Selected by Mitchell Kaplan
Charting Rowlands’s transformation as “Mabel” from endearingly kooky to bleakly incoherent (and back again), John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence is perhaps the most important examination of mental health ever captured onscreen. Cassavetes observes the ricochets between Mabel’s health and her in-laws' “influence." But at the heart of this film is her relationship with her conservative husband (an equally amazing Peter Falk), who struggles in vain to pull Mabel out of her decline. Both tough-as-bricks and delicate, A Woman Under the Influence goes straight for the throat.