Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1989 drama film directed by Uli Edel and adapted by Desmond Nakano from Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1964 novel of the same title.

[7] One of the earliest attempts was made by producer Steve Krantz and animator Ralph Bakshi, who wanted to direct a live-action film based on the novel.

[9] Filming took place over 14 weeks in the summer of 1988[10] on location in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, "only blocks from the housing projects where Mr. Selby lived while writing Last Exit.

[14] Though critics noted the film's unrelenting bleakness and how it is not an easy watch, Last Exit to Brooklyn was also praised for Uli Edel's direction and the performances of its actors.

"[4] Canby added the film "has a European sensibility that works to the advantage of its American subject matter...[and] sees everything at the distance of a sober-minded alien observer.

"[4] In a review that awarded 3 and ½ stars out of four, Roger Ebert wrote the characters "are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving.

"[7] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The strike-breaking attempt at the factory is Last Exit’s vast visual set-piece, a long and magnificently staged mass of moving bodies and machinery that shows Edel’s accomplished and painterly eye and the remarkable camera work of Stefan Czapsky.

"[5] Benson singled out Jennifer Jason Leigh as the "defiantly tragic Tralala, [Ohrbach’s] [sic] implacable union leader, Stephen Lang’s self-hating Harry Black and Alexis Arquette’s dry wit-over-desperation as Georgette" as the film's standout performances.