Nicholas Ray

Known for DirectingBorn 1911-08-07Died 1979-06-16Galesville, Wisconsin, USA

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."Read more

Movies & web series

Marco

Horizons

Tuesday in November

James Dean: The First American Teenager

In a Lonely Place

Hair

Rebel Without a Cause

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Johnny Guitar

James Dean: A Portrait

The American Friend

Bigger Than Life

King of Kings

55 Days at Peking

Lightning Over Water

The Savage Innocents

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Party Girl

General Electric Theater

They Live by Night

Run for Cover

The Lusty Men

Don't Expect Too Much

On Dangerous Ground

We Can't Go Home Again

Circus World

Bitter Victory

The True Story of Jesse James

Made in U.S.A

Macao

Wind Across the Everglades

Knock on Any Door

Roseanna McCoy

Wet Dreams

Born to Be Bad

Androcles and the Lion

Flying Leathernecks

Hot Blood

A Woman's Secret

Swing Parade of 1946

Vanity Fair: Jeanette Starion the Pet of the Year

Films to Die For

Wilder Demons #2

Rebel Without a Cause: Defiant Innocents

Nicholas Ray: Especially for Pierre

Profile of Nicholas Ray

The Janitor