1953
by Baceseras | created - 07 Sep 2013 | updated - 06 Jan 2014 | PublicThis is a list-in-progress of some favorite films of 1953. The numbers are not rankings; the list is alphabetical, although the displayed form of titles may not reflect this.
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1. The Actress (1953)
Passed | 90 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
This is an account of the real life experience of actress/playwright Ruth Gordon.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Jean Simmons, Teresa Wright, Anthony Perkins
Votes: 1,504
2. The Band Wagon (1953)
Passed | 112 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A pretentiously artistic director is hired for a new Broadway musical and changes it beyond recognition.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray
Votes: 12,563
3. Beat the Devil (1953)
Approved | 89 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
On their way to Africa are a group of rogues who hope to get rich there, and a seemingly innocent British couple. They meet and things happen...
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley
Votes: 10,394
4. The Beggar's Opera (1953)
Approved | 94 min | Crime, History, Musical
When the composer of an opera about a swashbuckling, wenching highwayman meets his hero's real-life counterpart, he's disappointed with his lack of dash.
Director: Peter Brook | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Hugh Griffith, George Rose, Stuart Burge
Votes: 394
5. The Big Heat (1953)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby
Votes: 29,133
6. Blowing Wild (1953)
Approved | 90 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
In South America, after Jeff Dawson and Dutch Peterson's oil rigs are dynamited by local bandits, the two partners resort to risky transportation of nitroglycerin to raise money.
Director: Hugo Fregonese | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Ruth Roman, Anthony Quinn
Votes: 1,197
7. Chuk and Gek (1953)
47 min | Comedy, Drama
Followed by his two sons, Chuk and Gek, an engineer-explorer heads for a geologists'camp lost in the Ural white wilderness. He plans to spend New Year's Eve there with Chuk and Gek, among ... See full summary »
Director: Ivan Lukinsky | Stars: Yura Chuchunov, Andrei Chilikin, Vera Vasileva, Dmitri Pavlov
Votes: 146
8. The Cruel Sea (1953)
Approved | 126 min | Drama, War
The World War II adventures of a British convoy escort ship and its officers.
Director: Charles Frend | Stars: Jack Hawkins, Donald Sinden, John Stratton, Denholm Elliott
Votes: 5,395
9. The Earrings of Madame De... (1953)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Romance
When an aristocratic woman known only as "Madame de . . ." sells a pair of earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay some debts, she sets off a chain reaction of financial and carnal consequences that can end only in despair.
Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica, Jean Debucourt
Votes: 11,098
10. El (1953)
Approved | 82 min | Drama, Romance
A husband's suave exterior unravels after his marriage, and he unleashes his paranoid and volatile temper on his wife, which escalates to more dangerous and unpredictable tantrums.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Arturo de Córdova, Delia Garcés, Aurora Walker, Carlos Martínez Baena
Votes: 6,562
11. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)
G | 89 min | Family, Fantasy, Music
A young boy dreams that he is in an imaginary world where, assisted by his family's plumber, he must save other piano-playing kids like himself from the dungeons of his dictatorial piano teacher who also mind-controls his mother.
Director: Roy Rowland | Stars: Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy, Hans Conried, Tommy Rettig
Votes: 4,457
12. From Here to Eternity (1953)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance, War
At a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his commanding officer's wife and top aide begin a tentative affair.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed
Votes: 50,776 | Gross: $30.50M
13. Gate of Hell (1953)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama, History
A samurai pursues a married lady-in-waiting.
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa | Stars: Machiko Kyô, Kazuo Hasegawa, Isao Yamagata, Yatarô Kurokawa
Votes: 4,267
14. A Geisha (1953)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
A seasoned geisha and her apprentice maiko are forced to give in to their clients' sexual advances to survive.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Michiyo Kogure, Ayako Wakao, Seizaburô Kawazu, Eitarô Shindô
Votes: 2,362
15. Genevieve (1953)
Approved | 86 min | Comedy
Two British couples pit their vintage automobiles against each other in an exciting cross-country race.
Director: Henry Cornelius | Stars: Dinah Sheridan, John Gregson, Kay Kendall, Kenneth More
Votes: 3,440
16. Hocuspocus (1953)
90 min | Comedy, Crime
Director: Kurt Hoffmann | Stars: Curt Goetz, Valerie von Martens, Hans Nielsen, Ernst Waldow
Votes: 186
17. The Juggler (1953)
Passed | 84 min | Drama, History, War
In 1949, former concentration camp inmate and Berlin native Hans Muller, immigrates to Israel where, due to psychological problems, he can't adjust to peacetime life.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Milly Vitale, Paul Stewart, Joseph Walsh
Votes: 720
18. Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Approved | 109 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An ex-husband and wife team star in a musical version of 'The Taming of the Shrew'; off-stage, the production is troublesome with ex-lovers' quarrels and two gangsters looking for some money owed to them.
Director: George Sidney | Stars: Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 6,790 | Gross: $4.38M
19. Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953)
Not Rated | 83 min | Comedy
Monsieur Hulot comes to a beachside hotel for a vacation and accidentally, but good-naturedly, causes havoc.
Director: Jacques Tati | Stars: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla, Valentine Camax
Votes: 20,250
20. Niagara (1953)
Not Rated | 92 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter
Votes: 19,718
21. The Proud and the Beautiful (1953)
103 min | Drama, Romance
Life in a small Mexican village where joy and misery, hope and pain, passion and guilt, love and decay, life and death are mixed in the peasants life and two French citizens who end up stranded in there, during a typhoid epidemic.
Directors: Yves Allégret, Rafael E. Portas | Stars: Michèle Morgan, Gérard Philipe, Víctor Manuel Mendoza, Carlos López Moctezuma
Votes: 904
22. Pickup on South Street (1953)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye
Votes: 16,135
23. The Return of Don Camillo (1953)
115 min | Comedy
Energetic priest Don Camillo returns to the town of Brescello for more political and personal duels with Communist mayor Peppone.
Director: Julien Duvivier | Stars: Fernandel, Gino Cervi, Arturo Bragaglia, Édouard Delmont
Votes: 2,668
24. Rue de l'Estrapade (1953)
100 min | Comedy, Drama
While Henri Laurent speeds along on the racing circuits, his pretty wife Françoise goes from luxury boutique to luxury boutique with her best friend Denise. One day, Denise lets her know ... See full summary »
Director: Jacques Becker | Stars: Daniel Gélin, Louis Jourdan, Anne Vernon, Jean Servais
Votes: 342
25. Sadko (1953)
79 min | Adventure, Fantasy
Arriving home to find his native land under the yoke of corrupt merchants, an adventurer named Sadko sets sail in search of a mythical bird of happiness.
Director: Aleksandr Ptushko | Stars: Sergey Stolyarov, Alla Larionova, Ninel Myshkova, B. Surovtsev
Votes: 1,226
26. Vesna (1953)
96 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
Three students try to pass their final exam by reluctant task of wooing their professor's daughter, but the unlucky winner, decided by a coin toss, will completely forget about studying once he meet her.
Director: Frantisek Cáp | Stars: Metka Gabrijelcic, Franek Trefalt, Jure Furlan, Janez Cuk
Votes: 617
27. Summer with Monika (1953)
R | 96 min | Drama, Romance
A pair of teenagers meet one summer day, start a reckless affair and abandon their families to be with one another.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg, Dagmar Ebbesen, Åke Fridell
Votes: 16,155
28. The Tell-Tale Heart (I) (1953)
Passed | 8 min | Animation, Short, Crime
A madman tells his tale of murder, and how a strange beating sound haunted him afterward.
Director: Ted Parmelee | Stars: James Mason, Jack Mather
Votes: 2,208
29. The Adultress (1953)
Not Rated | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A truck driver kills the husband of the woman he loves, and becomes the object of blackmail.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Simone Signoret, Raf Vallone, Jacques Duby, Maria Pia Casilio
Votes: 1,886
30. The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
Not Rated | 84 min | Comedy
Volunteers take over their local passenger train service (against bus company resistance) when the government announces its closure.
Director: Charles Crichton | Stars: Stanley Holloway, George Relph, Naunton Wayne, John Gregson
Votes: 3,308
31. Tokyo Story (1953)
Not Rated | 136 min | Drama
An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama, Sô Yamamura, Setsuko Hara
Votes: 68,457
32. Ugetsu (1953)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy, War
A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Mitsuko Mito
Votes: 25,777 | Gross: $0.01M
33. The Bullocks (1953)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
A character study of five young men at crucial turning points in their lives in a small town in Italy.
Director: Federico Fellini | Stars: Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Franco Interlenghi, Leopoldo Trieste
Votes: 19,892 | Gross: $0.10M
34. The Wages of Fear (1953)
Not Rated | 131 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter van Eyck, Folco Lulli
Votes: 66,490
35. White Mane (1953)
Approved | 47 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
In the Camargue, France, a young boy bonds with a white haired horse that escaped from ranchers.
Director: Albert Lamorisse | Stars: Alain Emery, Laurent Roche, Clan-Clan, Pascal Lamorisse
Votes: 2,315
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