Billy Wilder
Legacy

"Don't be boring". — Billy Wilder

Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. He directed two of film noir 's definitive films, Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. Along with Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers, he leads the list of films on the American Film Institute 's AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs and he earned the top spot on it with Some Like It Hot. Also on the list are The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch, which he directed, and Ball of Fire and Ninotchka, which he co-wrote. The AFI listed Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies. Wilder was ranked 6th in director's poll on Sight & Sound 's 2002 list of The Greatest Directors of All Time. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Wilder at No. 24 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. Wilder was ranked at No. 19 on Empire 's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005. In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Wilder at No. 13 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list. Wilder was voted at No. 4 on the "Greatest Directors of 20th Century" poll conducted by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.

Seven of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Anthony Lane writes that Double Indemnity, The Seven Year Itch, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment are "part of the lexicon of moviegoing" and that Some Like It Hot is a "national treasure." Roger Ebert asked, "Of all the great directors of Hollywood's golden age, has anybody made more films that are as fresh and entertaining to this day as Billy Wilder's?...And who else can field three contenders among the greatest closing lines of all time?", citing the closing lines of Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, and The Apartment. Ron Shelton recalls encountering Wilder:

I was in a restaurant about six months after Bull Durham came out. And a man came over and said "Somebody would like to see you." And I looked over and it was Billy Wilder. And I went over and he said, "Great fuckin' picture, kid!"And I thought that was a good a review as you could have."

When Belle Époque won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said in his acceptance speech: "I would like to believe in God in order to thank him. But I just believe in Billy Wilder... so thank you, Mr. Wilder." According to Trueba, Wilder called him the day after and told him: "Fernando, it's God." French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius thanked Billy Wilder in the 2012 Best Picture Oscar acceptance speech for The Artist: "I would like to thank the following three people, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, and I would like to thank Billy Wilder." Wilder's 12 Academy Award nominations for screenwriting were a record until 1997 when Woody Allen received a 13th nomination for Deconstructing Harry. In 2017, Vulture.com named Wilder the greatest screenwriter of all time. He directed fourteen actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder's epitaph, a paraphrase of the last line of Some Like It Hot, is "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect."
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