Top Films by Year (1955-1959)

**—Won Academy Award for Best Picture.
*—Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

1955

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	The Night of the Hunter	Charles Laughton	54
2	Pather Panchali	Satyajit Ray	148
3	Rebel without a Cause	Nicholas Ray	171
4	Diabolique	Henri-Georges Clouzot	305
5	Kiss Me Deadly	Robert Aldrich	335
6	Ordet	Carl Theodor Dreyer	366
7	Rififi	Jules Dassin	420
8	The Ladykillers	Alexander Mackendrick	512
9	Bad Day at Black Rock	John Sturges	710
10	All That Heaven Allows	Douglas Sirk	744
11	East of Eden	Elia Kazan	766
12	Lady and the Tramp	Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske	811
13	Oklahoma!	Fred Zinnemann	933
14	Smiles of a Summer Night	Ingmar Bergman	1108
15	The Court Jester	Melvin Frank and Norman Panama	1115
16	Marty**	Delbert Mann	1150
17	Lola Montès	Max Ophüls	1181
18	The Man with the Golden Arm	Otto Preminger	1383
19	The Seven Year Itch	Billy Wilder	1425
20	Guys and Dolls	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	1470
21	Blackboard Jungle	Richard Brooks	1623
22	Mister Roberts*	John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy	1627
23	The Big Combo	Joseph H. Lewis	1729
24	The Dam Busters	Michael Anderson	1736
25	To Catch a Thief	Alfred Hitchcock	1756
26	The Man from Laramie	Anthony Mann	1788
27	Floating Clouds	Mikio Naruse	2200
28	This Island Earth	Joseph M. Newman	2513
29	The Trouble with Harry	Alfred Hitchcock	2578
30	It's Always Fair Weather	Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly	2579
31	French Cancan	Jean Renoir	2612

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	The Searchers	John Ford	37
2	Invasion of the Body Snatchers	Don Siegel	186
3	Forbidden Planet	Fred M. Wilcox	351
4	Night and Fog	Alain Resnais	390
5	A Man Escaped	Robert Bresson	443
6	The Killing	Stanley Kubrick	447
7	The Ten Commandments*	Cecil B. DeMille	493
8	Aparajito	Satyajit Ray	575
9	Giant*	George Stevens	641
10	The Red Balloon	Albert Lamorisse	921
11	Written on the Wind	Douglas Sirk	978
12	The King and I*	Walter Lang	997
13	Seven Men from Now	Budd Boetticher	1201
14	Bob le Flambeur	Jean-Pierre Melville	1247
15	Bigger than Life	Nicholas Ray	1282
16	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Alfred Hitchcock	1463
17	The Burmese Harp	Kon Ichikawa	1732
18	High Society	Charles Walters	1795
19	The Girl Can't Help It	Frank Tashlin	1812
20	Baby Doll	Elia Kazan	1978
21	Around the World in Eighty Days**	Michael Anderson	2078
22	The Wrong Man	Alfred Hitchcock	2165
23	Lust for Life	Vincente Minnelli	2182
24	Attack!	Robert Aldrich	2491
25	Carousel	Henry King	2651
26	The Bad Seed	Mervyn LeRoy	2701
27	While the City Sleeps	Fritz Lang	2743

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	12 Angry Men*	Sidney Lumet	73
2	The Seventh Seal	Ingmar Bergman	93
3	The Bridge on the River Kwai**	David Lean	94
4	Paths of Glory	Stanley Kubrick	114
5	Wild Strawberries	Ingmar Bergman	170
6	Sweet Smell of Success	Alexander Mackendrick	173
7	Witness for the Prosecution*	Billy Wilder	480
8	Nights of Cabiria	Federico Fellini	496
9	Throne of Blood	Akira Kurosawa	507
10	The Incredible Shrinking Man	Jack Arnold	783
11	An Affair to Remember	Leo McCarey	794
12	Funny Face	Stanley Donen	899
13	The Cranes are Flying	Mikheil Kalatozishvili	931
14	A Face in the Crowd	Elia Kazan	1013
15	Curse of the Demon	Jacques Tourneur	1086
16	Kanal	Andrzej Wajda	1148
17	Old Yeller	Robert Stevenson	1450
18	Forty Guns	Samuel Fuller	1471
19	3:10 to Yuma	Delmer Daves	1519
20	The Tall T	Budd Boetticher	1853
21	Gunfight at the O.K. Corral	John Sturges	2026
22	Love in the Afternoon	Billy Wilder	2252
23	The Curse of Frankenstein	Terence Fisher	2395
24	Les Maîtres fous	Jean Rouch	2486
25	Jailhouse Rock	Richard Thorpe	2516
26	The Pajama Game	George Abbott and Stanley Donen	2520
27	Pyaasa	Guru Dutt	2603
28	Mother India	Mehboob Khan	2662
29	What's Opera, Doc?	Chuck Jones	2744

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	13
2	Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	55
3	Shadows	John Cassavetes	460
4	Ashes and Diamonds	Andrzej Wajda	547
5	Mon Oncle	Jacques Tati	682
6	Elevator to the Gallows	Louis Malle	820
7	Horror of Dracula	Terence Fisher	875
8	Gigi**	Vincente Minnelli	1031
9	The Big Country	William Wyler	1050
10	The Hidden Fortress	Akira Kurosawa	1238
11	Ivan the Terrible, Part II	Sergei M. Eisenstein and M. Filimonova	1251
12	The Music Room	Satyajit Ray	1288
13	The Fly	Kurt Neumann	1482
14	Damn Yankees!	George Abbott and Stanley Donen	1539
15	The 7th Voyage of Sinbad	Nathan Juran	1785
16	Man of the West	Anthony Mann	1823
17	Big Deal on Madonna Street	Mario Monicelli	1836
18	Some Came Running	Vincente Minnelli	1891
19	Ice-Cold in Alex	J. Lee Thompson	1904
20	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof*	Richard Brooks	1926
21	The Defiant Ones*	Stanley Kramer	2010
22	South Pacific	Joshua Logan	2143
23	The Blob	Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.	2206
24	Auntie Mame*	Morton DaCosta	2331
25	A Movie	Bruce Conner	2618
26	A Night to Remember	Roy Ward Baker	2697
27	It Happened in Broad Daylight	Ladislao Vajda	2708
28	Run Silent Run Deep	Robert Wise	2760

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	Some Like It Hot	Billy Wilder	10
2	North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	40
3	The 400 Blows	François Truffaut	60
4	Ben-Hur**	William Wyler	159
5	Rio Bravo	Howard Hawks	175
6	Hiroshima mon amour	Alain Resnais	326
7	The World of Apu	Satyajit Ray	402
8	Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	427
9	Anatomy of a Murder*	Otto Preminger	513
10	Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	519
11	Sleeping Beauty	Clyde Geronimi	974
12	Ballad of a Soldier	Grigoriy Chukhray	1371
13	Floating Weeds	Yasujirô Ozu	1630
14	Good Morning	Yasujirô Ozu	1752
15	Room at the Top*	Jack Clayton	1874
16	Plan 9 from Outer Space	Edward D. Wood Jr.	1893
17	Pillow Talk	Michael Gordon	2014
18	The Human Condition I: No Greater Love	Masaki Kobayashi	2032
19	Nazarín	Luis Buñuel	2169
20	Ride Lonesome	Budd Boetticher	2197
21	Black Orpheus	Marcel Camus	2238
22	Fires on the Plain	Kon Ichikawa	2243
23	The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity	Masaki Kobayashi	2367
24	The Bridge	Bernhard Wicki	2478
25	The Great War	Mario Monicelli	2752
26	Jazz on a Summer's Day	Aram Avakian and Bert Stern	2804

**—Won Academy Award for Best Picture.
*—Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.