Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Tinseltown’s greatest self-satire, a gothic requiem for big-screen bygones and the highs of screen stardom.

Narrated in flashback by the corpse of luckless screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) floating facedown in a Los Angeles swimming pool, Wilder’s audaciously dark examination of the Hollywood dream factory cruelly casts faded silent-movie star Gloria Swanson as has-been silent star Norma Desmond. Festering in the grandeur of her old dark mansion and daydreaming of comeback, the character is a brutal warning about the unchecked egotism of superstardom. “I’m still big!” she insists, “it’s the pictures that got small.”

Other real-life giants of the silent cinema – Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton – fill out the murky corners of Wilder’s vision, which would later inspire a stage musical of the same name by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“Lists, which can be strangely merciful, have taken pity on Norma Desmond.” Odie Henderson

“A perfect marriage of film noir, metafiction, and the darkly comedic genius of Billy Wilder, Sunset Blvd. is both the most loving and the most scathing look Hollywood ever took at itself. To die is a terrible thing – but to be forgotten, that is the true tragedy.” Alan Mattli

“Noir, horror, melodrama. Homage to cinema and reflection on the decadence of the body and the image. The ghosts of silent cinema meet a dead body that tells its own story: a dance of celluloid spectres officiated by the great Erich von Stroheim and Gloria Swanson. “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Giulio Casadei

1950 USA
Directed by
Billy Wilder
Produced by
Charles Brackett
Written by
Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr
Featuring
William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim
Running time
110 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Sunset Blvd.

Critics

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo
Nigeria
Tunico Amâncio
Brazil
Philip Berk
USA
Giulio Casadei
Italy
Rosie Fletcher
UK
Qila Gill
UK
Jan Göransson
Sweden
Michael Hayden
UK
Odie Henderson
USA
Nick Hodgin
UK
Caryn James
USA
Aleksandar S. Janković
Serbia
Nebojša Jovanović
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Laurent Jullier
France
Peter Körte
Germany
Gábor Köves
Hungary
Ryan Krivoshey
USA
Jean-Marc Leveratto
France
Kalle Løchen
Norway
Tara Lomax
Australia
Alan Mattli
Switzerland
Simon McCallum
UK
Bogdan Movileanu
Romania
Eddie Muller
USA
Charles Musser
USA
Paul O'Callaghan
UK/Germany
Jugoslav Pantelić
Serbia
Muszatics Péter
Hungary
Leslie Pitt
UK
Jonathan Rigby
UK
Yael Shuv
Israel
Neil Smith
UK
Fernanda Solórzano
Mexico
Irene Torp Halvorsen
Norway
Ivan Velisavljević
Serbia

Directors

Joseph Bull
UK
Julie Delpy
France
Joe Lawlor & Christine Molloy
Ireland
Alasdair McLellan
UK
Phyllis Nagy
US
Andrey Paounov
Bulgaria
Alexander Payne
USA
Bernard Rose
UK/USA
Adrián Silvestre
Spain
Phil Tippett
USA
Ti West
USA

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