The Apartment (1960): Shira's Take

THE SIXTIES! WOOO!

The Apartment is of a rare breed in best picture winners. It starts off interesting and entertaining, and it stays that way throughout. It has a PERFECT Billy Wilder screenplay, quality-wise and otherwise-wise. What's funny about it is that I felt The Apartment actually got worse about 3/4 of the way through and never got as good as it had been in the beginning, and somehow, it was still a great movie. In terms of other BP winners we've watched, it was most similar to Marty, in that it felt like a play instead of a movie (and in that it featured a charmingly pathetic protagonist).

The plot was GREAT, the characters were GREAT (especially the neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, played by Jack Kruschen), and the actors were GREAT. The Apartment does not have everything I ask for in a best picture winner, but it has everything I ask for in a likeable movie. 9/10