History Main / OneLastJob

* ''Series/{{Hustle}}'': It was Mickey's one last job that persuaded the rest of the team to come on board in the first episode. Needless to say, it wasn't ''actually'' his last job... This is a rare example of where the protagonist doing the one last job knows it isn't his last. Normally he's the one to get sucked back into it afterwards, but actually it is his plan all along to get the rest of the team in.

* ''ComicBook/XStatix'': The final issue has the team embark on what they all agree to be their last mission before they go their separate ways. None of them survived the mission.

* The title assassin in ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'' is well-aware that his career will effectively be over after assassinating the president of France due to the immense heat that would follow him from the authorities and Gaullist supporters, and therefore he demands an exorbitant fee from the OAS plotters. They must resort to a string of bank robberies to afford his price, and [[MinorCrimeRevealsMayorPlot this ultimately turns out to be the first step in his undoing]].

* The title assassin in ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'' is well-aware that his career will effectively be over after assassinating the president of France due to the immense heat that would follow him from the authorities and Gaullist supporters, and therefore he demands an exorbitant fee from the OAS plotters. They must resort to a string of bank robberies to afford his price, and [[JustOneSmallMistake this ultimately turns out to be the first step in his undoing]].

* The title assassin in ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'' is well-aware that his career will effectively be over after assassinating the president of France due to the immense heat that would follow him from the authorities and Gaullist supporters, and therefore he demands an exorbitant fee from the OAS plotters. They must resort to a string of bank robberies to afford his price, and this ultimately turns out to be the first step in his undoing.

* ''Film/BladeRunner'' is about [[Creator/HarrisonFord Deckard]] taking one last job to [[DeadlyEuphemism "retire"]] some escaped [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots replicants]].

* In the ''[[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Medstar Duology]]'', one character is rising in the ranks of the intergalactic crime syndicate Black Sun, when the weather changes and he's reminded of his homeworld. Then he starts longing to return - but he [[ResignationsNotAccepted can't just leave]], not without having an appropriate gift for his vigo. Unfortunately, he gets betrayed by the people he had steal it, and while he survives he knows he has to stay in the organization. In a later book his vigo is aware that he wants to leave and uses this to get him to do nearly suicidal things. In the end, he gets away by FakingTheDead.

* ''WebOriginal/ShadowrunStorytime'':

* In the ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' story arc "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack finds that almost all of his fellow low-rent supervillain peers are constantly lining up for that one last job, the one that will lead them to greatness and riches... but it never works out.

* The ''ComicBook/RatQueens'' Colossal Magic Nothing arc includes a flash-forward where the three surviving Queens have split up and enjoyed domestic bliss for decades. Violet invites them back together to run down some odd reports at the edge of her clan's territory...

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' villains the Shocker and Hydro-Man are determined to pull off one last job to retire on after a lifetime of hardship and difficulty. Spider-Man foils this attempt in a way that makes him look like kind of a dick.
* The final issue of ''[[ComicBook/XForce X-Statix]]'' has the team embark on what they all agree to be their last mission before they go their separate ways. None of them survived the mission.
* In ''ComicBook/TheBatmanAdventures'' #10, the Riddler decides to give up crime because he's sick and tired of being outsmarted by Batman. His henchmen convince him to give it one more try. As it turns out, Batman's attention is focused on other criminals, and he only captures the Riddler by happenstance because he and they both [[HeistClash try to steal the same thing at the same time]]. When he learns that Batman never solved his riddle-clue, Riddler happily goes to prison and puts aside the idea of retiring -- as far as he's concerned, ''he won''.

* Spoofed in ''Hit Man'' by Creator/LawrenceBlock. A hitman decides he's going to retire but needs a hobby to occupy his mind during retirement. So he takes up stamp collecting. But stamps can be expensive, so the novel ends with him deciding to stay with his chosen profession and go on to appear in several more novels and short stories.

* Spoofed in ''Hit Man'' by Creator/LawrenceBlock. A hitman decides he's going to retire, but needs a hobby to occupy his mind during retirement. So he takes up stamp collecting. But stamps can be expensive, so the novel ends with him deciding to stay with his chosen profession (and this story then became the first of a series featuring the same character).

* Spoofed in ''Hit Man'' by Lawrence Block. A hitman decides he's going to retire, but needs a hobby to occupy his mind during retirement. So he takes up stamp collecting. But stamps can be expensive, so the novel ends with him deciding to stay with his chosen profession.

* John Woo's ''Film/TheKiller'' is about an assassin who takes on one last hit in order to help a woman he accidentally blinded during a disastrous job. He has to deal with a ContractOnTheHitman due to his boss deciding not to pay him.

* In ''Film/{{Contraband}}'', Creator/MarkWahlberg plays an ex-smuggler who is forced to pull one last smuggling job to save his brother-in-law from a drug dealer.

* ''Film/{{Inception}}'' is about Dom Cobb taking on one last job, the titular "Inception,". [[spoiler:His reward will be Saito erasing his murder charges so he can go home to the US and be reunited with his kids. He even gives up his entire share of the pay to do so. One possible inference is that if not for the murder charges, he might not even have been forced into a life of crime in the first place.]]

* ''LightNovel/AriaTheScarletAmmo'' has this in the beginning with Kinji, when [[ActionGirl Aria]] pulls him into the Assault Department after he has long since quit from them. He agreed to join one last time for one job so that she'll stop nagging him. [[spoiler: He's still there.]]

* In ''LightNovel/{{Overlord}}'', the Worker team Foresight decides to explore a mysterious ruin as one last job to help their youngest member Arche pay off her family's debts so that she can get her younger sisters away from the parents who are driving them into ruin. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for them, the ruin is Nazarick. Arche is the only one who is granted a merciful death, while the other members suffer a FateWorseThanDeath.]]