Movies from the 1950s (1950-1959)

The best ones are:
Vertigo and Strangers on a Train.

Forbidden Planet...Hell Yeah!!!🙏🙏

North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Paths of Glory, Rear Window, The Killing, Viva Zapata!, On the Waterfront—are you people kidding me? These are some of the absolute best

So, there are exactly 150 films from the '50s on this list/poll, and I honestly have to brag a little—out of those 150 titles, I actually own 132 of them in my collection. 😁

Alright, here are my absolute favorite flicks from the '50s:

12 Angry Men, Rear Window, Ben-Hur, On the Waterfront, The Seventh Seal, The Wrong Man, The Quiet Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Giant, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, I Want to Live!, Them!, It Came from Outer Space, The Old Man and the Sea, It Came from Outer Space, Winchester '73, Dracula, The Fly, Sabrina, and Destination Moon.

I'm exhausted from all this talking 🙂

The 50s and 60s were really the golden era for Japanese cinema—everyone from Leone onwards ended up copying their style... just my two cents on world cinema knowledge from the OP!

Nicholas Walker3 said:The 50s and 60s were really the golden era for Japanese cinema—everyone from Leone onwards ended up copying their style... just my two cents on world cinema knowledge from the OP!

Tokyo Story (1953)


Ugetsu (1953)


Godzilla (1954)


Look, Kate Harris4 knows all about those classics—it’s a fact that they're incredible—but if we want a poll that actually captures every masterpiece worth watching, it needs at least 500 titles on it. It’s not like the Japanese were the only ones cranking out genius in the 50s; plenty of other filmmakers were doing amazing work too.

That's exactly why there's an "other" option.

Kurosawa's Rashomon —does it need more?
Ningen no jôken —maybe actually the best movie ever made, if you can even say something like that definitively...

So, looking at America:
Bob le Flambeur —just fantastic work from Melville
H-8 —by Nikola Tanhofer
Blue 9 —from Krešimir Golik
Senso, Bellissima, Le Notti Bianche —all Visconti

And then there's probably ten other masterpieces—meanwhile, your list is packed with at least 50 obscure flicks that only made the cut because they happen to be from English-speaking countries...

Nicholas Walker3 said:Kurosawa's Rashomon —does it need more?
Ningen no jôken —maybe actually the best movie ever made, if you can even say something like that definitively...

So, looking at America:
Bob le Flambeur —just fantastic work from Melville
H-8 —by Nikola Tanhofer
Blue 9 —from Krešimir Golik
Senso, Bellissima, Le Notti Bianche —all Visconti

And then there's probably ten other masterpieces—meanwhile, your list is packed with at least 50 obscure flicks that only made the cut because they happen to be from English-speaking countries...

Bob le Flambeur and H-8 🙏... sure, these lists aren't exhaustive, but that’s just how it is.

If you ask me, this poll is way too broad. You could pull ten absolute masterpieces just from 1950 alone. A decade is a massive stretch when we're talking about world cinema.

Forbidden Planet 🙏
12 Angry Men
the earth stood still

🤔 How much longer are we going to keep running these polls and lists—are we really stuck doing this until the first decade of the 21st century is over? 😲

Lisa Ross65 said:If you ask me, this poll is way too broad. You could pull ten absolute masterpieces just from 1950 alone. A decade is a massive stretch when we're talking about world cinema.

Exactly. Trying to poll entire decades is tough—actually, it’s pretty much impossible to do accurately this way. The only real way to go is year by year. I know it's more work, but it's much better.

Take 1950, for example (this comes from my own collection, though obviously, I don't have them all on original film):
Koster's Harvey, Buñuel's Los Olvidados, Kazanov's Panic in the Streets, Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, Ophuls La Ronde, Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, Dassin's Night and the City, Kurosawa's Rashomon and Shubun, the Seven Days by the Boulting brothers, Hitchev's Stage Fright, Mateo's D.O.A., Lewis's Gun Crazy, Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, Zinnemann's The Men, Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends, Mankiewicz's All About Eve and No Way Out, and Ford's Rio Grande.
I could probably write a paragraph on every single one of these because I truly believe they are all incredible, so I'm not just listing them for the sake of it.

@Kate Harris4
Looking at all these polls, it feels like you've really left Europe behind (back in the 30s, there wasn't a single Renoir, Lubitsch, or von Sternberg—and those are European directors! There was only one Lang... and in the 40s, not a single Neorealist, whether it was Visconti, Rossellini, De Santis, De Sica, or even Dreyer...)
On this list for the 50s, just like Nicholas Walker3 mentioned, Japan is heavily overlooked (missing Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Kobayashi, with only one Kurosawa), and Europe is missing too (not a single Clouzot, Melville, Clement, Bresson, Becker, Visconti, Sjöberg, or Berlanga—just one Bergman and one Fellini...)
That said, props to you for the 50s list; you clearly put in the effort instead of just copy-pasting. A special shout-out for including Benedek's Death of a Salesman, Siegel's Riot, Fleischer's Narrow Margin (which was a B-movie back then, but is a classic now that had a solid remake with Hackman), Asquith's Browning, Preminger's Angel Face, and Ophuls The Earrings of Madame de... which are unfortunately somewhat forgotten titles today.

"Some Like It Hot," "North by Northwest," and "Roman Holiday."
I haven't actually seen "12 Angry Men" in its original version, but judging by the remake, I suspect it would probably end up on my list of all-time greats too.
Anyone feeling slighted by the lack of Japanese films from the 50s compared to these American classics should just go ahead and start their own poll; I honestly think it would be a massive hit... or, what do you call a poll titled "The Best Home Movies from the Midwest and Rural Texas (1962-1968)"? I mean... 🙄

Good grief, there are actually some gems in here.🙏

I really ought to vote for half this poll, but I'll just highlight a few: Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, On the Waterfront, Vertigo, Aparajito....

12 Angry Men, Vertigo, Rear Window

Quick poll 👎

Come on, I’m dying to see how the '60s and '70s are going to handle things once this momentum really starts picking up...

Donna Gray4 said:12 Angry Men, Vertigo, Rear Window

Quick poll 👎

Come on, I’m dying to see how the '60s and '70s are going to handle things once this momentum really starts picking up...

Oh, you're *really* interested? Hahaha. That's the easy part—just sit there and study everyone else's work instead of actually stepping up and doing something yourself. 🤣

Think you know better? 🤷 Fine then, why don't you run a poll on '50s films so we can all see what a "master" you are? Let's see how much you actually know. It's easy to talk a big game behind a keyboard, but show us through your own work. If you really do know more than me, prove it—don't just shout into the void.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of hollowsailor19's "Best Film" poll because it missed way too many titles. I told him I’ve already got a similar one in the works, but mine will have at least 600 entries. A project like that is a massive undertaking—it'll take me half a day just to get it finished properly.

Kate Harris4 said:Oh, you're *really* interested? Hahaha. That's the easy part—just sit there and study everyone else's work instead of actually stepping up and doing something yourself. 🤣

Think you know better? 🤷 Fine then, why don't you run a poll on '50s films so we can all see what a "master" you are? Let's see how much you actually know. It's easy to talk a big game behind a keyboard, but show us through your own work. If you really do know more than me, prove it—don't just shout into the void.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of hollowsailor19's "Best Film" poll because it missed way too many titles. I told him I’ve already got a similar one in the works, but mine will have at least 600 entries. A project like that is a massive undertaking—it'll take me half a day just to get it finished properly.

It wasn't just me who said it; a few other people above mentioned it too. All I said was that, in my opinion, the poll isn't all that great, and if you can't handle a little criticism, well, that's on you. Why would I bother making a poll? I'm here to vote, and if I feel like putting one together, I will, but not right now. What matters is that you🤣
So much...

Missing Quo Vadis -

My top pick has to be Ben-Hur, followed closely by Quo Vadis—I’ve always had a soft spot for those kinds of epics. After that, I'd say 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Forbidden Planet; the rest? Honestly, I either haven't seen them or they've completely slipped my mind.