It’s time for another decades poll!
This time from a decade filled with Hollywood spectacle: biblical epics, Westerns, and spectacular Technicolor musicals populate this decade. After World War II, international films start to make the rounds in America, particularly those of Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman, inspiring a whole generation of filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese (the latter of whom often calls the 1950s the greatest decade for cinema ever). Legendary filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet, and Elia Kazan all gained prominence during this decade as well.
It’s the decade where Hollywood began to go all out competing against the new medium of television, creating new formats like VistaVision, CinemaScope, and even 3D movies. Eventually all the grandeur began to crumble with the failure of Cleopatra in the decade to come, but at its height in the 1950s, it was something to marvel at.
Rear Window, To Catch a Thief
Excellent summary of 1950s cinema! I would also mention Satyajit Ray, who is lesser known than Bergman and Kurosawa but is still important because of his seminal film Pather Panchali, which introduced Indian cinema to the world. It's the first part of the acclaimed Apu trilogy (yes, that's where the Simpsons character got his name from).
I submitted my list but there were some painful omissions, especially Hitchcock, whose best decade was the 50s (North by Northwest, Rear Window, and Vertigo, among others). I feel so ashamed.😔 With the exception of Schindler's List, my top movie has always been a space film, but this time it was Ordet, a religious movie from Denmark that's on the Vatican list of 45 important films. Yes, it's slow and dry, but it packs a wallop like you wouldn't believe. Trust me: see it as soon as you can and go into it cold. (Ditto for Umberto D., an Italian Neorealism film.)