Steeped in love, lust, and melancholy, the films of Wong Kar Wai are a true cinephile’s dream. One of the great contemporary filmmakers, Wong is a master at capturing the many forms of love and courtship: from budding desire and heady infatuation to delirious heartbreak. Wong’s woozy, non-linear visions of urban loneliness traverse the specifics of their time and place to capture our hunger as humans to connect. Yet they also offer indelible portraits of place, from a densely populated, globalized Hong Kong to a rough-and-ready bedsit in Buenos Aires. His atmospheric cinematic worlds—often brought to life by regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle—shimmer with boldly saturated colors, shake to electrifying soundtracks, and judder with skittish step-printed effects. Deeply influential, the innovative director has turned generations onto arthouse cinema and ignited the independent film scene in Hong Kong.