Husbands (1970)

After the sudden death of their close friend, three middle-aged New Yorkers spend a lost weekend in London, drinking, gambling, womanizing, and struggling to make sense of their places in the world. “I am a moralist,” writer-director Jon Cassavetes once said, “in that I believe the greatest morality is to acknowledge the freedom of others; to be oneself and to not be in judgment.” As a result, his style of filmmaking eschews traditional plotting and, instead, features fewer, longer scenes that burrow uncomfortably and without sentiment into the nature of his recognizably complex characters, difficult men deserving of our empathy and grace. – Darren Hughes