Critics Poll: ‘Vertigo’ Named Best Film of the 1950s, Over 120 Participants

Our “Decade in Film” polls are an integral part of this site and I will continue to conduct them as long as there is interest from our readers — the goal is to go all the way back to the silent era. We’ve already covered the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

It's time for the ‘50s.

It was a closer race than expected, but Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” has topped our best of the ’50s poll, besting Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s “Singin’ in the Rain” by just two votes.

Hitchcock, who went through an immense decade, had three of his films finish in the top 11: “Vertigo” (#1), “Rear Window” (#4) and “North by Northwest” (#10). Curiously, his other ‘50s masterpiece, “Strangers on a Train,” did not receive a single vote

However, I expected John Ford’s “The Searchers” (#7) to do better, it’s constantly been cited as an all-timer, for decades now, but has more recently been reassessed, by some, for its dated tackling of race relations in the west. I always thought it was more a study of racism than it being racist.

Because this was such a rich period in movie history, despite the Hays Code, and especially with the incoming boom of foreign filmmaking entering the fray, I expected a rich variety of titles to make the list and that’s just what happened.

In total, 120 lists were compiled for this latest poll in our decade series. Participants were asked to name their five best films of the 1950s, unranked. An arduous task as this was a decade filled with great cinema.

FULL LIST OF THE PARTICIPANTS

1) Vertigo (Hithcock) — 37 votes
2) Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly/Donen) — 35
3) Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) — 27
4) Rear Window (Hitchcock) — 27
5) Night of the Hunter (Laughton) — 24
6) Sunset Blvd. (Wilder) — 20
7) The Searchers (Ford) — 19
8) Touch of Evil (Welles) — 18
9) North by Northwest (Hitchcock) — 18
10) Tokyo Story (Ozu) — 17

11) Paths of Glory (Kubrick) — 17
12) In A Lonely Place (Ray) — 15
13) Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean) — 14
14) The 400 Blows (Truffaut)— 14
15) The Seventh Seal (Bergman) — 13
16) Some Like it Hot (Wilder) — 11
17) 12 Angry Men (Lumet) — 11
18) Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick) 11
19) Rashomon (Kurosawa) — 10
20) Rio Bravo (Hawks) — 10

21) On the Waterfront (Kazan) — 9
22) Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)— 8
23) All About Eve (Mankiewicz)— 8
24) Wild Strawberries (Bergman) — 7
25) Ordet (Dreyer) — 7
26) The Earrings of Madame De (Ophuls) —6
27) Nights of Cabiria (Fellini) — 6
28) Ikiru (Kurosawa) — 6
29) Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais) — 5
30) Johnny Guitar (Ray) — 5

31) A Man Escaped (Bresson) — 5
32) Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich) — 5
33) La Strada (Fellini) — 5
34) A Face in the Crowd (Kazan) — 5
35) Wages of Fear (Clouzot) — 4
36) Umberto D (De Sica) — 4
37) A Place in the Sun (Stevens) — 4
38) All That Heaven Allows (Sirk) — 4
39) The Killing (Kubrick) — 4
40) Ben Hur (Wyler) — 4
41) Invasion of the Body Snatchers — 4