The Open Road: Wanda
September 28, 2026
Dispiritedly going through a divorce proceeding, losing custody of her children, and eventually falling within the orbit of a bank robber, soft spoken Wanda finds herself adrift on a road to nowhere.
“You don’t want anything, you won’t have anything. You don’t have anything, you’re nothing. You might as well be dead.”
“I kinda sound dead, then.”
Barbara Loden’s first and only feature film as writer/director remains a landmark of American independent cinema, a sparse and devastating story of being lost on the margins of society. Dispiritedly going through the motions of a divorce proceeding and losing custody of her children, soft spoken Wanda (Barbara Loden) finds herself adrift on a road to nowhere. Carried by the wind throughout the wasteland of rural Pennsylvania's dumpy motels, dilapidated factories and shadowy bars, she enters the orbit of the decidedly cruel bank robber Mr. Dennis, an opportunist who sees convenience in roping Wanda into his plans. Capturing the series of indignities on their loveless drive from town to town in a bracingly vérité style, Loden paints a profoundly moving portrait of a woman who leaves her life “not knowing what she wants, but knowing what she doesn’t want.”
“Barbara Loden’s Wanda is a single and singular film. Her only feature, the film is unlike any other, transcendent in its clarity of spirit, its harmony of form and idea. The titular character drifts across little-seen landscapes of deprivation in an unforgettable, grittily lensed America.” — Elena Gorfinkel
“Loden’s Wanda floats through her life as if a witness to it, a view of desperation filtered through a tinted windshield.” — BAMPFA
- Director: Barbara Loden
- Principal Cast: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins, Dorothy Shupenes, Peter Shupenes, Jerome Thier, Marian Thier
- Country: USA
- Year: 1970
- Running Time: 103 min.
- Producer: Harry Shuster
- Screenplay: Barbara Loden
- Cinematographers: Nicholas T. Proferes
- Editors: Nicholas T. Proferes
- Language: English
- US Distributor: Janus