Film

Sweet Smell of Success

A ferociously cynical New York noir about power, and how casually it's abused. Burt Lancaster's gossip columnist and Tony Curtis's desperate press agent trade some of the most quotable venom ever written, all under Elmer Bernstein's jazz score and James Wong Howe's gleaming night-time photography. It's for anyone who likes their morality plays served with a knife's edge and dialogue you'll want to rewind.

TMDb rating3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love sharp, cynical dialogue and characters who sell their souls one small favour at a time, with a black-and-white New York that feels like a cage of neon and smoke.

Skip it if you want warmth, a likeable hero or a story that moves briskly; its meanness is the point, and it can feel airless and talky for long stretches.

What it asks of you: Ninety-seven minutes of close attention to words, glances and manoeuvres, with few easy releases; it rewards patience and punishes anyone hoping for a comfortable ride.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Network1976

The same disgust for media power dialed up to operatic fury, with Peter Finch's newsman losing his mind on live television and nobody stopping him because the ratings are too good.

But The satire is broader and louder than Sweet Smell's cold precision; some find it shouts where the earlier film whispers.

Network poster

A Face in the Crowd1957

Same year, same screenwriter's world (Budd Schulberg), same terror of a manufactured public figure who gets drunk on his own influence and can't be un-created.

But Andy Griffith's performance is genuinely unsettling if you only know him as folksy; the film's fears feel almost too prophetic now.

A Face in the Crowd poster

Nightcrawler2014

Jake Gyllenhaal's stringer is Sidney Falco with a camcorder — the same oily hunger, the same willingness to manufacture the story he's supposed to be reporting.

But It's more gruesome and visceral than Sweet Smell's verbal cruelty; the violence here is on-screen, not just implied.

Nightcrawler poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Sweet Smell of Success

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Le Corbeau1943

Both films are studies in how the weaponizing of reputation and rumor can destroy people who never see the blow coming — Sweet Smell just gives it a byline and a nightclub.

A French wartime drama about anonymous poison-pen letters tearing a small town apart — an earlier, quieter demonstration that words can be as lethal as anything Hunsecker prints in his column.

But Subtitled, slower, and steeped in occupation-era French anxiety that needs a little context to land fully.

Le Corbeau poster
More like this (8)

Glengarry Glen Ross1992

Another pressure-cooker of men destroying each other with words for status and money, with dialogue so sharp it practically draws blood.

But It's stagier and more claustrophobic — one room, relentless talk, no New York nightlife to breathe in.

Glengarry Glen Ross poster

The Insider1999

A slower, more serious look at what happens when journalism and corporate power collide, with the same interest in who controls the story and why.

But At two and a half hours it's a much bigger commitment, and it plays it straight where Sweet Smell revels in its own nastiness.

The Insider poster

Wall Street1987

A toxic mentor, an eager young man who wants to be him, and a slow corrosion of conscience — the Hunsecker/Falco dynamic in finance instead of Broadway.

But It's glossier and more seduced by its own excess; the moral reckoning lands softer than Sweet Smell's.

Wall Street poster

Broadcast News1987

Newsroom ambition and compromised ethics, but warmer and funnier — a good chaser if you want the milieu without the poison.

But It's fundamentally a romantic comedy-drama; if you wanted Sweet Smell's teeth, this one's gums.

Broadcast News poster

All the President's Men1976

The other side of the coin — journalism as a force for good, methodical and true, a useful counterweight to Hunsecker's abuse of the same power.

But It's procedural and unglamorous by design; don't expect wit or menace, expect phone calls and index cards.

All the President's Men poster

The Social Network2010

Aaron Sorkin's dialogue has the same rat-a-tat cruelty, and the story asks the same question: what does a person become once they've decided nothing matters but winning.

But It's a cooler, more detached film emotionally; you watch it rather than feel scorched by it.

The Social Network poster

Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer2019

Sweet Smell invented a fictional gossip tyrant; this documentary proves the real machine was every bit as ruthless, just with worse dialogue.

A documentary that shows you the real-life Hunsecker: a tabloid empire that traded in ruin, catered to power, and openly boasted about who it could destroy.

But Talking-heads documentary pacing, and the real story is somehow more cynical and less elegant than the fictional one.

Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer poster

His Girl Friday1940

Strip the noir lighting and cynicism from Sweet Smell and you get this — reporters and editors gleefully wrecking lives for a story, just dressed as farce instead of tragedy.

The same newsroom ecosystem of ambition, manipulation, and moral flexibility, but as a screwball comedy fired at breakneck speed — proof the engine works even played for laughs.

But It's a comedy through and through; if you want Sweet Smell's bite, this substitutes charm and speed for menace.

His Girl Friday poster

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