The Apartment

1960. USA. Produced and directed by Billy Wilder. The Mirisch Company/United Artists. Screenplay by Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond. With Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray. Winner of five Academy Awards including Wilder’s trifecta—Best Screenplay (with Diamond), Best Picture, and Best Director—this masterful, bittersweet comedy of winners and losers in contemporary America follows a kindhearted but naïve company man (Lemmon) who dubiously moves up the corporate ladder by letting executives use his apartment for their philandering ways, only to run afoul of the smarmy über-boss (MacMurray) when they fall for the same elevator girl (MacLaine). 125 min.