The Apartment

The remarkable careers of Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon generated many great movies, but arguably none quite as brilliant as The Apartment, which now looks like it might be the best film of the 1960s. Eternal shnook Lemmon is CC Baxter, an office drone who sees an opportunity for advancement when he allows his sleazy superiors to use his apartment for their late-night dalliances. It's a mutually beneficial enough arrangement, even if you want to give CC a good shake, but it's complicated when one of his boss' conquests turns out to be the woman (MacLaine, delectable as well as brilliant) whom he's been in love with from afar. Though bitingly funny in places, its themes of suicide, loneliness and depression are far from frothy comic fare, but CC's decency and humanity, thanks in equal parts to the whip-smart script and Lemmon’s genius, ultimately cut through the film's bitter, black-hearted cynicism. Practically perfect in every way. [Paul Greenwood]