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Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking film poster
Directed by	Wim Wenders
Produced by	Karsten Brünig, Lee In-Ah, Peter Schwartzkopff
Written by	Sam Shepard, Wim Wenders
Starring	Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s)	19 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
Running time	122 min.
Language	English
Budget	~ US$11,000,000
IMDb profile

Don't Come Knocking is a 2005 film, a comedy-drama road movie directed by German director Wim Wenders and written by Wenders and actor/playwright Sam Shepard. The two had previously collaborated on Paris, Texas twenty years previously, to which this film bears superficial story similarities, albeit told in a much lighter tone.

Shepard stars as Howard Spence, an aging, hard-living Western movie star, who, disgusted with his life, flees by horse from the set of his latest western filming in the desert outside Moab, Utah. He hits the road looking for refuge in his past, traveling to his hometown of Elko, Nevada and, eventually, to Butte, Montana, looking for a woman (Jessica Lange) he left behind twenty years before when he was filming a movie there. Spence is doggedly pursued by Mr. Sutter (Tim Roth), a humorless representative of the insurance company insuring Spence's latest film: Mr. Sutter's job is return Spence to the set to finish filming the movie. Also converging on Butte is a young woman named Sky (Sarah Polley), returning her late mother's ashes to her hometown and conducting a search of her own.

The film features cameo appearances by George Kennedy as a beleaguered movie director, and Tim Matheson and Julia Sweeney as movie producers. Also appearing briefly is Tom Farrell (from Wenders 1980 Lightning Over Water and the Screaming Man from Paris, Texas) as a high-school acquaintance who recognizes Howard along the way. The film also marks the first collaboration in 18 years between Shepherd and long-time partner Jessica Lange (since 1988's Far North), as the two had an agreement never to be working at the same time, in order not to neglect their children.

Wenders emphasized the influence of painter Edward Hopper on the cinematography.

• Sam Shepard – Howard
• Jessica Lange – Doreen
• Tim Roth – Sutter
• Gabriel Mann – Earl
• Sarah Polley – Sky
• Fairuza Balk – Amber
• Eva Marie Saint – Howard's Mother

• Official site
• Don't Come Knocking at the Internet Movie Database