The American Friend is something else. It's accessible, visually beautiful: a perfect mechanism with two notable performances: Hopper, the hysteric, and Ganz, the stoic. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 18, 2024

Wenders uses densely detailed imagery, his pacing is weighted, and there are no insights that relate to the characters -- the film drags along on secondhand alienation.

| Sep 18, 2023

Wim Wenders evinces an extremely refined style that is much more effective here than in his previous films. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 1, 2019

... only a filmmaker as humane as [director Wim Wenders] could recognize there's no way out of the story's moral corruption.

| Feb 15, 2018

An absorbing but rarefied, introspective variation on traditional thrilleer motifs, it's probably not the synthetis between the personal and traditional that Wenders needs but it's a fascinating compulsively watchable experiment.

| May 5, 2017

The cool, cunning sociopath of Highsmith's novel becomes a restless international hustler, selling art forgeries and brokering deals (some of which may actually be legal) while travelling back and forth through Germany, France, and the United States.

| Mar 30, 2017

Most Highsmith adaptations have turned out to be satisfying movies -- the earliest example being Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and the most recent being Carol -- and this one's no exception.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 6, 2016

Although it is a thriller by genre, Wenders is clearly interested in things beyond the mechanics of Ripley's manipulations and Zimmermann's desperation

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 27, 2016

Crafty and beguiling and unexpectedly smart about people.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 4, 2015

By refusing to explain Ripley, this gets closer to Highsmith's character than any other film version.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 22, 2007

A gripping Hitchockian thriller based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 22, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 29, 2007

...a slow-moving yet occasionally thrilling adaptation...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 21, 2006

Moody and intriguing, this is one of Wenders' most accessible films, effective as a Hitchockian thriller (Strangers on a Train), existential character study, and allegory about the corruptible yet irrevrsible impact of American pop culture on Germany.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 5, 2006

Superb adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game, with Hopper as her amiably cynical hero.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2006

There's something cheerfully perverse about filming a thriller and then tossing out the parts that would help it make sense, but Wim Wenders has a certain success with the method.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 24, 2004

Enquanto Hopper cria um Tom Ripley inacreditavelmente ridculo, Ganz rouba o filme, que conta com uma direo irregular de Wenders.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 22, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 22, 2003

A lovingly crafted exploration of friendship and desperation.

| May 24, 2003