A way to make a title that implies finality or dire circumstances: take something from the story and say it is the last one.
Usually "The Last X" or "Final X". Alternatively, it could be "Last of the X". X can refer to either an action or a thing though an action is less common. More often literal, but can also be metaphorical. "Ultimate" can also qualify, though it's more commonly used as a synonym for "apex" than "final."
Sole Survivor and Last of His Kind are often plot elements of such works. Others include The Last Dance, Last Day to Live, Last Stand, and Your Days Are Numbered.
Rarely a long title but can be a Character Name and the Noun Phrase. Sometimes used to indicate the Grand Finale of a television series.
Compare Title: Requiem.
Examples:
- Alive: The Final Evolution
- Blood: The Last Vampire
- The penultimate episode of Digimon Adventure 02 was called "The Last Armour Evolve".
- Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna
- Final Approach
- Final Fantasy: Unlimited
- Final Flight of the Osiris
- Girls' Last Tour
- Episode 50 of Jewelpet Twinkle☆ is titled "The Last Spell Doki☆Doki!"
- Last Game
- Last Exile
- The Last: Naruto the Movie
- Last Order: Final Fantasy VII
- The Last Uniform
- My Last Day
- Episode 123 of Tamagotchi is titled "The Last Tama-Mizuki". The episode is about Mametchi and his friends trying to find a way to save the last remaining Tama-Mizuki tree.
- Borrowing from the Biblical concept, the Sistine Chapel's altar painting is called The Last Judgement and shows the souls of Earth moving to their final positions in the afterlife.
- The painting The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci refers to the Passover dinner before Jesus was arrested and executed.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Two episodes of Flying Island: The Sky Adventure have titles like this, specifically episodes 55 ("The Last Sky Crystal") and 60 ("The Final Battle").
- Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand
- Final Crisis
- The Final Days of Superman
- Final Night
- Kraven's Last Hunt
- Last Man Standing
- The Last Phantom
- The Last Temptation
- "The Last Titan" is the title of the story contained in Hulk: The End, referencing Banner comparing the Hulk to a sort of modern Prometheus (wait a minute...)
- The hellish final issue of The Punisher: Born, which depicts the fall of Firebase Valley Forge, is fittingly called "The Last Day".
- Thanos: The Final Threat
- The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers
- Y: The Last Man
- Bridge to Terabithia 2: The Last Time - the writer even states in the final chapter, a Distant Epilogue, that the story is pretty much wrapped and she will not continue from that point onwards
- The Last War
- Past Sins: The final chapter is called "The End of the Nightmare".
- Steel Soul Saga: Steel Spirit: "Finalized Compilation"
, the final chapter of Steel Spirit.
- Story Shuffle 2: Double Masters: "Last Spark"
, about the end of "the true legacy of Pegasopolis and Spurta", as they call themselves.
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest
- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
- The Last Days of Coney Island
- The Last Unicorn
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
- Raya and the Last Dragon
- Saraba Kamen Rider Den-O: Final Countdown, a Kamen Rider Den-O film.
- Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
- Death Note: The Last Name
- Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom
- The Final
- The Final Countdown
- Final Cut
- Final Destination, the destination being death as well as a play on the term's use for flights, which is what was supposed to kill the cast—though it didn't stop them from making four more "Final" Destinations, including the fourth one, which was The Final Destination.
- Final Exam
- Final Girl
- The Final Girls
- Final Justice
- The Final Sacrifice
- Final Score
- Final Score (1986)
- The Final Terror
- Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
- The Friday the 13th series has two examples (for, respectively, the fourth and ninth out of ten movies — incidentally the only non-Numbered Sequels):
- Hirokin: The Last Samurai
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- In the Name of the King 3: Last Mission
- Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
- Last Action Hero
- The Last Airbender; Enforced to avoid comparison with James Cameron's Avatar; the series's full name is Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- The Last American Virgin
- The Last Boy Scout
- The Last Broadcast
- The Last Bus
- Last Call
- The Last Castle
- Last Chance
- The Last Chance Detectives
- Last Chance Harvey
- The Last Chase
- The Last Circus
- Last Clear Chance
- The Last Command
- The Last Cowboy
- Last Days
- The Last Days (documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, perpetrated by the Germans at great speed in the last year of the war)
- Last Days In The Desert
- Last Days in Vietnam
- The Last Days of American Crime
- The Last Days of Disco
- The Last Days on Mars
- The Last Day Of Summer
- The Last Detail
- The Last Dinosaur
- The Last Don
- The Last Dragon
- The Last Drop
- The Last Duel
- Last Embrace
- The Last Emperor
- The Last Exorcism
- The Last Fall
- Last Flag Flying
- Last Flight
- The Last Gangster
- The Last Gladiators
- The Last Godfather
- The Last Hard Men
- The Last Heist
- Last Holiday
- Last Hours In Suburbia
- The Last House on the Left
- The Last Hurrah
- The Last Impresario
- The Last International Playboy
- The Last Keepers
- Last Kind Words
- The Last King of Scotland
- The Last Kiss
- Last Knights
- The Last Laugh
- The Last Legion
- The Last Leprechaun
- The Last Letter
- The Last Letter From Your Lover
- Last Life In The Universe
- The Last Light
- The Last Lions
- Last Love
- The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu
- The Last Man
- Last Man On Earth
- The Last Man on Earth
- Last Man Standing
- The Last Metro
- The Last Mimzy
- The Last Mistress
- The Last Monk
- The Last Movie
- Last Night (Meaning the last night as the world is going to end rather than "yesternight".)
- Last Night in Soho
- The Last of Mrs. Cheney
- The Last Of Robin Hood
- The Last of Sheila
- Last of the Dogmen
- Last Of The Living
- The Last of the Mohicans
- Last of the Red Hot Lovers (based on Neil Simon's play of the same name)
- Last of the Wild Horses
- Last Orders
- The Last Outlaw
- Last Passenger
- The Last Picture Show
- The Last Porno Flick
- The Last Prom
- The Last Remake of Beau Geste
- The Last Rescue
- Last Resort 1986
- Last Resort 1994
- The Last Ride
- Last Rites
- The Last Rites of Ransom Pride
- The Last Run
- The Last Samurai
- The Last Scout
- The Last Seduction
- The Last Sentinel
- The Last September
- The Last Seven
- The Last Shark
- The Last Sharknado: It's About Time
- Last Shift
- The Last Shot
- The Last Showing
- The Last Slumber Party
- The Last Song
- The Last Stand
- The Last Starfighter
- The Last Station
- Last Summer (1969)
- Last Sunset
- The Last Sunset
- The Last Supper
- Last Tango in Paris
- The Last Templar
- The Last Temptation of Christ
- The Last Time
- The Last Time I Saw Archie
- Last Train Home
- Last Train To Christmas
- The Last Tycoon
- The Last Valley
- Last Vegas
- The Last Voyage
- The Last Voyage of the Demeter
- The Last Wagon
- The Last Waltz
- The Last Wave
- Last Will
- The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh
- The Last Winter
- The Last Witch Hunter
- The Last Word
- Maos Last Dancer
- Omen III: The Final Conflict
- Prom Night III: The Last Kiss
- Rambo: Last Blood
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
- Save the Last Dance
- Saw: The Final Chapter
- Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (also a reference to the opening monologue of the television series)
- Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi
- The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie
- Transformers: The Last Knight
- Twilight's Last Gleaming (also a Literary Allusion Title to "The Star Spangled Banner").
- Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
- Urban Legends: Final Cut
- X-Men: The Last Stand
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: The Last Dark
- Discworld:
- The Final Cut
- Final Days
- The Final Reflection
- The Final Solution
- Last and First Men
- The Last Battle
- The Last Book in the Universe
- Last Call
- The Last Chancers
- The Last Days of Krypton
- Last Days Trilogy
- The Last Don
- Last Dragon
- The Last Dragon (NOT the same book as the one mentioned above)
- The Last Dragonslayer
- Last Flight
- The Last Full Measure
- The Last Guardian (2001)
- The Last Hope
- The Last Human (2019)
- The Last Hurrah
- The Last King of Osten Ard
- Last Legionary
- The Last Light of the Sun
- Le Dernier Homme (The Last Man)
- The Last Man
- Last of the Breed
- Last of the Mohicans
- The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
- The Last of the Renshai
- The Last Policeman
- The Last Question
- The Last Rune
- The Last Rung on the Ladder
- The Last Ship
- The Last Song
- The Last Trump
- The Last Tycoon
- The Last Unicorn
- The Last Vampire
- The Last Werewolf
- The Last Wish
- The Leatherstocking Tales: Last of the Mohicans
- Mistborn The Final Empire
- The English name of the first book of Oksa Pollock is The Last Hope, althoug the right translation of its original title L'Inespérée would be something like The Unexpected.
- The Saxon Stories: The Last Kingdom
- Sherlock Holmes:
- "The Final Problem"
- "His Last Bow"
- The Superman novel Last Son of Krypton.
- Trents Last Case
- Umney's Last Case
- Warrior Cats: The Last Hope
- Horus Heresy: The Last Church
- Alaska The Last Frontier
- The Brittas Empire had the episode “The Last Day”
- Doctor Who:
- Life On Mars: The Final Chapter (A Crossover between Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes (2008))
- The Austin & Ally episode "Last Dances & Last Chances".
- The final episode of Friends was entitled "The Last One".
- Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 4, "The Last of the Starks"
- The IT Crowd, season 4, episode 2: "The Final Countdown".
- Last Car Standing
- Last Comic Standing
- The Last Detective
- The Last Enemy
- The Last King
- The Last Kingdom
- The Last Leg
- The Last Man on Earth
- Last Man Standing
- Last of the Summer Wine which had episodes "The Last Surviving Maurice Chevalier Impression" and "Last Post and Pigeon".
- The Last of Us (2023)
- The Last Place on Earth
- Last Resort
- The Last Ship
- Last Tango in Halifax
- The Last Train
- The Last Vampyre
- The Last Weekend
- Newhart had "The Last Newhart", the series's famous Grand Finale where the series was revealed to be a dream.
- Pompeii: The Last Day
- Quantum Leap had the episodes "Last Dance Before an Execution" and “The Last Gunfighter”.
- Red Dwarf had the episode “The Last Day”.
- Sledge Hammer! episode "The Last of The Red Hot Vampires"
- Supernatural had the episodes "Last Call" and "Last Holiday", both aptly enough from its final season.
- The Twilight Zone (1959):
- The Twilight Zone (1985) episode "The Last Defender of Camelot"
- Aerosmith song "Last Child".
- Ed Bruce's "The Last Cowboy Song"
- Johnny Cash's 1977 album and title song "The Last Gunfighter Ballad".
- Europe’s album and hit single "The Final Countdown".
- Electric Light Orchestra: "Last Train To London".
- Evanescence has a song called "The Last Song I'm Wasting on You".
- Foo Fighters has "The Last Song" ("that I will dedicate to you!").
- Green Day's "Last of the American Girls"
- The Monkees: "Last Train To Clarksville", 1966
- The Rolling Stones (Band): "The Last Time", 1965
- Donna Summer: "Last Dance", 1978
- Taylor Swift:
- "Last Kiss"
- "The Last Time"
- Wayne Cochran's "Last Kiss", later recorded by Pearl Jam.
- Morrissey "The Last of the Famous International Playboys"
- They Might Be Giants, "Last Wave".
- SMW The Last Tango in Tennessee (in which The Rockn Roll Express defeated the Heavenly Bodies in a Loser leaves Smoky Mountain match.
- APW Lep's Last Dance (Erin O'Grady was nicknamed Leprechaun)
- IWA Mid-South The Last Night in the Madhouse of the Mid-South (after twenty shows they were abandoning the arena they had taken up earlier in 1998)
- NEO Last Christmas of the 20th Century (three days before Christmas, but it happened in 2000 so close enough)
- GPW Last Orders at the Legion(their last time using the arena)
- GAEA Eternal Last Gong (the promotion shutdown afterwards)
- Starting in 2005, Frontier Wrestling Alliance and X Wrestling Alliance had "Last Fight At The Prom" events, always taking place in the Morecambe Dome.
- Hustle House Christmas Special - Tears of the Last M-Baton(their last show of 2005)
- Michinoku Pro Fighting Tohoku Legend ~ The Last Chapter (the reigns of the Tohoku Tag Team Champions and Junior Heavyweight Champion could and did come to an end)
- CZW Last Team Standing, where three of CZW's singles titles were defended but the main focus was on crowning CZW World Tag Team Champions
, with a title defense by ROH World Tag Team Champions
The Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli) along the way.
- Last Of CTU - CTU Farewell In Korakuen (Control Terrorism Unit was leaving New Japan)
- PWU Last Chance: Do or Die, named because it was John McChesney's last chance to defeat Pro Wrestling Unplugged Heavyweight Champion Adam Flash.
- TNA iMPACT! #271 - Last Chance to Surrender, which centered around the finals of the tournament to qualify for the No Surrender Pay Per View's main event.
- WAVE Weekday Wave 2009 Vol. LAST (there were more 2009 shows unrelated to the series, though)
- WSU The Last Chapter (referencing the title unification match between Angel Orsini and Mercedes Martinez).
- ECCW Diva's Last Dance (in reference to the Final Battle between Tenille Tayla and Nicole Matthews, although the main event was an "I repent" match for the NWA Canadian Junior Heavyweight Title between Artemis Spencer and Divine Prophet.
- DDT Wrestling Master Final Countdown ~ Dick Togo Last Local Triumphant Return (the eponymous Togo reforming GRANMA with GENTARO and Yasu Urano)
- Dragon Gate The Last of Gate 2012 to ensure this was really the last show of the year after "Final Gate", which is usually the last show of the year.
- PWP Nevermore... Never Again - Raven's Last UK Stand (him winding down towards retirement)
- S-Ovation Last Shot ~ Thanks Tomoka(she was winding down towards retirement)
- Song "The Last Midnight", from Into the Woods.
- The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
- There's a Neil Simon play called Last of The Red Hot Lovers. Could be a pun on vaudevillian Sophie Tucker, whose nickname was "The Last of the Red Hot Mommas".
- Israeli poet Natan Alterman’s unfinished play, Last Days of UrHebrew .
- The bundled-in Expansion Pack for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is named The Last Khans.
- C-12: Final Resistance
- Eternity: The Last Unicorn
- The Fall: Last Days of Gaia
- Final Fantasy (Subverted; the series' creator expected the first game to be his last but it was a success and spawned numerous sequels)
- Final Fight
- Final Girl
- Final Soldier
- The Final Station
- A Final Unity
- Final Zone
- Last Alert
- The Last Blade
- The Last Bounty Hunter
- Last Cloudia
- The Last Door
- Last Dream
- Last Duel: Inter Planet War 2012
- The Last Eichhof
- The Last Express
- The Last Federation
- The Last Guardian
- Last Idea
- The Last Ninja
- The Last of Us
- The Last Remnant
- The Last Resurrection
- Last Scenario
- The Last Sovereign
- The Last Stand
- The Last Story
- Last Word
- The New Order Last Days Of Europe
- Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel (Japanese name for what's known in English countries as ...and the Unwound/Lost Future)
- Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
- Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
- Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers
- Werewolf: The Last Warrior
- Taken a step further with No More Heroes
- Pokémon Talk: Episode #50
: "The Final Episode"
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force has "The Last One" and "The Last One Forever And Ever (For Real This Time) (We Fucking Mean It)". Neither of them are actually the last episode of the series.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The Last Bastion, an Overwatch animated short.
- The Camp Lazlo episode "Lumpus' Last Stand".
- The Centaurworld episode "The Last Lullaby".
- The Challenge of the Super Friends episode "The Final Challenge".
- Denver the Last Dinosaur
- The DuckTales (2017) episodes "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" and "Last Christmas!", as well as the 3-part Grand Finale "The Last Adventure!".
- Final Space
- The Gravity Falls episode "The Last Mabelcorn".
- The Last Belle
- The Last Of The Curlews
- The Legend of Korra's Grand Finale is called "The Last Stand".
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episodes "The Last Roundup", "The Last Laugh" and "The Last Crusade". The third part of the Grand Finale is appropriately titled "The Last Problem".
- The Phineas and Ferb episodes "Last Train To Bustville" and "Last Day of Summer".
- The Simpsons episodes:
- The South Park episode "The Last of the Meheecans"
- The Sponge Bob Squarepants episode "SpongeBob's Last Stand".
- Star Wars Rebels: "The Last Battle"
- The Winx Club episode "The Last Fairy of Earth".note