2Some Like it Hot (1959)

Great comedies wreak havoc on conventional wisdom, and Some Like it Hot changed what comedies could be in Hollywood – to wit, a pastiche of genres, including a throwback gangster film and a slapstick comedy, never mind the contemporary shock value of two cross-dressing leads. Interviewed by writer-director Cameron Crowe for Conversations with Wilder, Wilder discussed how he and his longtime screenwriting partner I.A.L. Diamond arrived at the film’s classic exit line: “Nobody’s perfect”: “We needed a line for Joe E. Brown and could not find it. But somewhere in the beginning of our discussion, Iz [Diamond] said: ‘Nobody's perfect.’ And I said: `Look, let's go back to your line... Let's send it to the mimeograph department so that they have something, and then we're going to really sit down and make a real funny last line.’” They never found a new line, Wilder said. “Nobody’s perfect” stuck.