Critic Reviews
Sunset Blvd. (1950) Rank 5 Reviews
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Combustible Celluloid
Of all Billy Wilder's cinematic creations, the most inspired is arguably the device of having Sunset Boulevard (1950) narrated by a dead man. The movie opens with the unforgettable image of screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) floating upside down ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Combustible Celluloid
CultureDose.net (John Nesbit)
Ask someone to name a great example of film noir, and automatic references to Sunset Blvd. should tumble out. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at CultureDose.net (John Nesbit)
Guardian/Observer
Philip French: This great film wears its 53 years lightly and is still the best, most penetrating picture about Hollywood, its surface charm, its underlying cruelty, its lack of interest in its own history, its ruthless disregard for ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Guardian/Observer
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Billy Wilder's ``Sunset Boulevard'' is the portrait of a forgotten silent star, living in exile in her grotesque mansion, screening her old films, dreaming of a comeback. But it's also a love story, and the love keeps it from becoming simply a ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
filmcritic.com
Sunset Boulevard starts out telling one story -- about a down-on-his-luck writer and serious financial trouble -- and ends up telling another -- about an insane and faded silent-film star who lives in a decrepit old mansion on the titular boulevard. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at filmcritic.com
Philadelphia City Paper review by Sam Adams
Billy Wilder's greatest film is his most daring aesthetic tightrope-walk. Forever threatening to spill over into Teutonic melodrama, Sunset Boulevard's operatic performances and expressionistic lighting raise drama to its highest pitch. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Philadelphia City Paper review by Sam Adams
DVDBeaver.com - Graphic Review (Gary W. Tooze)
Sunset Boulevard is a film that has transcended its own success, achieving a level of popularity so beyond such trivial matters as box office, critical accolades and Academy Award nominations that it has become a part of the cinematic vernacular itself. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at DVDBeaver.com - Graphic Review (Gary W. Tooze)
The Onion A.V. Club (Noel Murray)
In Sunset Boulevard, an over-the-hill silent-movie star played by Gloria Swanson decries the advent of talkies, sniping, "We didn't need dialogue... we had faces!" They also had places. Paramount Studios has recently issued three of its early-'50s ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at The Onion A.V. Club (Noel Murray)
Cinema Laser
Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD is the legendary director's cynical, tragic masterpiece about Hollywood and the darker, slightly decayed side of this glamorous world. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Cinema Laser
ThreeMovieBuffs (Patrick Nash)
This film more than any other sums up the grandeur and decay of the silent movie era. This is Hollywood's classic tragedy and Norma Desmond it's Lady Macbeth, made all the more ironic because she is played by real life faded silent movie queen Gloria ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at ThreeMovieBuffs (Patrick Nash)
Hollywood Gothique
This well-known film is widely and rightly regarded as one of the great masterpieces to emerge from Hollywood. It's a classic piece of Hollywood Gothic, a sordid story about an out-of-work screenwriter named Joe Gillis (William Holden) who takes shelter ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Hollywood Gothique
DVDTown (John J. Puccio and Yuan-da Eddie Feng)
"Sunset Boulevard" According to Yunda Eddie Feng:
Sunset Boulevard is one of the most well-known streets in the world. There´s a certain glamour associated with a celebrated name, but as the street´s name implies, there´s a world-weariness ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at DVDTown (John J. Puccio and Yuan-da Eddie Feng)
DVD Movie Guide
At the end of 2001, 85 of the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movies existed on DVD. By the end of 2002, that number will have expanded by a mere three titles. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at DVD Movie Guide
Foster on Film - Film Noir
The joke starts with one of the most famous scenes in movie history (though not the most famous scene in this film). As the corpse of failed writer, Joe Gillis (William Holden), floats in the pool, he begins to tell us his story. There is a rule about ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Foster on Film - Film Noir
Dual Lens
There are certain lines of movie dialogue that have made their ways into our collective consciousness to such an extent that one need not even have seen the films from whence they came to recognize them immediately. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Dual Lens
About.com Home Video/DVD (Ivana Redwine)
I think that "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), which takes a sardonic look at the film industry, is one of the masterworks of world cinema. Co-written and directed by the great Billy Wilder, the movie is an unusual mix of black comedy and film noir. "Sunset ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at About.com Home Video/DVD (Ivana Redwine)
Piddleville (Bill Wren)
One of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood is 1951's Sunset Boulevard, a movie about Hollywood. It's a kind of anodyne for the glamorous mystique of the movie business. ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Piddleville (Bill Wren)
Moviegnome.com
What would film noir be without Sunset Boulevard perhaps the greatest of them all? Like nearly everyone else in the film, Joe Gilis (William Holden) is down on his luck, being a Hollywood writer with steadily mounting bills. By chance, he winds up at ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Moviegnome.com
DVD Authority
Lines like that can only be associated with one movie...Sunset Boulevard. And I'll come right out and say it, I've never seen it before. Ever since I was alerted to the DVD coming out I've been anxiously awaiting it's arrival, and I suppose I could ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at DVD Authority
DVD Journal
They are the Holy Grails of cinema history: the scenes you know were shot but for some reason were dropped from the finished film. They may last only a few seconds or they may be whole sequences. They may constitute different beginnings or wholly ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at DVD Journal
culturevulture.net
Even fifty years ago, it seems Hollywood's best days were already behind it. Los Angeles is a city that has been haunted by its past for nearly the entire length of its existence, and Sunset Boulevard is still its quintessential ghost story. Half a ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at culturevulture.net
eFilmCritic
Really one of the best movies I've ever seen. Every performance is a winner, the script is full of zingers, and Billy Wilder's direction is stylish and elegant. If you don't watch it for those elements, at least see it for all the quotable ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at eFilmCritic
Brilliant Observations on 1173 Films (Clayton Trapp)
Welcome to the Hotel California...weird scenes inside the gold mine. Dictatorship of the spotlight. Dead man talking. Mirrors of reality when Gloria Swanson directs Erich von Stroheim. An accent and contrast angle of Hollywood may never have been more ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Brilliant Observations on 1173 Films (Clayton Trapp)
Film Noir of the Week
The three major networks and Fox had nothing of interest for me this evening, so I watched TCM's screening of "Sunset Boulevard," my first visit to this old Noir in over a decade.
For we old car freaks, that Isotta-Fraschini town car was a real trip! ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Film Noir of the Week
The BigScreen Cinema Guide - Reader Reviews
A few months ago, Billy Wilder died at age 92. We in the film business lost a very smert genius, whom unlike most people in the business took the movies he made very serously. One of my favorite movies by Wilder came out in 1950 which is titled "Sunset ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at The BigScreen Cinema Guide - Reader Reviews
The City Review (Carter B. Horsley)
The result is a masterpiece but not because all the parts work so well, but because of the transcendent performances of Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a great star of the silent film who lives in a mansion on Sunset Boulevard where Rudolph Valentino ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at The City Review (Carter B. Horsley)
Crazy for Cinema
Almost nothing gives me greater cinematic pleasure than watching a film directed by Billy Wilder. His characters are always well-developed, interesting and urbane. The situations they find themselves in are highly problematic, sometimes life-threatening ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Crazy for Cinema
BBCi - Films
If the finest things in life are written on an empty stomach, as an agent claims here, Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett must have been ravenous when they penned "Sunset Boulevard". ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at BBCi - Films
The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film
Sunset Boulevard (1950) is a classic black comedy/drama, and perhaps the most acclaimed, but darkest film-noir story about "behind the scenes" Hollywood, self-deceit, spiritual and spatial emptiness, and the price of fame, greed, narcissism, and ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at The Greatest Films - comprehensive analysis of classic US film
Appreciating Great Trash
With Sunset Boulevard director Billy Wilder didn't just satirize Hollywood; he sliced into it like a revving chainsaw. His classic film-noir attacks the loonily anachronistic relics of silent Hollywood's star system, and it attacks Hollywood for making ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Appreciating Great Trash
Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
Billy Wilder's ("Double Indemnity") acidic spellbinding noir masterpiece is a cynically dark recognition to Hollywood's forgotten stars and a reminder of how cruel Tinseltown can be to the icons it no longer cherishes, forgetting about them as if ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
Movie Magazine International (Monica Sullivan)
One of the most difficult things to explain is a phenomena that is ground into our collective consciousness so deeply that it becomes an instant cliche. The shock of recognition is immediate, intense & irreversible. We can never go back to seeing the ...read the complete Sunset Blvd. movie review at Movie Magazine International (Monica Sullivan)
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