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Best Thriller Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
93 thriller films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 50 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 7.6. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Bad Seed, 7.4 on IMDb against 51 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 | Vertigo '1958 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 8.2 | 94% | 100 | 8.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 3 | North by Northwest '1959 | Thriller | 8.2 | 97% | 98 | 8.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 4 | Dial M for Murder '1954 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 90% | 75 | 8.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 5 | Diabolique '1955 | Thriller / Mystery | 8.1 | 96% | - | 7.9 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 6 | The Wages of Fear '1953 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 100% | 85 | 8.0 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 7 | Rififi '1955 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 8.1 | 92% | 97 | 7.8 | Jules Dassin |
| 8 | A Man Escaped '1956 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Robert Bresson |
| 9 | Strangers on a Train '1951 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 98% | 88 | 7.7 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 10 | A Streetcar Named Desire '1951 | Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 97% | 97 | 7.6 | Elia Kazan |
| 11 | The Killing '1956 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 91 | 7.6 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 12 | The Night of the Hunter '1955 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 93% | 97 | 7.9 | Charles Laughton |
| 13 | Touch of Evil '1958 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 99 | 7.7 | Orson Welles |
| 14 | In a Lonely Place '1950 | Thriller / Drama / Romance / Mystery | 7.9 | 96% | - | 7.6 | Nicholas Ray |
| 15 | The Big Heat '1953 | Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 95% | - | 7.7 | Fritz Lang |
| 16 | Elevator to the Gallows '1958 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 93% | 94 | 7.6 | Louis Malle |
| 17 | The Day the Earth Stood Still '1951 | Sci-Fi / Thriller / Drama | 7.7 | 92% | 83 | 7.4 | Robert Wise |
| 18 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers '1956 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | 92 | 7.5 | Don Siegel |
| 19 | Godzilla '1954 | Thriller / Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.6 | 94% | 79 | 7.6 | Ishirō Honda |
| 20 | Bad Day at Black Rock '1955 | Western / Drama / Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.6 | 97% | - | 7.3 | John Sturges |
| 21 | The Narrow Margin '1952 | Thriller / Crime | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.3 | Richard Fleischer |
| 22 | Él '1953 | Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.7 | Luis Buñuel |
| 23 | 3:10 to Yuma '1957 | Western / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 94% | 80 | 7.3 | Delmer Daves |
| 24 | Pickup on South Street '1953 | Thriller / Crime | 7.6 | 92% | - | 7.4 | Samuel Fuller |
| 25 | Where the Sidewalk Ends '1950 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Otto Preminger |
| 26 | 5 Fingers '1952 | Thriller / Drama | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 27 | Sudden Fear '1952 | Thriller / Crime | 7.5 | 92% | - | 7.2 | David Miller |
| 28 | Kiss Me Deadly '1955 | Mystery / Thriller / Crime | 7.5 | 98% | - | 7.2 | Robert Aldrich |
| 29 | Touchez Pas au Grisbi '1954 | Crime / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | 85 | 7.2 | Jacques Becker |
| 30 | To Catch a Thief '1955 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.4 | 95% | 82 | 7.3 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 31 | The Man Who Knew Too Much '1956 | Thriller / Mystery / Drama | 7.4 | 89% | 76 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 32 | The Defiant Ones '1958 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 90% | 69 | 7.2 | Stanley Kramer |
| 33 | No Way Out '1950 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 85% | - | 6.9 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 34 | The Desperate Hours '1955 | Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 88% | - | 7.1 | William Wyler |
| 35 | Death of a Cyclist '1955 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.7 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Juan Antonio Bardem |
| 36 | Scandal Sheet '1952 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Phil Karlson |
| 37 | It Happened in Broad Daylight '1958 | Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | - | - | 7.4 | Ladislao Vajda |
| 38 | The Bad Seed '1956 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 7.4 | 66% | 51 | 7.1 | Mervyn LeRoy |
| 39 | Suddenly, Last Summer '1959 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery | 7.4 | 68% | 54 | 7.3 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 40 | Mystery Street '1950 | Crime / Thriller | 7.2 | - | - | 6.8 | John Sturges |
| 41 | Woman on the Run '1950 | Thriller / Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | 88% | - | 6.8 | Norman Foster |
| 42 | Panic in the Streets '1950 | Thriller / Crime | 7.2 | 97% | - | 6.9 | Elia Kazan |
| 43 | The Enforcer '1951 | Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 89% | - | 7.1 | Bretaigne Windust |
| 44 | The Man Who Never Was '1956 | Thriller / War / Drama | 7.4 | 88% | - | 7.0 | Ronald Neame |
| 45 | The Sniper '1952 | Crime / Thriller | 7.1 | 83% | - | 6.7 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 46 | Armored Car Robbery '1950 | Thriller / Crime / Action | 7.0 | - | - | 6.5 | Richard Fleischer |
| 47 | Cairo Station '1958 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.4 | Youssef Chahine |
| 48 | Compulsion '1959 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Richard Fleischer |
| 49 | House by the River '1950 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.0 | 60% | - | 6.8 | Fritz Lang |
| 50 | I Confess '1953 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 7.2 | 84% | 68 | 7.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
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 thriller movies
All movies of the 1950s
Thriller in other decades
Thriller of the 1930s Thriller of the 1940s Thriller of the 1960s Thriller of the 1970s Thriller of the 1980s Thriller of the 1990s Thriller of the 2000s Thriller of the 2010s Thriller of the 2020s
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 Mystery of the 1950s Romance of the 1950s Sci-Fi of the 1950s War of the 1950s Western of the 1950s
Directors on this list
Alfred Hitchcock Henri-Georges Clouzot Jules Dassin Robert Bresson Elia Kazan Stanley Kubrick Orson Welles Nicholas Ray Fritz Lang Louis Malle Robert Wise Don Siegel
Actors on this list
James Stewart Grace Kelly Kim Novak Cary Grant Ray Milland Simone Signoret Yves Montand Charles Vanel Vivien Leigh Marlon Brando Sterling Hayden Robert Mitchum