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.
What happened in 1959?
Discover what the world looked like in 1959: