Film

This groundbreaking, experimental neo-realist milestone of American independent cinema—the sole feature from writer-director-actor Barbara Loden—pioneered new ways of accessing the Method’s nuanced, roiling emotions. In a fearlessly personal performance, Loden not only directs but also plays Wanda Goronski, who leaves her family and tumbles further into outsiderhood when she becomes involved with a bank robber on the run. Loden, who studied with Group Theatre veteran Bobby Lewis and at the Actors Studio, was estranged from her Method disciple husband Elia Kazan when she made this unvarnished portrait of a working-class woman adrift amid desperate choices and callous men.