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Best Drama Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
405 drama films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is 12 Angry Men (1957), at 9.0 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 8.1. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Sweet Smell of Success, 8.0 on IMDb against 100 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 Angry Men '1957 | Drama | 9.0 | 100% | 97 | 8.6 | Sidney Lumet |
| 2 | Seven Samurai '1954 | Action / Drama | 8.6 | 100% | 98 | 8.5 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 3 | Rear Window '1954 | Thriller / Mystery / Drama | 8.4 | 99% | 100 | 8.3 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 4 | Sunset Boulevard '1950 | Drama | 8.4 | 98% | 94 | 8.3 | Billy Wilder |
| 5 | Paths of Glory '1957 | War / Drama | 8.4 | 96% | 90 | 8.3 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 6 | Witness for the Prosecution '1957 | Drama / Mystery / Crime | 8.4 | 100% | 76 | 8.2 | Billy Wilder |
| 7 | Ikiru '1952 | Drama | 8.3 | 98% | 92 | 8.3 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 8 | All About Eve '1950 | Drama | 8.2 | 99% | 98 | 8.1 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 9 | The World of Apu '1959 | Drama | 8.4 | 97% | - | 8.1 | Satyajit Ray |
| 10 | Rashomon '1950 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 98% | 98 | 8.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 11 | Ben-Hur '1959 | Drama | 8.1 | 87% | 90 | 7.9 | William Wyler |
| 12 | The Bridge on the River Kwai '1957 | Drama / War | 8.1 | 96% | 88 | 7.8 | David Lean |
| 13 | Dial M for Murder '1954 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 90% | 75 | 8.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 14 | The Seventh Seal '1957 | Fantasy / Drama | 8.1 | 93% | 88 | 8.1 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 15 | On the Waterfront '1954 | Crime / Drama / Romance | 8.1 | 99% | 91 | 7.8 | Elia Kazan |
| 16 | Pather Panchali '1955 | Drama | 8.2 | 98% | - | 7.8 | Satyajit Ray |
| 17 | Wild Strawberries '1957 | Drama | 8.1 | 94% | 88 | 8.1 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 18 | The Young and the Damned '1950 | Drama / Crime | 8.2 | 91% | - | 8.1 | Luis Buñuel |
| 19 | Tokyo Story '1953 | Drama | 8.1 | 100% | 100 | 8.2 | Yasujirō Ozu |
| 20 | Sansho the Bailiff '1954 | Drama | 8.3 | 100% | 96 | 8.1 | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| 21 | The Wages of Fear '1953 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 100% | 85 | 8.0 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 22 | The Cranes Are Flying '1957 | Drama / Romance / War | 8.3 | 96% | 76 | 7.9 | Mikhail Kalatozov |
| 23 | The Human Condition I: No Greater Love '1959 | War / Drama | 8.5 | 73% | - | 8.2 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 24 | Nights of Cabiria '1957 | Drama / Comedy | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Federico Fellini |
| 25 | Umberto D. '1952 | Drama | 8.1 | 98% | 92 | 7.9 | Vittorio De Sica |
| 26 | Roman Holiday '1953 | Romance / Comedy / Drama | 8.0 | 97% | 78 | 7.9 | William Wyler |
| 27 | Rififi '1955 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 8.1 | 92% | 97 | 7.8 | Jules Dassin |
| 28 | The 400 Blows '1959 | Drama | 8.0 | 99% | - | 8.0 | François Truffaut |
| 29 | Scrooge '1951 | Fantasy / Drama | 8.1 | 86% | - | 7.4 | Brian Desmond Hurst |
| 30 | A Man Escaped '1956 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Robert Bresson |
| 31 | La Strada '1954 | Drama | 8.0 | 97% | - | 7.9 | Federico Fellini |
| 32 | Anatomy of a Murder '1959 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 8.0 | 100% | 95 | 7.8 | Otto Preminger |
| 33 | Ordet '1955 | Drama | 8.2 | 100% | - | 7.9 | Carl Theodor Dreyer |
| 34 | Ace in the Hole '1951 | Drama | 8.0 | 88% | 72 | 7.8 | Billy Wilder |
| 35 | Ugetsu '1953 | Fantasy / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| 36 | The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity '1959 | War / Drama | 8.5 | - | - | 8.2 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 37 | Aparajito '1956 | Drama | 8.2 | 96% | - | 7.8 | Satyajit Ray |
| 38 | Throne of Blood '1957 | Drama | 8.0 | 96% | - | 7.9 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 39 | The Red Balloon '1956 | Comedy / Drama / Fantasy | 8.1 | 96% | - | 7.7 | Albert Lamorisse |
| 40 | The Hidden Fortress '1958 | Drama / Action | 8.0 | 96% | 89 | 8.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 41 | Strangers on a Train '1951 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 98% | 88 | 7.7 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 42 | Limelight '1952 | Romance / Drama / Comedy | 8.0 | 88% | 84 | 7.9 | Charlie Chaplin |
| 43 | A Streetcar Named Desire '1951 | Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 97% | 97 | 7.6 | Elia Kazan |
| 44 | Sweet Smell of Success '1957 | Drama | 8.0 | 98% | 100 | 7.6 | Alexander Mackendrick |
| 45 | The Killing '1956 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 91 | 7.6 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 46 | The Night of the Hunter '1955 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 93% | 97 | 7.9 | Charles Laughton |
| 47 | Touch of Evil '1958 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 99 | 7.7 | Orson Welles |
| 48 | The Ten Commandments '1956 | Drama | 7.9 | 82% | - | 7.8 | Cecil B. DeMille |
| 49 | In a Lonely Place '1950 | Thriller / Drama / Romance / Mystery | 7.9 | 96% | - | 7.6 | Nicholas Ray |
| 50 | Rio Bravo '1959 | Western / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 93 | 7.8 | Howard Hawks |
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
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Directors on this list
Sidney Lumet Akira Kurosawa Alfred Hitchcock Billy Wilder Stanley Kubrick Joseph L. Mankiewicz Satyajit Ray William Wyler David Lean Ingmar Bergman Elia Kazan Luis Buñuel
Actors on this list
Martin Balsam Toshirō Mifune Takashi Shimura James Stewart Grace Kelly William Holden Kirk Douglas Tyrone Power Marlene Dietrich Bette Davis Anne Baxter Charlton Heston