Until the End of the World (; ) is a 1991 science fiction adventure drama film directed by Wim Wenders. Set at the turn of the millennium in the shadow of a world-changing catastrophe, the film follows a man and woman, played by William Hurt and Solveig Dommartin, as they are pursued across the globe, in a plot involving a device that can record visual experiences and visualize dreams. An initial draft of the screenplay was written by American filmmaker Michael Almereyda, but the final screenplay is credited to Wenders and Peter Carey, from a story by Wenders and Dommartin. Wenders, whose career had been distinguished by his exploration of the road movie, intended this as the ultimate example of the genre. The film has been released in several editions, ranging in length from 158 to 287 minutes. Plot Act 1 In 1999, panic ensues when an orbiting Indian nuclear satellite begins to spiral toward Earth. Claire Tourneur, who has been traveling around Europe trying, unsuccessfully, to distract herself after discovering that her boyfriend slept with her best friend, is unconcerned by the impending nuclear disaster, though her sleep has been troubled by a recurring nightmare. When she gets stuck in a traffic jam in the south of France after it is projected as a possible impact site, she decides to take a side road. She gets into an accident with a pair of surprisingly friendly bank robbers, who enlist her to carry their stolen cash to Paris, in exchange for a cut of the loot. Along the way, she meets a man who introduces himself as Trevor McPhee. He is being followed by an armed man named Burt, so Claire agrees to let Trevor travel to Paris with her. After reaching the house of her estranged lover, Eugene, Claire discovers that Trevor stole some of the stolen money while she slept. Claire crosses paths with Burt and finds out that he is going to Berlin. She makes the trip as well and hires missing-persons detective Phillip Winter to help her locate Trevor. Using his computer, he learns that Trevor has a bounty on his head for stealing opal from a mining syndicate in Australia, and access to Trevor's passport and financial information allows him to determine the man has just boarded a flight to Lisbon. When Claire and Winter catch up with Trevor, Winter handcuffs Trevor to Claire, but