1959 Movies
Take a nostalgic look back at the top movies of 1959, celebrating the films, directors and actors that defined the year and left a lasting legacy in the world of entertainment.
The World's End
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: David Bradley, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg
Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Some Like It Hot
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Country: United States of America
Outline: When two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
North by Northwest
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Country: United States of America
Outline: A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.
Anatomy of a Murder
Directed by: Otto Preminger
Starring: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell
Country: United States of America
Outline: In a murder trial, the defendant says he suffered temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
Ben-Hur
Directed by: William Wyler
Starring: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet
Country: United States of America
Outline: When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Rio Bravo
Directed by: Howard Hawks
Starring: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson
Country: United States of America
Outline: A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a cripple, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
Imitation of Life
Directed by: Douglas Sirk
Starring: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner
Country: United States of America
Outline: An aspiring actress befriends a black widow, but trouble arises when the latter is rejected by her daughter, who tries to pass for white.
Suddenly, Last Summer
Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker
Country: United States of America
Outline: The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.
Pillow Talk
Directed by: Michael Gordon
Starring: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter
Country: United States of America
Outline: A man and a woman who share a party line cannot stand each other, but he has fun romancing her with his voice disguised.
Operation Petticoat
Directed by: Blake Edwards
Starring: Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O'Brien, Dina Merrill
Country: United States of America
Outline: During World War II, a commander finds himself stuck with a decrepit (and pink) submarine, a con man executive officer, and a group of army nurses.
The World of Apu
Directed by: Satyajit Ray
Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty, Swapan Mukherjee
Country: United States of America
Outline: This final installment in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy follows Apu's life as an orphaned adult aspiring to be a writer.
The 400 Blows
Directed by: François Truffaut
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier, Guy Decomble
Country: United States of America
Outline: A young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.
Ballad of a Soldier
Directed by: Grigoriy Chukhray
Starring: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolay Kryuchkov
Country: United States of America
Outline: Young Russian soldier Alyosha earns a medal, but asks to visit his mother instead. His journey recounts various kinds of love during wartime.
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Directed by: Alain Resnais
Starring: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Stella Dassas, Pierre Barbaud
Country: United States of America
Outline: A French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.
General Della Rovere
Directed by: Roberto Rossellini
Starring: Vittorio De Sica, Hannes Messemer, Sandra Milo, Giovanna Ralli
Outline: Bardone, a petty con man, is arrested by the Gestapo and coerced into impersonating a partisan leader in order to expose another resistance organizer.
Anari
Directed by: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Starring: Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Lalita Pawar, Shubha Khote
Outline: Raj Kumar is an honest, handsome and intelligent young man to boot. He works as a sole Trader therefore a painter by trade, but unable to earn a living, and unable to pay rent to his ...
The Bridge
Directed by: Bernhard Wicki
Starring: Folker Bohnet, Fritz Wepper, Michael Hinz, Frank Glaubrecht
Country: United States of America
Outline: In 1945, Germany is being overrun, and nobody is left to fight but teenagers.
Room at the Top
Directed by: Jack Clayton
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit
Country: United States of America
Outline: An ambitious young accountant plots to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.
The Nun's Story
Directed by: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft
Country: United States of America
Outline: After leaving a wealthy Belgian family to become a nun, Sister Luke struggles with her devotion to her vows during crisis, disappointment, and World War II.
Compulsion
Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Diane Varsi, Bradford Dillman
Country: United States of America
Outline: Two wealthy law-school students go on trial for murder in this version of the Leopold-Loeb case.
Black Orpheus
Directed by: Marcel Camus
Starring: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes de Oliveira, Léa Garcia
Country: United States of America
Outline: A retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set during the time of the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.
The Diary of Anne Frank
Directed by: George Stevens
Starring: Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters, Joseph Schildkraut, Richard Beymer
Country: United States of America
Outline: During World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
Porgy and Bess
Directed by: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian
Starring: Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey
Country: United States of America
Outline: A woman whose past is scorned by nearly everyone around her meets a man who'd love her regardlessly- if only everyone else would allow them to.
Last Train from Gun Hill
Directed by: John Sturges
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman
Country: United States of America
Outline: A marshal tries to bring the son of an old friend, an autocratic cattle baron, to justice for his role in the rape and murder of the marshal's Native American wife.
What happened in 1959?
Discover what the world looked like in 1959: