Fantastic Films of the '50s
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The 400 Blows (1959)
Directed by: François Truffaut
Moving story of a young boy who, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.
Directed by: Robert Bresson
A captured French Resistance fighter during WWII engineers a daunting escape from prison.
Narayama bushikô (1958)
Directed by: Keisuke Kinoshita
A kabuki theatre-inflected story about a poor village whose people have to be carried to a nearby mountain to die once they get old.
Directed by: Kon Ichikawa
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
Directed by: Mikhail Kalatozov
Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.
Diabolique (1955)
Directed by: Henri-Georges Clouzot
The wife and mistress of a cruel headmaster conspire to kill him; after the murder is committed, his corpse disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women.
Early Summer (1951)
Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
A family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.
Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
The head of a Japanese theatre troupe returns to a small coastal town where he left a son who thinks he is his uncle, and tries to make up for the lost time, but his current mistress grows jealous.
Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
Two boys begin a silence strike to press their parents into buying them a television set.
Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi
A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.
Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi
As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
An aging, industrialist Japanese man becomes so fearful of nuclear war that it begins to take a toll on his life and family.
Ikiru (1952)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
A bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Directed by: Charles Laughton
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Directed by: Federico Fellini
A waifish prostitute wanders the streets of Rome looking for true love but finds only heartbreak.
Paths of Glory (1957)
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
La Pointe Courte (1956) (1955)
Directed by: Agnès Varda
The great Agnès Varda's film career began with this graceful, penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the locals, Varda's discursive, gorgeously filmed debut was radical enough to later be considered one of the progenitors of the coming French New Wave.
The Rickshaw Man (1958) (1958)
Directed by: Hiroshi Inagaki
A poor rickshaw driver finds himself taking care of a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.
Directed by: Jules Dassin
Four men plan a technically perfect crime, but the human element intervenes...
Directed by: Hiroshi Inagaki
Musashi Miyamoto returns to Kyoto after years of absence. After a series of fights against the Yoshioka School, he challenges its master to a duel.
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Directed by: Billy Wilder
When his family goes away for the summer, a so far faithful husband is tempted by a beautiful neighbor.
Directed by: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
Directed by: Billy Wilder
When two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Directed by: Federico Fellini
A care-free girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.
Tokyo Story (1953)
Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.
Twenty-Four Eyes (1954)
Directed by: Keisuke Kinoshita
Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi forms an emotional bond with her pupils and teaches them various virtues, while at the same time worrying about their future.
Directed by: Kenji Mizoguchi
A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.
The World of Apu (1959)
Directed by: Satyajit Ray
This final installment in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy follows Apu's life as an orphaned adult aspiring to be a writer.
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