Film Forum

U.S., 1950
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Charles Bracket, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman, Jr.
Starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim
Approx. 110 min.

Luck has run out for William Holden’s hack screenwriter Joe Gillis. But even from the depths of a Beverly Hills swimming pool, Gillis recounts his tormented affair as kept man to Gloria Swanson’s has-been silent star Norma Desmond. “To date Hollywood’s most bitter self-portrait... Over seventy and counting, [SUNSET BLVD.] is far more remote from contemporary Hollywood than the silent era was from Billy Wilder’s landmark film noir when it was released in the summer of 1950.” – Foster Hirsch

Presented with support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s

A PARAMOUNT PICTURES RELEASE

Reviews

“REMAINS ONE OF THE BEST, TRUEST, FUNNIEST, SADDEST, AND SCARIEST OF ALL MOVIES ABOUT HOLLYWOOD.”
– Chicago Tribune

“That rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction and unobtrusively artistic photography which quickly casts a spell over an audience and holds it enthralled to a shattering climax.”
– The New York Times

“A delicious comedy with a psycho edge... This is an unmissable commentary on Hollywood's rejection of its silent past: a kind of Sobbin' in the Rain.”
– The Guardian