Best Movies of 1950-1959

#1 12 Angry Men 1957

Life is in their hands. Death is on their minds

Director: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber, Rudy Bond, James Kelly, Billy Nelson.

Overview: 12 Angry Men is the 1957 film debut for director Sidney Lumet. An interpretion from a Broadway show, this film is about 12 jurors who must decide whether an 18-year-old is guilty of killing his father.

Genres: Drama, Mystery. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 36m. Rated: G.

#2 Seven Samurai 1954
Shichinin no samurai

Director: Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katô, Isao Kimura, Keiko Tsushima.

Overview: A veteran samurai, who has fallen on hard times, answers a village's request for protection from bandits. He gathers 6 other samurai to help him, and they teach the townspeople how to defend themselves, and they supply the samurai with three small meals a day. The film culminates in a giant battle when 40 bandits attack the village.

Genres: Action, Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: Japan. Runtime: 3h 27m. Rated: NR.

#3 Rear Window 1954

Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Herbert Coleman. Cast: Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian, Georgine Darcy, Sara Berner, Frank Cady, Jesslyn Fax, Rand Harper, Irene Winston, Havis Davenport.

Overview: Jefferies has had his leg in a cast for weeks and has nothing to do but watch his neighbors from his window. His voyeurism leads him to think that he’s witnessed a murder. Together with his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella they try to solve the mystery and possibly a murder.

Genres: Suspense, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 52m. Rated: PG.

#4 Sunset Boulevard 1950

A Hollywood Story

Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Buster Keaton, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Anna Q. Nilsson, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, H.B. Warner.

Overview: Director Billy Wilder is ice cold in his captivating Hollywood drama Sunset Blvd. A screenwriter begins an affair with a silent film actress who thinks she’s at the top of her field...

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 50m. Rated: PG.

#5 North by Northwest 1959

It's a deadly game of 'tag' and Cary Grant is 'it'...

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Philip Coolidge, Doreen Lang, Josephine Hutchinson, Leo G. Carroll, Philip Ober, Adam Williams, Edward Platt, Robert Ellenstein, Martin Landau, Les Tremayne, Patrick McVey.

Overview: An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h 16m. Rated: G.

#6 Paths of Glory 1957

Director: Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris, Richard Anderson, Joe Turkel, Timothy Carey.

Overview: Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory is among the most powerful antiwar films ever made. A fiery Kirk Douglas stars as a World War I French colonel who goes head-to-head with the army’s ruthless top brass when his men are accused of cowardice after being unable to carry out an impossible mission. This haunting, exquisitely photographed dissection of the military machine in all its absurdity and capacity for dehumanization (a theme Kubrick would continue to explore throughout his career) is assembled with its legendary director’s customary precision, from its tense trench warfare sequences to its gripping courtroom climax to its ravaging final scene.

Genres: Drama, History, War. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 26m. Rated: NR.

#7 The Human Condition I 1959
Ningen no jôken Vol. I

Director: Masaki Kobayashi. Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama.

Overview: The Human Condition is a Japanese epic film trilogy made between 1959 and 1961. The trilogy follows the life of Kaji, a Japanese pacifist and socialist, as he tries to survive in the fascist and oppressive world of WWII-era Japan. No Greater Love (1959) opens with Kaji marrying his sweetheart Michiko despite his misgivings about the future.

Genres: Drama, History. Country: Japan. Runtime: 3h 28m.

#8 Vertigo 1958

Alfred Hitchcock engulfs you in a whirlpool of terror and tension

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones, Raymond Bailey, Ellen Corby, Konstantin Shayne, Lee Patrick.

Overview: An ex-police officer is asked to follow an old friends wife who thinks she is being followed by ghosts. A classic Hitchcock about a man who’s afraid of heights and a woman he must unfortunately follow to great heights.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Mystery, Romance, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h 9m. Rated: PG.

#9 All About Eve 1950

It's all about women...and their men!

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Ritter.

Overview: Director Mankiewisz’s tragic comedy about the American show business is one of the darkest and most cynical films ever made. Bette Davis is brilliant in her roll as a once Broadway Diva who takes care of the promotion for the talented actress Eva (played by Anne Baxter). All together the film won six Oscars in 1951.

Genres: Comedy, Drama. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h 18m. Rated: PG.

#10 Rashomon 1950
Rashômon

Director: Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijirô Ueda, Noriko Honma, Daisuke Katô.

Overview: In ancient Japan a crime take place as told from three different travelers who have experienced the crime: a man being killed and his wife being raped. Which if any of the stories is true? A Akira Kurosawa film about morals, truth, and communication.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Foreign, Mystery. Country: Japan. Runtime: 1h 28m. Rated: NR.

#11 Singin' in the Rain 1952

Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly. Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Douglas Fowley, Rita Moreno.

Overview: Hollywood's attempts to move from the 'silent' era to the 'Talkies' are not going as planned.

Genres: Comedy, Musical. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 43m. Rated: G.

#12 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957

It spans a whole new world of entertainment!

Director: David Lean. Cast: William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne, André Morell, Peter Williams.

Overview: A classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson , the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

Genres: Action, Drama, Foreign, History, War. Countries: United Kingdom, Sri Lanka. Runtime: 2h 41m. Rated: PG.

#13 Some Like It Hot 1959

The movie too HOT for words!

Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Joe E. Brown, Nehemiah Persoff, Joan Shawlee, Barbara Drew, Edward G. Robinson Jr., Pat O'Brien, George E. Stone, Mike Mazurki.

Overview: Two musicians witness a mob hit and struggle to find a way out of the city before they are found by the gangsters. Their only opportunity is to join an all-girl as they leave on a tour. To make their getaway, they must first disguise themselves as women, then keep their identities secret and deal with the problems this brings - such as an attractive bandmate rich and very determined suitor.

Genres: Comedy, Crime, Musical, Romance. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h. Rated: PG-13.

#14 Witness for the Prosecution 1957

Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, John Williams, Henry Daniell, Ian Wolfe, Torin Thatcher, Norma Varden, Una O'Connor, Francis Compton, Philip Tonge, Ruta Lee.

Overview: When Leonard Vole is arrested for the sensational murder of a rich, middle-aged widow, the famous Sir Wilfrid Robarts agrees to appear on his behalf. Sir Wilfrid, recovering from a near-fatal heart attack, is *supposed* to be on a diet of bland, civil suits. But the lure of the criminal courts is too much for him, especially when the case is so difficult: Vole's only alibi witness is his wife, the calm and coldly calculating Christine Vole. Sir Wilfrid's task becomes even more impossible when Christine agrees to be a witness not for the defence but for the prosecution.

Genres: Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 56m. Rated: PG-13.

#15 On the Waterfront 1954

Director: Elia Kazan. Cast: Marlon Brando, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, Leif Erickson, James Westerfield.

Overview: On the Waterfront is a social criticism gangster film from director Elia Kazan, about an ex-boxer, who is part of the corruption of the trade unions for the men working on the waterfront in New York. A film about mob violence that won eight Academy Awards.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Romance. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 48m. Rated: NR.

#16 Wild Strawberries 1957
Smultronstället

Directors: Gösta Ekman, Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Jullan Kindahl, Gunnar Sjöberg, Max von Sydow, Åke Fridell, Ann-Marie Wiman.

Overview: Professor of medicine Isak Borg travels to Lund University in order to receive his anniversary title. Along the road he meets strangers and relatives, and in his dreams he is confronted with his own past as well as fear of insufficiency.

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: Sweden. Runtime: 1h 31m.

#17 The Seventh Seal 1957
Det sjunde inseglet

Director: Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson, Inga Gill, Maud Hansson, Inga Landgré, Gunnel Lindblom, Bertil Anderberg, Anders Ek, Åke Fridell, Gunnar Olsson, Erik Strandmark.

Overview: Ingmar Bergmann’s masterpiece film about confronting death. Death comes to a knight upon his arrival from battle and attempts to take him away. The knight challenges Death to a chess match as the people around them are haunted by the plague. The Seventh Seal comes from a riddle about crusaders who arrive home after a few years to find their people affected by the plague.

Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Indie. Country: Sweden. Runtime: 1h 32m. Rated: NR.

#18 The Wages of Fear 1953
Le salaire de la peur

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot. Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter van Eyck, Folco Lulli, Véra Clouzot, Antonio Centa, Luis De Lima, Jo Dest, Darío Moreno, William Tubbs.

Overview: The Wages of Fear / Le Salaire de la Peur – is a black and white French classic by Clouzot about a South American village in the 1950’s where men who are paid to transporting extremely dangerous nitroglycerine. The story is about the rivalry that grows between the two groups of drivers. An art road genre movie.

Genres: Adventure, Drama, Foreign, Road Movie, Thriller. Countries: France, Italy. Runtime: 2h 30m. Rated: NR.

#19 Ikiru 1952

Director: Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka, Nobuo Kaneko, Bokuzen Hidari, Miki Odagiri.

Overview: Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: Japan. Runtime: 2h 23m.

#20 Touch of Evil 1958

THE STRANGEST VENGEANCE EVER PLANNED!

Director: Orson Welles. Cast: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Joanna Moore, Ray Collins, Dennis Weaver, Valentin de Vargas, Mort Mills, Victor Millan, Lalo Rios, Michael Sargent, Phil Harvey, Joi Lansing.

Overview: Stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in Mexican border town.

Genres: Crime, Film Noir, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 46m. Rated: PG-13.

#21 The Great War 1959
La grande guerra

Director: Mario Monicelli. Cast: Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman, Silvana Mangano.

Overview: Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.

Countries: Italy, France. Runtime: 2h 17m.

#22 Tokyo Story 1953
Tôkyô monogatari

Director: Yasujirô Ozu. Cast: Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, Sô Yamamura, Kuniko Miyake, Kyôko Kagawa, Eijirô Tôno, Nobuo Nakamura, Shirô Osaka, Hisao Toake, Teruko Nagaoka.

Overview: An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.

Genres: Drama, Foreign. Country: Japan. Runtime: 2h 16m.

#23 Diabolique 1955
Les Diaboliques

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot. Cast: Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Thérèse Dorny, Noël Roquevert, Yves-Marie Maurin, Georges Poujouly, Georges Chamarat, Jacques Varennes.

Overview: Les Diaboliques is a mystery thriller from French director Henri-Georges Clouzot about a triangle relationship that leads to murder.The wife of a cruel headmaster and his mistress conspire to kill him, but after the murder is committed his body disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women.

Genres: Foreign, Horror, Thriller. Country: France. Runtime: 1h 47m.

#24 Strangers on a Train 1951

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Norma Varden, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale, Howard St. John, John Brown, Robert Gist, Kasey Rogers.

Overview: Strangers on a Train is a typical Hitchcock thriller with all the elements of a suspense film masterpiece: The innocent man is being chased for a crime he didn’t do.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 41m. Rated: PG.

#25 Umberto D. 1952

Director: Vittorio De Sica. Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Ileana Simova, Elena Rea, Memmo Carotenuto.

Overview: Umberto D. is an Italian surrealistic film criticizing corporations. A film from 1952 by Italian director Vittorio De Sica.

Genres: Drama, Foreign. Country: Italy. Runtime: 1h 29m.

#26 High Noon 1952

The story of a man who was too proud to run

Director: Fred Zinnemann. Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, Otto Kruger, Lon Chaney Jr., Harry Morgan, Ian MacDonald, Eve McVeagh, Morgan Farley, Harry Shannon, Lee Van Cleef, Robert J. Wilke, Sheb Wooley.

Overview: High Noon is about a recently freed leader of a gang of bandits in the desert who is looking to get revenge on the Sheriff who put him in jail. A legendary western film from the Austrian director Fred Zinnemann.

Genres: Action, Drama, Western. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 25m.

#27 Sansho the Bailiff 1955
Sanshô dayû

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa, Eitarô Shindô.

Overview: In mediaeval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: Japan. Runtime: 2h 4m.

#28 Nights of Cabiria 1957
Le Notti di Cabiria

Director: Federico Fellini. Cast: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi.

Overview: Cabiria is a wide-eyed waif, a streetwalker living in a poor section of Rome where she owns her little house, has a bank account, and dreams of a miracle. We follow her nights (and days): a boyfriend steals 40,000 lire from her and nearly drowns her, a movie star on the Via Veneto takes her home with him, at a local shrine she seeks the Madonna's intercession, then she meets an accountant who's seen her, hypnotized on a vaudeville stage, acting out her heart's longings. He courts her. Is it fate that led to their meeting? Is this finally a man who appreciates her for who she is?

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Countries: France, Italy. Runtime: 1h 50m.

#29 Ace in the Hole 1951

Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal, Lewis Martin, John Berkes, Frances Dominguez, Gene Evans, Frank Jaquet, Harry Harvey, Bob Bumpas, Geraldine Hall.

Overview: One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop.

Genre: Drama. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 51m.

#30 The Young and the Damned 1950
Los Olvidados

Director: Luis Buñuel. Cast: Alfonso Mejía, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Roberto Cobo, Alma Delia Fuentes, Francisco Jambrina, Jesús Navarro, Efraín Arauz, Jorge Pérez, Javier Amézcua, Mário Ramírez.

Overview: A gang of slum kids resort to deliquency as a defense against poverty and societal indifference.

Genres: Crime, Drama. Country: Mexico. Runtime: 1h 25m.

#31 La Strada 1954

Director: Federico Fellini. Cast: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart, Aldo Silvani, Marcella Rovere, Livia Venturini, Gustavo Giorgi, Yami Kamadeva, Mario Passante, Anna Primula.

Overview: With this poetically fabulous film classic Italian director Federico Fellini makes a world wide success of emotional melodrama and a highlight of the Italian Neo-realism movement.

Genres: Drama, Road Movie. Country: Italy. Runtime: 1h 44m.

#32 Rififi 1955
Du rififi chez les hommes

Director: Jules Dassin. Cast: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey, Magali Noël, Marie Sabouret, Robert Hossein, Claude Sylvain, Jules Dassin.

Overview: Rififi is a classic film noir with a famous 20 minute long break-in in absolute silence. A classic film noir.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Foreign. Country: France. Runtime: 2h 26m.

#33 Ben-Hur 1959

The entertainment experience of a lifetime.

Director: William Wyler. Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell, Frank Thring, Sam Jaffe, Ady Berber, Finlay Currie, George Relph, André Morell.

Overview: Ben-Hur is a 1959 epic film directed by William Wyler, the third film version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. The film went on to win a record of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a feat equaled only by Titanic in 1998 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004. It was also the last film to win the Oscar for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, until nearly 44 years later when Mystic River achieved the same feat.The movie revolves around a Jewish prince who is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend and how he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

Genres: Adventure, Drama, History. Country: Italy. Runtime: 3h 32m. Rated: G.

#34 The Night of the Hunter 1955

The wedding night, the anticipation, the kiss, the knife, BUT ABOVE ALL...THE SUSPENSE!

Director: Charles Laughton. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, Peter Graves, Don Beddoe, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, Gloria Castillo.

Overview: A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

Genres: Drama, Suspense, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 33m. Rated: NR.

#35 Ugetsu 1953
Ugetsu monogatari

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Eitarô Ozawa, Ikio Sawamura.

Overview: In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai.

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Horror. Country: Japan. Runtime: 1h 34m.

#36 The 400 Blows 1959
Les quatre cent coups

Angel faces hell-bent for violence.

Director: François Truffaut. Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Georges Flamant, Patrick Auffay, Robert Beauvais, Yvonne Claudie, Pierre Repp, Guy Decomble.

Overview: Intensely touching story of a misunderstood young adolescent who left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: France. Runtime: 1h 39m. Rated: NR.

#37 The Killing 1956

Director: Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Ted de Corsia, Joe Sawyer, James Edwards, Timothy Carey, Joe Turkel, Jay Adler, Kola Kwariani, Tito Vuolo, Dorothy Adams.

Overview: The Killing was Stanley Kubrick’s first film with a professional cast and the first time he achieved public recognition as the unconventional director he’s now known for. The story is of ex-prisoners who plan to set up a racetrack so they can live a life without monetary worries. One of the more exceptional films of the 1950’s.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Thriller, Film Noir. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 25m.

#38 Stalag 17 1953

Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Richard Erdman, Peter Graves, Neville Brand, Sig Ruman, William Pierson, Gil Stratton, Jay Lawrence.

Overview: Stalag 17 is a war time film from director Billy Wilder set in a German prison camp. The story follows a group of Americans that want to break out.

Genres: Drama, History, Romance, War. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 56m.

#39 Sweet Smell of Success 1957

This is the story of J.J. - But not the way he wants it told

Director: Alexander Mackendrick. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, Jeff Donnell, Edith Atwater, Joe Frisco, Emile Meyer.

Overview: Sweet Smell of Success is a Film Noir from American director Alexander Mackendrick. This drama tells the defamation of a media mogul against a jazz musician who wants to marry his sister.

Genre: Drama. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 36m. Rated: NR.

#40 Anatomy of a Murder 1959

Director: Otto Preminger. Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell, Duke Ellington, Eve Arden, Kathryn Grant, George C. Scott, Orson Bean, Russ Brown.

Overview: Paul Biegler is a small town lawyer who until recently had been the local prosecutor and given a lack of clients, he spends a lot of time fishing. When a murder takes place in a trailer park on the outskirts of town, he is asked to defend Lt. Frederick Manion who admits to having killed Barney Quill, a local bar owner who allegedly raped his wife. He now claims temporary insanity. The case is both

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h 40m.

#41 Throne of Blood 1957
Kumonosu jô

Director: Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Akira Kubo, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Takashi Shimura.

Overview: Mikio and Washizu are the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Fortress under a local lord, who reigns in the Spiders' Web Castle. After defeating the lord's enemies in battle, they visit the fortress. Washizu, driven by his wife, conspires and murders the lord, becoming lord of the castle. But his evil deeds come back to haunt him.

Genres: Eastern, Foreign, History. Country: Japan. Runtime: 1h 49m.

#42 Dial M For Murder 1954

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson.

Overview: Inspector Hubbard has to explain an extremely tricky case of keeping Mrs. Margot Wendice from capital punishment. Hitchcock has created with this film an almost perfect Murder, and made Grace Kelly famous.

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 44m. Rated: PG.

#43 Ballad of a Soldier 1959
Баллада о солдате

Director: Grigori Tchoukhrai. Cast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova.

Overview: During World War II, 19 year old soldier Alyosha gets a medal as a reward for a heroic act at the front. Instead of this medal he asks for a few days leave to visit his mother and repair the roof of their home. On the train eastwards he meets Shura who is on her way to her aunt. In those few days traveling together they fall in love.

Genres: Foreign, Indie, Romance. Country: Russian Federation. Runtime: 1h 28m.

#44 Fires on the Plain 1959
Nobi

Director: Kon Ichikawa. Cast: Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa, Mickey Curtis, Mantarô Ushio, Kyû Sazanka, Yoshihiro Hamaguchi.

Overview: An agonizing portrait of desperate Japanese soldiers stranded in a strange land during World War II, Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain is a compelling descent into psychological and physical oblivion. Denied hospital treatment for tuberculosis and cast off into the unknown, Private Tamura treks across an unfamiliar Philippine landscape, encountering an increasingly debased cross section of Imperial Army soldiers, who eventually give in to the most terrifying craving of all. Grisly yet poetic, Fires on the Plain is one of the most powerful works from one of Japanese cinema’s most versatile filmmakers.

Genres: Drama, Foreign, War. Country: Japan. Runtime: 1h 48m.

#45 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951

Director: Elia Kazan. Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis, Peg Hillias, Wright King, Richard Garrick, Ann Dere, Edna Thomas, Mickey Kuhn.

Overview: A Streetcar Named Desire is the film adaptation from the play by Tennessee Williams and directed by Elia Kazan. The film tells the drama story of the conflict between run down southern states and the exemplary industrial states in the north.

Genre: Drama. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 2h 2m. Rated: PG.

#46 The Life of Oharu 1952
Saikaku ichidai onna

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichirô Sugai, Toshirô Mifune, Toshiaki Konoe, Kiyoko Tsuji, Hisako Yamane, Jûkichi Uno, Eitarô Shindô, Akira Ôizumi, Kyôko Kusajima, Masao Shimizu, Daisuke Katô, Toranosuke Ogawa, Hiroshi Oizumi.

Overview: The tale of a 17th century samurai's daughter.

Country: Japan. Runtime: 2h 28m.

#47 The Cranes are Flying 1957
Летят журавли

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov. Cast: Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev.

Overview: Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.

Genre: Drama. Country: Russian Federation. Runtime: 1h 37m.

#48 Harvey 1950

Director: Henry Koster. Cast: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow, Charles Drake, Cecil Kellaway, Victoria Horne, Jesse White, William H. Lynn, Wallace Ford, Nana Bryant, Grayce Mills, Clem Bevans.

Overview: The classic stage hit gets the Hollywood treatment in the story of Elwood P. Dowd who makes friends with a spirit taking the form of a human-sized rabbit named Harvey that only he sees (and a few privileged others on occasion also.) After his sister tries to commit him to a mental institution, a comedy of errors ensues. Elwood and Harvey become the catalysts for a family mending its wounds and for romance blossoming in unexpected places.

Genres: Comedy, Drama. Country: United States of America. Runtime: 1h 44m.

#49 A Man Escaped 1957

Director: Robert Bresson. Cast: François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Roland Monod, Jacques Ertaud, Jean Paul Delhumeau, Roger Treherne.

Overview: French Resistance activist Andre Devigny is imprisoned by the Nazis, and devotes his waking hours to planning an elaborate escape. Then, on the same day, he is condemned to death, and given a new cellmate. Should he kill him, or risk revealing his plans to someone who may be a Gestapo informer?

Genres: Drama, Foreign, Indie. Country: France. Runtime: 1h 39m.