Nicholas Ray (1911-1979) was one of the most innovative and consistently entertaining filmmakers of the Hollywood studio era, remaining legendary for his intense personality, fierce individuality, and restless creative growth. Coming up through the left-wing Theater of Action in New York City followed by the Federal Theatre Project (alongside John Houseman and Elia Kazan), Ray was known as an “actor’s director” for his tendency to allow the actor to define their own role. Despite a relatively short career and working within myriad generic confines—Westerns, film noir, melodramas, and “social problem” pictures—at disparate studios, Ray managed to infuse his films with distinctive visual and thematic style and iconic results. His brash yet sensitive portrayals of American individuality and the collective in flux earned Ray his place among the great American filmmakers; devotee Jean-Luc Godard enthused, “There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforward there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray.”