Director Pearlstein makes it easy on us to decide by making the film both hilarious and thought-provoking.

| Apr 28, 2020

Renee Firestone, a Holocaust survivor now 93-years-old, captures the essence of The Last Laugh, Pearlstein's documentary on the humor coming out of the horror during World War II.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 16, 2019

The Last Laugh doesn't have many answers. But the questions it raises are worth their own sake.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 27, 2018

The Last Laugh is thought provoking in its analysis of both the cultural identity of the Jewish people and the anatomy of a joke.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Pearlstein asks the big questions, and sometimes the answer is a tear, sometimes a laugh, and always profound.

| Feb 3, 2018

What upends The Last Laugh is that the scenes with Firestone, which take up a good percentage of the screen time, follow the template of scores, if not hundreds, of Holocaust-survivor documentaries.

| Nov 20, 2017

An eye opener in every sense

| Nov 20, 2017

In its own way, "The Last Laugh" is a celebration of Jewish humor, not just its importance as a survival technique, but also just how much it has shaped our culture.

| Nov 20, 2017

Is laughter a palliative? The only weapon of the powerless? Perhaps significantly, the film ends in tears.

| Nov 20, 2017

What makes The Last Laugh different from so many other Holocaust documentaries is that it is the first to explore the comedic perspective.

| Nov 10, 2017

Ferne Pearlstein does well to keep the questions coming and the conversation a rich one, presenting to a wide audience the kind of kibitzing that has characterized Jewish comics.

| Aug 15, 2017

When it floats away from its star talent, The Last Laugh becomes a viciously humane work, on a journey as vigorous as any contemplated by D.A. Pennebaker and his sort.

| May 9, 2017

Part of the film's charm is in its reluctance to sit on one side of the fence, and it instead acknowledges the plurality of experiences and interpretations.

| Original Score: Recommended | Apr 1, 2017

At a time when many of us look to comedy to keep us sane, the question is especially pertinent, although the answers here aren't especially penetrating.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 24, 2017

Sit down with The Last Laugh and have the last laugh over those who committed horrors in the past, are doing so now, and will in future.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Mar 23, 2017

At times haphazard but always involving ...

| Mar 16, 2017

Intriguing in that it lays out the case that we can now make jokes about the Holocaust and lets the viewers decide for themselves whether they've made the point.

| Original Score: B | Mar 13, 2017

It remains an enlightening conversation. And the movie is that: a conversation, not a thesis erecting an argument.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2017

The Last Laugh is a multifaceted and extremely thought-provoking documentary about the place of comedy in contending with the Jewish genocide during WWII.

| Original Score: 8.3/10 | Mar 9, 2017

A Jew walks into a comedy club. Is it OK for her to tell a joke about the six million who died? Can she, as Gilbert Gottfried asks, put the "Hah!" in Holocaust? This is the topic of a fascinating new documentary by Ferne Pearlstein.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2017