Top 30 1950's Movies
by edjuhh | created - 04 Feb 2013 | updated - 29 Mar 2019 | 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: 521,597 | Gross: $36.76M
2. The Wages of Fear (1953)
Not Rated | 131 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter van Eyck, Folco Lulli
Votes: 66,503
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
Not Rated | 207 min | Action, Drama
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki
Votes: 366,466 | Gross: $0.27M
4. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
The jury in a New York City murder trial is frustrated by a single member whose skeptical caution forces them to more carefully consider the evidence before jumping to a hasty verdict.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler
Votes: 863,797 | Gross: $4.36M
5. 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: 345,803 | Gross: $13.28M
6. Ordet (1955)
Not Rated | 126 min | Drama
Follows the lives of the Borgen family, as they deal with inner conflict, as well as religious conflict with each other, and the rest of the town.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Hanne Aagesen
Votes: 17,386
7. 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: 137,690 | Gross: $8.18M
8. The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Not Rated | 124 min | Drama, War
When a U.S. Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardises the ship, the first officer is urged to consider relieving him of command.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray
Votes: 29,865 | Gross: $21.75M
9. 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: 426,475 | Gross: $3.20M
10. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Not Rated | 161 min | Drama, Mystery
An upstate Michigan lawyer defends a soldier who claims he killed an innkeeper due to temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell
Votes: 71,277 | Gross: $11.90M
11. 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: 283,298 | Gross: $25.00M
12. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
G | 92 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An alien lands in Washington, D.C. and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Votes: 85,700
13. The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
Approved | 123 min | Comedy, Drama
In post-WWII Japan, an American captain is brought in to help build a school, but the locals want a teahouse instead.
Director: Daniel Mann | Stars: Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford, Machiko Kyô, Eddie Albert
Votes: 3,767
14. Stalag 17 (1953)
Not Rated | 120 min | Comedy, Drama, War
After two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss
Votes: 58,767
15. Wild Strawberries (1957)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama, Romance
After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand
Votes: 114,881
16. 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: 233,120 | Gross: $44.91M
17. A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Approved | 126 min | Drama, Music
A female radio reporter turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau
Votes: 17,075
18. Sabrina (1954)
Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A playboy becomes interested in the daughter of his family's chauffeur, but it's his more serious brother who would be the better man for her.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Walter Hampden
Votes: 70,276
19. 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: 138,668 | Gross: $0.01M
20. Rashomon (1950)
Not Rated | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura
Votes: 180,248 | Gross: $0.10M
21. High Noon (1952)
PG | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 110,095 | Gross: $9.45M
22. 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: 140,925 | Gross: $7.63M
23. Gun Crazy (1950)
Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two disturbed young people release their fascination with guns through a crime spree.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis | Stars: John Dall, Peggy Cummins, Berry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky
Votes: 14,806
24. On the Waterfront (1954)
Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses, including his older brother, as he starts to connect with the grieving sister of one of the syndicate's victims.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Votes: 164,707 | Gross: $9.60M
25. Harvey (1950)
Approved | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Due to his insistence that he has an invisible six foot-tall rabbit for a best friend, a whimsical middle-aged man is thought by his family to be insane - but he may be wiser than anyone knows.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: James Stewart, Wallace Ford, William H. Lynn, Victoria Horne
Votes: 58,211
26. Forbidden Games (1952)
Not Rated | 86 min | Comedy, Drama, War
A young French girl orphaned in a German air attack is befriended by the son of a poor farmer, and together they try to come to terms with the realities of death.
Director: René Clément | Stars: Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Amédée, Laurence Badie
Votes: 13,094 | Gross: $0.01M
27. 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: 97,861
28. Paths of Glory (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, War
After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
Votes: 212,066
29. 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: 84,259 | Gross: $0.54M
30. Rio Bravo (1959)
Passed | 141 min | Drama, Western
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson
Votes: 67,982 | Gross: $12.54M
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