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Billy Wilder's penchant for amoral characters with acidic tongues was never as cynically realised as in Ace in the Hole, a fierce satire of the media that only continues to grow in relevance. Kirk Douglas plays a down-on-his-luck reporter stationed at a small town newspaper who realises he can manipulate the story of a miner trapped in a cave-in to his own benefit. While the film lacks the guns and smoky backrooms that populate so many other noir stories, Ace in the Hole represents a shift that brought noir archetypes into the figurative (and literal) light, spreading their corruption into all facets of American society.

PG | Mild violence