The film stars Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez, Toby Jones, and Willem Dafoe.

The Last Thing He Wanted had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2020, and was released on February 21, 2020, by Netflix.

Elena McMahon is a journalist reporting out of the Atlantic Post's Central American bureau in El Salvador who is forced to flee during the civil war.

In Houston, Elena meets with General Gus Sharp who had previously identified American shell casings in El Salvador as coming from a stockpile in Missouri.

She shows him surveillance photos of shipping containers, which Sharp identifies as surplus arms from various National Guard units, including the 20th Special Forces.

He escorts her to safety and explains to her that the deal her father was offered was fake, meant to lure Dick out of hiding.

After several days at Paul's, Morrison reaches out and lays out a plan to get her home, where she can break the story on the arms deals.

In September 2017, it was announced Dee Rees, who had previously worked with Elwes on the 2017 film Mudbound, would direct.

The same review commented on the choice to portray the fiction story with no explanation of the Sandinistas and Contras, but to introduce the character of the real Secretary of State George Shultz.

[8] In July 2018, Ben Affleck, Toby Jones, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez and Carlos Leal joined the cast of the film.

Rees worked with Bukowski to use the camera to capture the pace of Didion's prose, with a stream-of-consciousness speed.

[3][4] Rees was inspired by the films The Parallax View, Salvador and Network, with a focus on pacing and realism.

[3] In one early scene, Hathaway and Perez run for an airplane as the camera moves away from them, through the airport and out to the tarmac as they make it aboard the flight.

"[17] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

Hathaway's acting was praised by Allen, with Affleck and Dafoe described as "professionals on autopilot" and Perez and Gathegi not given a role beyond story devices.