1. Tokyo Story: 1953 (Directed By Yasujiro Ozu)
2. Vertigo: 1958 (Directed By Alfred Hitchcock)
3. The Searchers: 1956 (Directed By John Ford)
4. Seven Samurai: 1954 (Directed By Akira Kurosawa)
5. Rio Bravo: 1959 (Directed By Howard Hawks)
6. Sunset Boulevard: 1950 (Directed By Billy Wilder)
7. The 400 Blows: 1959 (Directed By Francois Truffaut)
8. Singin in the Rain: 1952 (Directed By Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly)
9. Touch of Evil: 1958 (Directed By Orson Welles)
10. Sansho the Baliff: 1954 (Directed By Kenji Mizoguchi)
4 comments:
GREAT list, though it includes two CLASSIC films that I've tried to watch numerous times but never could get through... 400 Blows and Seven Samurai. Two difficult filmmakers for me, maybe one day I'll finish them.
I guess I am a little sentimental and look towards the iconic films of the 50's and might include them on my list.
Ben Hur is a film that I suppose I don't overly enjoy, but it was one of those grand scale epics that are sort of part of the definition of the epic, but I probably wouldn't have included it either.
You seem to be really in love with Japanese cinema, which I think was at its peak in the 50's, however, two films I think are missing off this list that maybe would have replaced at least Sansho for me are:
1) Rebel Without a Cause. With such a small cannon, it seems important to me to include James Dean's iconic performance. With the exception of Brando, he was the only actor really beginning to work with minimalistic realism as an acting method and kind of began to define what "new" acting would become. And the movie is fantastic.
2) The Day the Earth Stood Still. This movie holds up for me. Which is shocking considering it is a 50's sci-fi, but it still makes me uneasy and still gets my blood racing and I think was the first movie that allowed the genre to be more than a B-Movie and Matinee thriller.
I really appreciate these lists for opening my mind to more than North American cinema, even though its hard to look beyond movies in which I am so familiar...
I would agree with you anonymous person on "Rebel Without a Cause", which nearly made my top ten, which just goes to show you again how many great movies there were. As for "Ben Hur" it is an acheivment but I would go with "Seven Samurai" any day as far as epics go. "House of Mirth", I do hope one day you are able to get through "The 400 Blows and "Seven Samurai" both great films by two master filmmakers, (In my opinion)
Your '50s list is hard-to-argue-with definitive! A little more interesting than mine probably (although we overlap with 5 films). I've seen 9/10 of your filmd (never seen SANSHO)
My top ten of the 1950s:
1. The Seven Samurai
2. Rear Window
3. Vertigo
4. Sunset Blvd.
5. The Bridge on the River Kwai
6. Touch of Evil
7. The Seventh Seal
8. A Streetcar Named Desire
9. The 400 Blows
10. North by Northwest
If I must abide by your one-director/one-film rule, then Vertigo (!) and North By Northwest would come out and I'd add The Wages of Fear and The Lavender Hill Mob as #9 and #10
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