The film stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and Jean-Pierre Léaud, and portrays a recently widowed American who begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.

The film's raw portrayal of rape and emotional turmoil led to international controversy and drew various levels of government censorship in different jurisdictions.

Paul, a middle-aged American hotel owner mourning the suicide of his wife Rosa, meets a young, engaged Parisian woman named Jeanne at an apartment that both are interested in renting.

As Paul dies, Jeanne, dazed, mutters to herself that he was just a stranger who tried to rape her and she did not know who he was, as if in a rehearsal preparing herself for questioning by the police.

Bernardo Bertolucci developed the film from his sexual fantasies: "He once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was.

[6] An art lover, Bertolucci drew inspiration from the works of the Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon for the opening sequence of cast and crew credits.

[15] In November 2016, a slightly different version of the 2013 College Tour interview was uploaded to YouTube[16] by the Spanish non-profit El Mundo de Alycia on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women,[17] accompanied by a statement concluding that the scene "abused [Schneider] psychologically and, who knows if also, physically..."[18] This gained attention when Yahoo!

Storaro later told a reporter that after The Conformist I had a moment of crisis; I was asking myself: what can come after azure?...I did not have the slightest idea that an orange film could be born.

[26]For Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci and Storaro took inspiration from Bacon's paintings by using "rich oranges, light and cool grays, icy whites, and occasional reds combine[d] with Bertolucci's own tasteful choices of soft browns, blond browns, and delicate whites with bluish and pink shadings".

Instead, he wrote his lines on cue cards and posted them around the set, leaving Bertolucci with the problem of keeping them out of the picture frame.

[22] The film score was composed by Gato Barbieri, arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson, and the soundtrack album was released on the United Artists label.

[30][31] AllMusic's Richie Unterberger noted "Although some of the smoky sax solos get a little uncomfortably close to 1970s fusion cliché, Gato Barbieri's score to Bertolucci's 1972 classic is an overall triumph.

[32] The film opened in late 1972 in France, where filmgoers stood in two-hour queues for the first month of its run at the seven cinemas where it was screened.

[33] To circumvent Spanish state censorship, thousands of Spaniards travelled hundreds of kilometers to reach French cinemas in Biarritz and Perpignan where Tango was playing.

Schneider provided frank interviews in the wake of Tango's controversy, claiming she had slept with 50 men and 20 women, that she was "bisexual completely", and that she had used heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.

[37] One week later, however, police seized all copies on the order of a prosecutor, who defined the film as "self-serving pornography", and its director was put on trial for "obscenity".

The film opened February 1, 1973 at the Trans-Lux East in New York City with a $5 ticket price and advance sales of $100,000,[41][42] grossing $41,280 in its first week.

[22] Time wrote, Any moviegoers who are not shocked, titillated, disgusted, fascinated, delighted or angered by this early scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's new movie, Last Tango in Paris, should be patient.

[22] After local government officials failed to ban the film in Montclair, New Jersey, theatergoers had to push through a mob of 200 outraged residents, who hurled epithets like "perverts" and "homos" at the attendees.

[45] The New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women denounced the film as a tool of "male domination".

Vincent Canby of The New York Times described the film's sexual content as the artistic expression of the "era of Norman Mailer and Germaine Greer"[48] and was upset about the high ticket price.

[55] American director Robert Altman expressed unqualified praise: "I walked out of the screening and said to myself, 'How dare I make another film?'

The website's critical consensus reads, "Naturalistic but evocative, Last Tango in Paris is a vivid exploration of pain, love, and sex featuring a typically towering Marlon Brando performance.

"[56] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Praising both the star and the director of the film, Hawke told Richard Linklater and Louis Black that, "Brando upped [On the Waterfront] with Last Tango.

Mary Whitehouse, a Christian morality campaigner, expressed outrage that the film had been certified "X" rather than banned outright, and Labour MP Maurice Edelman denounced the classification as "a licence to degrade".

It received a VHS release by Warner Home Video with the same classification on 1 January 1987, forbidding sale or hire to anyone under the age of 18.

[79][80] In December 2024, a planned screening of Last Tango in Paris at the Parisian theater Cinémathèque française was cancelled after women's rights groups protested the showing due to the film's infamous rape scene.

"[81] His statements led to further criticism from feminist groups, who accused him as posing as a victim, and stating he should have instead apologized for wanting to screen the film to begin with.

The 50/50 Collective, another women's rights group, had called on the Cinématheque to provide "thoughtful and respectful" place for Schneider’s testimony and experience alongside the screening.