Despair is a 1978 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Dirk Bogarde, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. It was Fassbinder's first English-language film and was entered into the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. Similarly to the novel, the tone of the film is ironic. The plot is mostly similar to the novel, although one of the key characters is significantly altered in the adaptation.