25 Definitively Best Movies EVER (According To Critics AND Fans)

22. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Score: 92

As the Academy proves over and over, there's nothing Hollywood loves more than a film about itself. Even when it's a dark portrait of a forgotten star cast out into redundancy like Sunset Boulevard.

The film is mostly remembered for the performance of Gloria Swanson as silent star Norma Desmond, but watching it with the benefit of historical knowledge it's a close-to-the-knuckle meta take on Hollywood's shift from the silent era and who it left behind.

All of that is balanced with a love story (typically of Billy Wilder), but it's the characters who are really the most compelling and that ensures it transcends the very specific setting it plays out against.

Rotten Tomatoes: 98 Audience: 95 IMDB: 85 Letterboxd: 88