Must-sees of 1956
by vitale-daniele | created - 18 Dec 2012 | updated - 1 month ago | PublicThe titles hereby listed have been selected out of 109 1956-released works seen.
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1. The Burmese Harp (1956)
Not Rated | 116 min | Drama, Music, War
A conscience-driven Japanese soldier traumatized by the events of WWII adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
Director: Kon Ichikawa | Stars: Rentarô Mikuni, Shôji Yasui, Tatsuya Mihashi, Jun Hamamura
Votes: 6,463
2. A Man Escaped (1956)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Thriller, War
A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from a German prison in France.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Roland Monod
Votes: 25,002
3. The Searchers (1956)
Passed | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond
Votes: 96,309
4. Early Spring (1956)
145 min | Drama
A young man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital romance.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chikage Awashima, Ryô Ikebe, Teiji Takahashi, Keiko Kishi
Votes: 3,730
5. Sudden Rain (1956)
91 min | Comedy, Drama
This wry chamber piece from director Mikio Naruse focuses on a couple whose pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Setsuko Hara, Shûji Sano, Kyôko Kagawa, Akemi Negishi
Votes: 371
6. Street of Shame (1956)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama
The personal tales of various prostitutes who occupy a brothel.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Machiko Kyô, Aiko Mimasu, Ayako Wakao, Michiyo Kogure
Votes: 4,869
7. 7 Men from Now (1956)
Approved | 78 min | Western
A former sheriff blames himself for his wife's death during a Wells Fargo robbery and vows to track down and kill the seven men responsible.
Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, Lee Marvin, Walter Reed
Votes: 5,997
8. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,766
9. The Balloon (1956)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama
Haruki Murakami is a successful family man and the head of a camera company. Unbeknownst to Murakami, his arrogant son oscillates between a mistress and a new lover who sings at a nightclub... See full summary »
Director: Yûzô Kawashima | Stars: Masayuki Mori, Tatsuya Mihashi, Mie Kitahara, Sachiko Hidari
Votes: 309
10. The Railroad Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama
The railroad engineer Andrea Marcocci has been working with his partner and friend Gigi Liverani for thirty years and feels happy and proud of his work, drinking wine after hours with his ... See full summary »
Director: Pietro Germi | Stars: Pietro Germi, Luisa Della Noce, Sylva Koscina, Saro Urzì
Votes: 1,409
11. Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Passed | 113 min | Biography, Drama, Sport
Boxer Rocky Graziano's biopic, based on his autobiography, from childhood to his World Middleweight Championship title win at age 28 in 1947.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart
Votes: 9,021
12. The Killing (1956)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 97,527
13. While the City Sleeps (1956)
Approved | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York and the new owner of a media company offers a high ranking job to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoops on the case.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff
Votes: 7,080
14. Written on the Wind (1956)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama
Alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley marries the woman secretly loved by his poor but hard-working best friend, who in turn is pursued by Kyle's nymphomaniac sister.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone
Votes: 13,422
15. The Red Balloon (1956)
Not Rated | 34 min | Short, Comedy, Drama
A red balloon with a mind of its own follows a little boy around the streets of Paris.
Director: Albert Lamorisse | Stars: Pascal Lamorisse, Sabine Lamorisse, Georges Sellier, Vladimir Popov
Votes: 20,129
16. The Wrong Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone
Votes: 31,370
17. Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (1956)
81 min | Drama
A couple stand indecisively on a bridge in Asakusa. Tsutae and Yoshiji have lost confidence and passion for their future as they get on the bus for Tsukishima and get off at Suzaki. Across ... See full summary »
Director: Yûzô Kawashima | Stars: Michiyo Aratama, Yukiko Todoroki, Seizaburô Kawazu, Tatsuya Mihashi
Votes: 822
18. Baby Doll (1956)
Approved | 114 min | Comedy, Drama
An immature, naive teenage bride holds her anxious husband at bay while flirting with an amorous Sicilian farmer.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock
Votes: 8,294
19. Tea and Sympathy (1956)
Approved | 122 min | Drama
A new senior at a boy's prep school, finds himself harassed by the machismo culture of his classmates and the unfeelingly behavior by his father, only being treated with decency by his roommate and with affection by the coach's wife.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif Erickson, Edward Andrews
Votes: 3,217
20. Nightmare (1956)
Approved | 89 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A New Orleans musician has a nightmare about killing a man in a strange house but he suspects that it really happened.
Director: Maxwell Shane | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Kevin McCarthy, Connie Russell, Virginia Christine
Votes: 999
21. The Fastest Gun Alive (1956)
Passed | 89 min | Drama, Western
In the western frontier town of Cross Creek, storekeeper George Temple is a polite and soft spoken man with a secret past. When 3 bank robbers on the lam stop in town to change horses, George's past comes back to haunt him.
Director: Russell Rouse | Stars: Glenn Ford, Jeanne Crain, Broderick Crawford, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 3,577
22. Taiyô to bara (1956)
85 min | Action, Crime
A young man ignores his mother's pleas and becomes drawn to a life of crime.
Director: Keisuke Kinoshita | Stars: Akira Ishihama, Katsuo Nakamura, Sadako Sawamura, Yoshiko Kuga
Votes: 122
23. Lust for Life (1956)
Approved | 122 min | Biography, Drama
The life of brilliant but tortured artist Vincent van Gogh.
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown
Votes: 12,508 | Gross: $3.48M
24. La banda degli onesti (1956)
106 min | Comedy
Three decent but clumsy men facing economic difficulties reluctantly start to fabricate counterfeit bills; the son of one of them is the cop who follows the case, ignoring his father's involvement.
Director: Camillo Mastrocinque | Stars: Totò, Peppino De Filippo, Giulia Rubini, Giacomo Furia
Votes: 1,597
25. Wild Love (1956)
85 min | Comedy
The film is about some youths' love stories: Franco and his hairdresser girlfriend Adriana, Otello another hairdresser who is hopelessly in love with Adriana. The youths usually meet in a ... See full summary »
Director: Mauro Bolognini | Stars: Antonella Lualdi, Franco Interlenghi, Sergio Raimondi, Valeria Moriconi
Votes: 153
26. Forbidden Planet (1956)
G | 98 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
A starship crew in the 23rd century goes to investigate the silence of a distant planet's colony, only to find just two survivors, a powerful robot, and the deadly secret of a lost civilization.
Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens
Votes: 53,217 | Gross: $3.00M
27. Aparajito (1956)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama
Following his father's death, a boy leaves home to study in Calcutta, while his mother must face a life alone.
Director: Satyajit Ray | Stars: Pinaki Sengupta, Smaran Ghosal, Kamala Adhikari, Rani Bala
Votes: 15,994 | Gross: $0.17M
28. Moby Dick (1956)
Not Rated | 116 min | Adventure, Drama
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, James Robertson Justice
Votes: 21,907 | Gross: $10.40M
29. Flowing (1956)
117 min | Drama
Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mothers trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta ... See full summary »
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Kinuyo Tanaka, Isuzu Yamada, Hideko Takamine, Mariko Okada
Votes: 1,187
30. Totò, Peppino e la... malafemmina (1956)
106 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Two clumsy provincial uncles visit a metropolis to stop the relationship between their nephew and a woman of ill repute.
Director: Camillo Mastrocinque | Stars: Totò, Peppino De Filippo, Dorian Gray, Teddy Reno
Votes: 2,060
31. Bob the Gambler (1956)
PG | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After losing big, an aging gambler decides to assemble a team to rob a casino.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corey, Daniel Cauchy, Guy Decomble
Votes: 13,359 | Gross: $0.02M
32. Giant (1956)
G | 201 min | Drama, Western
Sprawling epic covering the life of a Texas cattle rancher and his family and associates.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker
Votes: 42,251
33. Crime of Passion (1956)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.
Director: Gerd Oswald | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray
Votes: 2,856
34. Attack (1956)
Approved | 107 min | Action, Drama, War
In 1944, an American Infantry company sets up an artillery observation post, but tensions between Captain Cooney and Lieutenant Costa run high.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, Eddie Albert, Robert Strauss
Votes: 5,836
35. The Harder They Fall (1956)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Sport
An ex-sportswriter is hired by a shady fight promoter to promote his latest find, an unknown but easily exploitable rising star from Argentina.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling, Mike Lane
Votes: 9,033
36. Totò, Peppino e i fuorilegge (1956)
103 min | Comedy
Antonio and Peppino live in a small town in central Italy: Peppino is the barber, Totò is maintained by the rich but avaricious wife Teresa.
Director: Camillo Mastrocinque | Stars: Totò, Peppino De Filippo, Franco Interlenghi, Dorian Gray
Votes: 641
37. A Wife's Heart (1956)
101 min | Drama
A young woman tries to raise money to open her own coffee shop.She arranges a loan when her rigid family won't help and then her husband becomes jealous of the loan officer.
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Hideko Takamine, Toshirô Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi, Akemi Negishi
Votes: 229
38. The Thick-Walled Room (1956)
110 min | Drama
A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Kô Mishima, Torahiko Hamada, Keiko Kishi, Toshiko Kobayashi
Votes: 642
39. Our Town (1956)
98 min | Drama
In 1906, a man returns to Japan after finishing a job in the Philippines, only to discover that his lover is dying, leaving him a baby girl.
Director: Yûzô Kawashima | Stars: Ryûtarô Tatsumi, Yôko Minamida, Shirô Ôsaka, Taiji Tonoyama
Votes: 295
40. Guardia, guardia scelta, brigadiere e maresciallo (1956)
92 min | Comedy
This is the (funny) story of four Roma traffic police agents in the 1950s. Their lives are crossed in affairs that often go beyond mere job relationships. 'Guardia scelta' (special agent) ... See full summary »
Director: Mauro Bolognini | Stars: Alberto Sordi, Peppino De Filippo, Aldo Fabrizi, Gino Cervi
Votes: 244
41. Donatella (1956)
96 min | Comedy
Donatella is a simple and honest Roman girl, daughter of a bookbinder and girlfriend of Guido, a gas station owner.
Director: Mario Monicelli | Stars: Elsa Martinelli, Gabriele Ferzetti, Walter Chiari, Aldo Fabrizi
Votes: 204
42. Bigger Than Life (1956)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama
A seriously-ill schoolteacher becomes dependent on a "miracle" drug that begins to affect his sanity.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert F. Simon
Votes: 8,146
43. Sunday in Peking (1956)
22 min | Documentary, Short
Director Chris Marker begins by recounting his childhood dream of visiting the city of Peking, a city he was once only able to admire in books. The viewer is taken on a journey through this... See full summary »
Director: Chris Marker | Star: Gilles Quéant
Votes: 534
44. The Star of Bethlehem (1956 TV Short)
17 min | Animation, Short
A nativity story animated with music performed by the Glyndeboume Festival Chorus.
Directors: Vivian Milroy, Lotte Reiniger, Jan Sadlo | Stars: Anthony Jacobs, Barbara Ruick
Votes: 121
45. Fountainhead (1956)
129 min | Drama
A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Ineko Arima, Keiji Sada, Yôko Katsuragi, Toshiko Kobayashi
Votes: 160
46. The Killer Is Loose (1956)
Passed | 73 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An unhinged, deceptively mild-mannered bank robber escapes prison, seeking revenge on the cop who accidentally killed his wife during a gun battle.
Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr.
Votes: 2,484
47. What a Woman! (1956)
92 min | Comedy, Drama
A photographer named Corrado snaps a picture of Antonietta. When it shows up on the front page of a magazine, she wants to take him to court over it.
Director: Alessandro Blasetti | Stars: Sophia Loren, Charles Boyer, Marcello Mastroianni, Elisa Cegani
Votes: 481
48. The Ghost of Yotsuya (1956)
86 min | Horror
Oiwa has been searching for the one who killed her father for a long time. She comes to Yedo and sees a man named Naosuke. The film is based on the kabuki classic: Toukaidou Yotsuya Kaidan ... See full summary »
Director: Masaki Môri | Stars: Tomisaburô Wakayama, Akemi Tsukushi, Chieko Sôma, Haruo Tanaka
Votes: 93
49. Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An urban wheeler-dealer gets involved in organized crime, corrupt city politics and graft while falling in love with the fiancée of the newly elected mayor.
Director: Allan Dwan | Stars: John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Arlene Dahl, Kent Taylor
Votes: 1,290
50. The Man Who Never Was (1956)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, War
In order to fool the Germans into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily will take place elsewhere, British Military Intelligence comes up with a cunning ruse.
Director: Ronald Neame | Stars: Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame, Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin
Votes: 5,787
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