Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick’s second feature is an evocative, visually exquisite romantic tragedy set against the backdrop of the Texas Panhandle in 1916, with Oscar-winning natural light cinematography from Néstor Almendros. Richard Gere and Brooke Adams play a migrant couple, pretending to be siblings, who end up at the estate of wealthy, ailing Sam Shepard, leading to deception, heartbreak, and tragedy. Malick used Camille Saint-Saëns’s “The Aquarium” for the film’s main title sequence, and Ennio Morricone incorporated the melody into his gorgeous and otherwise original score, which earned him his first Oscar nomination.