| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Academy Awards[20][21] | Best Motion Picture | Billy Wilder | Won |
| Best Director | Won | |||
| Best Actor | Jack Lemmon | Nominated | ||
| Best Actress | Shirley MacLaine | Nominated | ||
| Best Supporting Actor | Jack Kruschen | Nominated | ||
| Best Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen | Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond | Won | ||
| Best Art Direction – Black-and-White | Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle | Won | ||
| Best Cinematography – Black-and-White | Joseph LaShelle | Nominated | ||
| Best Film Editing | Daniel Mandell | Won | ||
| Best Sound | Gordon E. Sawyer | Nominated | ||
| 1960 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Film | Won | |
| Best Foreign Actor | Jack Lemmon | Won | ||
| Best Foreign Actress | Shirley MacLaine | Won | ||
| 1960 | Cinema Writers Circle Awards | Best Foreign Film | Won | |
| 1960 | Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Director - Motion Pictures | Billy Wilder | Won |
| 1960 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Won | |
| Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Jack Lemmon | Won | ||
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Shirley MacLaine | Won | ||
| Best Director – Motion Picture | Billy Wilder | Nominated | ||
| 1960 | Grammy Awards | Best Soundtrack Album | Adolph Deutsch | Nominated |
| 1960 | Laurel Awards | Top Comedy | Won | |
| Top Male Comedy Performance | Jack Lemmon | Won | ||
| Top Female Dramatic Performance | Shirley MacLaine | Won | ||
| 1960 | National Board of Review Awards | Top Ten Films | 8th Place | |
| 1960 | National Film Preservation Board | National Film Registry | Inducted | |
| 1960 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Film | Won[a] | |
| Best Director | Billy Wilder | Won[b] | ||
| Best Screenplay | Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond | Won | ||
| 1960 | Venice International Film Festival | Golden Lion | Billy Wilder | Nominated |
| Best Actress | Shirley MacLaine | Won | ||
| 1960 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Written American Comedy | Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond | Won |
Although Lemmon did not win the Oscar, Kevin Spacey dedicated his Oscar for American Beauty (1999) to Lemmon's performance. According to the behind-the-scenes feature on the American Beauty DVD, the film's director, Sam Mendes, had watched The Apartment (among other classic American films) as inspiration in preparation for shooting his film.
Within a few years after The Apartment's release, the routine use of black-and-white film in Hollywood ended. Since The Apartment only two black-and-white movies have won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Schindler's List (1993) and The Artist (2011).
In 1994, The Apartment was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2002, a poll of film directors conducted by Sight and Sound magazine listed the film as the 14th greatest film of all time (tied with La Dolce Vita).[22] In the 2012 poll by the same magazine directors voted the film 44th greatest of all time.[23] The film was included in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002.[24] In 2006, Premiere voted this film as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time". The Writers Guild of America ranked the film's screenplay (written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond.) the 15th greatest ever.[25] In 2015, The Apartment ranked 24th on BBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world.[26] The film was selected as the 27th best comedy of all time in a poll of 253 film critics from 52 countries conducted by the BBC in 2017.[27]
American Film Institute lists:
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (#93),[28]
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs (#20),[29]
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions (#62),[30]
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (#80).[31]
