The first film in what would become Wenders’ “Road Trilogy” is emblematic of the series as a whole: it stars Rüdiger Vogler in a story of commiseration between lost souls over the course of a wayward road trip, it’s brilliantly shot in off-the-beaten-path locales by cinematographer Robby Müller, and it’s strung together by somber musical leitmotifs. It’s also one of the strongest entries in Wenders’ early career, due in large part to the casual, tender rapport between Vogler’s creatively starved journalist, Philip, and Yella Rottländer’s pre-pubescent charmer, Alice. The former finds the latter in a New York airport after Alice has been abandoned by her mother, and somewhere along the way Philip’s mission to document America by endlessly snapping Polaroids yields to a duty to escort Alice to her grandmother in Europe. Alice in the Cities’ languid, episodic structure creates ample room for Vogler and Rottländer to develop their chemistry in sweet, sentimental bonding sessions, while their circuitous trajectory through graying European cities offers Wenders the ideal template to explore the influence of chance encounters on life’s ultimate path.