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Best Mystery Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
34 mystery films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 34 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Rear Window (1954), at 8.4 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.2. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Suddenly, Last Summer, 7.4 on IMDb against 54 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rear Window '1954 | Thriller / Mystery / Drama | 8.4 | 99% | 100 | 8.3 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 2 | Witness for the Prosecution '1957 | Drama / Mystery / Crime | 8.4 | 100% | 76 | 8.2 | Billy Wilder |
| 3 | Vertigo '1958 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 8.2 | 94% | 100 | 8.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 4 | Rashomon '1950 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 98% | 98 | 8.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 5 | Diabolique '1955 | Thriller / Mystery | 8.1 | 96% | - | 7.9 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 6 | Anatomy of a Murder '1959 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 8.0 | 100% | 95 | 7.8 | Otto Preminger |
| 7 | Ugetsu '1953 | Fantasy / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| 8 | In a Lonely Place '1950 | Thriller / Drama / Romance / Mystery | 7.9 | 96% | - | 7.6 | Nicholas Ray |
| 9 | Bad Day at Black Rock '1955 | Western / Drama / Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.6 | 97% | - | 7.3 | John Sturges |
| 10 | Kiss Me Deadly '1955 | Mystery / Thriller / Crime | 7.5 | 98% | - | 7.2 | Robert Aldrich |
| 11 | To Catch a Thief '1955 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.4 | 95% | 82 | 7.3 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 12 | The Man Who Knew Too Much '1956 | Thriller / Mystery / Drama | 7.4 | 89% | 76 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 13 | Night of the Demon '1957 | Fantasy / Horror / Mystery | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 14 | An Inspector Calls '1954 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Guy Hamilton |
| 15 | Suddenly, Last Summer '1959 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery | 7.4 | 68% | 54 | 7.3 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 16 | Woman on the Run '1950 | Thriller / Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | 88% | - | 6.8 | Norman Foster |
| 17 | Mr. Arkadin '1955 | Mystery / Thriller | 7.1 | 72% | - | 6.8 | Orson Welles |
| 18 | The House on Telegraph Hill '1951 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery | 6.9 | - | - | 6.4 | Robert Wise |
| 19 | Marie-Octobre '1959 | Drama / Mystery | 7.5 | - | - | 7.3 | Julien Duvivier |
| 20 | The Facts of Murder '1959 | Mystery / Crime | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Pietro Germi |
| 21 | The Trouble with Harry '1955 | Comedy / Mystery | 7.0 | 88% | 74 | 7.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 22 | Maigret Sets a Trap '1958 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.2 | - | - | 7.0 | Jean Delannoy |
| 23 | 23 Paces to Baker Street '1956 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 6.9 | - | - | 6.7 | Henry Hathaway |
| 24 | Lust of the Vampire '1957 | Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi | 6.5 | - | - | 6.3 | Riccardo Freda |
| 25 | Autumn Leaves '1956 | Drama / Mystery / Romance | 6.8 | 91% | - | 7.0 | Robert Aldrich |
| 26 | The Blue Gardenia '1953 | Crime / Mystery | 6.8 | 85% | - | 6.5 | Fritz Lang |
| 27 | Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case '1959 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.0 | - | - | 7.0 | Jean Delannoy |
| 28 | The Hound of the Baskervilles '1959 | Mystery / Thriller / Horror | 6.9 | 95% | - | 6.8 | Terence Fisher |
| 29 | Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde '1953 | Comedy / Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi | 6.4 | 67% | - | 6.2 | Charles Lamont |
| 30 | House on Haunted Hill '1959 | Horror / Mystery | 6.7 | 80% | - | 6.7 | William Castle |
| 31 | I Bury the Living '1958 | Mystery / Horror | 6.3 | 64% | - | 6.2 | Albert Band |
| 32 | X: The Unknown '1956 | Horror / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 6.1 | 71% | - | 6.1 | Leslie Norman |
| 33 | The Alligator People '1959 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Mystery | 5.6 | - | - | 5.6 | Roy Del Ruth |
| 34 | The Bat '1959 | Horror / Mystery / Thriller / Crime | 6.0 | 17% | - | 5.9 | Crane Wilbur |
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.
All mystery movies
All movies of the 1950s
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Other genres in the 1950s
Action of 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 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
Alfred Hitchcock Billy Wilder Akira Kurosawa Henri-Georges Clouzot Otto Preminger Kenji Mizoguchi Nicholas Ray John Sturges Robert Aldrich Jacques Tourneur Guy Hamilton Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Actors on this list
James Stewart Grace Kelly Tyrone Power Marlene Dietrich Kim Novak ToshirÅ Mifune Simone Signoret Lee Remick Humphrey Bogart Gloria Grahame Spencer Tracy Robert Ryan