A terminally ill Hamburg picture framer (Bruno Ganz) is manipulated by a shady American art dealer (Dennis Hopper) into becoming a contract killer for the mob. Wim Wenders's atmospheric, sun-drenched thriller—loosely adapted from Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game—is both a loving homage to American genre cinema and a meditation on identity, friendship, and the corrosive influence of money. Packed with cameos from directors Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, The American Friend is one of the defining films of the New German Cinema.