Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Double Indemnity (1944), Ace in the Hole (1951), Some Like It Hot (1959), Stalag 17 (1953), One, Two, Three (1961), Sabrina (1954), Hold Back the Dawn (1941) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Billy Wilder movies.
Storyline: Britain, 1953. Upon his return to work following a heart attack, barrister takes on a murder case,. The case is defending American war vet Leonard Vole, a poor, out of work, struggling inventor who's accused of murdering his middle-aged lonely and wealthy acquaintance, Emily French. The evidence is circumstantial but points to Leonard as the murderer, butr the csse has constant revelations.
Plot Keywords: courtroom drama, mystery, crime, drama, film noir, classic, murder ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1938, Walter Neff, an experienced salesman of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Co., meets the seductive wife of one of his clients, Phyllis Dietrichson, and they have an affair. Phyllis proposes to kill her husband to receive the proceeds of an accident insurance policy and Walter devises a scheme to receive twice the amount based on a double indemnity clause. When Mr. Dietrichson is found dead on a train track, the police accept the determination of accidental death. However, the insurance analyst and Walter's best friend Barton Keyes does not buy the story and suspects that Phyllis has murdered her husband with the help of another man.
Plot Keywords: film noir, crime, mystery, drama, murder, insurance fraud, betrayal ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Charles Tatum, a down-on-his-luck reporter, takes a job with a small New Mexico newspaper. The job is pretty boring until he finds a man trapped in an old Indian dwelling. He jumps at the chance to make a name for himself by taking over and prolonging the rescue effort, and feeding stories to major newspapers. He creates a national media sensation and milks it for all it is worth - until things go terribly wrong.
Plot Keywords: film noir, journalism, moral decay, media manipulation, dark side of humanity, ambition, corruption ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: When two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they want to get out of town and get away from the gangster responsible, Spats Colombo. They're desperate to get a gig out of town but the only job they know of is in an all-girl band heading to Florida. They show up at the train station as Josephine and Daphne, the replacement saxophone and bass players. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Mayhem ensues as the two men try to keep their true identities hidden and Spats Colombo and his crew show up for a meeting with several other crime lords.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, classic, black and white, american film, billy wilder, disguise ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17. For the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem - there seems to be a security leak. The Germans always seem to be forewarned about escapes and in the most recent attempt the two men, Manfredi and Johnson, walked straight into a trap and were killed. For some in Barracks 4, especially the loud-mouthed Duke, the leaker is obvious: J.J. Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who doesn't hesitate to trade with the guards and who has acquired goods and privileges that no other prisoner seems to have. Sefton denies giving the Germans any information and makes it quite clear that he has no intention of ever trying to escape. He plans to ride out the war in what little comfort he can arrange, but it doesn't extend to spying for the Germans. As tensions mount and a mob mentality takes root, it becomes obvious that Sefton will have to find the real snitch if he is to have any peace and avoid the beatings Duke and ...
Plot Keywords: war, world war ii, comedy, drama, mystery, black comedy, american film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Post-war Berlin is the microcosm of the polarization of West and East; American and Soviet. C.R. MacNamara's Coca-Cola's head of West Berlin operations, His life goes into a spin when he must deal with the visit of Scarlett Hazeltine; the 17yo spoilt daughter of his boss. On the same day Mac hears Mr. & Mrs. Hazeltine will be iarriving in a day, he also learns Scarlett's married Otto Ludwig Piffl, a staunch East German Communist. Mac also learns Scarlett's pregnant, Mac has to get Otto, and turn him into a respectable young man for the soon-to-be arriving boss... and Otto's father-in-law.
Plot Keywords: comedy, political satire, cold war, billy wilder, cultural clash, absurd plot, satirical humor ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Linus and David Larrabee are the two sons of a very wealthy family. Linus is all work -- busily running the family corporate empire with no time for a wife and family. David is all play -- technically employed in the family business but never showing up for work, spending all his time entertaining, and having been married and divorced three times. Sabrina Fairchild is the young, shy, and awkward daughter of the household chauffeur, who has been infatuated with David all her life, but whom David hardly notices till she goes away to Paris for two years and returns an elegant, sophisticated, beautiful woman. Suddenly, she finds she's captured David's attention, but just as she does so, she finds herself also falling in love with Linus, and she finds that Linus is also falling in love with her.
Plot Keywords: romance, comedy, love, classic, hollywood, audrey hepburn, billy wilder ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Romanian gigolo Georges Iscovescu is trying to get into the United States to become a citizen, it the land of opportunity even in his line of work. Because of the visa requirement, he instead travels to Tijuana, Mexico to cross into the States via the land border, not realizing that this situation has its own obstacles, namely the quota system per country, Romanians who have up to an eight year wait. In joining the queue in Tijuana, he ends up at the Hotel Esperanza which houses many of those in his similar situation, some of those others who have their own story in trying to become American citizens. In running into an old colleague he met in Europe, the former Polish-Australian Anita Dixon now divorced US citizen Mrs. Shaughnessy - she a female version of him - he decides to do what she did to become a US citizen: get married to an American, Mr. Shaughnessy who she quickly divorced after getting her citizenship. After a few missteps in finding an American to marry, Georges sets his sights on schoolteacher Emmy Brown, a woman naive in the affairs of the heart, she in Mexico with her class on a field trip. What happens between Georges and Emmy is affected by: the presence of Mr. Hammock, a US immigration inspector who is trying to clamp down on marriages of convenience, they illegal in terms of gaining US citizenship; the presence of Mrs. Shaughnessy, who will do whatever is required to ply her trade with him, the two of them together who she sees as the perfect match in being the same; and Georges' own ideas of what best to do with Emmy.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: romance, drama, film noir, immigration, marriage, deception, hollywood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Naive, by the book French police officer Nester Patou, is transferred to the Red Light district. Upon witnessing what must be a brothel, he calls the station and organizes a raid, transporting all the 'ladies' to the jail. This unfortunately disrupts the well organized system of the police and the Pimps union. Not to mention inadvertently netting his station superior at the brothel. Fired, he goes to a bar to drink, is befriended by Irma, beats up her pimp, and finds he is now Irma's new pimp. Nester's doesn't like the thought of his girl seeing other men, so comes up with a plan.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, musical, paris, prostitute, police, disguise ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: June, 1942. The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian border--Corporal John Bramble, who finds refuge at a remote desert hotel...soon to be German HQ. To survive, Bramble assumes an identity which proves perilous. The new guest of honor is none other than Rommel, hinting of his secret strategy, code-named 'five graves.' And the fate of the British in Egypt depends on whether a humble corporal can penetrate the secret...—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: war, world war ii, spy, suspense, drama, historical, military ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A congressional committee visits occupied Berlin to investigate G.I. morals. Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, appalled at widespread evidence of human frailty, hears rumors that cafe singer Erika, former mistress of a wanted war criminal, is "protected" by an American officer, and enlists Captain John Pringle to help her find him...not knowing that Pringle is Erika's lover.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: romantic comedy, billy wilder, 1940s, black and white, love triangle, satire, cultural clash ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A cameraman is knocked over during a football game. His brother in law as the king of the ambulance chasing lawyers starts a suit while he's still knocked out. The cameraman is against it until he hears that his ex-wife will be coming to see him. He pretends to be injured to get her back, but also sees what the strain is doing to the football player who injured him.
Plot Keywords: comedy, black comedy, courtroom, insurance fraud, lawyer, moral dilemma, greed ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Baltimore industrialist Wendell Armbruster crosses paths with London shop girl Pamela Piggott when they come to Ischia to pick up the bodies of her mother and his father, who have been killed in an automobile accident after a ten-year summertime affair. Straitlaced Wendell tries to avoid a scandal while free-spirited Pamela is impressed by the romantic setting. After some confusion with the bodies and a blackmail attempt by unscrupulous locals, Wendell and Pamela extend their parent's affair into the next generation.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, drama, italy, vacation, father-son relationship, death ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Biography of Charles Lindbergh from his days of precarious mail runs in aviation's infancy to his design of a small transatlantic plane and the vicissitudes of its takeoff and epochal flight from New York to Paris in 1927.—Paul Emmons <pemmons@wcupa.edu>
Plot Keywords: biography, history, adventure, drama, aviation, 1920s, inspirational ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In Paris, detective Claude Chavasse is hired to follow a wife suspected of infidelity with the notorious American libertine Frank Flannagan. When the husband learns that his suspicions are accurate, he tells Claude of his plan to kill Flannagan. Claude's daughter Ariane overhears the threat and warns Frank of the coming trouble. She then plays the part of a worldly socialite with a list of conquests as long as Flannagan's. The bemused ladies' man returns to America the next day and Ariane, completely in love, follows his romantic escapades in the news. She sees him again in Paris the following year, and resumes her worldly guise, telling tales of former lovers when they meet at his hotel in the afternoon. Frank, amazed by the mystery girl and surprised to find himself jealous of her past, hires Claude to uncover more information about her. When the detective realizes what has happened, he asks Frank not to break his daughter's heart.
Plot Keywords: romance, comedy, love, paris, spy, detective, mystery ...
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