Want to know the best Billy Wilder movies? How about the worst Billy Wilder movies? Curious about Billy Wilder box office grosses or which Billy Wilder movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Billy Wilder movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information and much more.
Billy Wilder (1906-2002) was an Austrian-born American director, screenwriter, producer, and artist, whose career spanned more than fifty years. Wilder was nominated for 21 Oscars® in his career. Wilder won 6 Oscars®. Without Billy Wilder there would be no Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Blvd. (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960).
Recently we did a UMR (UltimateMovieRankings) page on David Lean. One of the items we were researched was the amount of times Lean got nominated for a Best Director Oscar®. Lean is in a tie for the 4th most Best Director nominations. The three directors ahead of Lean were William Wyler (12 nominations), Martin Scorsese (8 nominations) and Billy Wilder (8 nominations). Seeing that we already had Wyler and Scorsese UMR pages….we felt Billy Wilder was way overdue for his UMR page. A quick check showed we already had the stats on 93% of Wilder’s movies in our database. So we researched the last few Wilder movies….and this is the end result.
His IMDb page shows 27 directing credits, 79 writing credits and 14 producing credits from 1929-1995. This page will rank 30 Billy Wilder movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. The following table looks at all of the movies he directed and a few of his screenplay only movies. Many of his writing credits from 1929 to 1940 were not included in the rankings.
Billy Wilder Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Billy Wilder movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Billy Wilder movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Billy Wilder movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Billy Wilder movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and many Oscar® wins each Billy Wilder movie received and
- Sort Billy Wilder movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive. For example type “Lemmon” in the search box and up pop the 7 movies that Jack Lemmon made with Wilder.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Billy Wilder Table
- Twenty Billy Wilder movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 66.00% of his movies listed. Some Like It Hot (1959) was his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Billy Wilder movie grosses $139.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 27 of Billy Wilder’ movies are rated as good movies…or 93.10% of his movies. Double Indemnity (1944) is his highest rated movie while Bluebeard’s Eigth Wife (1938) was his lowest rated movie.
- Seventeen Billy Wilder movie received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 58.62% of his movies.
- Eight Billy Wilder movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 27.58% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 26 Billy Wilder movies scored higher than that average….or 86.66% of his movies. The Apartment (1960) got the the highest UMR Score while Buddy Buddy (1981) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Billy Wilder
1. Samuel Wilder was born in Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary. Billie was the nickname his mother gave him when he was a child. He changed Billie to Billy when he arrived in America.
2. After the rise of Adolf Hitler, Billy Wilder, Jewish, left for Paris. From Paris he headed to Hollywood in 1934. Sadly Wilder’s mother, grandmother and stepfather all perished in the Holocaust.
3. After writing many successful screenplays between 1935 and 1941, Billy Wilder got to direct his first movie in 1942….The Major and The Minor. His third directed movie was Double Indemnity (1944) and his fourth directed movie was The Lost Weekend (1945).
4. Billy Wilder received 8 Best Director Oscar® nominations, 12 Best Screenplay Oscar® Nominations and 1 Best Producer Oscar® nomination. In 1988, Wilder received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures.
5. Billy Wilder was the first person to win a Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture Oscar for one movie….1960’s The Apartment. Billy Wilder directed two movies that won the Best Picture Oscar®…1945’s The Lost Weekend and 1960’s The Apartment.
6. Billy Wilder got an individual Oscar® nomination for 14 of his movies. That might be a record.
7. Billy Wilder directed 14 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Robert Strauss, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Laughton , Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, Jack Kruschen, Shirley MacLaine and Walter Matthau. Milland (The Lost Weekend), Holden (Stalag 17) and Matthau (The Fortune Cookie) won Oscars for their performances in a Wilder film.
8. Billy Wilder worked closely with Steven Spielberg on the screenplay for Schlinder’s List. Wilder’s idol and mentor was German director Ernst Lubitsch. Wilder always kept a sign hanging in his office that asked, “How would Lubitsch do it?”
9. Quick facts: (a) Billy Wilder was married two times. (b) He had two children. (c) Honored on a US Postage Stamp in May 2012 (d) He died on the same day as Dudley Moore and Milton Berle. (e) Almost made a Marx Brothers movie and a Laurel and Hardy movie.
10. Billy Wilder wrote five of the American Film Institute’s 100 Funniest Movies: 1959’s Some Like It Hot 1960’s, The Apartment, 1955’s The Seven Year Itch (1955), 1939’s Ninotchka and 1941’s Ball of Fire (1941).
Check out Billy Wilder’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Just an amazing career!
Hey Linda….I knew it was amazing…but seeing all those all-time great movies on the table really opened my eyes to just how amazing it really was.
I love this chart. It was an eye-opener!
Glad to hear that….lots of work went into the design of that table. I think it does a awesome job of showing the success or failure of a movie in one line of stats. Thanks for the compliment.
I’m sure it was a lot of work, but the results are valuable to film fans! Thank you for creating it.
Our site has lots of classic actors, actresses and directors. When I first got a request to do a page on Clark Gable…I quickly dismissed it…thinking …”nobody wants to read about Gable”….well fast forward the dvd a few years…and now 70% of our traffic comes from our classic pages.
You’re spoiling us with these great directors today Bruce!
I watch Some Like it Hot every Xmas, one of my favorite comedies. I recently bought Stalag 17 on blu-ray, another film I’ve watched many times.
Let’s see I’ve watched… 15 of the 29 films you’ve listed, I expected more, oh well. I have to confess I’ve only seen bits of The Lost Weekend, the film that’s topped your moviescore, probably because it won Best Picture? I was expecting The Apartment or Sunset Boulevard to be no.1.
Irma La Douce his most popular film? I haven’t seen it. I must seek it out and see why it was so popular. 14 Oscar nominations for Wilder, thats amazing!
Excellent work Bruce. another fact-filled movie page, a tribute to one of the greats. Voted Up.
Hey Steve….I think Fred Zinnemann will be coming soon too. Zinnemann picked up 7 Best Director Oscar nominations. So he is in the same class as Wilder and Wyler. Stalag 17 on Blu-Ray should be good. Amazingly your 15 tally count finishes behind me and Flora. Flora sits at 21…while I am at 19.
The Lost Weekend was Wilder’s 3rd biggest hit, his 7th best reviewed movie, and got the third most Oscar nominations….and yes winning the Best Picture Oscar helped. The Apartment is a close 2nd….while Sunset sits at #8….its overall box office hurt that score.
When you get a chance to see Irma La Douce…..keep your eye out for a very young James Caan…who shows up in the background one or two times.
14 different movies got him an Oscar nomination…that is a number normally reserved for composers and Walt Disney. Thanks for the comment and the votes up.
Hi, Bruce.
I’m a big fan of Billy Wilder movies.
The highest ranking movie I have seen is The Lost Weekend at Number 1.
The lowest ranking movie I have seen is Kiss Me Stupid at number 26.
The highest ranking movie I have not seen is The Emperor Waltz at number 13, of which I know nothing.
Thus, I have seen all of Wilder’s top 10 movies.
I have seen 13 of his top 15 movies
I have seen 17 of his top 20 movies
I have seen 21 of his overall 27 movies.
My top 5 favourite movies are:
Some Like It Hot
Double Indemnity
Ninotchka
Sunset Blvd.
The Apartment
Other favourites are Irma La Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Stalag 17, The Seven Year Itch, Witness for the Prosecution, love in the Afternoon, and The Front Page.
Top of my list of films to see is Avanti because I enjoy Jack Lemmon.
A couple months back, I saw It Should Happen to You for the first time. That was Jack Lemmon’s first movie. It’s a lot of fun.
Cheers,
Flora
Hey Flora…..thanks for stopping by….you got to this one pretty quick….as it is only a few hours old.
1. When I finished this page…I was pretty amazed at how many awesome movies he got made. You know someone is pretty talented when you have a hard time trying to narrow your favorites into a Top 10 list.
2. The Emperor Waltz was a huge hit back then….he matched Crosby and Wilder….I have not seen it either…but I have seen and read about it for years.
3. Tally count…Flora 21, Me 19 and Steve 15.
4. I like your Top 5…and your Top 12. My Top 5 would be Stalag 17, Witness for Prosecution, Sabrina (not in your Top 12?), Sunset Blvd and Double Indemnity.
5. I know Some Like It Hot is a classic….but I do not find it very funny…maybe it’s calling card of being the #1 Comedy of All-time makes the expectations too high.
6. I found Gary Cooper too old for Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon….the age difference was something I could not get over….maybe a second viewing of that one is needed.
7. The Lemmon/Wilder team was one of the greatest of all-time.
Thanks for your thoughts on Mr. Wilder.
Er war ein sehr talentierter Mann. Anbeten, seine Filme. Manche mögen’s heiß ist das Beste.
Hey Rene….not 100% sure what your comment means. But I appreciate you stopping by.
Ah. Now this is a movie subject that needed some attention. Your Dan Patric page really confuses me. Wilder was one of the greats. My favorite is a Monroe movie, but not Some Like Hot. I like The Seven Year Itch more. Monroe is so stunning in that one!
Hey S & S. Wow…. that was quick…I was still editing the page when your comment popped up. Sorry for the confusion about Dan Patrick. I think Wilder is indeed a return to greatness when it comes to movies. I wonder how many other people have the same thoughts when it comes to Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. Some Like It Hot is considered to be the best comedy of all-time….however when I watch that movie I do not laugh a whole lot….I do not think Some Like It Hot as aged very well. I agree 100% with you about Monroe in The Seven Year Itch…simply stunning. Thanks for stopping by and commenting,