41. The Day the Earth Stood Still
Year of Release: 1951
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Robert Wise
Actors: Michael Rennie, Billy Gray, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Frances Bavier
Plot: A man from another planet, lands on earth to pretend that he is one of them. Because of the way humans act towards each other, he feels they must be destroyed unless they can be convinced otherwise.
42. Ugetsu Monogatari
Year of Release: 1954
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: Japanese
Genre: Drama/Fantasy
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Actors: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Eitarô Ozawa, Ikio Sawamura, Mitsuko Mito
Plot: Long hailed as one of the great achievements in Japanese cinema, Kenji
Mizoguchi's film, set against the backdrop of the civil wars of 16th
Century Japan, follow two men looking for glory: one as a potter, the
other as a would-be samurai. Their ambition causes them to abandon their
respective wives, leading to tragedy.
43. Ace in the Hole
Year of Release: 1951
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary/Mystery
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Billy Wilder
Actors: Kirk Douglas, Robert Arthur, Jan Sterling, Porter Hall, Richard Benedict, Frank Cady
Plot: A film about a big time reporter who uses a disaster as his ticket back to the top.
44. Throne of Blood ( Kumonosu-jou )
Year of Release: 1957
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: Japanese
Genre: Drama/Action
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Minoru Chiaki
Plot: Inspired by a prophecy, an ambitious lord seeks to become emperor as his even more ambicious wife pushes him on.
45. A Streetcar Named Desire
Year of Release: 1951
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Elia Kazan
Actors: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis
Plot: Set in an apartment in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Blanche Dubois visits her pregnant sister while her husband questions her finances and property that may have been left to her and her sister.
46. Hidden Fortress, The ( Kakushi-toride no san-akunin )
Year of Release: 1958
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: Japanese
Genre: Action/Adventure
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Takashi Shimura, Susumu Fujita
Plot: A princess and her top general travel in secret across enemy territory with a caravan of gold in hope of rebuilding her kingdom. Two greedy peasants, unaware of their origins, accompany them in hopes of getting some of their gold.
47. Lady and the Tramp
Year of Release: 1955
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Family
MPAA Rating: G
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson
Actors: Peggy Lee, Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Bill Thompson, Bill Baucom, Stan Freberg
Plot: A refined, upper class spaniel and a rapscallion mutt fall in love in this classic piece of Disney animation.
48. From Here to Eternity
Year of Release: 1953
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Romance
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Actors: Donna Reed, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Philip Ober, Frank Sinatra
Plot: The second in command and a Captain's wife fall in love while another private is punished for not boxing during WWII Hawaii.
49. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Year of Release: 1958
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Richard Brooks
Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood
Plot: A drunk man, who hurt himself hurtling on his old high school track, has a lack-luster marriage and a father, that he doesn't really know, who is about to die.
50. Scrooge ( Christmas Carol, A 1951 )
Year of Release: 1951
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Fantasy/Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Brian Desmond Hurst
Actors: Alastair Sim, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Michael Hordern, George Cole
Plot: Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge learns the error of his ways through the intervention of the ghost of his former partner and of three spirits in this faithful adaptation of the Dickens classic.
