'Sunset Boulevard' | Critics' Picks | The New York Times

[@dani9714]

This film is sooo marvelous! I don't even know how to describe it, but it's amazing. Billy Wilder is one of my favourite directors, he was great. Gloria Swanson shines like Norma Desmond, fabulous and I also love William Holden, he never fails.

[@Featureman]

Gloria Swanson was so great in this.

[@_marlene]

she is so great that it undercuts the film-- It's easy to fall in love with her, even as a madwoman!!

[@alexalex13131]

This film's balance of entertainment and poetry is just about perfect. One of world cinema's 10 best.

[@call2872]

This is a brilliant social commentary on Hollywood. Gloria should have won Best Actress.

[@buckgreen6028]

I agree wholeheartedly. Miss Swanson was astonishing. She certainly should have won the Oscar for "Sunset Boulevard" as no one could touch her performance.

[@jamesdrynan]

As Miss Haversham stopped the clocks so Norma Desmond existed in her time cocoon. Brilliant casting, sterling script and Wilder's impeccable direction. There has never been a more chilling closeup than Norma's unmasked madness!

[@philhipp7766]

I live in a 2 story apartment. Whenever I walk down the stairs to the first floor ready to go out, I'm saying to myself "Alright, I'm ready for my close-up"

[@darrenhoskins8382]

Or Carrie leaving the gymnasium

[@rerite2]

About Norma's mansion: it was once one of the many homes of J.Paul Getty, the oil tycoon. In return for using the mansion, the film studio built the swimming pool. The film's director, Billy Wilder, would visit the mansion, from time to time, to reminisce about the film production. Eventually Getty sold the property to a real estate development company that tore it down to build an office building. The mansion stood near Crenshaw and Wilshire Blvd., far from Sunset Boulevard.

[@buckgreen6028]

Gloria Swanson's performance was one for the ages! She was simply magnificent.

[@normadesmond6017]

Billy Wilder made some of the best movies ever. And this was his masterpiece.

[@TheBelegur]

This was a brilliant, fantastic, and courageous performance on the part Gloria Swanson.

[@dirty06maggot]

great movie , very haunting and sad

[@ericheine2414]

Norma's kind of like Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. Norma needed an understudy.

[@carrietezeno6327]

One OF THE GREATEST Movie Ever 🎥 Awesome Casting 👌 👏 🙌 😎

[@ukiahsguitarsolos3436]

Such a great movie.

[@petrfrizen6078]

Chilling life transformations...

[@josephkelley8641]

Great reviewer - great review. .

A Masterpiece. it's Norma's World we just get to live in it.

[@beautybuff820]

If you like this movie, you should see the movie, "All About Eve," released in the same year (1950). It is another classic. I think I like it better than "Sunset Boulevard"

[@buckgreen6028]

Sorry, but "All Above Eve" did not have the brilliant mystique of "Sunset Boulevard". Miss Swanson's tour de force performance was head and shoulders above Bette Davis in "All About Eve" and I am a Davis fan.

[@RhaegarTargaryen1st]

​@@buckgreen6028 I agree that Gloria Swanson gave an indelible performance, but "head and shoulders above Bette Davis", I think not. The fact is that they both gave staggeringly brilliant performances in their respective films and they simply cancelled each other out. If there was ever a year for a Best Actress Oscar tie, a la 1968, it was 1950.

[@ricardocantoral7672]

I think this film should appropriately called a tragedy.

[@_marlene]

i had not expected it but it made me cry. quite a feat for something cut as it is, too. It's not trying to be a tear jerker. Fantastic film.

[@pzg2008]

i find this a bit spoiler-ish

[@graphiquejack]

Lol. We know he’s dead in the first two minutes of the film. The movie itself spoils the ending for us.

[@ricardocantoral7672]

Fun fact, this film was going to open in a morgue. Various corpses were going to discuss how they died and Joe was among them.