Known for Directing
Billy Wilder, born Samuel Wilder; (22 June 1906 - 27 March 2002) was an Austrian-born director, screenwriter and producer who is regarded as one of the most successful filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Today he is best known for his comedies, although he also directed dramas and film noirs. Wilder is one of only five people who have won Academy Awards as producer, director, and writer for the same film (The Apartment). Wilder's career began in Germany, where he worked as a writer for comedy films from 1930. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, he emigrated to the United States, where he continued to write screenplays, including Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939) and Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire (1941). From the early 1940s, Wilder was allowed to film his own screenplays and thus made a name for himself as a director. Initially, his greatest successes included predominantly dramatic film noirs such as Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951). It was only then that he increasingly turned to comedy, including Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954) and The Seven Year Itch (1955), although he made a small detour to courtroom drama with Witness for the Prosecution (1957). With Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) he made his most famous and probably most successful comedy films, the latter even receiving five Oscars. In One, Two, Three (1961), Wilder dealt with the conditions of the time in his former adopted country, Germany, and made the successful romantic comedy Irma la Douce (1963). In the two decades that followed, Wilder made seven more films, which were less well received by critics and audiences, although the German-French drama Fedora (1978) is viewed somewhat more favorably today by predominantly pretentious film experts. Some time later, Wilder was under discussion as director for Schindler's List, which he had wanted as the end of his long career, but ultimately had to turn it down due to his advanced age.
Born
June 22, 1906
Died
March 27, 2002 (age 95)
Birthplace
Sucha, Galicia, Austria-Hungary
Filmography
138 films, 12 shows


Buddy Buddy
1981 · 1h 36m · US
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.


Fedora
1978 · 1h 49m · FR
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.


The Front Page
1974 · 1h 45m · US
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.


Avanti!
1972 · 2h 18m · IT
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.


The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
1970 · 2h 5m · UK
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.


The Fortune Cookie
1966 · 2h 5m · US
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.


Kiss Me, Stupid
1964 · 2h 5m · US
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.


Irma la Douce
1963 · 2h 27m · US
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.


One, Two, Three
1961 · 1h 49m · US
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.


The Apartment
1960 · 2h 6m · US
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.


Some Like It Hot
1959 · 2h 3m · US
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.


Witness for the Prosecution
1957 · 1h 56m · US
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.


Love in the Afternoon
1957 · 2h 10m · US
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.


The Spirit of St. Louis
1957 · 2h 15m · US
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.


The Seven Year Itch
1955 · 1h 45m · US
When his family goes away for summer vacation, a hitherto faithful publishing executive with an overactive imagination is tempted by an attractive new neighbor.


Sabrina
1954 · 1h 54m · US
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.


Stalag 17
1953 · 2h · US
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.


Ace in the Hole
1951 · 1h 52m · US
An arrogant reporter exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to revitalize his career.


Sunset Boulevard
1950 · 1h 50m · US
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.


A Foreign Affair
1948 · 1h 56m · US
In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.


The Emperor Waltz
1948 · 1h 46m · US
A brash American gramophone salesman tries to get Emperor Franz Joseph's endorsement in turn-of-the-century Austria.


The Lost Weekend
1945 · 1h 41m · US
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.


Death Mills
1945 · 22m · US
Originally made with a German soundtrack for screening in occupied Germany and Austria, this was the first documentary to show what the Allies found when they liberated the Nazi extermination camps: the survivors, the conditions, and the evidence of mass murder.


Double Indemnity
1944 · 1h 47m · US
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.


Five Graves to Cairo
1943 · 1h 36m · US
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.


The Major and the Minor
1942 · 1h 40m · US
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.


Bad Seed
1934 · 1h 17m · FR
A young man-about-Paris, cut off from his father's money, falls in with a picaresque gang of car thieves.