Billy Wilder’s Typical Vibe
Signature vibe

Highest-ranked title
Highest-ranked title
Billy Wilder has 28 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 1930s through the 1980s. 3 sit in the Top 1% of all titles we track — including Sunset Boulevard.
Recurring themes

Some Like It Hot
1959 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%MGM+ · Included

The Apartment
1960 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 1%Prime Video · Included

Double Indemnity
1944 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 2%MGM+ · Included

Witness for the Prosecution
1957 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 2%Tubi · Free w/ ads

Stalag 17
1953 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 5%MGM+ · Included

Ace in the Hole
1951 · Movie · Director · Writer
Top 6%Pluto TV · Free w/ ads

In Prohibition-era Chicago, musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob hit, and flee the state in an all-female band disguised as Josephine and Daphne, but further complications set in.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray

An insurance representative is seduced by a dissatisfied housewife into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, a claims investigator.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

An ailing barrister is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder cases of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending a man being tried for the murder of a socialite.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton

After two American prisoners are killed by guards in the act of escaping from a German POW camp in World War II, barracks black marketeer J.J. Sefton is suspected of being an informer.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With William Holden, Robert Strauss, Don Taylor

After two years in Paris, chauffeur's daughter Sabrina returns home elegantly transformed and immediately catches the attention of David, the playboy son of her father's rich employers. David woos and wins Sabrina, who has always been in love with him, however their romance is threatened by David's serious older brother Linus, who runs the family business and is relying on David to marry an heiress in order for a crucial merger to take place.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden

An arrogant reporter exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to revitalize his career.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Dir. Ernst Lubitsch · With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire

In Cold War-era West Berlin, American Coca-Cola executive C.R. 'Mac' MacNamara is tasked with playing babysitter to his boss' spoiled 17-year-old daughter Scarlett, who proves more difficult than anticipated when she reveals that she is pregnant by a Communist.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin

When a recently fired policeman falls in love with a French prostitute, he doesn't want her to be with other men, so he creates an alter-ego in order to become her only customer.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, Lou Jacobi

Longtime alcoholic Don Birnam has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last – one way or another.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry

Ruthless Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns resorts to dubious motives in order to get top reporter Hildy Johnson to cover one more big crime story before retirement.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon

A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.
Dir. Howard Hawks · With Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka

TV cameraman Harry Hinkle is injured while filming a football game. Seeing big dollar signs, his unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer brother-in-law Willie Gingrich enters the picture, and convinces Harry to overstate his injuries and claim $1 million in pain and suffering. Harry's similarly-minded ex-wife suddenly reappears in an attempt to rekindle their relationship.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich

When his family goes away for summer vacation, a hitherto faithful publishing executive with an overactive imagination is tempted by an attractive new neighbor.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes

Low on funds, working-class girl Susan Applegate disguises herself as a youngster in order to pay half fare home. But little 'Sue Sue' finds herself in a whole heap of grownup trouble when she hides out in a compartment with handsome Major Philip Kirby.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson

A middle-aged playboy becomes fascinated by the daughter of a private detective who has been hired to entrap him with a client's wife.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund

A successful businessman travels to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon father's body, only to learn that dear old dad died with his longtime mistress.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill

While traveling home from Vegas, an amorous lounge singer named Dino gets conned by a local mechanic/songwriter into staying in town for the night. The mechanic's songwriting partner, Orville, offers Dino his home for overnight lodging and enlists a local waitress/call girl to pose as his wife in order to placate Dino's urges.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Dean Martin, Kim Novak, Ray Walston

American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broke French Marquis. But she doesn't want to be only a number in the line of his ex-wives and undertakes her own strategy to tame him.
Dir. Ernst Lubitsch · With Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
Dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Siodmak · With Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen

When a bored Sherlock eagerly takes the case of Gabrielle Valladon following an attempt on her life, the search for her missing husband leads to Loch Ness and the legendary monster.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Geneviève Page

During the 1942 North African campaign, a British straggler passes as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Erwin Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may provide an even better use.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith

Down-on-his-luck Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler attempts to lure Fedora, a famous but reclusive film actress, out of retirement, only to discover the horrifying truth behind her success.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With William Holden, Marthe Keller, Hildegard Knef
During a high-profile Mafia testimony case in Riverside County, a hired killer checks into a hotel room near the courthouse, while his depressed neighbor contemplates suicide over marital problems.
Dir. Billy Wilder · With Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Paula Prentiss
Top Collaborators
Directors with 2+ shared titles, ranked by frequency