Sunset Boulevard (1950)
97%RT Audience Score: 95%
Awards & Nominations: NA
Arguably the greatest movie about Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Sunset Boulevard is a tremendously entertaining combination of noir, black comedy, and character study.
If you’re looking for a flick that’s got it all – drama, laughs, and a peek behind the curtain of Tinseltown – then Sunset Boulevard is your jam. Billy Wilder really knocked it out of the park with this one. It’s like a delicious mashup of film noir, dark comedy, and a deep dive into the psyche of its characters. Trust me, you won’t be bored for a second. This movie is a true masterpiece.
Production Company(ies)
Paramount Pictures,
Distributor
Paramount Pictures
Release Type
Streaming, Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
10060 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California, USA
MPAA / Certificate
Passed
Year of Release
1950
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:1.37 : 1
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Runtime:1h 50m
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Language(s):English
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Aug 10, 1950 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 11, 2008
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
Worldwide gross: $300,073
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $4,236,129
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,219
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 461,955
US/Canada gross: $299,645
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $4,230,087
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,852
US/Canada opening weekend: $169,067
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $2,386,718
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,185
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): $1,752,000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): $24,732,973
Production budget ranking: 1,257
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): $13,318,706
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): -$33,815,550
ROI to date (est.): -89%
ROI ranking: 1,953
Gloria Swanson – Norma Desmond
Erich von Stroheim – Max Von Mayerling
Nancy Olson – Betty Schaefer
Fred Clark – Sheldrake
Jack Webb – Artie Green
Director(s)
Billy Wilder
Writer(s)
Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman Jr., Billy Wilder
Producer(s)
Charles Brackett
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
NA
Academy Awards
Oscar Nominees
All Critics (111) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (109) | Rotten (2)
Smashing drama of the old-fashioned kind, plus elegant perceptive characterization of the modern school, combined to make Sunset Boulevard one of the greatest films of the decade.
October 11, 2021
Marjory Adams
Boston Globe
TOP CRITIC
It is Hollywood craftsmanship at its smartest and at just about its best, and it is hard to find better craftsmanship than that, at this time, in any art or country.
October 11, 2021
James Agee
Sight & Sound
TOP CRITIC
It takes you behind the scenes in the celluloid city and into the hearts of those who make the pictures.
October 11, 2021
Marion Kelley
Philadelphia Inquirer
TOP CRITIC
The direction is by Billy Wilder who did Lost Weekend, and it is superb — detailed, evocative and absorbing. Hollywood, with its mania for success is sardonically observed and there are a hundred witty touches to enliven the general atmosphere of decay.
October 11, 2021
Virginia Graham
London Evening Standard
TOP CRITIC
Dead fame, the grim phantom that often uniquely besets careers in Hollywood, becomes the theme for one of the most remarkable pictures ever produced.
October 11, 2021
Edwin Schallert
Los Angeles Times
TOP CRITIC
Sunset Boulevard is one of those films which serve as milestones in the progress of the motion picture toward its goal of an entertainment art You must see it!
October 11, 2021
George Bourke
Miami Herald
TOP CRITIC
Disturbing yet bitterly funny, Sunset Blvd. stands as perhaps the greatest of all films about Hollywood.
February 14, 2022 | Rating: 4/4
Brian Eggert
Deep Focus Review
My nomination for the best movie of the year so far is Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Swanson’s comeback portrayal of an aging silent motion picture star who won’t face her lost fame and lost youth is unbearably real.
December 15, 2021
Nell Dodson Russell
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Sunset Boulevard is like no other picture that was ever made. They threw away all the old patterns when they made this one.
October 11, 2021
Jane Corby
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Division of honors goes to Miss Swanson and Holden. They are superb. But the lady deserves the lion’s share of the laurels.
October 11, 2021
Hortense Morton (Screen Scout)
San Francisco Examiner
The acting is very good, but outstanding is the exceedingly fine performance of Gloria Swanson, who is as glamorous as ever.
October 11, 2021
P.S. Harrison
Harrison’s Reports
The photography is outstanding and some of the dialogue suggests that unlike Narcissus, Hollywood has not fallen completely in love with its own reflection.
October 11, 2021
Phyllis Wilson
Ottawa Citizen…
Plot
In Hollywood of the 50’s, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
NA
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