Fantastic Films of the '50s

Moving story of a young boy who, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

A captured French Resistance fighter during WWII engineers a daunting escape from prison.

A kabuki theatre-inflected story about a poor village whose people have to be carried to a nearby mountain to die once they get old.

In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.

Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.

Choreographer Daniel Nagrin performs in a studio and in the sun.

The wife and mistress of a cruel headmaster conspire to kill him; after the murder is committed, his corpse disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women.

A family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.

The head of a Japanese theatre troupe returns to a small coastal town where he left a son who thinks he is his uncle, and tries to make up for the lost time, but his current mistress grows jealous.

Two boys begin a silence strike to press their parents into buying them a television set.

A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.

An aging, industrialist Japanese man becomes so fearful of nuclear war that it begins to take a toll on his life and family.

A bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.

A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

A waifish prostitute wanders the streets of Rome looking for true love but finds only heartbreak.

After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.

The great Agnès Varda's film career began with this graceful, penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the locals, Varda's discursive, gorgeously filmed debut was radical enough to later be considered one of the progenitors of the coming French New Wave.

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself taking care of a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.

Four men plan a technically perfect crime, but the human element intervenes...

Musashi Miyamoto returns to Kyoto after years of absence. After a series of fights against the Yoshioka School, he challenges its master to a duel.

When his family goes away for the summer, a so far faithful husband is tempted by a beautiful neighbor.

A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.

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.

A care-free girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.

Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi forms an emotional bond with her pupils and teaches them various virtues, while at the same time worrying about their future.

A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.

This final installment in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy follows Apu's life as an orphaned adult aspiring to be a writer.