Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1950s › War
Best War Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
69 war films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Paths of Glory (1957), at 8.4 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.5.
Filter, sort and search this list live
| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paths of Glory '1957 | War / Drama | 8.4 | 96% | 90 | 8.3 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 2 | The Bridge on the River Kwai '1957 | Drama / War | 8.1 | 96% | 88 | 7.8 | David Lean |
| 3 | The Cranes Are Flying '1957 | Drama / Romance / War | 8.3 | 96% | 76 | 7.9 | Mikhail Kalatozov |
| 4 | The Human Condition I: No Greater Love '1959 | War / Drama | 8.5 | 73% | - | 8.2 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 5 | The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity '1959 | War / Drama | 8.5 | - | - | 8.2 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 6 | Stalag 17 '1953 | Comedy / Drama / War | 7.9 | 91% | 84 | 7.7 | Billy Wilder |
| 7 | Ballad of a Soldier '1959 | Drama / Romance / War | 8.2 | 94% | - | 8.0 | Grigoriy Chukhray |
| 8 | Forbidden Games '1952 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.8 | René Clément |
| 9 | The African Queen '1952 | Romance / War / Drama | 7.7 | 96% | 91 | 7.3 | John Huston |
| 10 | The Unknown Soldier '1955 | Drama / War | 8.0 | - | - | 7.2 | Edvin Laine |
| 11 | The Burmese Harp '1956 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 90% | 73 | 7.9 | Kon Ichikawa |
| 12 | The Bridge '1959 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Bernhard Wicki |
| 13 | From Here to Eternity '1953 | War / Romance / Drama | 7.6 | 88% | 85 | 7.3 | Fred Zinnemann |
| 14 | The Caine Mutiny '1954 | Drama / War | 7.6 | 95% | 63 | 7.3 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 15 | Kanal '1957 | War / Drama | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Andrzej Wajda |
| 16 | Ashes and Diamonds '1958 | Drama / War / Romance | 7.7 | 96% | - | 7.4 | Andrzej Wajda |
| 17 | Mister Roberts '1955 | Comedy / Drama / War | 7.6 | 93% | 72 | 7.0 | John Ford |
| 18 | The Great War '1959 | Comedy / War / Drama | 8.1 | 40% | - | 8.1 | Mario Monicelli |
| 19 | Fires on the Plain '1959 | Drama / War | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Kon Ichikawa |
| 20 | Ice Cold in Alex '1958 | War / Drama | 7.7 | - | - | 7.3 | J. Lee Thompson |
| 21 | Fate of a Man '1959 | Drama / War | 7.9 | - | - | 7.5 | Sergei Bondarchuk |
| 22 | The Dam Busters '1955 | Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 6.9 | Michael Anderson |
| 23 | Senso '1954 | Romance / Drama / War | 7.4 | 88% | - | 7.2 | Luchino Visconti |
| 24 | The Enemy Below '1957 | War | 7.4 | 86% | - | 7.2 | Dick Powell |
| 25 | The Steel Helmet '1951 | Action / Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Samuel Fuller |
| 26 | Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. '1951 | War | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Raoul Walsh |
| 27 | General Della Rovere '1959 | Drama / War | 7.7 | 90% | - | 7.5 | Roberto Rossellini |
| 28 | The Cruel Sea '1953 | Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 6.9 | Charles Frend |
| 29 | The Man Who Never Was '1956 | Thriller / War / Drama | 7.4 | 88% | - | 7.0 | Ronald Neame |
| 30 | Attack '1956 | Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 6.8 | Robert Aldrich |
| 31 | Fan-Fan the Tulip '1952 | Romance / Comedy / War | 7.1 | 70% | 69 | 6.7 | Christian-Jaque |
| 32 | Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison '1957 | War / Drama | 7.3 | 85% | - | 6.9 | John Huston |
| 33 | Run Silent, Run Deep '1958 | Drama / War | 7.3 | 100% | 62 | 7.0 | Robert Wise |
| 34 | A Time to Love and a Time to Die '1958 | Drama / War / Romance | 7.6 | - | - | 7.2 | Douglas Sirk |
| 35 | Friendly Persuasion '1956 | Drama / War | 7.3 | 73% | - | 6.7 | William Wyler |
| 36 | The Red Badge of Courage '1951 | War | 7.1 | 86% | - | 6.4 | John Huston |
| 37 | Operation Petticoat '1959 | Comedy / War / Romance | 7.2 | 81% | - | 7.2 | Blake Edwards |
| 38 | The Sound Barrier '1952 | Drama / Romance / War | 6.7 | 80% | - | 6.5 | David Lean |
| 39 | Sands of Iwo Jima '1950 | War / Drama | 7.0 | 100% | 75 | 6.4 | Allan Dwan |
| 40 | Men in War '1957 | War / Drama | 7.1 | 88% | - | 6.6 | Anthony Mann |
| 41 | To Hell and Back '1955 | Action / Romance / Drama / War | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.6 | Jesse Hibbs |
| 42 | A Generation '1955 | War / Drama | 7.1 | - | - | 6.9 | Andrzej Wajda |
| 43 | The Inn of the Sixth Happiness '1958 | War / Drama | 7.2 | 100% | - | 6.8 | Mark Robson |
| 44 | The Horse Soldiers '1959 | Western / War | 7.1 | 81% | - | 6.9 | John Ford |
| 45 | The Young Lions '1958 | War / Drama | 7.1 | 75% | - | 6.7 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 46 | The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel '1951 | Action / Drama / War | 6.9 | 83% | - | 6.7 | Henry Hathaway |
| 47 | The Colditz Story '1955 | War / Drama | 6.9 | - | - | 6.8 | Guy Hamilton |
| 48 | Dunkirk '1958 | Drama / War | 7.1 | - | - | 6.9 | Leslie Norman |
| 49 | Violent Summer '1959 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.3 | - | - | 7.2 | Valerio Zurlini |
| 50 | Pork Chop Hill '1959 | Drama / War | 7.0 | 88% | - | 6.7 | Lewis Milestone |
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 war movies
All movies of the 1950s
War in other decades
War of the 1930s War of the 1940s War of the 1960s War of the 1970s War of the 1980s War of the 2000s
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 Thriller of the 1950s Western of the 1950s
Directors on this list
Stanley Kubrick David Lean Mikhail Kalatozov Masaki Kobayashi Billy Wilder René Clément John Huston Fred Zinnemann Edward Dmytryk John Ford Mario Monicelli J. Lee Thompson
Actors on this list
Kirk Douglas William Holden Alec Guinness Tatsuya Nakadai Humphrey Bogart Katharine Hepburn Burt Lancaster Montgomery Clift Henry Fonda James Cagney Vittorio Gassman Alberto Sordi