'The Apartment' | Critics' Picks | The New York Times

[@eyeballsarchive2316]

Billy Wilder's finest , Jack Lemmon was never better and Shirley Maclaine never more beguiling. Saw this when i was 14 and fell in love with it , watch it every year between xmas and new year .Probably no definitely my fave film of all time.

[@ethidian3444]

Billy Wilder is far from my kind of filmmaker, but this is easily in my top 20. Absurdly wonderful.

[@hoopz5095]

Double Indemnity takes the spot for my number one wilder, this easy and close second.

[@spaceghostman]

probably my favourite movie of all time. I can watch it everyday and not get sick of it.

[@ApartmentThe]

Movie wise and other wise wise this is the best movie of all times...and that's the way it crumbles !!!!!!!!

[@martinlee1744]

The Apartment like a cookie

[@crazychameleon123]

Cookie wise

[@jamesdrynan]

My three favorite moments... Lemmon's laugh when he mentions Marilyn Monroe, ( he'd starred with her in " Some like it Hot, ) the broken mirror revelation and the last line of the film. MacMurray was deliciously disgusting. Jack and Shirley were tailor-made for their roles. A near perfect picture!

[@awesome420ication]

The screenplay is otherworldly.

[@setphaser]

this is flat out my favourite film of all time. has been for decades, still holds up.a treasure.

[@linkbiff1054]

This movie is insane. I love this to death.

[@jeanmank6342]

I absolutely adore this movie. Nobody plays a charming heavy better than MacMurray! Lemmon and Maclaine, well, what can I say? Sheer perfection.

[@underthesign1]

Not only a perfect movie, but one I wish I'd seen before I entered the working world.

[@davidoster9055]

That ending though

[@adespade119]

Yes, now spoiled for anyone who's never seen the film.

[@rahulboine9907]

One of the greatest and my dearest and favourite movie ever! Loved John Lemmon 😍

[@elivenelivenny8197]

Shirley , normal ? seriously ? she was out of this world beauty ! she still is

[@shishi-uq1nu]

i love her in the first sight, when i first saw a black and white movie, and its so wonderful, screenplay in my head in the whole week, couldn't be erased

[@Gabster1990]

I think what he meant is not only is she beautiful but she does seem modern and more relatable compared to other actresses in 1960. Not many of them had hair like hers or looked like her.

[@dynjarren7523]

I remember hearing Jack Lemmon say his rent was $150 a month. I was shocked! thought that can’t be right. The dollar back then was that strong? Now the rent in NY is $2500 minimum a month!

[@JAJAJAJAJAJAJA.]

Population my friend

[@marvel096]

Those 150 then are not the same 150 now

[@shuntguy]

In those days the goal of every working person was to make $100 a week. It was a sign that you had "made it".

[@nightchef57]

Actually $85. It's in the opening sequence -- he says it was $80 until his landlady put in an air conditioner. Even back then, I think that would have been a pretty attractive rent for a decent 1-bedroom in the West 60s.

[@RobGMun]

$150 in todays money is now $1,437.75, but you have you also consider places in NY are more desirable than ever before

[@zeytelaloi]

This review makes me want to see the movie!

[@brittanylin1994]

This is the movie that completely opened my eyes to film. Up until then I wasn’t as captivated by the artistic nature of film but The Apartment changed that. I always see something new when I watch it and it’s always exciting to watch; it’s just perfect to me. The writing, the directing, acting, just everything..

[@kevinbutler8824]

I agree with Mr.Scott..Ms.Maclaine is able to portray..real people that you can believe in and care about in a movie..very few screen performers..have that type of talent and persona..today.

[@stevenbosch429]

Elements like the gigantic Premium Accounting Department with dozens of people at their desks working with adding machines are largely gone but the story is timeless.

[@landline00]

I first saw it on a TV set at one of the Ys in Manhattan and loved it immediately. Great film!

[@sergeantwarden471]

Watched it again on TCM . I love movies, but this is definitely the greatest movie of all time hands down, no question about it.

[@shishi-uq1nu]

l love and adore this film, one of my top 10 favourites.

[@davidparker7216]

What arte the other 9?

[@shishi-uq1nu]

@@davidparker7216 Psycho, Gone With the Wind, Forrest Gump, Groundhog day, Jumaji one, The Sixth Sense, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, Clueless...

[@clamourincessant6974]

@@shishi-uq1nu Nicely eclectic list. I've been meaning to see GWTW since finding out Entertainment Weekly once listed it a a top ten best drama and that it's on HBO Max. The original Jumanji, you say. Bold choice. I liked the movie as a teen. Will now have to revisit!

[@shishi-uq1nu]

@@clamourincessant6974 Hope you like them

[@acdragonrider]

I wouldn't say it is the best.But 1960 was a great year for film. Apartment is up there alongside Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Bergman's Virgin Spring, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Vittorio De Sica's La Ciociara, Antonioni's L'Avventura, Godard's Breathless, Macario.

[@DearProfessorRF]

Please stop showing the last scene of the movies you review. Please please please

[@RogerOThornhill]

Please Spoiler Alert this in the Headline!!!!! This isn't a review or a recommendation. It's a complete recap of the plot. I saw it a long time a go but what about someone who's heard of it and clicks on this for a review? Bad critic, bad. Down boy.

[@SiquemHerem]

Riiight! Same thing I thought, usually the critics’ picks are more about its meaning and not so much it’s entire plot in detail. Drains the beauty of watching the plot naturally unravel before you for the first time to anyone who clicked on the video hoping to be convinced on watching it or not.

[@poetcomic1]

MacMurray's first 'rotten role' was really in Alice Adams where they incongruously changed the ending and he went back to Katherine Hepburn. Double Indemnity was far more likeable but again, he was rotten at the core and then Caine Mutiny and this all some of his finest moments. He loved being nice and working for Disney etc. but as much as he complained it was these kind of roles that made him respected as an ACTOR.

[@TheEulerID]

It's worth comparing with Breakfast at Tiffany's, made just a year apart. Both based in New York, both featuring a male protagonist hopelessly in love with a young woman who is exploited by powerful men. Both look on as the see the target of their affection apparently on some self destructive path on to what we all know will end in disaster and disillusion. Both end up with the young women realising with whom their true future will be albeit the Lemmon character seems to be happy just having reached his own salvation, and is even popping champagne. Not so with George Peppard's character, who did not even take solace in the selling of his stories. Of the two, I think The Apartment stands up better. Jack Lemmon's character makes his own moral journey, as he too is compromised by the exercise of power and initially bows to that for a few steps up the slippery ladder of being a very junior executive before discovering his moral compass. In Breakfast at Tiffany's, George Peppard's character is not being chewed up by the system in the same way. He's more aspirational and not a hopelessly so. Ultimately, a thinner character than Lemmon's. Oh, and The Apartment doesn't have Mickey Rooney as a cringe-making Japanese character... It's interesting to imagine what might have happened if the casting had been swapped around. I doubt Peppard would have been convincing in the Apartment, although I can see that Hepburn could have played the naive and betrayed escalator girl. Shirley MacLain would, I think, also have been able to play Holly Golightly, albeit not one with quite the style of Audrey Hepburn (but then who could). Jack Lemmon as an aspiring writer? Well, maybe, but nothing like as well as he could the man owing his soul to the company store as he did in the Apartment.

[@iododendron3416]

Also, both male protagonists are being exploited themselves, in the Apartment it's the higher ups, in Breakfast it's the affair. Also, both films end with the protagonists unemployed but in love with each other. I don't think though that Audrey Hepburn would have worked as Fran, I feel her acting, although good, is at times exaggerated and unnatural, which would not have suited The Apartment.

[@edwardjnarrojr3135]

Loved this picture

[@i6g7f]

I've watched the film because of an "recommendation" by Christoph Waltz and I didn't regret.

[@kevinbutler8824]

Mr.MacMurray also played likeable characters in Disney films.

[@annisamunawaroh6148]

when I watched this, i realized they don't make dialogues like this anymore. smart, fun, and exciting

[@m.e.d.7997]

Do not watch ANY of this if you have not seen the movie!!!

[@bettytigers]

Excellent reveiw!

[@LazlosPlane]

He just inchworms his way through the movie in straight chronological order. My Aunt Millie could do that much.

[@adespade119]

I wish trailers wouldn't spoiler alert that ending scene, it brings the whole movie together in one instant, but now no one can watch the film, without already knowing how it ends. It's artistic vandalism.

[@jlasf]

Fred MacMurray spent his life portraying nice guys, but, ironically, is now best remembered for the two roles when he didn't. Casting him against type, Billy Wilder put MacMurray into "Double Indemnity" and "The Apartment." Clearly, Wilder saw something others did not. And MacMurray gets credit for taking a few career risks.

[@scottmanduzy]

Otis the drunk as Santa!

[@chreynest]

I'm so glad Wilder made the Apartment particularly right after some like it hot

[@lorraineb.4698]

Always better to go with the guy who is crazy about you not the other way around.

[@maxamillion2140]

I just watched this movie for the first time, i really really liked it

[@kevinflanagan2403]

A superb film defo in my all time top 5 if you ain't seen it do yourself a favour

[@iaebiah]

The Apartment otherwise known as a masterclass in simping.

[@tinasan3870]

This is one of the all-time great movies - at least in the top 10.

[@paulocesardecastrosilveira5482]

60 years première NYC june 16 2020

[@sonicyouthfan92]

Whoa Whoa what about Breathless Mr.Scott?? Best film of 1960? The Apartment?

[@sonicyouthfan92]

Psycho?

[@davidparker7216]

Tough year but still a great contender i mean is Wilder

[@meanwiddlekid]

Don't forget his Sherman the Clown with his Flopsy Mopsy dance.

[@pattigee1]

My mom wouldn't let me see it when I was 13 years old. Different morays then.

[@francoisevassy6614]

J’ai appris que Fred MacMurray n’était pas l’acteur auquel Billy Wilder avait pensé tout d’abord ; ce devait être Paul Douglas qui est malheureusement décédé. Peut-être est ce mieux pour moi de ne pas avoir vu cet acteur que j’aime énormément dans le rôle d’un vilain ? J’aime aussi MacMurray qui a beaucoup tourné avec Claudette Colbert.

[@WSenator1]

Was "The Apartment" the last black-and-white film to win the Oscar for Best Picture?

[@zachjohnson637]

It was for a while, until Schindler's List in 1993 and The Artist in 2011.

[@WSenator1]

@@zachjohnson637 Thanks for the info, Zach!

[@martini1179]

Another review that spoils the ending. What's the point of watching it now?

[@outinsider]

For the getting there.

[@andrewbaumann2661]

It's like when people give away the ending to star wars. If you haven't seen it it's your own fault.

[@pikapo16]

It's not about knowing the ending, but the experience of the film as a whole. It only gets better when rewatching it. Such a brilliant and timeless film!

[@sjw5797]

Plenty.

[@m.e.d.7997]

@@outinsider IT is cruel when you see how a movie ends. Forget the journey is 99% of the trip.

[@goguionita230]

Nimeni nu o sa regrete daca o sa vada filmul asta vechi totusi modern

[@lorraineb.4698]

The wife is not even half a pretty as Fran.

[@dreamterry]

Why is it the norm to give us every important plot point in the movie? It seems incredibly lazy to me. Spoilers-As-Review.