Sunset Boulevard

Tuesday, 6.05pm, Sky Cinema Greats

Not many films are narrated by a dead body floating in a swimming pool, but Billy Wilder’s 1950 film is a rare delight – a noirish thriller that’s also a Hollywood drama and a meta-comedy about faded stardom starring an actual faded star. Gloria Swanson is a real trouper as Norma Desmond, holed up in a mansion with her butler – former director and ex-husband Max (played by Swanson’s erstwhile director Erich von Stroheim). Then William Holden’s hard-up screenwriter turns up and her dreams of a comeback are, fatefully, revived.