‘The Last First: Winter K2’ Review: The Latest Unheeded Warning About Climbing the Savage Mountain

A group of climbers of various experience levels attempted to summit K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain, but one that experts agree is far more dangerous than Mount Everest. Because there’s no licensing board that evaluates climbing experience, and poorer countries like Pakistan and Nepal need the revenue from wealthy adventurers, we’re left with a situation where the lives of all mountaineers become endangered because a deadly mountain gets deadlier when it has to deal with competing egos. This was the story of Nick Ryan’s 2012 documentary “The Summit,” which recounted a climbing disaster on K2. The names and seasons change, but the story remains the same in Amir Bar-Lev’s “The Last First: Winter K2.” While advances in cameras like GoPros and other equipment allow for capturing more footage, the underlying hubris is as galling as ever, and “The Last First” leaves little doubt that reckless ascents of K2 will continue no matter how many loved ones are lost along the way. With the rise of social media, Everest has become more crowded than ever as everyone wants likes for scaling the world’s tallest peak, which these days looks more like a line at Disneyland – if Disneyland also had garbage and frozen corpses by the queue. Aside from the crush, there’s not much novelty in it anymore. The last unconquered challenge is scaling K2 in the winter, making a difficult mountain even more dangerous. When Pakistan eased its COVID restrictions in 2021 and allowed visitors back in the country, a rush of climbers wanted to become the first to conquer K2 in winter. Some, like John Snorri Sigurjónsson and his fellow climbers, father-son duo Muhammad Ali and Sajid Sadpara, felt like this was a chance to make history. Others, like Nepalese speed climber Nimsdai Purja, wanted to win glory for Nepal and its sherpas who in the past were frequently reduced to the background of Western expeditions. And others, like those who used the service Seven Summit, were novices, unprepared for what K2 would throw at them. Since the late 20th century, climbing has gone from a pursuit of national expedition to one of personal expression. It’s an expensive, daunting sport and even the most responsible, experienced climbers can die on these mountains. Bar-Lev doesn’t ignore the threats of K2, and highlights how in winter, you’re not only dealing with the mountain’s steep, vertical drops, but also colder weather, shorter days, and higher winds. A great climber can prepare all he or she wants, but they’re no match for a rogue rock that comes sailing down the mountain at high speeds. You’re essentially trying to climb while your body is depleted, eating itself and crying out for oxygen — and that’s before you factor in the chunks of rock and ice shooting cannonballs at you. It’s dangerous enough under the best conditions, and as “The Last First” highlights, the best conditions are impossible because of the human element. Bar-Lev endeavors to highlight the clash of personalities on the mountain, not making anyone malicious, but showing how there are different motivating factors that will inevitably collide beyond the general desire to summit. While the group of 60 climbers initially agreed to work together, Nimsdai and his team wanted to be the first to summit as a matter of national pride. Ali Sadpara was a national hero in Pakistan and wanted to summit on behalf of his country. Seven Summit had a financial incentive to bring in climbers, which others, specifically climber and filmmaker Elia Saikaly, cites as being irresponsible and creating risks for the more experienced climbers. Similar to “The Summit,” the risk doesn’t stay contained to the novice climbers, but rather sharing the same mountain creates new difficulties where professionals are now shouldering the burden of the novices’ mistakes. I feel like I’m being a little unfair towards Bar-Lev for having a film that echoes “The Summit.” He didn’t make the climbing conditions so treacherous and he’s following the story where it goes. But while there is uniqueness in covering K2 during this particular season, and it would be landmark accomplishment to follow a team that makes the summit, there needs to be something more if this is a story about human egos and recklessness in extreme mountaineering. This is a story we’ve known about since at least the time that “Into Thin Air” became a bestseller, and none of it appears to have deterred a single person. This speaks to the documentarian’s dilemma in capturing the mountain. You want to keep the focus on the people, and you don’t want to be disrespectful to the dead, but for the casual observer, what you’re seeing is a gorgeous landscape, a bunch of people telling you it’s dangerous, but never enough to put off anyone who may want to think twice about such a risky endeavor. I’m sure the novices who signed with Seven Summit thought, “Well, this is a professional group, and I’m not going to be reckless.” But what a documentary like “The Last First” struggles to convey is that even professional climbers will butt heads with other professional climbers, let alone novices. If the ideal conditions can still kill, is it worth taking the risk? I don’t know if any documentary like this can fully convey the dangers because the directors and cinematographers are also captured by the majesty of the mountain. But the conclusions it leaves feel like an impasse where everyone who would climb K2 has been thoroughly warned, and no one seems to believe it until they get there. While the statistic that one in every four climbers who attempts to summit K2 dies is no longer accurate, the deaths are still constant. According to Broad Peak Adventures, one climber died in 2023, three died in 2024, and as of August 15, 2025, two climbers perished. The mountain’s danger is part of its allure, but as “The Last First” asks, how much danger comes from the mountain, and how much is coming from other climbers? With no restrictions on the horizon, it feels like this story will be told again and again. “The Last First: Winter K2” opens in theaters and arrives on Apple TV on October 2.