Nicholas Ray
Directing
Born 1911-08-07
Died 1979-06-16
Galesville, Wisconsin, USA
48 credits
Read biography
Nicholas Ray (born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle; 7 August 1911 – 16 June 1979) was an American film director best known for the films Rebel Without a Cause and Johnny Guitar. Described by the Harvard Film Archive as "Hollywood's last romantic" and "one of postwar American cinema’s supremely gifted and ultimately tragic filmmakers," Ray was considered an iconoclastic auteur director who often clashed with the Hollywood studio system of the time, but would prove highly influential to future generations of filmmakers.
His best-known work is the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean. He is appreciated for many narrative features produced between 1947 and 1963, including They Live By Night (1948), In A Lonely Place (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), Bigger Than Life (1956), and King of Kings (1961), as well as an experimental work produced throughout the 1970s titled We Can't Go Home Again, which was unfinished at the time of Ray's death.
During his lifetime, Ray was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Rebel Without a Cause, twice for the Golden Lion, for Bigger Than Life (1956) and Bitter Victory (1957), and a Palme d'Or for The Savage Innocents (1960). Three of his films were ranked by Cahiers du Cinéma in their Annual Top 10 Lists.
Ray's compositions within the CinemaScope frame and use of color are particularly well regarded and he was an important influence on the French New Wave, with Jean-Luc Godard famously writing in a review of Bitter Victory, "... there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray."
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Filmography
Rebel Without a Cause
Hair
55 Days at Peking
King of Kings
Johnny Guitar
In a Lonely Place
Party Girl
Knock on Any Door
The American Friend
The Lusty Men
They Live by Night
Bigger Than Life
Flying Leathernecks
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The True Story of Jesse James
Born to Be Bad
General Electric Theater
Circus World
On Dangerous Ground
Run for Cover
Androcles and the Lion
Macao
The Savage Innocents
A Woman's Secret
Made in U.S.A
Hot Blood
Marco
Bitter Victory
Wind Across the Everglades
Tuesday in November
Wilder Demons #2
Johnny, weil Du Geburtstag hast
Films to Die For
James Dean: A Portrait
The Janitor
James Dean: The First American Teenager
Lightning Over Water
Profile of Nicholas Ray
Swing Parade of 1946
Roseanna McCoy
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Wet Dreams
Vanity Fair: Jeanette Starion the Pet of the Year
Nicholas Ray: Especially for Pierre
Don't Expect Too Much
Horizons
We Can't Go Home Again
Rebel Without a Cause: Defiant Innocents
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