The 37 Greatest Films of the 1950s
The 1950s contribute 37 of the film canon's all-time entries, led by Vertigo (1958). Rankings aggregate 31 authoritative lists; every entry links to its full evidence.
1. Vertigo
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
2. Seven Samurai
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
3. Singin' in the Rain
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.
4. Tokyo Story
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
5. Some Like It Hot
In Prohibition-era Chicago, musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob hit, and flee the state in an all-female band disguised as Josephine and Daphne, but further complications set in.
6. The Searchers
As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.
7. The 400 Blows
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
8. North by Northwest
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
9. Rashomon
Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
10. Sunset Boulevard
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
11. The Night of the Hunter
In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
12. Pather Panchali
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. Alone, his wife, Sarbojaya, looks after her rebellious daughter, Durga, and her young son, Apu, as well as Harihar's elderly aunt Indir.
13. All About Eve
From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife.
14. Touch of Evil
A border-town bombing draws Mexican investigator Miguel Vargas into a corruption-ridden police investigation led by crooked captain Hank Quinlan, setting off a deadly struggle over power, justice, and truth.
15. Rear Window
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
16. On the Waterfront
A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.
17. Ugetsu
In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
18. The Seventh Seal
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life.
19. The Bridge on the River Kwai
The 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.
20. Ordet
The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.
21. Sansho the Bailiff
In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.
22. The Earrings of Madame de...
In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, and her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.
23. A Man Escaped
A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.
24. Sweet Smell of Success
New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas.
25. 12 Angry Men
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
26. Ikiru
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.
27. Rio Bravo
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.
28. Pickpocket
Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft.
29. Johnny Guitar
On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover.
30. Wild Strawberries
Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life.
31. Hiroshima Mon Amour
The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences.
32. Apur Sansar
Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.
33. Paths of Glory
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
34. Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.
35. La Strada
When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together.
36. Umberto D
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street.
37. The Wages of Fear
In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.