Maria Schneider’s Last Tango

A striking man, his coat open to the Paris chill, howls at the sky as a metro screeches overhead. A much younger woman, one hand grasping her fur-collared white coat over her minidress, the other holding down her hat, hurries by him, but glances back, sensing something amiss.

So begins Last Tango in Paris, the 1972 film the critic Pauline Kael called “the most powerful erotic movie ever made.” The characters soon meet again by chance in an empty apartment for rent. Their relationship quickly descends into one of twisted and anonymous sex that torpedoes their lives; they recognize their genuine connection when it’s too late.