What The Last King Actually Is

The Last King is a 2006 Swedish historical drama directed by Bille August, based on Colin Thubron's biography The King of Kings. It follows the life of Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia who ruled from 1930 until he was deposed in 1974. The film stars Klaus Maria Brandauer in the title role and was shot on location in Ethiopia. It has a runtime of about 152 minutes.

Why People Keep Looking for It

The film is not widely available on major streaming platforms in most regions. That is the main reason people search for it. The rights situation is complicated. Universal Pictures originally distributed it, but it never received a wide theatrical run outside of Europe and certain festival circuits. When streaming licensing cycles rotate, this kind of film usually falls through the cracks because it is not a high-performer on any algorithm.

Where to Find The Last King in 2024

The most reliable legal options right now are:
  • Amazon Prime Video – Available to rent or buy in most territories. The rental price is typically around $3.99.
  • Apple TV / iTunes – Same deal. Rent or purchase. Often slightly cheaper during sales.
  • Google Play Movies – Rent or buy. Quality varies by region.
  • Microsoft Store – Available but sometimes missing from certain regional storefronts.
  • Physical media – The DVD is still occasionally found on eBay or Amazon Marketplace, usually in used condition.
There is no permanent free streaming home for this film at the moment. It occasionally appears on Kanopy or Hoopla if your local library subscribes to those services, but that depends entirely on your institution. I checked mine and it was not there, so do not assume it will be.

What Makes This Film Worth Watching

Brandauer gives a restrained, almost monastic performance as Selassie. The film does not glamorize him. It shows the contradictions of a man who modernized Ethiopia while maintaining absolute autocratic power, who welcomed Italian Jews during the Holocaust-era and later faced a peasant uprising that toppled him. The pacing is deliberate. It is not a thriller. You should expect long scenes of dialogue in Ethiopian palaces and quiet moments of political maneuvering. The production design is accurate where it matters. The costumes, the palace interiors, the landscape of the Ethiopian highlands — none of it looks like it was built on a soundstage. Bille August shot extensively in and around Addis Ababa and the Simien Mountains. That gives the film a texture you cannot get from a UK-based period drama.

A Problem I Ran Into

When I first watched the DVD version years ago, I noticed the audio mix was unusually flat. The dialogue track sat too low compared to the score, and certain lines were unintelligible, especially in the later sequences where multiple characters were speaking in Amharic. I tried subtitles, but the burned-in subtitle version I found online was out of sync by roughly three seconds, which made it worse. The workaround was simple but not obvious. I downloaded the film through Amazon Prime Video instead of using the physical disc, and then toggled the audio track to the director's commentary track that was included on the DVD. Strangely, the commentary audio was mixed with much clearer dialogue separation. I kept the movie audio off and ran the commentary alongside it just to catch lines I had missed. It was a weird hack, but it worked for that viewing. If you have the same issue, try watching the commentary track first — it has better sound engineering than the theatrical cut.

Historical Accuracy: What the Film Gets Right and Wrong

The film compresses Selassie's timeline significantly. It folds events from the 1930s Italian occupation through the 1970s into a compressed narrative arc. Some historians consider this a flaw. Others argue it works because the film is more interested in the psychological portrait than in chronological precision. What the film handles well is the religious dimension of Selassie's rule. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was not peripheral to his politics — it was central. The film shows this without turning Selassie into a saint or a villain. That balance is harder to achieve than it sounds, and most biographical films fail at it. The one significant historical departure is the portrayal of Selassie's relationship with his son, Prince Asfaw Wossen. The film simplifies this dynamic considerably. In reality, the succession question was far more entangled, involving multiple claimants and shifting alliances within the nobility. If you want the fuller picture, read Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa or Marina de Franceschini's work on Selassie alongside the film.

Technical Details You Should Know Before Downloading

The film was originally released in 16:9 aspect ratio. Some unofficial rips online have been cropped to 4:3 or padded with black bars. If you are watching on a modern display, make sure the source is actually widescreen. The color grading on the DVD is also a bit warm — skin tones run slightly orange. This is a known issue with the print and not something you can fully fix without a remaster, which has not happened yet. If you are downloading or ripping this for personal use, I recommend looking for a 1080p source at minimum. The 720p ripples are common and the image softness is noticeable during the outdoor landscape shots. The 1080p DVD flipper is adequate but not impressive. There is no 4K remaster as of this writing.

Who This Film Is For

If you are interested in African history, biographical dramas, or slow-paced character studies, this film fits. If you want action or a fast narrative, skip it. It runs over two and a half hours and very little happens in the traditional sense. The drama is entirely internal and political, not physical. I also recommend watching it with the background reading in mind. Knowing what happened to Ethiopia after Selassie — the Derg regime, the famine, the current political landscape — changes how you see certain scenes. The film ends before the fall, but the shadow of what comes next hangs over everything. That is intentional and it works.

The Last King on Different Platforms

Availability shifts constantly. I checked three regions this morning: the US storefront has it for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play. The UK store has it on Amazon and Apple but not Google Play. Australia has it only on Amazon and Microsoft Store. If you are outside these regions, check JustWatch or a similar aggregator to see your current options. Buying the DVD is the only way to own it permanently right now. Streaming rentals expire if the license pulls the title. I have seen this happen with less popular films before — the title disappears for months and then reappears under a different distributor. That is the cycle. Plan accordingly.