Directed by Billy Wilder • 1950 • United States
Starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

Hollywood’s ultimate poison-pen letter to itself, Billy Wilder’s acerbic masterpiece casts real-life silent-screen icon Gloria Swanson as a faded movie star who draws a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) into her tragic delusions. The endlessly quotable dialogue, cameos from Tinseltown legends like Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton, and Swanson’s ferocious, larger-than-life performance come together in a brilliantly biting vision of the dark side of the dream factory.