Sightlines · reception

How The Last One for the Road was received

2025 · Francesco Sossai · The Last One for the Road on Sightlines

The arc

It slipped into Cannes 2025's Un Certain Regard as a modest Italian charmer — then a year later swept the 2026 David di Donatello with eight wins including Best Film and Best Director, turning a small pub-crawl movie into Italy's film of the year.

What’s debated

The friendly fight it starts: is this just a lovely, feather-light hangout movie, or a sly state-of-the-nation portrait hiding inside one — and does it earn the Il Sorpasso comparisons every review reaches for?

Its footprint

Its whole premise — two aging Veneto barflies forever chasing 'one last drink' — is the hook everyone quotes, and it's made the region's spritz-and-ombra bar ritual weirdly cinematic shorthand.

Where it stands

A fast canon climber: the rare festival sleeper that became a genuine audience favorite and instant reference point for the new Italian hangout movie.

Did you know? Doriano is played by Pierpaolo Capovilla — not a career actor but the frontman of Italian noise-rock band Il Teatro degli Orrori — and his debut lead turn earned him Italian awards attention, including a Nastri d'Argento nomination.

Named by the director

• Il Sorpasso (1962) — Sossai called it the film that most inspired him, saying he wanted a counter-portrait — Risi's economic-miracle road movie remapped onto Italy after the 2008 crisis.
• Dino Risi — Sossai cited Risi's commedia all'italiana as the storytelling form he set out to update, using comedy to make an ironic portrait of the nation.