An emotionally generous and luminously shot odyssey. The German journalist Phillip Winter wants to write a story about America, but is unable to accomplish anything but a series of polaroids before disappointedly beginning his journey back home. At the same time, he reluctantly agrees to take little Alice with him, because her mother— whom he meets in New York on the day before his departure—has urgent business to take care of there. In Amsterdam, the mother then fails to appear as they had agreed, and so Winter and Alice set out to try to find Alice’s grandmother in the Ruhr region. During their search together, their initial mutual dislike gradually transforms into a heart-felt affection.

Shot in moody monochrome by Robbie Müller, and loaded with the director’s characteristic ambivalence about American culture, Alice in the Cities confirmed Wenders’s place as one of the leaders of the New German Cinema.