Some Like It Hot (1959)
[9] Two Chicago musicians (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) try to evade mobsters by disguising themselves as women and joining an all-girl band on its way to perform at a Florida resort. Both men fall in love with the band's…
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
[10] In this darkly comic noir masterpiece from Billy Wilder, a struggling Hollywood screenwriter (William Holden) moves in with a delusional silent film star named Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) who wants him to write the script for her big comeback.…
Sabrina (1954)
[4] In this romantic comedy from director Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard), Audrey Hepburn stars as a chauffeur's daughter who pines for William Holden, the playboy son of the family who employs her father. Holden finally strikes…
Ball of Fire (1941)
[8] Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck star in this lively screwball comedy from director Howard Hawks. Cooper is working on a new encyclopedia with seven other scholars when he realizes the group is woefully uneducated in the world of contemporary…
Double Indemnity (1944)
[8] Chameleon master craftsman Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend) staked a name for himself and elevated low-budget film noir to new levels of respectability with his Hitchcockian suspense yarn Double Indemnity. The film, co-written by Wilder and Raymond…
The Lost Weekend (1945)
[6] Maestro Billy Wilder directs Ray Milland as a drunk writer circling the drain in the multi-Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend. Milland's character is supposed to begin recovery on a long holiday weekend with his brother (Phillip Terry) and gal pal…
Irma la Douce (1963)
[7] Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine star in this romantic comedy from Billy Wilder. Lemmon's a police officer and MacLaine is the prostitute he falls in love with. After he loses his job, she takes him in and provides for…
Stalag 17 (1953)
[7] William Holden leads an ensemble cast in Billy Wilder's adaptation of Stalag 17. The film takes place entirely in a German prisoner-of-war barrack, where the captured Americans are beginning to suspect that Holden's pessimistic black marketeer character may be…
Ninotchka (1939)
[7]
It’s fun to watch Greta Garbo defrost in Ninotchka. She plays an oh-so-serious Russian sent to Paris to straighten out the sale of some allegedly stolen jewels. Melvyn Douglas gets in her way. At first, he’s an annoyance, but a curious one. Her no-nonsense attitude toward him makes for a unlikely cinematic romance. The highlight of their courtship is a restaurant scene where Douglas is determined to make Garbo laugh. He tells joke after joke to no affect. Then Douglas leans back too far in his chair and falls on his ass. This results in one of the most joyous reaction shots from the Golden Age of Cinema.