Every Best Picture Oscar Winner Ranked Worst To Best
14. The Apartment (1960)
When it comes to Wilder, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and Double Indemnity may be more popular with viewers, but The Apartment is arguably his best, perfectly capturing every aspect of what made him such a force behind the camera.
Starring a rarely-better Jack Lemmon as a hopeless office worker who's fallen for his boss's mistress, the comedy-drama is funny, romantic, and wistful, blending Wilder's wit with a darker edge than you might expect going in.
Wise and authentic, The Apartment is infectiously sweet, occasionally morose, and utterly engrossing. Wilder uses Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine's awkward chemistry to absolute perfection, and brings their maybe-romance to an end with a closing line that hasn't lost any of its brilliance some sixty years later.