The Apartment

The Apartment (1960) is Billy Wilder's bittersweet comedy-drama, free to watch online on iFILM. In a New York insurance firm of nineteen thousand workers, a low-level clerk has found an odd shortcut up the ladder.

C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) loans his bachelor flat to married executives so they have somewhere to bring their mistresses, and in return they fast-track his promotion. He spends his own evenings on a park bench, waiting for the bosses to clear out. The arrangement unravels when Bud falls for elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) and learns which of his superiors has been bringing her to his door. Beneath the office-romance charm, Wilder hides something far sharper.

Fred MacMurray plays against type as Sheldrake, the cold personnel chief running the whole racket. The film took five Academy Awards, Best Picture among them, and stands as one of the last black-and-white movies to win the top prize. Its closing line, "Shut up and deal," is still taught in screenwriting classes. Stream The Apartment (1960) online on iFILM.