The American Friend

Friday, September 4 - Thursday, September 10, 2015

New 4k restoration! DCP projection

Wim Wenders in person Sat Sept 5 for Q&A following 6:35 show!

In 1977, THE AMERICAN FRIEND won the German Critics Prize as well as gold in two categories of the German Film Prize, and it is now considered a cult film. Wenders adapted Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game for the film. Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) believes that he will soon die of leukemia. The unscrupulous American Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) learns of this and exploits Zimmermann’s illness for his own purposes.

He introduces Jonathan to the underworld figure Minot (Gérard Blain), who offers to hire the terminally ill man as a professional hit man. He is to be paid appropriately for his work and thus enabled to leave something behind for his wife (Lisa Kreuzer) and their child. What does he have to lose, since he is going to die anyway? A friendship develops between the two very different men, and this ultimately leads Ripley to intervene when Zimmermann proves incapable of carrying out an additional murder. The cast of Wenders’s film includes not only the directors Hopper and Blain but also filmmakers in many of the supporting roles of gangsters, such as Hollywood legends Sam Fuller and Nicholas Ray, as well as Peter Lilienthal, Daniel Schmid, and Jean Eustache.

Part of the retrospective “Wim Wenders: Portraits Along the Road”

• Country West Germany/France
• Language In German, English, and French with English subtitles
• Year 1976
• Running Time 126 minutes
• Director Wim Wenders

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.