The Last Duel premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 15, 2021, by 20th Century Studios.

[7][8] While the plot of the film is portrayed in three separate chapters, each telling the same story from the perspective of the three main characters, the following description summarizes all three presentations into a single narrative: After serving in the Caroline War, French squires Jean de Carrouges and Jacques le Gris swear allegiance to Count Pierre d'Alençon, who has been named Jean's overlord by King Charles VI.

An epilogue reveals Jean died fighting in the Crusades while Marguerite continued managing his estate, living in peace for the remainder of her life but never remarrying.

[9] In July 2019, Deadline Hollywood announced that Ridley Scott was planning to direct the film, with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon set to star as well as write the screenplay with Nicole Holofcener.

[23] On March 13, 2020, Disney announced that the studio had to delay the shoot indefinitely amid concerns for the cast and crew in light of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as travel restrictions in Europe.

[3] Deadline Hollywood attributed the underperformance to the two-and-a-half-hour runtime limiting the number of showings, the subject matter being hard to market, the 45+ age demo not fully returning to theaters yet, and competition from Halloween Kills and No Time to Die.

During an interview on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron in November 2021, Scott blamed the film's box-office failure on millennials, saying: "I think what it boils down to — what we've got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones.

The website's critics consensus reads: "The Last Duel's critique of systemic misogyny isn't as effective as it might have been, but it remains a well-acted and thought-provoking drama infused with epic grandeur.

[39] Owen Gleiberman of Variety considered the film "intriguing but overcooked", writing: "Despite a brief action interlude here or there, The Last Duel turns out to be a lavishly convoluted and, at times, rather interesting medieval soap opera.

"[48] Reviewing the film for TheWrap, Asher Luberto praised the performances and cinematography while criticizing the screenplay, writing: "Adapting Eric Jager's 2004 non-fiction book with screenwriters Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, Scott spins a medieval yarn that is by turns gruesome, grotesque, gorgeous and inconsistent.

"[49] Ben Croll of IndieWire, who gave the film a "B+" grade, praised it as "something all too rare on the current Hollywood field of battle: an intelligent and genuinely daring big budget melee that is — above all else — the product of recognizable artistic collaboration.

"[50] Kyle Smith of National Review wrote that the film was "absolutely soaked in fascinating strangeness", adding: "It works because it doesn’t try to retrofit the facts of the past to fit the assumptions of the present.

"[51] Linda Marric of The Jewish Chronicle gave the film a score of five out of five stars, describing it as "a true return to form for Scott and a brilliant testament to Affleck and Damon's unparalleled screenwriting expertise.

"[52] Deborah Ross of The Spectator described the film as "bleak, brutal and bloody with little respite – aside from Affleck's Count Pierre, who is nicely bitchy.

Mark Kermode of The Observer gave the film a score of three out of five stars, saying that it "plays like an armour-clad reimagining of Rashomon crossed with a #MeToo-inflected remake of Straw Dogs."

He added that the film "has a tendency to mirror its central battle's attempts to address complex issues with the blunt tool of rabble-rousing spectacle.

"[59] Charlotte O'Sullivan of the Evening Standard gave the film three out of five stars, describing it as "a handsome, well-researched drama that's by turns earnest, amusing and unintentionally funny.

"[60] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal praised the film's production values, performances and primary theme, but wrote: "the narrative is cluttered with court intrigue against a background of repetitive battles, and the storytelling structure is exhausting.

"[61] Brian Lowry of CNN wrote that the film "is muddy, bloody and grim but too drawn out in filtering 14th-century feudal norms through a modern prism.

"[62] David Fear of Rolling Stone said that the film "ends up perching so close to parody at times that you'd swear the full title was Monty Python's The Last Duel.