Set during a languid season on Fire Island, Last Summer is a stark and unsettling coming of age drama that captures the disaffection and moral drift of the late 1960s with unflinching honesty. Directed by Frank Perry and adapted by Eleanor Perry from Evan Hunter’s provocative novel, the film follows four teenagers—played by Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Catherine Burns—whose summer of idle freedom and social detachment gradually gives way to tragedy.

Shot in a naturalistic style, Last Summer eschews easy judgments, instead presenting a chilling examination of youthful entitlement and emotional void. Perry’s restrained direction and the cast’s fearless performances lend the film a haunting authenticity that resonates long after the final frame. Last Summer is one of the most powerfully daunting and uncompromising American films of its time. Long unavailable for viewing, Last Summer been meticulously restored on re-constructed especially for this Warner Archive Blu-ray presentation.