Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Date of Birth: 22 Jun 1906

Country: Austria

Biography: Billy Wilder (22 June 1906 - 27 March 2002) was an Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Wilder is one of only five people who have won Academy Awards as producer, director, and writer for the same film (The Apartment). (wikipedia)

Total Credits at Criticker: 4 (Actor), 27 (Director), 44 (Writer)

Biography last updated by hellboy76, and picture by pilgermann

Find more information about Billy Wilder at The Internet Movie Database

Titles you haven't rated - Actor (4) | Director (27) | Writer (44)

    Some Like It Hot
    When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all female band disguised as women, but further complications set in (imdb)
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    Double Indemnity
    An insurance rep lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator's suspicions. (imdb)
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    Avanti!
    Wendell (Lemmon) goes to Italy to pick up his father's body after an automobile accident (imdb)
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    The Apartment
    A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue. (imdb)
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    Sunset Blvd.
    A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity. (imdb)
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    Bluebeard\
    US multi-millionaire Michael Barndon marries his eight wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broken French Marquis... (imdb)
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    The Lost Weekend
    The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four day drinking bout. (imdb)
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    Stalag 17
    Intrigue among Allied prisoners at a World War 2 German POW camp. (imdb)
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    Sabrina
    An ugly duckling having undergone a remarkable change, still harbors feelings for her crush: a carefree playboy, but not before his business-focused brother has something to say about it. (imdb)
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    The Seven Year Itch
    When his family goes away for the summer, a so far faithful husband is tempted by a beautiful neighbor (Marilyn Monroe). (imdb)
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    Ace in the Hole
    When a man is trapped alive in a mine collapse, a self-interested reporter and the townspeople cynically create what we now call a "media circus". (imdb)
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    The Fortune Cookie
    A crooked lawyer persuades his brother-in-law to feign a serious injury. (imdb)
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    Ball of Fire
    A group of ivory-tower lexicographers realize they need to hear how real people talk, and end up helping a beautiful singer escape from the Mob. (imdb)
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    The Major and the Minor
    A woman disguises herself as a child to save on a train fare and is taken in charge by an army man who doesn't notice the truth. (imdb)
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    Casino Royale
    In an early spy spoof, aging Sir James Bond (David Niven) comes out of retirement to take on SMERSH. (imdb)
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    Sabrina
    Chauffeur's daughter Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn) returns home from two years in Paris a beautiful young woman, and immediately catches the attention of David (William Holden), the playboy son of her father's rich employers. David woos and wins Sabrina, who has always been in love with him, however their romance is threatened by David's serious older brother, Linus. (google)
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    One, Two, Three
    Comedy about Coca-Cola's man in West Berlin, who may be fired if he can't keep his American boss's daughter from marrying a Communist. (imdb)
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    Witness for the Prosecution
    Agatha Christie tale of a man on trial for murder: a trial featuring surprise after surprise. (imdb)
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    Ninotchka
    A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest. (imdb)
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    Midnight
    Showgirl Eve, stranded in Paris without a sou, befriends taxi driver Tibor Czerny, then gives him the slip to crash a party... (imdb)
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    The Spirit of St. Louis
    Biography of Charles Lindburgh from his days of precarious mail runs in aviation's infancy to his design of a small transatlantic plane and the vicissitudes of its takeoff and epochal flight from New York to Paris in 1927. (imdb)
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    Love in the Afternoon
    Director Billy Wilder salutes his idol, Ernst Lubitsch, with this comedy about a middle-aged playboy fascinated by the daughter of a private detective who has been hired to entrap him with the wife of a client. (imdb)
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    Irma la Douce
    Naive, by the book French police officer Nester Patou, is transferred to the Red Light district. Upon witnessing what must be a brothel, he calls the station and organizes a raid, transporting all the 'ladies' to the jail. This unfortunately disrupts the well organized system of the police and the Pimps union.
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    The Front Page
    Hildy Johnson is the top reporter on a Chicago newspaper during the 1920s. Tired of the whole game he's determined to quit his job to get married. His scheming editor, Walter Burns, has other plans though. It's the day before guilty (but insane) murderer, Earl Williams, is due to go to the gallows and Burns tempts Johnson to stay and write the story. (imdb)
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    Buddy Buddy
    Walter Matthau plays a professional killer going by the name of Trabucco, who is on his way to rub out gangster Rudy "Disco" Gambola, set to testify against the mob. As Trabucco heads off to a hotel across the street from the courthouse where he plans to set his hit, he runs into the depressed Victor Clooney, who laments the fact that his wife has left him for the head of a weird Californian sex clinic... (imdb)
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    The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
    Director Billy Wilder adds a new and intriguing twist to the personality of intrepid detective Sherlock Holmes. One thing hasn't changed however: Holmes' crime-solving talents. Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments. Can the sleuths make sense of all this and solve the mystery? (imdb)
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    Kiss Me, Stupid
    Debauched big-time second-rate crooner Dino is stranded in a small town, Climax, Nevada, while driving from Vegas to L.A. to star in a Bing Crosby t.v. special... (imdb)
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    Hold Back the Dawn
    A Romanian gigolo marries a naive American schoolteacher in Mexico so he can legally enter the United States. Complications arise as he discovers he is falling in love with her. (imdb)
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    A Foreign Affair
    A congressional committee visits occupied Berlin to investigate G.I. morals. Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, appalled at widespread evidence of human frailty, hears rumors that cafe singer Erika, former mistress of a wanted war criminal, is "protected" by an American officer, and enlists Captain John Pringle to help her find him...not knowing that Pringle is Erika's lover. (imdb)
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    The Emperor Waltz
    Traveling Salesman Virgil Smith wants to sell his Grammophones in pre-WWI Austria. To enhance this, he especially wants to sell one to Emperor Franz Joseph, but at first the Austrian palace guards think he is carrying a bomb. He meets the Countess Johanna von Stolzenberg-Stolzenberg and after the usual misunderstandings, falls in love with her, this is especially assisted by his dog Buttons... (imdb)
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    Five Graves to Cairo
    June, 1942. The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian border--Corporal John Bramble, who finds refuge at a remote desert hotel...soon to be German HQ. To survive, Bramble assumes an identity which proves perilous. The new guest of honor is none other than Rommel, hinting of his secret strategy, code-named 'five graves.' And the fate of the British in Egypt depends on whether a humble corporal can penetrate the secret... (imdb)
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    People on Sunday
    Edwin, a taxi driver, lives with Annie, a neurasthenic model. They plan to spend Sunday at the Nikolassee beach with Wolfgang, an officer, gentleman, antiquarian, gigolo, at the moment a wine salesman. After an argument, Annie stays at home while Edwin joins Wolf. Wolf has brought along a new girlfriend, Christl... (imdb)
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    Fedora
    Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler attempts to lure Fedora, a famous but reclusive film actress out of retirement.
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    A Song Is Born
    Gangster's moll Honey Swanson goes into hiding when her boyfriend is under investigation by the police. Where better to hide than a musical research institute staffed entirely by lonely bachelors? She gets more than she bargained for when the head of the institute Professor Hobart Frisbee starts to fall for her. (imdb)
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    Mauvaise graine
    A young man-about-Paris, cut off from his father's money, falls in with a picaresque gang of car thieves. (imdb)
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    Arise, My Love
    A dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins. (imdb)
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    Emil und die Detektive
    A boy, on a trip to his grandmother's house, is robbed and proceeds to investigate and attempt to apprehend the criminal.
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    Witness for the Prosecution
    Efficient, but bitter and stubborn, barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts returns to his office in London, having recovered from a heart attack. He is subsequently invited to defend Leonard Stephen Vole, who is the prime suspect in a murder case. Leonard is a former soldier that fought in World War II and is married to his beloved German wife Christine Helm Vole. He is unemployed and accused of seducing and murdering the wealthy middle-aged single woman, Emily French, to inherit 80,000 pounds. (imdb)
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    Champagne Waltz
    Another of Paramount's efforts to transform Metropolitan Opera diva Gladys Swarthout into a popular movie star, Champagne Waltz casts Swarthout as Elsa Strauss, the daughter of a celebrated Viennese composer (Fritz Leiber). American bandleader Buzzy Bellew (Fred MacMurray) and his aggregation invade Vienna with their own special repertoire of melodies, and before long the Austrian capital has abandoned waltzes in favor of jazz. (allrovi.com)
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    Was Frauen träumen
    In this pre-WWII German mystery-comedy, a lovely kleptomaniac with a taste for fine jewelry is unable to resist temptation. Strangely, every time she steals something, a mysterious man pays for it. A clumsy detective begins investigating and finds a crucial clue: a strongly scented woman's glove. The perfume is an expensive scent and the detective's pal realizes that it belongs to a popular nightclub singer. The friend quickly becomes enamored of the girl, but then so does her mystery man.... (imdb)
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    Adorable
    Janet Gaynor plays a rebellious princess who must try to marry the man she loves, instead of the stuffy old prince her parents want her to marry. But will this ordinary man love her back once he finds out she's a princess? (imdb)
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    Ihre Hoheit befiehlt
    An emancipated Princess, who has just returned home to her court in the Balkans from England, goes in disguise to a servants’ ball and falls in love with an alleged caterer, who turns out next day to be a lieutenant of the guard. Without letting on to her masquerade, she makes sure he climbs the ranks quickly. At the same time, she tries to thwart her engagement to an unpopular prince.
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    Ein blonder Traum
    A penniless artiste is distracted from her dreams of Hollywood stardom by two hard-up but high-spirited window cleaners, both called Willy.
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    Ates Gibi Kadin
    A group of Turkish classical music artists compile an encyclopedia of Turkish music. Ayhan becomes interested in the popular music of nightclub performer Leyla.
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