Must-sees of 1953

A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.

In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.

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.

When an aristocratic woman known only as "Madame de . . ." sells a pair of earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay some debts, she sets off a chain reaction of financial and carnal consequences that can end only in despair.

A bounty hunter trying to bring a murderer to justice is forced to accept the help of two less-than-trustworthy strangers.

A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.

A character study of five young men at crucial turning points in their lives in a small town in Italy.

A priest, who comes under suspicion for murder, cannot clear his name without breaking the seal of the confessional.

Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.

A seasoned geisha and her apprentice maiko are forced to give in to their clients' sexual advances to survive.

In the Camargue, France, a young boy bonds with a white haired horse that escaped from ranchers.

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.

A young boy fears that he shot his older brother, who is only faking. He then runs away to Coney Island, a crowded beach area, and gets money by returning soda bottles for their deposits.

An industrialist has his wife tailed because he secretly hopes she is betraying him so that he can ask for a divorce and marry the model he's fallen in love with. This leads to a series of thefts, blackmail and a suicide as well.

An aging movie star uncertain of his future teams up with a top ballerina to headline a new Broadway musical, but the pretentiously artistic goals of its director threaten to change it beyond recognition.

Explores the wounds of war, the limits of love and the need to forgive. A sad and troubled man, Reikichi Mayumi finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.

At a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a pugilistic private is cruelly punished for refusing to join his unit's boxing team. Meanwhile, his commanding officer's wife and top NCO are indulging in a torrid love affair.

In Older Brother, Younger Sister, director Mikio Naruse's adaptation of an oft-filmed popular novel by Saisei Murô, the eldest daughter (Machiko Kyô) of a rural family comes home pregnant, testing some already tenuous family bonds. Naruse shows his considerable skill at portraying household dynamics, filming Kyô in relaxed and/or reclining positions (indicative of her character's exhaustively maintained independence) that are then intruded upon by her ill-tempered older brother (Masayuki Mori), whose initially comic, brute-force presence grows increasingly menacing and treacherous as the film progresses.

A husband's suave exterior unravels after his marriage, and he unleashes his paranoid and volatile temper on his wife, which escalates to more dangerous and unpredictable tantrums.

Tokyo. Mihoko and Toichi Nakagawa's ten year marriage is crumbling out of inertia. Each knows the other isn't happy, they themselves aren't happy, but they don't talk about their problems with each other, each festering in their unhappiness largely so that they will not show especially to their three boarders their problems. Mihiko in particular, old fashioned in her outlook, does not see divorce as an option, that move which would be a stigma she could not tolerate. Both are seemingly oblivious to the fact that others around them are facing similar if not worse situations, and that they themselves are largely the cause of their unhappiness. Things for their marriage get worse when Toichi starts to fall for his work colleague, widowed Fusako Sagara, who returns his affections.

After a beautiful bride boards an ocean liner with her new husband, he goes into hiding, and she becomes the target of a murder conspiracy.

Reformed parolee Steve Lacey is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter.

An ex-gunfighter defends homesteaders in 1889 Wyoming.

A telephone operator ends up drunk and at the mercy of a cad in his apartment. The next morning she wakes up with a hangover and the terrible fear she may have committed murder.