In the modern era, more people are watching films at home. That makes this a great time to catch up on essential cinema classics in your home theater, with timeless, esteemed films readily available across digital platforms and apps. Many of the greatest international and Hollywood films in history are from the 1950s decade.
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The 1950s saw the height of the golden age of Hollywood and the studio system. Innovative filmmaking and commercial hits intersected. Several of the decade’s finest hold up as vital entertainment for film buffs as well as more casual audiences. These are must-see genre-defining movies that continue to be influential in the industry today.
13 ‘Vertigo’ (1958)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Image via Paramount Pictures
After a Best Picture win for Rebecca in the 1940s, Alfred Hitchcock’s career flourished in Hollywood. The ’50s saw the release of many of his greatest and most popular works, including Strangers on a Train, Rear Window and North by Northwest.
Initially a critical and commercial disappointment, the thematically dark and artistically vibrant Vertigo stars Jimmy Stewart against type as a toxic private eye in a spiraling, destructive web of obsession with a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak). It’s now regarded as Hitchcock’s finest, beating Citizen Kane for the honor of best film ever made in Sight & Sound’s 2012 critics’ poll.
Vertigo
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.
Release Date May 28, 1958
Cast James Stewart , Kim Novak , Barbara Bel Geddes , Tom Helmore , Henry Jones , Raymond Bailey
Runtime 128
Main Genre Mystery
Writers Alec Coppel , Samuel A. Taylor , Pierre Boileau , Thomas Narcejac , Maxwell Anderson
Tagline Alfred Hitchcock engulfs you in a whirlpool of terror and tension
12 ’12 Angry Men’ (1957)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Henry Fonda plays heroic Juror 8 in Sidney Lumet’s life-affirming legal drama, 12 Angry Men, which is a masterpiece centered on the trial of an inner-city teen suspected of murder. Juror 8’s compassion casts doubts upon a previously apathetic trial, and a chaotic yet thought-provoking debate ensues among the well-written characters.
The legacy and accomplishment of 12 Angry Men is hard to overstate. Restricted almost entirely to a single set with astounding performances and innovative camera work that makes it relentlessly compelling, the picture is universal in its understanding of different personalities struggling to find common ground and get along.
12 Angry Men
Release Date August 17, 1997
Runtime 117
11 ‘Some Like It Hot’ (1959)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder’s irreverent sex comedy stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as struggling musicians who cross-dress in hiding after witnessing a crime. Some Like it Hot co-stars an entertaining and hilarious Marilyn Monroe as the lovesick singer and ukulele strummer Sugar Kane.
A massive hit with critics and at the box office, Some Like It Hot essentially served a death blow to old Hollywood’s code of censorship, with uncommonly frank depictions of taboo topics. Often cited as the greatest comedy ever made, Some Like it Hot is a reference point for Wilder’s mastery across virtually all genres.
Some Like It Hot
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.
Release Date March 19, 1959
Director Billy Wilder
Runtime 121 minutes
Main Genre Comedy
Writers Billy Wilder , I.A.L. Diamond , Robert Thoeren
10 ‘The Searchers’ (1956)
Directed by John Ford
Image via Warner Bros.
A strong contender for best American Western ever made, John Ford’s epic stars John Wayne as a Civil War vet who returns home only to soon find that someone has abducted members of his brother’s family. The revered Western follows his search for his kidnapped niece (Natalie Wood), which soon leads him deep into Comanche territory.
In addition to vibrant color filmmaking and widescreen vistas that still pop, The Searchers is an ever-timely, ahead-of-its-time look at bigotry, and the weight of retribution. It should be considered essential viewing for any fan of Westerns.
The Searchers
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother’s family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Release Date May 26, 1956
Director John Ford
Cast John Wayne , Jeffrey Hunter , Vera Miles , Ward Bond , Natalie Wood
Runtime 119 minutes
Main Genre Western
Writers Frank S. Nugent , Alan Le May
9 ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Image via Paramount Pictures
Arguably Hollywood’s best-ever movie about itself, Billy Wilder’s esteemed noir stars Gloria Swanson as a washed-up silent film star who draws a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) into her world of madness as she plots a return to the screen. The young screenwriter believes he can use her for his own goals, but soon finds himself entangled in a messy and dangerous situation.
One of the relatively few films with the distinction of being nominated in all four acting Oscar categories, Sunset Boulevard is an entertaining, artistically adroit black comedy whose truths about the entertainment industry still hold relevance.
8 ‘All About Eve’ (1950)
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Image via 20th Century Fox
Bette Davis’ all-time most memorable turn is in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s backstage dramedy, winner of six Oscars including Best Picture. The screen legend stars as stage veteran Margo Channing, who is navigating a midlife crisis as a hungry, ruthless younger star (Anne Baxter) works her way up the totem pole.
Based on the 1946 short story “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr, All About Eve is such a potent work of acting and filmmaking craft that it’s unlikely to ever age. It’s a truly flawless movie with a script that ends up on every roundup of the finest screenplays, which is something that will likely never change.
All About Eve
A seemingly timid but secretly ruthless ingénue insinuates herself into the lives of an aging Broadway star and her circle of theater friends.
Release Date October 6, 1950
Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast Bette Davis , Anne Baxter , George Sanders , Celeste Holm , Gary Merrill , Hugh Marlowe
Runtime 138
Main Genre Drama
Writers Joseph L. Mankiewicz , Erich Kästner , Mary Orr
Tagline It’s all about women…and their men!
7 ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (1955)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
A classic account of youthful unrest, Nicholas Ray’s widescreen drama is one of three pictures that defined James Dean’s legendary, tragically short career (along with Giant and East of Eden). Rebel Without a Cause hit theaters nearly a month after Dean’s fatal auto crash in September 1955.
Dean’s most iconic film co-stars Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. They play a trio of emotionally confused middle-class teens in Los Angeles. After the troublemaker, Jim Stark (Dean), arrives in a new town, he wants to start fresh. This noble goal is complicated by a friendship that develops between him and his classmate Plato (Mineo) and by a crush he forms on Judy (Wood), who’s already in a relationship.
Rebel Without a Cause
Release Date October 29, 1955
Director Nicholas Ray
Cast James Dean , Natalie Wood , Sal Mineo , Jim Backus , Ann Doran , Corey Allen
Runtime 111
Main Genre Drama
Writers Stewart Stern , Irving Shulman , Nicholas Ray
Tagline Jim Stark – a kid from a ‘good’ family – what makes him tick…like a bomb?
6 ‘Godzilla’ (1954)
Directed by Ishirō Honda
Image via Toho Pictures
Especially in light of the recent inspired excesses of box-office hits like 2014’s reboot, Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla vs. Kong: The New Empire, and even the amazing if relatively low-fi innovation and excitement of last year’s Godzilla Minus One), it’s striking how quiet and somber a film started it all.
In Ishirō Honda’s original Gojira, bomb testing awakens an ancient beast that then sets its sights (and its fire breath) on terrorizing Japan. The handmade feel of Gojira is more appealingly retro than dated, and it’s still a strikingly relevant film fueled by the aftershock of the Second World War and rising international paranoia. It’s a classic monster film; it’s a lot more than that, too.
Godzilla (1954)
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable dinosaur-like beast.
Release Date November 3, 1954
Director Ishirô Honda
Cast Takashi Shimura , Akihiko Hirata , Akira Takarada , Momoko Kôchi
Runtime 96 minutes
Main Genre Sci-Fi
Writers Takeo Murata , Ishirô Honda , Shigeru Kayama , Tomoyuki Tanaka
5 ‘The Night of the Hunter’ (1955)
Directed by Charles Laughton
Image via Criterion
One of the strangest films you’re likely ever to see, and absolutely one of the best. A German Expressionism-accented tale of a small-town serial killer, The Night of the Hunter’s singularity and lurid content repulsed audiences. Charles Laughton’s filmmaking career unsurprisingly ended abruptly.
For decades now, The Night of the Hunter has been re-assessed as a frightening masterpiece.Robert Mitchum’s false prophet Harry Powell is among the most unsettling villains in film history. Reverend Powell is a religious fanatic through and through, who also happens to be a ruthless serial killer who stalks women before using their sexuality to lure in men.
The Night of the Hunter
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.
Release Date July 26, 1955
Director Charles Laughton
Cast Robert Mitchum , Shelley Winters , Lillian Gish , James Gleason
Runtime 92 Minutes
Main Genre Noir
4 ‘Ben-Hur’ (1959)
Directed by William Wyler
Image via MGM
From the book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, William Wyler’s massively budgeted epic tells the story of a wrongfully accused Jewish noble whose life parallels the life of Jesus and events of the New Testament. This is star Charlton Heston’s best and most iconic performance, and Ben-Hur, famous for its breathtaking climactic chariot race, set an all-time record for Oscar wins only matched by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (11 in total).
This isn’t the only version of Ben-Hur on screen. In addition to a short film from the silent era, a rather magnificent 1925 feature can be readily found online. A half-hearted 2016 remake is, unfortunately, hilarious. It bombed.
Ben-Hur
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.
Release Date November 18, 1959
Director William Wyler
Cast Charlton Heston , Jack Hawkins , Haya Harareet , Stephen Boyd , Hugh Griffith , Martha Scott
Runtime 212 minutes
Writers Lew Wallace , Karl Tunberg , Maxwell Anderson , S.N. Behrman , Christopher Fry , Gore Vidal
Tagline The Entertainment Experience of a Lifetime!
3 ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952)
Directed by Stanley Donen
While Singin’ in the Rain was considered a modest success in its day, StanleyDonen’s splashy Technicolor musical comedy is now oft-cited as the high point of its genre. Many of the best musical numbers ever on film are here, including the title track, Donald O’Connor’s epically comic “Make ‘Em Laugh,” and the extended “Broadway Melody.”
In the renowned film, Gene Kelly stars as a silent film star adjusting to the industry-shaking dawn of the talkies. Kelly plays Don Lockwood, who is often cast alongside Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) as a romantic couple. When their most recent movie is turned into a musical, Lina struggles to find her voice and is frustrated that the studio has decided to hire aspiring actor Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) to record over her voice.
Singin’ in the Rain
Release Date April 10, 1952
Director Stanley Donen , Gene Kelly
Runtime 103 minutes
2 ‘Seven Samurai’ (1954)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Image via Toho Studios
Arguably the greatest and most influential action movie of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s legendary masterpiece chronicles the plight of farmers in feudal Japan, who look to samurai for defense from bandits as harvest draws near. This is one of the most perfectly composed motion pictures in history, as famous for its lighting and immaculate camera work as it is for its sharply drawn characters and uniformly excellent, timeless performances.
The mark of Seven Samurai is apparent in too many films that followed to count. The film’s likeness to an American Western was noted by critics from the jump, so it only makes sense that the most famous of these films is John Sturges’ iconic 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven.
Seven Samurai
A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.
Release Date April 26, 1954
Director Akira Kurosawa
Cast Toshiro Mifune , Takashi Shimura
Runtime 207 minutes
Main Genre Drama
Production Company Toho
1 ‘Roman Holiday’ (1953)
Directed by William Wyler
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect film for Valentine’s Day than William Wyler’s bittersweet rom-com starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, as a princess and the journalist she has a fling with. It starts when Princess Ann escapes her European tour for a night while in Rome where an initially unfortunate event soon turns into a meet-cute when American reporter Joe Bradley (Peck) finds her passed out on a park bench.
Co-written by blacklisted screenwriter Donald Trumbo (his name was removed from the credits until recent years), Roman Holiday was a breakthrough for Hepburn, who won the Oscar for Best Actress. It’s perhaps the crown jewel of Hepburn’s storied Hollywood legacy. It’s impossible to find a more endearing rom-com than Roman Holiday.
Roman Holiday
A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome.
Release Date August 27, 1953
Director William Wyler
Runtime 118 minutes
Main Genre Romantic Comedy