THE AMERICAN FRIEND | Dir. Wim Wenders | 1977 | 126 min  
Presented in German, French, and English with subtitles for non-English portions.

Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight—but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders’s international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray. - Criterion

Awards
1977 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - NOMINATION (Palme d'Or | Wim Wenders)
1977 NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW, USA - WINNER (NBR Award, Top Foreign Films)
1977 NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS AWARDS, USA - 3RD PLACE (NSFC Award, Best Cinematography | Robby Müller)
1978 BAMBI AWARDS - WINNER (Best Actress, National | Lisa Kreuzer)
1978 CESAR AWARDS, FRANCE - NOMINATION (Best Foreign Film | Wim Wenders)
1978 GERMAN FILM AWARDS - WINNER (Film Award in Gold: Best Direction | Wim Wenders, Best Editing | Peter Przygodda For Die linkshändige Frau and Die gläserne Zelle, Film Award in Silver: Outstanding Feature Film)
1979 SANT JORDI AWARDS - WINNER (Sant Jordi, Best Foreign Performer | Bruno Ganz)

The American Friend is the second work of focus in our MASTERS: WIM WENDERS series.