune Beallor
• CinematographyHarris Done
• EditorJames Moll
• Executive ProducerSteven Spielberg
• Additional CameraSteve Cohen
• Associate ProducerElyse Katz
• Associate ProducerAaron Zarrow
• Sound Re-Recording MixerGary Alexander
• Production Sound MixerNaum Boyarskiy
• Production Sound MixerTim Cooney
• Dialogue EditorFrancois Blaignan
• Sound Re-Recording MixerJim Fitzpatrick
• Sound DesignerClaude Letessier
• Sound RecordistAaron Levy
• Sound Re-Recording MixerMyron Nettinga
• Sound MixerSteuart Pearce
• Sound EditorJohn Reese
• Sound SupervisorMatthew Sawelson
• Production Sound MixerMatthias Schmitz
• Visual Effects ProducerDana Friedman
• First Assistant CameraArunas Baraznauskas
• First Assistant CameraStefan Baur
• Second Assistant CameraMiclós Bube

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• prisoner
• world war ii
• u.s. soldier
• banana
• childhood home
• buchenwald
• menorah 

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1998-10-23PG-13