The Lost Weekend by Billy Wilder

The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American film noir drama film directed by Billy Wilder starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. It was based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel of the same name about an alcoholic writer. 

Billy Wilder was inspired to make “Lost Weekend” during “Double Indemnity”, seeing the effect Raymond Chandler’s drinking had on the production. The movie is more or less faithful to the novel, except for the removal of a homosexual experience Don had in college; his repressed homosexuality being another reason for his drinking (shades of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”).

 Billy Wilder directed some excellent films, but ‘The Lost Weekend’ is one of his best. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also shared the Grand Prix at the first Cannes Film Festival, making it one of only three films (the other two being Marty (1955) and Parasite (2019) to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the highest award at Cannes.