Last Night in Soho · reception & legacy
2021 · Edgar Wright
How Last Night in Soho has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Premiered at Venice 2021 to notably mixed reviews and then underperformed at the box office — a rare stumble for Edgar Wright. It hasn't had a full flop-to-classic redemption, but horror fans have steadily reclaimed its first two acts, its needle-drops, and its two lead performances.
What's debated
The perennial fight is over the third act: whether the film's take on nostalgia and the treatment of its women is sharp or muddled, with Wright die-hards and skeptics rarely meeting in the middle.
Its footprint
The mirror sequence — Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie swapping places mid-dance, done largely with practical choreography rather than CGI — is the endlessly clipped and shared image, alongside Taylor-Joy's haunting slowed-down cover of Petula Clark's 'Downtown'.
Where it stands
It sits as the divisive one in the Wright filmography — a Halloween-season Letterboxd staple that people log mostly to weigh in on the argument.
Named by the director
Influences Edgar Wright has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- Repulsion (1965) — Wright repeatedly named Polanski's London psycho-horror as one of the film's two core touchstones.
- Don't Look Now (1973) — The other half of Wright's stated elevator pitch — Roeg's fractured, premonition-laced editing was a declared model.
- Peeping Tom (1960) — Wright cited Michael Powell's Soho-set shocker among the British horrors that fed the film, including in the BFI season he curated around its release.