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The Best Films of the 1950s
The greatest films of the 1950s, from the classic Hollywood musicals to Japan’s Golden Age of cinema.
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Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
Life is a circus that creates entertainment out of humiliation, Ingmar Bergman posits in Sawdust and Tinsel, and in his rich staging and screenwriting he needles its existential drama with a finer, wittier point than ever before, finding both sympathy and pity for its hapless fools doomed to eternal ridicule.
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Forty Guns (1957)
Forty Guns draws significantly from the cultural mythology around lawman Wyatt Earp’s restoration of order to the town of Tombstone, though in Samuel Fuller’s eccentric visual expressions and complex characters, touches of bitterness and sensitivity are brought to this refreshing, female-centric revision of the Old West.
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Bellissima (1951)
In Bellissima’s unconventional blend of Italian neorealism and comedic satire, Luchino Visconti takes sharp aim at the ludicrous glorification of the entertainment industry, identifying an authentic connection between one effusive show mum’s pursuit of stardom for her daughter, and her struggles of post-war poverty.
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Summer with Monika (1953)
Ingmar Bergman guarantees the loss of youthful innocence in Summer with Monika as sure as seasonal changes, contrasting the light nostalgia of a gleeful escape against the demoralising fatigue of contrived, urban living by studying the expressive contours of his young lovers’ faces, poignantly recognising what modern society has so cruelly stolen from them.
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Summer Interlude (1951)
Marie and Henrik aren’t the first lovers in an Ingmar Bergman film to be brutally torn apart, but they are first to be developed with such visual splendour and warmth, as Summer Interlude dreamily calls back to those nostalgic, youthful vacations that seemed to go on forever, flourishing in the tiny tensions and pleasures of…
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To Joy (1950)
Ingmar Bergman’s tribute to artistic expressions that speak directly to the human soul resonate loudly all through To Joy’s visual and musical orchestrations, each one harmonising to pinpoint the intersection of love, tragedy, and wistful longing shared by two married violinists and their perfectionistic, fatherly conductor.
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Man of the West (1958)
The confrontation of one reformed outlaw with the shameful vestiges of his old life unfolds with a remarkably cynical disposition in Man of the West, as Anthony Mann’s widescreen, dusty landscapes and meticulous blocking presage the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone by several years, driving these brilliant character compositions with a sense of overbearing guilt…
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Rashomon (1950)
It is only with as daring a narrative structure as the one which Akira Kurosawa builds in Rashomon that its ruminations on subjectivity, truth, and storytelling find such peaceful resolve in a nihilistic world, as he skilfully navigates the conflicting perspectives of a single murder in classical Japan through dextrous, perspective-shifting camerawork and blocking.
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A Star is Born (1954)
With its light romance and dark tragedy moving along inverse trajectories, the archetypal narrative of A Star is Born may be the closest thing Hollywood has to a modern fairy tale, and it is in the precise balance of both that George Cukor’s vibrant take on it stirringly paints out the brief life cycle of…
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
There are few Golden Age Hollywood directors as willing to embrace the comical leading power of his female stars as Howard Hawks, but it is through Marilyn Monroe’s powerfully mesmeric screen presence carrying vibrant musical numbers and hilarious visual gags that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes becomes all the more flamboyantly intoxicating.