--- title: "Ace in the Hole" year: 1951 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/ace-in-the-hole" fi1m_score: 87 critics_score: 77 critics_reviews: 14 published: "2026-09-16T12:28:10.171437+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T12:28:26.375384+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Ace in the Hole (1951) Directed by Billy Wilder · 1h 52m · MPA NR · Drama **Fi1m score: 87** · Critics 77 from 14 reviews *In a sentence:* Kirk Douglas could make a request for a comment sound like extortion > Billy Wilder’s *Ace in the Hole* is a furious, funny account of a reporter treating another man’s suffering as a career opportunity. Kirk Douglas makes its cruelty frighteningly persuasive, even when the script makes greed explain too much. ## Synopsis Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas), a journalist looking for a way back up, sees his chance when Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) becomes trapped in a cave. Reporting on the man’s predicament brings him into contact with Lorraine (Jan Sterling), the trapped man’s bitter wife. He wants a story that will restore his standing, and this disaster offers the prospect of attention. The urgent business of helping someone in danger now has to compete with a reporter’s ambitions. As Charles Tatum takes an interest in the cave, Lorraine has grievances of her own. ## Review *Ace in the Hole* is a harsh, gripping newspaper drama, and we recommend it warmly, though Billy Wilder sometimes makes greed explain people too completely. Its reporter, Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas), sees a trapped man as a chance to repair his own prospects. The film takes that ugly calculation seriously enough to let us understand its appeal. There is a good story here, and a capable journalist who knows how to sell it; the horror is how readily those professional virtues become excuses for what he does. Kirk Douglas gives Charles Tatum a force that makes the film’s cynicism difficult to dismiss as mere scolding. We found him frightening because he treats another man’s helplessness as something he is entitled to use. The performance is aggressive, but not merely loud. Kirk Douglas makes his certainty sound enough like competence to explain why anyone would listen. Billy Wilder allows that energy to carry us along for longer than feels comfortable, even though the film gives us no reason to mistake the reporter’s purpose. Jan Sterling’s Lorraine is essential to keeping this from becoming a display by its leading man. Her bitterness has an impatience that resists the sentimental treatment a wife in such a story might receive. We are not asked to pretend that suffering automatically improves a marriage, or makes the people near it generous. There is pleasure in the dryness of her delivery, and she gives Lorraine enough force to hold our attention even when the reporter is trying to commandeer it. Charles Lang’s cinematography gives the cave a physical unpleasantness that the reporter’s excitement cannot make us forget. Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) is trapped there, and the confinement keeps the story’s human cost plain. That matters in a film with so much relish for verbal cruelty: the place itself resists the pleasure of a well-turned insult. Arthur P. Schmidt’s editing keeps the exchanges brisk without making the suffering seem incidental, and the film remains engrossing across its 112 minutes. The script by Billy Wilder, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels is strongest when Charles Tatum can make a selfish demand sound like ordinary business. He does not need to announce that he is wicked; his determination to get a story makes familiar professional language sound ugly. The humour grows out of people trying to get something from each other, and the dialogue makes those exchanges entertaining without disguising their cruelty. Hugo Friedhofer’s score is suitably stern, although we would sometimes prefer less insistence when the dialogue has already made the point clear. The weakness is the ease with which the wider world confirms the reporter’s view of it. Billy Wilder’s attack on the public appetite for other people’s trouble is convincing, but some characters seem to have been recruited simply to prove him right. Their greed can become predictable before we have learnt much else about them. Jan Sterling does much to complicate that pattern, though the writing sometimes limits how far she can get. Watch it with someone who enjoys a newspaper drama for the pleasure of seeing a professional at work. Kirk Douglas supplies that pleasure in abundance, which is precisely why the film is so uncomfortable. Allow time afterwards for an argument about how much of the blame belongs to the people buying the story. *Fi1m score 87, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics praise Ace in the Hole as a caustic media satire whose account of sensationalism and public appetite for suffering remains relevant. Praise centres on Kirk Douglas’s ruthless reporter, with Wilder’s economical direction and sharp writing also drawing approval. The reviews repeatedly stress that the blame extends beyond corrupt journalism to the crowds consuming it. Several find bitter humour in that bleak view of human behaviour. The spread is wide despite twelve of the fourteen reviews being positive, and the two dissenters both write in 1951. The New York Times acknowledges the performances and the force of the crowd scenes but finds the plot’s assumptions implausible. The New Yorker goes further, rejecting the reporter’s characterisation, the dialogue and the mixture of satire and melodrama. The central disagreement is over credibility: most critics value the film’s severity, while its detractors find that its exaggerations weaken the drama. ### Reviews we read (14) - **Time Out**, David Fear (5/5): Wilder’s acidic media satire was ahead of its time and remains a blistering indictment of tabloid infotainment and human cynicism. The review highlights the film’s flaying of the fourth estate and its enduring relevance. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/ace-in-the-hole) - **The AV Club**, Nathan Rabin (A): The critic calls the film a lost masterpiece whose unflinching darkness about media exploitation was ahead of its time. Douglas's ruthless journalist and Sterling's bitter wife are singled out as key to its guilty laughs and prescient bite. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/ace-in-the-hole-1798202800) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): The film offers an unflinching portrait of rotten journalism and the public’s appetite for sensational stories, with no one escaping blame. It singles out the lean, economical direction and Kirk Douglas’s ferocious lead performance for particular praise. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ace-in-the-hole-1951) - **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (90/100, inferred): The review presents the film as an unsung masterpiece about greed and moral irresponsibility in the media and public. It singles out the way the escalating carnival outside the cave mirrors the trapped man's suffering and the story's lasting relevance to tabloid culture. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/ace-in-the-hole/) - **The Guardian** (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a strikingly relevant and cyclonically witty media satire that still stands the test of time, praising its sharp dialogue, cynical take on sensationalism, and how it shows stories spiralling out of control with public complicity. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/16/ace-in-the-hole-movie-kirk-douglas-billy-wilder-movie-where-to-watch) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (80/100, inferred): The review presents Ace in the Hole as a neglected classic whose exposure of the underside of celebrity culture has only grown more relevant over time. It singles out Kirk Douglas's chillingly superb performance as the manipulative reporter. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/ace-hole-review/) - **Little White Lies**, Thomas Hobbs (80/100, inferred): The film is a prescient warning about media manipulation and the bending of journalistic norms that has only grown more relevant over decades. It singles out Kirk Douglas’s career-best turn as the opportunistic reporter for particular praise. [Read](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/ace-in-the-hole-billy-wider-post-truth-era) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The grim story of an unscrupulous reporter winning brief fame at a victim’s expense is graphically unfolded. It singles out the fine performances, especially Douglas as the heel reporter, and Wilder’s direction capturing morbid expectancy. [Read](https://variety.com/1950/film/reviews/ace-in-the-hole-1200417018/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (40/100, inferred): The sordid and cynical drama delivers stinging impact through its portrait of a corrupt reporter exploiting a disaster, but the plot relies on naïve and absurd assumptions that weaken it as drama. It singles out the vivid depiction of mob morbidity and strong performances for notice while faulting the overall construction. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1951/06/30/archives/the-screen-in-review-ace-in-the-hole-billy-wilder-special-with-kirk.html) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (20/100, inferred): The picture is a compound of unjelled satire, halfbaked melodrama, and dialogue lacking wit. It singles out the preposterous characterization of the reporter and the film’s overall foolishness for complaint. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1951/07/07/1951-07-07-035-tny-cards-000040014) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff ([A]): The critic praises the film as one of Wilder’s top-tier pictures, a scathing examination of how news is made centered on an amoral journalist’s ruthless ambition. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-films-of-billy-wilder-a-retrospective-20120327/3/) - **Collider**, Cathal McGuinness (85/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's sharp, scathing take on media sensationalism and the exploitation of tragedy, noting its modern relevance in a 'fake news' era. It praises the bitter, pessimistic view of human nature and journalism while acknowledging its initial commercial and critical failure before later acclaim. [Read](https://collider.com/ace-in-the-hole-kirk-douglas/) - **/Film**, Joe Garza (85/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film’s biting critique of media manipulation and sensationalism, noting that its themes remain relevant through Wilder’s sharp direction and writing. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/944241/the-14-best-billy-wilder-movies-ranked/) - **The Skinny**, Lewis Porteous (★★★★): The critic calls the film the purest expression of Billy Wilder's caustic vision and praises its savage attack on an unscrupulous and corrupt press. Kirk Douglas's performance as the fallen newspaperman is highlighted as electric. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/dvd-reviews/ace-in-the-hole) ## Details - **Director:** Billy Wilder - **Director:** Billy Wilder - **Writer:** Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman, Billy Wilder - **Cinematography:** Charles Lang - **Editor:** Arthur P. Schmidt - **Music:** Hugo Friedhofer - **Costume design:** Edith Head - **Producer:** Billy Wilder - **Cast:** Kirk Douglas as Charles Tatum; Jan Sterling as Lorraine; Robert Arthur as Herbie Cook; Porter Hall as Jacob Q. Boot; Frank Cady as Mr. Federber; Richard Benedict as Leo Minosa; Ray Teal as Sheriff; Lewis Martin as McCardle - **Runtime:** 1h 52m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 4 July 1951 - **Genres:** Drama - **Budget:** $2 million - **Box office:** $1 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX8GLtyWpOY ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: GB, HU, IN, RO, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - National Film Registry 2017: National Film Registry (won) - Academy Awards 1952: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated) - Venice Film Festival 1951: Golden Lion (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Sweet Smell of Success* (1957): More newspaper cruelty, with reputations traded by men who call it work. - *The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum* (1975): For a woman’s experience of being made useful to a predatory press. - *Network* (1976), Fi1m 86: For another furious account of suffering repackaged as profitable public entertainment. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/network.md) - *Peepli Live* (2010): A rural media circus whose comedy also makes room for the exploited. - *Nightcrawler* (2014), Fi1m 85: A colder look at the cameraman who needs the disaster to continue. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/nightcrawler.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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