94
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe underlying seriousness of MacLaine's performance helps anchor the picture--it raises the stakes, and steers it away from any tendency to become musical beds.
- 100EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanAbsolutely brilliant. It's funnier, sadder and cooler on the big screen.
- 100The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt's still luminous, 52 years on.
- 100ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliThe Apartment represents Wilder at his most complete - seamlessly weaving the lighthearted and the serious without encountering a snarl or tangle.
- 100EmpireEmpireDelightful comedy romance with a clutch of note-perfect performances.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe Apartment captured one of the singular images of early '60s America; the immense office (designed by Alexander Trauner) in which the human workers, seated behind endless, perfectly aligned rows of identical desks, appear completely subordinate to the dehumanizing mechanisms of conformity and efficiency.
- 90Second half of the picture is loosely constructed and tends to lag as the rahers go through their paces in over-extending the major plot angle. Most of the time, it’s up to director Wilder to sustain a two-hour-plus film on treatment alone, a feat he manages to accomplish more often than not, and sometimes the results are amazing.
- The Apartment is an important and provocative film.
- 88New York Daily NewsWanda HaleNew York Daily NewsWanda HaleProduction and direction wise, Wilder sustains his usual excellence. But his story is controversial and I am not one of those who can quite see The Apartment as the great comedy-drama he evidently intended it to be. He oversteps the bounds of good taste.
- 80Time OutTime OutThe quintessential New York movie – with exquisite design by Alexandre Trauner and shimmering black-and-white photography – it presented something of a breakthrough in its portrayal of the war of the sexes, with a sour and cynical view of the self-deception, loneliness and cruelty involved in ‘romantic’ liaisons.