My Favourite Movies of the 1950s
by terrence-gale | created - 24 Nov 2013 | updated - 21 Dec 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Rear Window (1954)
PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 521,581 | Gross: $36.76M
2. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
G | 103 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood.
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly | Stars: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen
Votes: 260,413 | Gross: $8.82M
3. All About Eve (1950)
Passed | 138 min | Drama
A seemingly timid but secretly ruthless ingénue insinuates herself into the lives of an aging Broadway star and her circle of theater friends.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm
Votes: 138,660 | Gross: $0.01M
4. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson
Votes: 236,206
5. Vertigo (1958)
PG | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 426,464 | Gross: $3.20M
6. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
PG | 122 min | Drama
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
Votes: 114,261 | Gross: $8.00M
7. Auntie Mame (1958)
Approved | 143 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An orphan goes to live with his free-spirited aunt. Conflict ensues when the executor of his father's estate objects to the aunt's lifestyle.
Director: Morton DaCosta | Stars: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Fred Clark
Votes: 12,681 | Gross: $23.30M
8. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Passed | 121 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Votes: 283,284 | Gross: $25.00M
9. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
PG | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
Director: David Lean | Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,111 | Gross: $44.91M
10. A Place in the Sun (1951)
Passed | 122 min | Drama, Romance
A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere
Votes: 24,731
11. Ben-Hur (1959)
G | 212 min | Adventure, Drama
After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet
Votes: 253,424 | Gross: $74.70M
12. Diabolique (1955)
Not Rated | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
The wife and mistress of a loathed school principal plan to murder him with what they believe is the perfect alibi.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel
Votes: 69,322 | Gross: $1.09M
13. From Here to Eternity (1953)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance, War
At a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his commanding officer's wife and top aide begin a tentative affair.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed
Votes: 50,779 | Gross: $30.50M
14. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Approved | 116 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A veteran British barrister must defend his client in a murder trial that has surprise after surprise.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester
Votes: 137,683 | Gross: $8.18M
15. The African Queen (1951)
PG | 105 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
In WWI East Africa, a gin-swilling Canadian riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced English missionary to undertake a trip up a treacherous river and use his boat to attack a German gunship.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull
Votes: 84,254 | Gross: $0.54M
16. Giant (1956)
G | 201 min | Drama, Western
Sprawling epic covering the life of a Texas cattle rancher and his family and associates.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker
Votes: 42,209
17. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance
An unscrupulous movie producer uses an actress, a director and a writer to achieve success.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell
Votes: 16,437
18. North by Northwest (1959)
Approved | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Votes: 345,796 | Gross: $13.28M
19. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 140,921 | Gross: $7.63M
20. Anastasia (1956)
Unrated | 105 min | Biography, Drama, History
An opportunistic businessman tries to pass off a mysterious impostor as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and she is so convincing that even the biggest skeptics believe her.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, Akim Tamiroff
Votes: 9,310
21. The King and I (1956)
G | 133 min | Biography, Drama, Musical
A widow accepts a job as a live-in governess to the King of Siam's children.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson
Votes: 27,902 | Gross: $21.30M
22. Born Yesterday (1950)
Not Rated | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A tycoon hires a tutor to teach his lover proper etiquette, with unexpected results.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Judy Holliday, William Holden, Broderick Crawford, Howard St. John
Votes: 12,404
23. An American in Paris (1951)
Passed | 114 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
Three friends struggle to find work in Paris. Things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary
Votes: 36,831 | Gross: $4.50M
24. Lady and the Tramp (1955)
G | 76 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
The romantic tale of a sheltered uptown Cocker Spaniel dog and a streetwise downtown Mutt.
Directors: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Jack Cutting | Stars: Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Peggy Lee, Bill Thompson
Votes: 148,297 | Gross: $93.60M
25. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Approved | 114 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A surgeon is assigned the case of a young woman whose aunt wants her lobotomized to cover up a family secret.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker
Votes: 17,188 | Gross: $13.90M
26. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Votes: 97,854
27. The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
Approved | 91 min | Drama, Mystery
A doctor treats a woman suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.
Director: Nunnally Johnson | Stars: Joanne Woodward, David Wayne, Lee J. Cobb, Edwin Jerome
Votes: 8,770
28. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
G | 75 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
After being snubbed by the royal family, a malevolent fairy places a curse on a princess which only a prince can break, along with the help of three good fairies.
Directors: Les Clark, Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske | Stars: Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton
Votes: 160,728 | Gross: $51.60M
29. Raintree County (1957)
Approved | 182 min | Drama, Romance, War
A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Nigel Patrick
Votes: 4,271
30. Dial M for Murder (1954)
PG | 105 min | Crime, Thriller
A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams
Votes: 188,622 | Gross: $0.01M
31. Cinderella (1950)
G | 74 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy
When Cinderella's cruel stepmother prevents her from attending the Royal Ball, she gets some unexpected help from the lovable mice Gus and Jaq and from her Fairy Godmother.
Directors: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske | Stars: Ilene Woods, James MacDonald, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton
Votes: 173,767 | Gross: $85.00M
32. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,691
33. Alice in Wonderland (1951)
G | 75 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Alice stumbles into the world of Wonderland. Will she get home? Not if the Queen of Hearts has her way.
Directors: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Jack Kinney | Stars: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway
Votes: 153,861 | Gross: $1.07M
34. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,232 | Gross: $0.65M
35. Mogambo (1953)
Passed | 116 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Clark Gable, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Donald Sinden
Votes: 9,169
36. The Mouse That Roared (1959)
Approved | 83 min | Comedy
An impoverished backward nation declares a war on the United States of America, hoping to lose, but things don't go according to plan.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell, David Kossoff
Votes: 9,445
37. The Court Jester (1955)
Approved | 101 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
A hapless carnival performer masquerades as the court jester as part of a plot against an evil ruler who has overthrown the rightful King.
Directors: Melvin Frank, Norman Panama | Stars: Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 13,940 | Gross: $0.02M
38. The Thing from Another World (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost.
Directors: Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks | Stars: Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, James Arness, Robert Cornthwaite
Votes: 33,315
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