11. Sleeping Beauty
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Animation/Fantasy
MPAA Rating: G
Director: Clyde Geronimi
Actors: Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen
Plot: A snubbed malevolent fairy casts a curse on a princess that only a prince can break, with the help of three good fairies.
12. Drunken Angel ( Yoidore tenshi )
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: Japanese
Genre: Crime/Drama
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reisaburo Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure, Chieko Nakakita, Noriko Sengoku
Plot: The film focuses on an unlikely relationship of an alcoholic doctor (Takashi Shimura) treats a hood named Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune).
13. Hiroshima, My Love ( Hiroshima mon amour )
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 4 stars
Language: French
Genre: Drama/War
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Alain Resnais
Actors: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Stella Dassas, Pierre Barbaud, Bernard Fresson
Plot: A French actress in Hiroshima, for a film about peace, spends the night with a Japanese man. It reminds her of an earlier relationship she had in WWII with a German soldier.
14. The Nun's Story
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Mildred Dunnock
Plot: A young woman leaves her prominent family behind in order to take her vows. Yet these vows are often tested - in the Congo she works with a brilliant but atheist doctor and when she is called home to France as WWII breaks out she, like the other nuns in her order, are forbidden from taking sides.
15. Room at the Top
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Romance
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Jack Clayton
Actors: Simone Signoret, Laurence Harvey, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, Hermione Baddeley
Plot: In order to climb the corporate ladder, a young man abandons his true love to marry the boss' daughter.
16. The Diary of Anne Frank
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Biography/Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: George Stevens
Actors: Shelley Winters, Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Ed Wynn, Gusti Huber, Lou Jacobi
Plot: As the "Green Police" search for Jews on the streets of Amsterdam, a young girl named Anne, her parents and another family retreat for two years to a small attic of a shop. Despite being confined to a small area and having no contact with the outside world, the families go on with their lives to the best of their ability.
17. Operation Petticoat
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Comedy/War
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Blake Edwards
Actors: Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Gavin MacLeod, Joan O'Brien, Dina Merrill, Dick Sargent
Plot: A confident captain wants a sub to command finds himself in charge of damaged sub, which is painted pink following a primer problem, and he also has to deal with a bevy of nurses, a con-man/executive officer.
18. House on Haunted Hill
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.8 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Horror
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: William Castle
Actors: Vincent Price, Carolyn Craig, Richard Long, Elisha Cook Jr., Carol Ohmart, Alan Marshal
Plot: Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price) and his fourth wife invite five guests to their house for a little 'party'. However can stay the night in the house on Haunted Hill will earn $10,000. But as the night progresses, more things happen. Death, ghosts and a dark pit await these innocent guests. Win or die, those are the choices you have for this game.
19. Black Orpheus ( Orfeu Negro )
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.8 out of 4 stars
Language: Portuguese
Genre: Drama/Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Marcel Camus
Actors: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Fausto Guerzoni, Ademar Da Silva, Marcel Camus, Lourdes de Oliveira
Plot: The Greek myth of doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice, is transferred to a contemporary setting at the Carnivale in Rio de Janiero. It's a lively blend of sight and sound stimulation. This film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar.
20. Shadows
Year of Release: 1959
Overall Rating: 2.8 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: John Cassavetes
Actors: Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, Hugh Hurd, Anthony Ray, Dennis Sallas, Tom Reese
