1950s US
by flynnalan | created - 12 Nov 2022 | updated - 2 weeks ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. 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: 39,129 | Gross: $3.97M
2. Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Approved | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A new English teacher at a violent, unruly inner-city school is determined to do his job, despite resistance from both students and faculty.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Margaret Hayes
Votes: 9,885
3. The Naked Jungle (1954)
Approved | 95 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.
Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker, Abraham Sofaer, William Conrad
Votes: 4,407
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: 865,608 | Gross: $4.36M
5. 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: 253,738 | Gross: $74.70M
6. The Ten Commandments (1956)
G | 220 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
Moses, raised as a prince of Egypt in the Pharaoh's household, learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people from slavery.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson
Votes: 77,905 | Gross: $93.74M
7. 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: 188,880 | Gross: $0.01M
8.
77 Sunset Strip (1958–1964)
Episode:
The Fifth Stair
(1959)
TV-PG | 47 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Forlorn hubby prefers to have his wife killed, rather than let her get away with adultery. Tony's tight alibi, & plan to make it look like a burglary gone too far seem perfect. Even when ... See full summary »
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Edd Byrnes, Richard Long
Votes: 70
9. 77 Sunset Strip (1958–1964)
TV-PG | 60 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama.
Stars: Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Edd Byrnes, Roger Smith, Jacqueline Beer
Votes: 1,636
10. Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962)
TV-14 | 25 min | Drama, Mystery
Series of unrelated short stories covering elements of crime, horror, drama, and comedy about people of different backgrounds committing murders, suicides, thefts, and other sorts of crime caused by certain motivations, perceived or not.
Stars: Alfred Hitchcock, Harry Tyler, John Williams, Patricia Hitchcock
Votes: 19,336
11. 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: 236,533
12. 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: 137,929 | Gross: $8.18M
13. 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: 138,807 | Gross: $0.01M
14. 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: 114,391 | Gross: $8.00M
15. 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: 141,059 | Gross: $7.63M
16. Trapeze (1956)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, Romance
A crippled circus acrobat is torn emotionally between two ambitious young trapeze artists, one a talented young American and a less-gifted but beautiful Italian.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Katy Jurado
Votes: 5,228
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956)
PG | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy
The timeless tale of the seductive gypsy Esmeralda and the tortured hunchback Quasimodo.
Director: Jean Delannoy | Stars: Gina Lollobrigida, Anthony Quinn, Jean Danet, Alain Cuny
Votes: 3,167
18. Solomon and Sheba (1959)
Not Rated | 141 min | Drama, History, Romance
After becoming king of ancient Israel, Solomon faces threats coming from his jealous dispossessed brother Adonijah, the Egyptian Pharaoh and the scheming Queen of Sheba.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Yul Brynner, Gina Lollobrigida, George Sanders, Marisa Pavan
Votes: 3,796 | Gross: $12.20M
19. East of Eden (1955)
PG | 118 min | Drama
Two brothers in 1910s California struggle to maintain their strict, Bible-toting father's favor as an old secret about their long-absent mother comes to light.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Burl Ives
Votes: 48,831
20. 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: 522,283 | Gross: $36.76M
21. Lust for Life (1956)
Approved | 122 min | Biography, Drama
The life of brilliant but tortured artist Vincent van Gogh.
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown
Votes: 12,511 | Gross: $3.48M
22. The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Approved | 180 min | Biography, Drama, Family
During World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters, Joseph Schildkraut, Richard Beymer
Votes: 13,696 | Gross: $5.01M
23. Julius Caesar (1953)
Not Rated | 120 min | Drama, History
The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Louis Calhern, Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud
Votes: 12,890
24. The Lonely Man (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, Western
Aging gunslinger Jacob Wade hopes to settle down with his estranged son, but his old enemies have other plans for him.
Director: Henry Levin | Stars: Jack Palance, Anthony Perkins, Neville Brand, Robert Middleton
Votes: 870
25. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
Brick is an alcoholic ex-football player who drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife. A reunion with his terminal father jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson
Votes: 53,436 | Gross: $17.57M
26. 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: 50,838 | Gross: $30.50M
27. 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: 85,786
28. 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: 54,783
29. Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
G | 175 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
A Victorian Englishman bets that with the new steamships and railways he can circumnavigate the globe in eighty days.
Directors: Michael Anderson, John Farrow | Stars: David Niven, Cantinflas, Finlay Currie, Robert Morley
Votes: 29,711 | Gross: $42.00M
30. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A one-armed stranger comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible past they want to keep secret, by violent means if necessary.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger
Votes: 24,268
31. 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: 58,826
32. Désirée (1954)
Approved | 110 min | Biography, Drama, History
The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Merle Oberon, Michael Rennie
Votes: 3,480 | Gross: $9.81M
33. 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: 212,354
34. The Virgin Queen (1955)
Approved | 92 min | Biography, Drama, History
Sir Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd) overcomes court intrigue to win favor with Queen Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Bette Davis, Richard Todd, Joan Collins, Jay Robinson
Votes: 3,068
35. Quo Vadis (1951)
Not Rated | 171 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Anthony Mann | Stars: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov
Votes: 16,751 | Gross: $24.29M
36. 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: 97,406 | Gross: $0.65M
37. Peyton Place (1957)
Approved | 157 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A peaceful New England town hides secrets and scandals.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Lana Turner, Lee Philips, Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 6,615 | Gross: $25.60M
38. 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: 71,363 | Gross: $11.90M
39. A Night to Remember (1958)
Not Rated | 123 min | Drama, History
On her maiden voyage in April 1912, the supposedly unsinkable RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: Kenneth More, Ronald Allen, Robert Ayres, Honor Blackman
Votes: 17,166
40. Suspense (1949–1954)
25 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Live plays featuring people who were in dangerous and threatening situations.
Stars: Rex Marshall, Robert Emhardt, Robert H. Harris, John Baragrey
Votes: 358
41. Lizzie (1957)
Approved | 81 min | Drama
During the 1950s, a Los Angeles psychiatrist uses hypnosis to treat a 25-year-old woman who's suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Director: Hugo Haas | Stars: Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone, Joan Blondell, Hugo Haas
Votes: 691
42. 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: 24,799
43. The Killing (1956)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 97,563
44. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)
Not Rated | 79 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Evil aliens attack Earth and set their terrible "Plan 9" into action. As the aliens resurrect the dead of the Earth, the lives of the living are in danger.
Director: Edward D. Wood Jr. | Stars: Gregory Walcott, Tom Keene, Mona McKinnon, Duke Moore
Votes: 40,438
45. God's Little Acre (1958)
GP | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In the 1950s, a poor Georgia cotton farmer and his sons search for the gold presumably buried on the farm by their great-grandfather, but problems related to poverty, infidelity, unemployment, and booze threaten to destroy their family.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Robert Ryan, Tina Louise, Aldo Ray, Buddy Hackett
Votes: 2,093
46. The Last Days of Pompeii (1959)
Approved | 103 min | Action, Adventure, History
A demobilized centurion returns home to Pompeii to find his father murdered by a gang of black-hooded Christian robbers that terrorizes the city and he decides to investigate the matter while the nearby volcano threatens to erupt.
Director: Mario Bonnard | Stars: Steve Reeves, Christine Kaufmann, Fernando Rey, Barbara Carroll
Votes: 1,302
47. Lux Video Theatre (1950–1959)
30 min | Comedy, Drama
Live dramatic shows featuring Hollywood stars, adaptations of motion pictures, and a host accompanying. The host would introduce each act, and would conduct an interview with the stars at the end of the play.
Stars: Ken Carpenter, Jay Jackson, Otto Kruger, Gordon MacRae
Votes: 154
48. 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: 97,983
49. Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956)
Not Rated | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
In the first major naval battle of World War II, the British Navy must find and destroy a powerful German warship.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Peter Finch, Ian Hunter
Votes: 4,866
50. Crash Landing (1958)
Approved | 76 min | Drama, War
Airplane passengers prepare for a crash landing in the ocean.
Director: Fred F. Sears | Stars: Gary Merrill, Nancy Reagan, Irene Hervey, Roger Smith
Votes: 213
51. Zero Hour! (1957)
Passed | 81 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
In 1950s Canada, during a commercial flight, the pilots and some passengers suffer food poisoning, thus forcing an ex-WWII fighter pilot (Dana Andrews) to try to land the airliner in heavy fog.
Director: Hall Bartlett | Stars: Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden, Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch
Votes: 2,297
52.
Encounter (1952–1961)
Episode:
Flight Into Danger
(1956)
60 min | Drama
A small planes pilot must take the controls of a large passenger plane when the pilots fall victim to food poisoning.
Director: Gabriel Axel | Stars: James Doohan, Larry Beattie, Elizabeth Cole, Corinne Conley
Votes: 37
53.
The Alcoa Hour (1955–1957)
Episode:
Flight Into Danger
(1956)
Drama
A small plane pilot takes control of a large passenger plane after the pilots fall victim to food poisoning.
Director: Herbert Hirschman | Stars: Patricia Barry, Macdonald Carey, John Conwell, Felix Deebank
54. Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Passed | 113 min | Biography, Drama, Sport
Boxer Rocky Graziano's biopic, based on his autobiography, from childhood to his World Middleweight Championship title win at age 28 in 1947.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart
Votes: 9,025
55. Perry Mason (1957–1966)
TV-PG | 60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The trials of a master criminal defense attorney handling the most difficult cases in support of the innocent.
Stars: Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, William Hopper, Ray Collins
Votes: 11,847
56. 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: 17,218 | Gross: $13.90M
57. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Approved | 158 min | Biography, Drama, War
A tenacious British woman becomes a missionary and runs an inn for travelling merchants in China during the Japanese invasion and the tumultuous years leading up to the Second World War.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Robert Donat, Curd Jürgens, Michael David
Votes: 5,422
58. The Wild One (1953)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Two rival motorcycle gangs terrorize a small town after one of their leaders is thrown in jail.
Director: Laslo Benedek | Stars: Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith, Lee Marvin
Votes: 17,601
59. 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: 29,909 | Gross: $21.75M
60. The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)
Approved | 88 min | Biography, Drama, War
The story of the final years of the respected World War II German general, Erwin Rommel.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Jessica Tandy, Luther Adler
Votes: 6,709
61. Separate Tables (1958)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Romance
The stories of several people are told as they stay at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at "Separate Tables."
Director: Delbert Mann | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Burt Lancaster
Votes: 8,602 | Gross: $7.40M
62. A Star Is Born (1954)
Passed | 154 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A film star helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career on a downward spiral.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford
Votes: 19,684 | Gross: $14.93M
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