Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best
9. The Apartment (1960)
Even if Billy Wilder's searing comedy hadn't released in a bit of stinker year for the Academy, it would've probably won the Big One regardless.
What really makes The Apartment such a delight to watch even today is how freely it weaves darker and seedier elements into what could so easily have been a more harmless and playful narrative.
The uneasy maybe-romance between Jack Lemon and Shirley McLaine's leads - they're brilliant, by the way - is so deliciously, anxiously twisted that it's genuinely surprising Hollywood hasn't fashioned a remake yet, given how easily the concept would translate to a contemporary setting.
As satire and as genuine, full-bodied romance, it's a wonderful slice of hard-edged Hollywood at the start of an awards decade that played things rather straight-faced.