The Seven Year Itch

This unmissable comedy follows Tom Ewell, a married man alone in New York, who lets his imagination run wild with fantasies about his upstairs neighbour. At the height of her career, Marilyn Monroe plays a character based on her own legend: simultaneously seductive and naïve, she subverts the role’s sexualisation — such as in the iconic scene in which her white dress blows around in the updraft from a subway grate. In a narrative that reflects on male desire, Wilder plays with subtle irony: much of what we see is simply the fruit of men’s obsessive fantasies. A timeless classic, albeit one that displays the dated gender and sexual conventions of the day.