Curtiz' adaptation of MILDRED PIERCE is a great example of how to use the genre and filter a story through it. I also love SUNSET BLVD.
CHINATOWN, a much much later one, also does a great job using that genre in a post-modern style, I'd find it very inspiring
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"