Must-sees of 1951
by vitale-daniele | created - 18 Dec 2012 | updated - 4 months ago | PublicThe titles hereby listed have been selected out of 82 1951-released works seen.
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1. The Browning Version (1951)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama
Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave), a classics teacher at an English school, is afflicted with a heart ailment and an unfaithful wife (Jean Kent). His interest in his pupils wanes as he looks towards his final days in employment.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Michael Redgrave, Jean Kent, Nigel Patrick, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Votes: 5,438
2. The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
Not Rated | 128 min | Fantasy, Music, Musical
A melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Moira Shearer, Robert Rounseville, Ludmilla Tchérina, Ann Ayars
Votes: 3,943 | Gross: $0.09M
3. Early Summer (1951)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama, Romance
A family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Setsuko Hara, Chishû Ryû, Chikage Awashima, Kuniko Miyake
Votes: 9,669
4. Diary of a Country Priest (1951)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama
A young priest taking over the parish at Ambricourt tries to fulfill his duties even as he fights a mysterious stomach ailment.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: Claude Laydu, Nicole Ladmiral, Jean Riveyre, Adrien Borel
Votes: 12,710
5. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall
Votes: 39,104 | Gross: $3.97M
6. Cops and Robbers (1951)
105 min | Comedy, Drama
Esposito is a thief who cons tourists in Rome. Officer Bottoni manages to catch him and starts persecuting him. When Esposito manages to flee, Bottoni's superiors inform him that he'll lose his job if he can't catch Esposito.
Directors: Mario Monicelli, Steno | Stars: Aldo Fabrizi, Totò, Ave Ninchi, William Tubbs
Votes: 1,755
7. Detective Story (1951)
Approved | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
On one day in the 21st Precinct squad room, assorted characters form a backdrop for the troubles of hard-nosed Detective Jim McLeod.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell
Votes: 9,483
8. Bellissima (1951)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
A woman from the lower class desperately tries to get her daughter into the movies.
Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Anna Magnani, Walter Chiari, Tina Apicella, Gastone Renzelli
Votes: 5,385
9. Repast (1951)
97 min | Drama
Michiyo lives in a small home in Osaka and is not happy with her marriage; all she does is cook and clean for her husband.
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Ken Uehara, Setsuko Hara, Yukiko Shimazaki, Yôko Sugi
Votes: 1,814
10. The River (1951)
Approved | 99 min | Drama, Romance
The growing pains of three young women contrast with the immutability of the holy Bengal River, around which their daily lives unfold.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Patricia Walters, Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields
Votes: 6,884
11. 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: 114,315 | Gross: $8.00M
12. 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: 36,868 | Gross: $4.50M
13. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Approved | 78 min | Comedy, Crime
A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipment of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country as miniature Eiffel Towers.
Director: Charles Crichton | Stars: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James, Alfie Bass
Votes: 15,555
14. 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: 84,299 | Gross: $0.54M
15. Othello (1951)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, Romance
The Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of a bitter Ensign named Iago.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammóir, Robert Coote, Suzanne Cloutier
Votes: 9,452
16. The Prowler (1951)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
After Susan Gilvray reports a prowler outside her house police officer Webb Garwood investigates and sparks fly. If only her husband wasn't in the way.
Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katherine Warren
Votes: 4,087
17. Cry Danger (1951)
Passed | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Ex-con Rocky Mulloy seeks the real culprit in the crime for which he was framed in a night world of deceptive dames and double crosses.
Directors: Robert Parrish, Dick Powell | Stars: Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Erdman, William Conrad
Votes: 2,735
18. The Tall Target (1951)
Approved | 78 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama
A New York City detective, traveling by train between New York and Baltimore, tries to foil an on-board plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln before he reaches Baltimore to give a major pre-Inauguration speech in 1861.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dick Powell, Paula Raymond, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson
Votes: 2,337
19. La Poison (1951)
Not Rated | 85 min | Comedy, Crime
Through a series of circumstances and plot twists an enterprising man manages to get away with murdering his wife, even though he cheerfully admits his guilt in court.
Director: Sacha Guitry | Stars: Michel Simon, Jean Debucourt, Jacques Varennes, Jeanne Fusier-Gir
Votes: 1,625
20. Distant Drums (1951)
Approved | 101 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After destroying a Seminole fort, American soldiers and their rescued companions must face the dangerous Everglades and hostile Indians in order to reach safety.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Gary Cooper, Mari Aldon, Richard Webb, Ray Teal
Votes: 2,367
21. Miss Oyu (1951)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Romance
Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective wife, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of ... See full summary »
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Kinuyo Tanaka, Nobuko Otowa, Yûji Hori, Kiyoko Hirai
Votes: 1,889
22. On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Approved | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Rough city cop Jim Wilson is disciplined by his captain and is sent upstate, to a snowy mountain town, to help the local sheriff solve a murder case.
Directors: Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper
Votes: 8,064
23. Musashino fujin (1951)
88 min | Drama, Romance
Set in post-war Japan, The Lady of Musashino tells the story of Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage. She confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yukiko Todoroki, Masayuki Mori, Akihiko Katayama
Votes: 710
24. 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: 85,747
25. He Ran All the Way (1951)
Passed | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Nick and his partner Al stage a payroll holdup. Al is shot, and Nick kills a policeman. Nick hides out at a public pool, where he meets Peg Dobbs. They go back to her apartment, and he forces her family to hide him from the police manhunt.
Director: John Berry | Stars: John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford, Selena Royle
Votes: 3,019
26. The Racket (1951)
Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
In New York, two honest cops try to hinder a crime syndicate from moving into the precinct and also to prevent the mob's plan of electing a corrupt prosecutor to a judgeship.
Directors: John Cromwell, Mel Ferrer, Tay Garnett, Edmund Grainger, Nicholas Ray, Sherman Todd | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan, William Talman
Votes: 3,365
27. The Mob (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Johnny Damico botches a murder case and is suspended from the force. In reality, he is put undercover to identify the mysterious boss of the NY waterfront who has murdered everyone in his way. Will Johnny be next in line?
Director: Robert Parrish | Stars: Broderick Crawford, Betty Buehler, Richard Kiley, Otto Hulett
Votes: 2,630
28. Dancing Girl (1951)
85 min | Drama
The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Sô Yamamura, Mieko Takamine, Mariko Okada, Akihiko Katayama
Votes: 157
29. The Enforcer (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
A crusading district attorney finally gets a chance to prosecute the organizer and boss of Murder Inc.
Directors: Bretaigne Windust, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia, Everett Sloane
Votes: 5,642
30. His Kind of Woman (1951)
Approved | 120 min | Action, Crime, Film-Noir
A deported gangster's plan to re-enter the USA involves skulduggery at a Mexican resort, and gambler Dan Milner is caught in the middle.
Directors: John Farrow, Richard Fleischer | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt
Votes: 4,960
31. Summer Interlude (1951)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Romance
A lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years prior during a brief summer vacation.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin, Annalisa Ericson
Votes: 6,661
32. The Steel Helmet (1951)
Approved | 85 min | Action, Drama, War
A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Gene Evans, Robert Hutton, Steve Brodie, James Edwards
Votes: 4,734
33. Along the Great Divide (1951)
Approved | 88 min | Western
A U.S. Marshall and two deputies rescue a cattle rustler from a lynch mob led by a local cattle baron convinced that the rustler also killed his son.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Virginia Mayo, John Agar, Walter Brennan
Votes: 2,262
34. Susana (1951)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama
An unstable young woman escapes from a reformatory for very, very wayward girls and deceptively finds shelter in the kind home of a frighteningly nice and decent family. Little by little, ... See full summary »
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Rosita Quintana, Fernando Soler, Víctor Manuel Mendoza, María Gentil Arcos
Votes: 2,278
35. Aisai monogatari (1951)
97 min | Drama, Romance
Shindo's directorial debut is the fictionalized account of the death of his first wife. Following the breakout of the Pacific War, the Japanese film industry was forcibly downsized. ... See full summary »
Director: Kaneto Shindô | Stars: Nobuko Otowa, Jûkichi Uno, Ichirô Sugai, Denjirô Ôkôchi
Votes: 113
36. Sette ore di guai (1951)
84 min | Comedy
Totò is a tailor, just not a great one. He is married and his son is to be baptized, and Totò hopes that his grandmother will be moved by the baptism to help him financially. Unfortunately ... See full summary »
Directors: Marcello Marchesi, Vittorio Metz | Stars: Totò, Isa Barzizza, Carlo Campanini, Eduardo Passarelli
Votes: 119
37. The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
Approved | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder after she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortese, William Lundigan, Fay Baker
Votes: 3,833
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