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Nicholas Ray
Galesville, 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. Describ…
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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."
Filmography
Movies and shows, newest first
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2025
Films to Die For
Movie Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
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2024
Wilder Demons #2
Movie Writer
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2011
Don't Expect Too Much
Movie Himself
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2005
Rebel Without a Cause: Defiant Innocents
Movie Himself (uncredited)
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1995
James Dean: A Portrait
Movie Self (archive footage)
- 1990
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1980
Lightning Over Water
Movie Self
- 1979
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1979
Hair
Movie The General
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1978
Marco
Movie Director
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1977
The American Friend
Movie Andrew Pogash Derwatt
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1977
Johnny, weil Du Geburtstag hast
Movie Self
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1977
Profile of Nicholas Ray
Movie Self
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1975
James Dean: The First American Teenager
Movie Self
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1975
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Movie Self
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1974
Wet Dreams
Movie Director
More credits
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1974
The Janitor
Movie Director
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1973
Horizons
Movie
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1973
We Can't Go Home Again
Movie Nick Ray
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1967
Made in U.S.A
Movie Thanks
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1964
Circus World
Movie Story
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1963
55 Days at Peking
Movie US Minister (uncredited)
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1961
King of Kings
Movie Director
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1960
The Savage Innocents
Movie Director
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1958
Party Girl
Movie Director
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1958
Wind Across the Everglades
Movie Director
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1957
Bitter Victory
Movie Director
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1957
The True Story of Jesse James
Movie Director
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1956
Bigger Than Life
Movie Director
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1956
Hot Blood
Movie Director
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1955
Rebel Without a Cause
Movie Man in Last Shot (uncredited)
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1955
Run for Cover
Movie Director
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1954
Johnny Guitar
Movie Director
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1953
General Electric Theater
TV show Director
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1952
Androcles and the Lion
Movie Co-Director
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1952
The Lusty Men
Movie Director
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1952
Macao
Movie Co-Director
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1951
On Dangerous Ground
Movie Adaptation
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1951
Flying Leathernecks
Movie Director
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1950
Born to Be Bad
Movie Director
