Lightning Over Water

Signed jointly by Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray, this 1980 film records Ray's final months. Ray is dying of cancer and wants to finish one more film before he does. Wenders, working on his own project in Hollywood, comes to New York and the two begin shooting together. The film keeps shifting between fiction and documentary. Some scenes are written and performed, others are direct recordings. Ray is acting in front of the camera while genuinely falling ill, and the viewer often cannot separate the two. That ambiguity made the film ethically contested, and Wenders later spoke about his own discomfort with it. What results is not a farewell but a record of work. Ray is still trying to direct, discussing shots, setting up scenes. The hardest moments are the ones where the illness stops him. Who it's for: those interested in film history and in films about the creative process itself. Who it's not for: anyone who would find watching a dying man on camera distressing; the film does nothing to soften it.