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	57
2	Pather Panchali	Satyajit Ray	155
3	Rebel without a Cause	Nicholas Ray	252
4	Diabolique	Henri-Georges Clouzot	295
5	Rififi	Jules Dassin	419
6	Kiss Me Deadly	Robert Aldrich	480
7	Ordet	Carl Theodor Dreyer	514
8	The Ladykillers	Alexander Mackendrick	616
9	All That Heaven Allows	Douglas Sirk	782
10	East of Eden	Elia Kazan	830
11	Lady and the Tramp	Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske	836
12	Bad Day at Black Rock	John Sturges	883
13	Marty**	Delbert Mann	1161
14	Lola Montès	Max Ophüls	1169
15	Oklahoma!	Fred Zinnemann	1191
16	The Seven Year Itch	Billy Wilder	1317
17	The Court Jester	Melvin Frank and Norman Panama	1333
18	Mister Roberts*	John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy	1551
19	Guys and Dolls	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	1560
20	The Man with the Golden Arm	Otto Preminger	1653
21	Smiles of a Summer Night	Ingmar Bergman	1663
22	To Catch a Thief	Alfred Hitchcock	1743
23	The Man from Laramie	Anthony Mann	1858
24	Blackboard Jungle	Richard Brooks	1942
25	The Dam Busters	Michael Anderson	2244
26	Floating Clouds	Mikio Naruse	2330
27	The Trouble with Harry	Alfred Hitchcock	2426
28	It's Always Fair Weather	Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly	2645
29	The Big Combo	Joseph H. Lewis	2740
30	Summertime	David Lean	2878
31	Picnic*	Joshua Logan	2879
32	This Island Earth	Joseph M. Newman	2899
33	French Cancan	Jean Renoir	2930

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	The Searchers	John Ford	53
2	Invasion of the Body Snatchers	Don Siegel	212
3	Forbidden Planet	Fred M. Wilcox	401
4	Night and Fog	Alain Resnais	490
5	The Killing	Stanley Kubrick	502
6	The Ten Commandments*	Cecil B. DeMille	603
7	A Man Escaped	Robert Bresson	617
8	Aparajito	Satyajit Ray	651
9	Giant*	George Stevens	829
10	The Red Balloon	Albert Lamorisse	1172
11	Written on the Wind	Douglas Sirk	1278
12	The King and I*	Walter Lang	1315
13	Seven Men from Now	Budd Boetticher	1462
14	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Alfred Hitchcock	1465
15	The Burmese Harp	Kon Ichikawa	1812
16	Bob le Flambeur	Jean-Pierre Melville	1847
17	Bigger than Life	Nicholas Ray	2028
18	Attack!	Robert Aldrich	2374
19	High Society	Charles Walters	2439
20	Moby Dick	John Huston	2474
21	Baby Doll	Elia Kazan	2517
22	The Girl Can't Help It	Frank Tashlin	2562
23	The Wrong Man	Alfred Hitchcock	2707
24	Lust for Life	Vincente Minnelli	2818

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	12 Angry Men*	Sidney Lumet	66
2	The Bridge on the River Kwai**	David Lean	91
3	The Seventh Seal	Ingmar Bergman	118
4	Paths of Glory	Stanley Kubrick	127
5	Sweet Smell of Success	Alexander Mackendrick	209
6	Wild Strawberries	Ingmar Bergman	245
7	Throne of Blood	Akira Kurosawa	592
8	Witness for the Prosecution*	Billy Wilder	648
9	Nights of Cabiria	Federico Fellini	693
10	Funny Face	Stanley Donen	898
11	An Affair to Remember	Leo McCarey	900
12	A Face in the Crowd	Elia Kazan	1006
13	The Cranes are Flying	Mikhail Kalatozov	1030
14	Curse of the Demon	Jacques Tourneur	1063
15	The Incredible Shrinking Man	Jack Arnold	1145
16	Kanal	Andrzej Wajda	1396
17	Old Yeller	Robert Stevenson	1450
18	3:10 to Yuma	Delmer Daves	1460
19	Plan 9 from Outer Space	Edward D. Wood Jr.	1484
20	Forty Guns	Samuel Fuller	1561
21	The Curse of Frankenstein	Terence Fisher	2042
22	The Tall T	Budd Boetticher	2107
23	Pyaasa	Guru Dutt	2267
24	Gunfight at the O.K. Corral	John Sturges	2403
25	Jailhouse Rock	Richard Thorpe	2637
26	Mother India	Mehboob Khan	2700
27	Love in the Afternoon	Billy Wilder	2798
28	What's Opera, Doc?	Chuck Jones	2825

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	15
2	Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	87
3	Shadows	John Cassavetes	669
4	Ashes and Diamonds	Andrzej Wajda	680
5	Elevator to the Gallows	Louis Malle	706
6	Horror of Dracula	Terence Fisher	813
7	Mon Oncle	Jacques Tati	822
8	The Big Country	William Wyler	1098
9	Gigi**	Vincente Minnelli	1218
10	The Hidden Fortress	Akira Kurosawa	1342
11	The Music Room	Satyajit Ray	1417
12	The Fly	Kurt Neumann	1515
13	Ivan the Terrible, Part II	Sergei Eisenstein	1555
14	The Blob	Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.	1580
15	Some Came Running	Vincente Minnelli	2025
16	Damn Yankees!	George Abbott and Stanley Donen	2033
17	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof*	Richard Brooks	2095
18	Man of the West	Anthony Mann	2127
19	Big Deal on Madonna Street	Mario Monicelli	2143
20	The Defiant Ones*	Stanley Kramer	2179
21	Ice-Cold in Alex	J. Lee Thompson	2200
22	The 7th Voyage of Sinbad	Nathan Juran	2397
23	Auntie Mame*	Morton DaCosta	2463
24	Run Silent Run Deep	Robert Wise	2536
25	A Night to Remember	Roy Ward Baker	2742
26	Murder by Contract	Irving Lerner	2768
27	Cairo Station	Youssef Chahine	2892

Rank	Title	Director(s)	Overall Rank
1	Some Like It Hot	Billy Wilder	19
2	North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	49
3	The 400 Blows	François Truffaut	70
4	Ben-Hur**	William Wyler	188
5	Rio Bravo	Howard Hawks	202
6	Hiroshima mon amour	Alain Resnais	432
7	Anatomy of a Murder*	Otto Preminger	464
8	The World of Apu	Satyajit Ray	492
9	Imitation of Life	Douglas Sirk	571
10	Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	752
11	Sleeping Beauty	Clyde Geronimi	847
12	Floating Weeds	Yasujirô Ozu	1483
13	Black Orpheus	Marcel Camus	1591
14	The Human Condition I: No Greater Love	Masaki Kobayashi	1689
15	Ballad of a Soldier	Grigoriy Chukhray	1788
16	Pillow Talk	Michael Gordon	1936
17	Ride Lonesome	Budd Boetticher	2017
18	Good Morning	Yasujirô Ozu	2085
19	House on Haunted Hill	William Castle	2298
20	Fires on the Plain	Kon Ichikawa	2454
21	Nazarín	Luis Buñuel	2508
22	The Bridge	Bernhard Wicki	2592
23	The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity	Masaki Kobayashi	2640
24	Jazz on a Summer's Day	Bert Stern	2718
25	A Bucket of Blood	Roger Corman	2734
26	Suddenly, Last Summer	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	2792
27	On the Beach	Stanley Kramer	2833

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