Chuck does make some good points, but I think if The Apartment were any nastier in its time, it wouldn’t have been nearly as successful. As it was, it dealt with infidelity, corruption, and suicide. Like American Beauty, it turns the mirror on audiences and shows them “contemporary culture”, which is not say that AB is as good as The Apartment – in fact I didn’t like it at all.

Anyway, at the end of the day you have to give this one to The Apartment as much for its polish and performances as its cultural legacy and its timelessness.

Oh, I completely agree. The thing with Cruise is that he has a cocky quality that I just find very off-putting. Yet it’s that same quality that makes him so effective in the films you’ve mentioned. I liked him in Magnolia especially. His range is limited, but works in the right context.

Amanda: My amateur research polling among ladies indicates that Tom Cruise soured because he started coming across in the media as contrived. But even if he has faltered with the public, Cruise’s performances in Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia warrant respect. If he died of a heart attack tomorrow, the Internet would be flooded with tributes about what a terrific, risk taking actor he was. Thanks for commenting!

Kelsy: Other than the fact that Cameron Crowe was directly influenced by The Apartment when he wrote Jerry Maguire, I think both movies are about how there’s more to life than success at the office. I highly recommend revisiting Wilder’s work in the 1950s if you want to get your film buffery on. Thanks for chiming in.

Neil: Thanks for finding clarity the the willy-nilly nature of my verdicts. Criminal defendants should be glad I’m not a judge because my rulings would have little to do with law, likely resting on whose story I liked better. Expect future Taste Tests to be close calls — there’s no sport in comparing The Best Years of Our Lives to Pearl Harbor — that come down to which movie I would rather watch again, as opposed to x’s and o’s.

The structure you’re using suggests that the winner is based on the categories delineated for purpose of comparison. However, the two films emerge as evenly matched in casting and cultural impact, while ‘Jerry Maguire’ gets the vote for writing and music, and ‘The Apartment’ takes the gold in only one category – production values. Therefore, isn’t it actually ‘Jerry Maguire’ that should be declared the champ?

I went back and applied this theory to the ‘Rosemary’s Baby’/'Exorcist’ article and using these parameters the films emerge as evenly matched.

Or is the winner based simply on your personal response the film, a tacit acknowledgement that however effective the component parts of a movie may be, it’s whether said movie strikes a chord with you that matters most?

I’d have to rewatch these to really know which one I prefer, but I’d say Jerry McGuire is a good one to just watch chunks of on cable TV, while The Apartment feels more like a film you have to watch as a whole. Then again, I’ve probably only seen each of these movies once.

But I love The Apartment. You’re right, it’s beautifully filmed and has plenty of Wilder’s dark wit and moral quandaries. I love Jack Lemmon (especially with Wilder) and Shirley Maclaine’s films from that era.