It is astounding that Billy Wiilder should be responsible for not one or two or even three of the greatest Hollywood films ever made. He may well be the director of at least half a dozen masterpieces – that’s more than Orson Welles can muster. I sang the praises of the excellent Stalag 17 while various Wilder films have appeared in numerous lists across the site including Top 10 films to see before going to film school (Sunset Boulevard), Top 25 films to make you happy (Some Like It Hot), Top 10 romantic films men shouldn’t be ashamed to love (Some Like it Hot), Top 10 Best Picture Winners (The Apartment) and Top 10 anti-date films (Sunset Boulevard). In addition, our retrospective on the great Oliver Reed found Some Like It Hot to be his finest film, while Isabella Rossellini told us the film was her favourite of all time. But we mustn’t forget about Double Indemnity, Witness For The Prosecution, Ace In The Hole and The Lost Weekend.

Films that make us happy. It can depend entirely on the day of the week, a particular mood, a desire for a specific genre or type of story. But I do know that films offer at least one of our outlets when we turn to entertainment as a means to lift our mood. But, choosing ten, twenty, or in this case twenty-five movies that make us happy is an almost impossible task given the very unique and personal reasons why we choose a film to make us happy in the first place.

What films make you happy?

Even 50 years after the event, Tony Curtis could be heard reminiscing about fondling Marilyn Monroe. The 1950s Hollywood pin-up boy famously said that an amorous moment with Monroe was like kissing Hitler.

Renowned for his love affairs with Hollywood starlets, Curtis maybe remembered more for his six marriages and fathering Jamie Lee Curtis, than for his acting abilities. Ever the tease, he fuelled his own myth throughout his life, stating in a memoir released in 2009 that Monroe miscarried a child he had given her…

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI’S TOP 10 FILMS
“Blue Velvet” actress and Lancome model Isabella Rossellini picks the films that have brought most joy into her heart. Listed here courtesy of Time Out, she explains each of her choices as she presents a diverse and eclectic mix of movies.
Incidentally, Isabella only lists her top 8 films, which appear below.

1. Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)
She says: “I think Marilyn Monroe was never in sexier form than here in her third-last film playing the uber-zaftig Sugar Kane Kowalczyk. As wonderfully as Orry-Kelly made the gowns …

PAUL VERHOEVEN’S TOP 10 FILMS
1. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
2. Ivan the Terrible, Part II (Eisenstein, 1958)
3. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
4. Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1951)
5. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
6. The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1956)
7. La Règle du Jeu (Renoir, 1939)
8. Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
9. Los Olvidados (Buñuel, 1950)
10. Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)