The Last of Us Episode 6: What movie was Ellie watching?

In The Last of Us Episode 6, Ellie visits Jackson’s cinema to watch a movie with the other kids – but what was she watching?

Imagine a life where you didn’t have the blissful escape of a movie theater. In a world ravaged by a parasitic virus that turns your brain into foosty fungus, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t care – it’s the one place where everything outside can be rendered irrelevant even just for a little while.

In Episode 6, after Joel and Ellie somewhat begrudgingly accept clean clothes and hospitality from Tommy and Maria, she joins the commune’s local kids to watch a film.

We see brief scenes from the movie, but the question remains: what was she watching?

What movie was Ellie watching in The Last of Us Episode 6?

Ellie was watching The Goodbye Girl, a 1977 rom-com starring Richard Dreyfuss.

The movie follows Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss), an aspiring actor who’s bagged the role as Richard III in an “off-off-Broadway” show. Luckily for him, Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) has just been dumped by her scumbag boyfriend, but he agreed to sublet his apartment to him before he abandoned her.

Of course, when he turns up in the middle of the night, he isn’t expecting to see Marsha, nor her 10-year-old daughter Lucy (Quinn Cummings). By law, it’s his apartment more than theirs, but he lets them stay, and a new family begins to form.

Dreyfuss bagged the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance, and it was the first romantic comedy to gross more than $100 million at the box office.

Its choice can’t be coincidental: in The Last of Us, Joel is hesitant to show his affection towards Ellie, while Ellie already sees him as a father figure (albeit, never expressed in those specific terms).

The relationship between Elliot and Lucy is a major part of The Goodbye Girl, especially as Lucy is worn down by him and overcomes her fear of being left behind again.

The Last of Us Episode 7 will be available to stream on February 26 in the US and February 27 in the UK. Check out the rest of our coverage here and the trailer for the weeks ahead here.