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Best Action Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
31 action films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 31 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Seven Samurai (1954), at 8.6 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 6.8.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seven Samurai '1954 | Action / Drama | 8.6 | 100% | 98 | 8.5 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 2 | The Hidden Fortress '1958 | Drama / Action | 8.0 | 96% | 89 | 8.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 3 | A Night to Remember '1958 | Drama / Action | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.7 | Roy Ward Baker |
| 4 | Bob le Flambeur '1956 | Drama / Action / Crime | 7.5 | 97% | 80 | 7.3 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 5 | Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island '1956 | Action / Drama / Romance | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Hiroshi Inagaki |
| 6 | Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto '1954 | Drama / Action | 7.4 | 85% | - | 7.2 | Hiroshi Inagaki |
| 7 | The Steel Helmet '1951 | Action / Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Samuel Fuller |
| 8 | Armored Car Robbery '1950 | Thriller / Crime / Action | 7.0 | - | - | 6.5 | Richard Fleischer |
| 9 | Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple '1955 | Drama / Action | 7.3 | - | - | 7.2 | Hiroshi Inagaki |
| 10 | The Blue Lamp '1950 | Crime / Thriller / Action | 6.8 | 83% | - | 6.6 | Basil Dearden |
| 11 | To Hell and Back '1955 | Action / Romance / Drama / War | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.6 | Jesse Hibbs |
| 12 | The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel '1951 | Action / Drama / War | 6.9 | 83% | - | 6.7 | Henry Hathaway |
| 13 | The War of the Worlds '1953 | Sci-Fi / Action | 7.0 | - | 78 | 6.8 | Byron Haskin |
| 14 | No Name on the Bullet '1959 | Action / Thriller / Western | 7.2 | - | - | 6.6 | Jack Arnold |
| 15 | The 7th Voyage of Sinbad '1958 | Action / Fantasy | 7.0 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Nathan Juran |
| 16 | The Vikings '1958 | Action | 7.0 | 78% | - | 7.0 | Richard Fleischer |
| 17 | King Solomon's Mines '1950 | Action / Romance | 6.7 | 92% | 69 | 6.5 | Compton Bennett |
| 18 | The Desert Rats '1953 | War / Action | 6.7 | 100% | - | 6.3 | Robert Wise |
| 19 | The Mysterians '1957 | Sci-Fi / Action / Drama / Thriller / War | 6.1 | - | - | 6.3 | Ishirō Honda |
| 20 | Secret of the Incas '1954 | Action | 6.0 | - | - | 5.9 | Jerry Hopper |
| 21 | Prince Valiant '1954 | Action / Romance | 6.2 | - | - | 6.1 | Henry Hathaway |
| 22 | Hell and High Water '1954 | Drama / Action | 6.1 | 80% | - | 6.0 | Samuel Fuller |
| 23 | Thunder Road '1958 | Crime / Action / Thriller | 6.6 | 75% | 73 | 6.1 | Arthur Ripley |
| 24 | Blood Alley '1955 | Action / Drama | 6.2 | 40% | - | 6.0 | William A. Wellman |
| 25 | Knights of the Round Table '1953 | Romance / Action / Fantasy / Drama | 6.2 | 50% | - | 6.0 | Richard Thorpe |
| 26 | Apache '1954 | Action / Western | 6.3 | 70% | - | 6.1 | Robert Aldrich |
| 27 | Flying Leathernecks '1951 | War / Action / Drama | 6.3 | 67% | 75 | 5.8 | Nicholas Ray |
| 28 | Superman and the Mole Men '1951 | Sci-Fi / Action | 5.5 | - | - | 5.3 | Lee Sholem |
| 29 | Earth vs. the Flying Saucers '1956 | Action / Sci-Fi | 6.3 | 73% | - | 6.1 | Fred F. Sears |
| 30 | Hercules '1958 | Fantasy / Action | 5.4 | - | - | 5.1 | Pietro Francisci |
| 31 | Godzilla Raids Again '1955 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Action | 5.7 | 64% | - | 6.0 | Motoyoshi Oda |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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Other genres in the 1950s
Animation of the 1950s Comedy of the 1950s Crime of the 1950s Drama of the 1950s Fantasy of the 1950s Horror of the 1950s Musical of the 1950s Mystery of the 1950s Romance of the 1950s Sci-Fi of the 1950s Thriller of the 1950s War of the 1950s Western of the 1950s
Directors on this list
Akira Kurosawa Roy Ward Baker Jean-Pierre Melville Samuel Fuller Richard Fleischer Basil Dearden Henry Hathaway Byron Haskin Jack Arnold Nathan Juran Robert Wise Ishirō Honda
Actors on this list
Toshirō Mifune Takashi Shimura Charles McGraw Marshall Thompson James Mason Cedric Hardwicke Charles Drake Kirk Douglas Tony Curtis Deborah Kerr Stewart Granger Richard Burton