Latest news with #OntheWaterfront
New York Post
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
James Dean's former NYC home lists for $6.25M
James Dean may have been Hollywood's classic 'bad boy' — but in 1953, he was living in a traditional Gilded Age brownstone on the Upper West Side. It's now on the market for $6.25 million. Built in 1884, the brownstone is located at 13 W. 89th St. — between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. The 'Rebel With a Cause' and 'On the Waterfront' actor lived there in 1951 as a struggling young actor with his then-girlfriend, Liz 'Dizzy' Sheridan, a dancer and actress who went on to play Jerry Seinfeld's fictional mother, Helen, in 'Seinfeld.' Sheridan later wrote a book about their love affair. Advertisement 9 James Dean. Getty Images 9 The exterior of the 19th-century property. Allyson Lubow 9 The cozy eat-in open chef's kitchen. Allyson Lubow Advertisement 9 An original fireplace in an open living room. Allyson Lubow 9 The listing delivers beautiful outdoor space. Allyson Lubow After a painful break-up, Sheridan burned many of her memories but later found Dean's New York Public Library card with this property's W. 89th St. address. They used to go to the library, where he'd often read about bullfighting as a way to confront fear, he once said. The library card expired in November 1955, shortly after the actor's 1955 death in a car accident at the age of 24. Advertisement While Dean was born in Indiana, he lived in New York in the early 1950s and studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. While he first lived in Midtown at places like the Iroquois Hotel, he later moved to this home farther north. He then relocated to 19 W. 68th St., where he was often on the roof rehearsing. There, he also once played conga drums with Sidney Poitier while Harry Belafonte sang 'The Banana Boat Song: Day O,' according to reports. 9 One of the bedrooms comes filled with sunlight. Allyson Lubow 9 Another one of the bedrooms boasts original windows. Allyson Lubow Advertisement Dean often left Hollywood to return to the Upper West Side, even after 'East of Eden' made him a star. He also made his name with 'Rebel Without a Cause.' The 19.5-foot-wide residence now for sale is divided into a renovated owner's duplex and four rental units, but can also convert back to single-family use. The home also comes with 570 square feet of outdoor space. The seller bought it for $4.15 million in 2005, and is downsizing now that her kids are out of the house, listing brokers Richard Pretsfelder and Sophie Smadbeck, of Leslie J. Garfield, told Gimme Shelter. 9 The property also delivers built-in storage. Allyson Lubow 9 There's even exposed brick. Allyson Lubow Perks include two fireplaces and ceiling heights that range from 8.5 feet to just under 12 feet. The owner's duplex is on the second and third levels — and features a formal living and dining area, and a home office. A wraparound floating staircase connects both floors. Original prewar details include wood-framed bay windows. There's a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor with a private terrace and two one-bedroom units on the top floor — as well as a garden-level residence with an additional two bedrooms and private garden access.
Telegraph
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Better than Brando? Why Rod Steiger should have been a contender
Rod Steiger, the burly and beloved star born a century ago this week, could have become the greatest film actor of all time. Or at least, like his character's brother in On the Waterfront, he coulda been a contender. His early performances were extraordinary displays of Method acting that matched those of Marlon Brando, his co-star in Waterfront and perennial rival. His intensity and naturalism stunned the doyens of film criticism – Pauline Kael: 'Steiger seems to take over a picture even when he isn't in the lead'; Roger Ebert: 'I don't know how he does it' – and the hulking frame and granite countenance that denied him leading-man roles should have opened up a long career full of complex characters. But beneath Steiger's tough-guy persona was a traumatised child and a tortured adult, whose unpredictable, explosive depressions torpedoed his career and denied him ultimate acting greatness. He ricocheted between long, comatose withdrawals from reality and wild rages, suicide attempts and murderous fantasies. And yet in the final years of Steiger's life something extraordinary happened. He recovered from the worst of his depression and spoke out about his mental health, raising huge amounts for charity and redefining his sense of purpose. While Brando became increasingly withdrawn and sybaritic, Steiger was changing the world. Steiger was born in Long Island, New York in 1925, and his problems started when he was young. His parents, Fred and Lorraine Steiger, had travelled the country together as a song-and-dance act but, shortly after Lorraine gave birth, Fred left the house and never came back. Lorraine remarried – Steiger treated her second husband as his real father – but then that man disappeared, too, leaving a note saying that he was off for a drink but not returning for two years. The effect on the young Steiger was profound. In his words, it left him forever with 'a void, a hold, an emptiness, a blackness, a longing'. And the double abandonment exacerbated his mother's drinking problems, which had begun after a botched operation permanently crippled her leg. Steiger was a popular and talented schoolboy but his family's unstable finances and his mother's drinking were causes of great embarrassment. As a young child he often had to walk Lorraine out of bars and back home by hand. Aged five he came downstairs on Christmas morning to discover that his house was empty, his mother was nowhere to be seen, and the Christmas tree was lying flat on the floor. Lorraine was out on a mammoth drinking session and only came home three days later. At the same age Steiger suffered another trauma when a local paedophile lured him into his house by promising the boy a look at his extensive butterfly collection. He then molested Steiger before fleeing town the next day. 'This is why child abuse is so monstrous,' Steiger would later say. 'The child has no experience, he or she cannot comprehend what is happening to him. I knew it was wrong, deep-down… but it was also very exciting. No child should ever have to be exposed to that kind of emotion.' Steiger ran away from home at 16 and joined the US Navy. In service during World War Two he discovered his acting talents between feats of spectacular courage, including once hanging precariously on to the deck of a warship during a typhoon. In quieter moments he loved to recite Shakespeare to his fellow sailors and perfect his telling of dirty jokes, which were especially enjoyed by his ship's chaplain. He was embarrassingly discharged from the navy because of a severe skin condition that caused him to bleed through his uniform (it was possibly eczema, possibly acne), but his period in service had given him a lifelong love of the theatrical. After returning to New Jersey to look after his mother – who did eventually beat her alcoholism – Steiger used the adult education offered to him by the GI Bill of Rights to study drama formally. His precocious talent was clear to his teachers and he was invited to join the prestigious new Actors Studio in New York without even having to audition. Here the great teacher Lee Strasberg was tutoring the lives of a young Brando in the Method, a new way of acting that used your own experiences and emotions to inform performances. Steiger became an eager and consummate disciple. In the navy he'd embraced his bulk and played up his masculinity, ditching the name Rodney for the more macho 'Rod' and putting on a deep voice. But Method acting allowed Steiger to reveal his sensitive side. 'It was a wonderful tool,' he remembered. 'Why, it even allowed men to cry.' New York loved him. He quickly accumulated barnstorming performances on stage and in TV dramas – in the early 1950s he was filming one every week – and was counted alongside Brando and James Dean as part of a new generation of naturalistic, impassioned young performers. Steiger lacked their vaguely epicene looks and was temperamentally incapable of their hysterical outbursts. So he became the working man's Method Actor. He had spent his childhood in bread queues and his teenage years on warships – and it showed. But that worldly experience made him distinctive. It also made him the perfect choice to play Brando's older sibling in On the Waterfront, his first hit film and greatest masterpiece. Steiger invested sympathy in the pathetic and doomed Charley, who betrayed his brother at a crucial moment in his boxing career and consigned him to a life of crime and poverty. Although he never delivers a spectacular cadenza like Brando's taxi speech, Steiger grounds the film in a naturalism rarely seen on film before. The rivalry between the two stars – who didn't get along off-camera – gave the movie its phenomenal energy, and helped make it a worldwide success. As a young man scarred by the humiliations of childhood, Steiger had sworn to himself that 'one day you're going to do something so good no one will laugh at the name Steiger again'. Well, no one was laughing at him now. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s his career gathered further momentum – he was great as a Holocaust survivor in The Pawnbroker, and memorable in Dr Zhivago and Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One. In 1967 he played a racist, emotionally suppressed sheriff opposite Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night and won an Oscar for his performance. But in the year after that film's release, Steiger was not offered a single role. His career was already beginning to go downhill and he didn't help things by making some poor decisions about which projects to choose. He turned down the acclaimed biopic Patton, his 'dumbest career move', but signed up for the spaghetti western Duck, You Sucker! the following year. (Though Duck, You Sucker! is better than it sounds.) Steiger also became prone to making eccentric decisions when filming – in Waterloo he played a peculiarly dopey Napoleon after imagining that the Emperor 'bombed himself out on laudanum' before battles – and developed a reputation for hamminess. His career was tailspinning just as Brando's was experiencing an extraordinary renaissance, as he starred in The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris and Apocalypse Now. Even worse, Steiger's health was deteriorating. Maintaining his colossal weight had consequences and he underwent open-heart surgery in 1976 and again in 1979. After the second operation, his mental health fell off a cliff. The traumas of his childhood finally combined with his work and health anxieties in a spiral of crippling tenebrousness. He became so depressed that he was often rendered almost comatose, spending days on end in silence, numbly watching sport on TV or staring out at the ocean from his window. 'You begin to lose self-esteem,' he recalled of his worst depressive episodes. 'You don't walk, you don't shave and if no one was watching you'd go to the bathroom right where you were sitting.' On other occasions Steiger would go wild. '[Once] I locked myself in a room downstairs. For three days I tore the walls. I tore myself up. I bit myself. People forget we are the highest form of animal. A-n-i-m-a-l. The animal can take over and destroy.' He twice almost shot himself – 'I figured I'd go out in a fishing boat, lower myself into the water and put a gun in my mouth' – and fantasised about murdering his family. This period of intense depression lasted eight years and nearly destroyed Steiger's career for good. But Steiger eventually hauled himself back into public life with the help of medication and his fourth wife, Paula Ellis. And then he transformed himself; suddenly he determined to use his own suffering to help others. Steiger spoke out about his experiences prodigiously, in a way that his contemporaries simply did not, and despite being widely advised not to. 'My present manager and my agent both say, 'If you talk about your depression, people will think you're crazy,'' he told the LA Times, during an interview that ultimately focused on that exact subject. In 1994 he spoke on behalf of the National Institute of Mental Health in front of a Senate panel, and read a six-page long poem, Hitting the Bottom, about his troubled mind. By the time he had finished reading, the assembled panel were all in tears and $24 million in mental health research had been guaranteed for the Institute. He later read the poem on CNN. For days afterwards the network received more than 100 phone calls per hour from moved viewers. 'I try to fight the stigma against mental disease,' he said shortly after. 'It's much more important for me to talk about depression and what it can do to a person than to talk about the movies I've made.' Hollywood never gave up on Steiger completely. He appeared in 90 movies, and notched up plenty of roles that audiences adored. He loved to play egomaniacs and eccentrics from the past – Napoleon, Mussolini, Rasputin, Al Capone, WC Fields. (Name a big-boned historical figure and Steiger probably depicted him.) He never appeared in as many masterpieces as Brando and is never talked about now in the same reverent tone. But in the final stages of the two men's lives there can be no question of who achieved more. The late-life, lugubrious, humungous Brando retreated into himself – and there was plenty of himself to retreat into – while Steiger opened himself up to the world. He'd survived familial misery, child abuse, a world war, years in the spotlight and some of the worst mental health imaginable. But the great prizefighter of Hollywood never gave up. An acting student once asked the old Steiger what it was like to be a star. He replied: 'You go 16 rounds. You are hurt. You are bloody. And they finally lift your hand up and you've won. And then the bell rings for the next round.'
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Readers sound off on films shot in NYC, Dem opposition and a hit song's slur
Garwood, N.J.: The March 2 editorial 'Gene Hackman's greatest co-star' lists various Hackman films lensed in the Big Apple, declaring the city a co-star. It cites 10 classic films in which the city helps define the story onscreen. However, 'On the Waterfront' was filmed in Hoboken — in God's country, New Jersey (because only God can afford to live here). Every time 'On the Waterfront' is mentioned in the Daily News, you claim it was filmed in NYC, heisting the credit for one of the top 20 films ever made. Seeing the NYC skyline across the river should be a clue. Not to be pedantic, but it is a cinematic crime that your list of great flicks filmed in NYC failed to list the most apt example. No, not 'The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters,' as Mike Lupica might suggest. I refer to the 1948 classic 'The Naked City.' Entirely filmed on the streets among real New Yorkers, not extras, director Jules Dassin caught a moment in time weeks before the way people lived changed forever — kids playing stickball in the streets, parents on front stoops talking with neighbors after dinner, real neighborhoods intermixing and alive. The advent of television hit like an avalanche. Instead of communing on the front stoop, everyone was inside watching 'Uncle Miltie' aka Milton Berle. 'The Naked City' is a time capsule of that era, beautifully crafted by a directorial genius. This Saturday night, grab some popcorn, make a black cow (vanilla ice cream in a glass of root beer), settle on the sofa and treat yourself to a now-vanished America and a cracking good yarn. Mike Gordeuk Bronx: I warn everyone who has an E-ZPass to check their bill carefully. I was charged for three trips to the 'zone' that none of my vehicles have made. At first look, the charges were billed to my E-ZPass tag. Upon further checking the bill, the same times and charges were associated with my scooter license plate. Neither my car nor my scooter were downtown in the 'zone.' Someone must be using a cardboard representation of my plate, or the people who read the cameras got it wrong. E-ZPass is investigating. I live in the Bronx and go up to Westchester or Connecticut to do my shopping. I would rather spend $9 in gas than give the city more of my money to waste. Daniel Correa Manhattan: As a physician, I am astounded by Voicer Joe Schatzle's letter regarding measles. Yes, measles may be a relatively benign experience for some. But before the vaccine, there were between 400 and 500 deaths yearly from measles in the U.S.A., mostly caused by infections that had progressed to pneumonia or encephalitis (brain infection). And for many kids, the benign infection lasted for weeks, causing prolonged discomfort for the child. I can not comprehend the MAGA thought process. Marc H. Lavietes Howard Beach: Given what has happened in the seven weeks that Donald Trump has been president, it is understandable why he went bankrupt six times. People fired who had to be rehired, tariffs imposed only to be halted and funds cut from programs that were then reinstated. It has been chaotic, and it certainly doesn't resemble an intelligent way to deal with waste, fraud and tariffs. The true irony is that anyone other than Trump would be embarrassed by the sloppiness that has taken place by his administration. Barbara Berg Queens Village: I wonder if some of the 77 million-plus who voted for Trump were Republicans who worked for the government but lost their jobs thanks to the chainsaw massacre guy. I'm sure they didn't want to lose their jobs. As for 'professional protesters,' we heard that during Trump's first four years. But believe me, we Democrats don't have to be pros, as it's in our DNA to protest in this country that seems to be taking away our God-given right to freedom of speech. The wimpy Republican lawmakers don't have the guts or gumption to hear what the rest of the American people are saying. All any human being wants is their two cents to be heard. If we're not, these politicians may not get reelected next year. And remember, all those executive orders can be rescinded. Joan Silaco Ujjain, India: After thanking Pakistan for sending terrorists responsible for the blast in Kabul, Afghanistan when U.S. forces were there as the U.S. faced the music, the Trump administration is set to put in place a broader version of the infamous Muslim ban first issued in Trump's first stint as president, and it will reportedly include Pakistan as well. It shows how pragmatic Trump can be when dealing with other nations. He may praise them for certain things and denounce them for others. Per highly placed sources in the White House, Trump's Gaza policy has put U.S. national security in peril, and the likelihood of terror attacks has increased manifold from nationals of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Rahu Chouhan Williamsburg, Va.: Sen. Elissa Slotkin is the best the Democrats have. Otherwise, they would never have used her to provide the Democratic rebuttal to Trump's speech. That said, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had a scathing commentary during her entire hour on what Trump is doing wrong that is alienating voters. Trump may very well lose the House and possibly the Senate come the midterms, and as a result, he will become a lame duck president. John Lemandri Manhattan: After comparing the utterly pathetic ineffectiveness of the Democrats' little signs and silence during Trump's lie-filled rant the other night, I have to give kudos to the courageous Al Green. Why can't all Democrats open their mouths as he did and shout their outrage en masse to our national audience in large public venues like the State of the Union speech? The 200-plus party members would not be escorted out as Green was. Instead, Republicans and the general public would actually have to listen to them all, not just to one guy with a cane easily dismissed by MAGA supporters as a kook. My simple suggestion to fellow Democrats: Act boldly as a large group — now. The other side is certainly doing that. Forget decorum and playing nice. Force our citizens to listen as often as possible to documented truths rather than to continual lies and misleading nonsense. Stamos Metzidakis Indian Harbour Beach, Fla.: The only thing Trump didn't do was pause for a commercial. John T. O'Connell Pleasantville, N.Y.: Voicer Jagjit Singh tends to condemn Israel for how Palestinians are being treated in its prisons but hardly brings up how Israeli hostages were treated by Hamas. Some who've been returned were malnourished or even dead. Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners were still alive despite some of the conditions. Also, many of them weren't random civilians, but were terrorists or happened to be affiliated with them. Any of the Israel Defense Forces soldiers who mistreated those prisoners will be held accountable for their actions, while just about nothing will be done to Hamas for how they treated the hostages, showing who is really being civilized here. Tal Barzilai Manhattan: If Voicer Ebere Osu disputes that the Zionist occupiers stole Palestine from its indigenous inhabitants, that beef is with the late Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, né Grün, who I quoted. If Osu believes that all the Zionists 'legally immigrated to Palestine,' she might want to compare population increases with Mandatory Palestine's quota limits. If she thinks a never-implemented proposal, UN Resolution 181 (II), legitimizes Israeli nationhood, she might want to check out a new English lexicon. I acknowledge neglecting to mention the Brits allowing Jordan — nearly four times the territory of Palestine — to proceed to independence, since the circumstances there (Jewish immigration was banned) might be viewed as unnecessarily prejudicial. Michele P. Brown Merced, Calif.: The song 'Not Like Us' may be a hit and the song of the year for 2024, but it is controversial because it includes the N-word. That song may be popular with young African-Americans and it is good to have DJs play it, but people have to be careful in requesting and playing that song. John Huerta
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rockford's Davis Park to get $12M renovation with new amenities
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — A renovation project to transform Rockford's Davis Park is soon to get underway. 'The current plans, really started to get underway back in 2016, 2017. We're ready to go. Right before the pandemic we took a long pause and now the city is in the position to be out, to bid for construction, with a planned late June construction start and a 12-month construction timeframe,' said GoRockford President and CEO John Groh. The renovations will bring a playground, skatepark, and a small stage to Davis Park, which sits along the banks of the Rock River in downtown Rockford. The large field has been host to 4th of July fireworks viewing events, Friday Night Flix, and large concerts during the era of the city's On the Waterfront festival. 'The new plans call for it to be a much more active park on a daily, weekly basis than it had been in its previous iteration, which was much more special event-based or festival-based,' Groh said. The park sits on nearly 10 acres, something the city knows will bring flexibility in terms of events. 'The skate park is on the south side of the railroad trestle. The playground is on the north side. The stage can be used in a couple of configurations for small concert experiences or larger concert experiences. It's meant to be a really flexible space with a lot of different uses,' Groh explained. Groh said he hopes the park can be used year-round. 'The community [will] have this destination-level park with this amazing playground, the skate park, the stage, and many future phases, including some water features, and in the winter, an ice rink or an ice ribbon,' he said. The city says construction should be completed by June 2026. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Independent
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The Oscars' 10 greatest Best Picture winners, from All About Eve to Parasite
Look over the list of Best Picture winners over the years and you realise that almost every film selected is still in circulation. William Wellman's Wings, the very first winner in 1927, is readily available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as are such other early winners as Cimarron and Broadway Melody. Most of the other Best Picture winners are titles that any film lover will recognise instantly. The blind spots are obvious. The Academy never chooses foreign language titles. In recent years, it has shunned comedies. The Shape of Water may have won in 2018, but voters are generally wary about genre pictures. You don't see many sci-fi or martial arts titles on the list. There is a growing divide between what wins at the Oscars and what makes the money at the box office. Even so, the Best Picture Oscar remains one of the most reliable bellwethers for films that will have an afterlife. Find our list of the 10 best films to have ever won the trophy below. 10. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) William Wyler's film about three veterans coming home at the end of the war still has a huge emotional kick. They're from different classes and backgrounds but struggle terribly to readjust to civilian life. Some accuse the film of being pious and self-righteous but it deals frankly and very movingly with both the soldiers' problems and those of their families and friends in understanding them. It won its Best Picture Oscar in the year in which It's a Wonderful Life was also nominated. 9. An American in Paris (1951) The best MGM musicals showed extraordinary artistry. This is one of the greatest. It's not just the choreography or Gene Kelly's wildly energetic performance as the aspiring artist in postwar Paris but the use of colour and sound. The ballet sequence at the end of the film stands alongside that in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoe s as a perfect example of filmmaking in which every element balances perfectly. 8. Casablanca (1942) Producer Hal Wallis at Warner Bros had a knack for overseeing films that were both mainstream and had a social conscience. Not only did Casablanca have Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains, but it also dealt with refugees, betrayal and wartime politics. The script by Julius and Philip G Epstein provided lines of dialogue about gin joints, rounding up the usual suspects and playing 'As Time Goes By' that are still quoted today. Few other Best Picture winners are as engrained in the public consciousness as Casablanca. 7. On the Waterfront (1954) Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront can be read as the director's attempt at justifying his own craven behaviour, naming names in front of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, during the communist witch hunts. Its politics are complicated and contradictory. It is also magnificently acted. Marlon Brando gives arguably his greatest performance of all as Terry Molloy, the dockworker and pigeon fancier who could have been a contender in life and in the boxing ring if only his brother had stood by him when he needed him most. 6. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Easy to dismiss as a jingoistic widescreen epic, David Lean's film about TE Lawrence makes astonishing viewing seen in 70mm. It also offers a probing and subtle portrayal of Lawrence (Peter O'Toole), the masochist who is both the quintessential English hero and the quintessential English outsider. 5. All About Eve (1950) Joseph L Mankiewicz's drama about a young actress on the make and the established star whose career she wants to usurp boasts some of the most caustic dialogue in any Hollywood Best Picture winner. The brilliance of Bette Davis as the star and of Anne Baxter as the seemingly ingenuous but utterly ruthless young pretender is matched by George Sanders' wonderfully acidic performance as the theatre critic, Addison DeWitt. 4. The Godfather Part II (1974) Still the greatest sequel in Hollywood history, this film emulated its predecessor The Godfather, in winning the best picture Oscar and out-stripped it in the brilliance of its craftsmanship and performances. Everything here, from Gordon Willis's cinematography to the parallel stories of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone as the crime family boss in the late Fifties and Robert De Niro as his father Vito many years before, works near perfectly. The rival Best Picture nominees in 1974 included Lenny, Chinatown and The Conversation (also directed by Francis Ford Coppola). All would have been worthy winners in other years. 3. Unforgiven (1992) The western was considered an anachronism and so was Clint Eastwood himself when Eastwood made his blood soaked masterpiece. Eastwood played Will Munny, first encountered as a farmer and family man. Gradually, we learn about his past as a gunman. 'I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another, and I'm here to kill you, Little Bill,' he tells old rival Gene Hackman. This brutal and elegiac film was always a shoo-in for its Oscar. 2. Parasite (2019) The first non-English language film to win a Best Picture Oscar was significant on many different levels. Bong Joon Ho's South Korean satire about class, wealth and family life turns in its latter stages into something close to a horror picture – and genre movies rarely win Academy Awards. This was a Cannes Palme D'Or winner, and festival favourites, loved by high-minded critics, seldom enjoy mainstream crossover success. In years gone by, Parasite might have crept on to the 'international/foreign language' nominations without being in the running for the major prizes. Its success suggested a new, more outward looking and inclusive approach from the AMPAS voters. It helped, too, of course that it made such enjoyable viewing. Funny, caustic and macabre by turns, it got under audiences' skins wherever it was shown. 1. The Apartment (1960) Only Billy Wilder could have made a romantic comedy based around infidelity, drudgery and office politics and turned it into a film as delightful as this. Academy voters are sometimes accused of self-righteousness and prudery, but thankfully that didn't stop them giving the Best Picture Oscar to The Apartment.
