A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 ensemble comedy elegy directed by Robert Altman, his final film released just five months before his death. It is based on A Prairie Home Companion, a program broadcast on public radio stations in the United States and elsewhere. The film is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities on a long-running radio show of the same name.

Plot

A long-running live radio show is in danger of being canceled by new owners of the company that owns both the radio station and the theater from which the show is broadcast. The film takes place on their last night's performance, accompanied by two visitors. An angel (Virginia Madsen) calling herself Asphodel comes to comfort the people that work on this show and to escort one of the performers to the afterlife, while a representative of the new owners ("the Axeman," played by Tommy Lee Jones) arrives to judge whether the show should be canceled. He makes it clear that it is not what he considers modern popular programming, and though he too is escorted by the angel, the show is shut down anyway. In an epilogue at the end of the film the former cast members are re-united at a diner. Their conversation pauses as they are joined by Asphodel.