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1950s French Movies

Public list by WPS with 780 movies or TV shows/series

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779 movies found (page 1/26):

The Wages of Fear(1953)

PG-13
| 2h 33min | Drama, Thriller, Adventure
4.0/5 (with 366 votes)

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday(1953)

NR
| 1h 27min | Comedy
3.5/5 (with 182 votes)

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.

Don Camillo(1952)

1h 47min | Comedy
3.8/5 (with 123 votes)

In a village of the Po valley where the earth is hard and life miserly, the priest and the communist mayor are always fighting to be the head of the community. If in secret, they admired and liked each other, politics still divided them as it is dividing the country. And when the mayor wants his "People's House"; the priest wants his "Garden City" for the poor. Division exist between the richest and the poorest, the pious and the atheists and even between lovers. But if the people are hard as the country, they are good in the bottom of there heart.

The 400 Blows(1959)

NR
| 1h 39min | Drama
4.1/5 (with 978 votes)

For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.

Hiroshima Mon Amour(1959)

3.9/5 (with 325 votes)

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

Elevator to the Gallows(1958)

1h 31min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.8/5 (with 245 votes)

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

Le Plaisir(1952)

3.8/5 (with 44 votes)

Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.

Diabolique(1955)

1h 57min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
3.9/5 (with 387 votes)

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

Les Misérables(1958)

3h 30min | Drama, History
3.5/5 (with 41 votes)

Victor Hugo's monumental novel Les Miserables has been filmed so often that sometimes it's hard to tell one version from another. One of the best and most faithful adaptations is this 240-minute French production, starring Jean Gabin as the beleaguered Jean Valjean. Arrested for a petty crime, Valjean spends years 20 in the brutal French penal system. Even upon his release, his trail is dogged by relentless Inspector Javert. Valjean's efforts to create a new life for himself despite the omnipresence of Javert is meticulously detailed in this film, which utilizes several episodes from the Hugo original that had hitherto never been dramatized. Originally released as a single film, Les Miserables was usually offered as a two-parter outside of France.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1956)

PG
| 1h 55min | Drama, History
3.3/5 (with 44 votes)

Paris, 1482. Today is the festival of the fools, taking place like each year in the square outside Cathedral Notre Dame. Among jugglers and other entertainers, Esmeralda, a sensuous gypsy, performs a bewitching dance in front of delighted spectators. From up in a tower of the cathedral, Frollo, an alchemist, gazes at her lustfully. Later in the night, Frollo orders Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and his faithful servant, to kidnap Esmeralda. But when the ugly freak comes close to her is touched by the young woman's beauty...

A Man Escaped(1956)

NR
| 1h 41min | Thriller, Drama, War, History
4.0/5 (with 215 votes)

A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.

Pickpocket(1959)

1h 15min | Crime, Drama
3.7/5 (with 208 votes)

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

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Ulysses(1954)

1h 40min | Adventure, Fantasy
3.2/5 (with 66 votes)

A movie adaptation of Homer's second epic, that talks about Ulysses' efforts to return to his home after the end of ten years of war.

The Indian Tomb(1959)

3.1/5 (with 43 votes)

Seetha and Harold Berger are rescued from the desert by a caravan and brought to a small village. However, the greedy owner of the house where they are lodged betrays the law of hospitality and reveals their location to Prince Ramigani. The couple tries to escape but is hunted and captured by Ramigani and his men. Meanwhile Irene Rhode and her husband Walter Rhode suspect that Maharaja Chandra is not telling the truth about Harold's destiny. The conspirator Ramigani forces Seetha to accept to get married with Chandra to provoke the wrath of the priests and get the alliance of Prince Padhu and his army. In the meantime, Harold succeeds in escaping from the dungeon and seeks out Seetha to save her.

Nights of Cabiria(1957)

1h 50min | Drama
4.0/5 (with 347 votes)

Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.

Orpheus(1950)

NR
| 1h 35min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance / Love
3.8/5 (with 101 votes)

At the Café des Poètes in Paris, a fight breaks out between the poet Orphée and a group of resentful upstarts. A rival poet, Cègeste, is killed, and a mysterious princess insists on taking Orpheus and the body away in her Rolls-Royce. Orphée soon finds himself in the underworld, where the Princess announces that she is, in fact, Death. Orpheus escapes in the car back to the land of the living, only to become obsessed with the car radio.

The Mirror Has Two Faces(1958)

1h 36min | Drama
3.4/5 (with 7 votes)

A teacher runs an ad in the newspaper to find a wife. Afraid of beautiful ladies, he weds an ugly woman. After a car accident, he meets a doctor who offers to reveal his wife's beauty.

Mon Oncle(1958)

NR
| 1h 58min | Comedy
3.7/5 (with 220 votes)

Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.

Forbidden Games(1952)

1h 27min | Drama, History
3.9/5 (with 127 votes)

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

The Red Balloon(1956)

3.9/5 (with 160 votes)

A young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere.

Night and Fog(1956)

4.1/5 (with 189 votes)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Directed by Alain Resnais - With Michel Bouquet

Fan-Fan the Tulip(1952)

3.4/5 (with 43 votes)

Fanfan is a young handsome peasant. He joins the army to escape marriage and because a gipsy girl predicted he will get glory and the king's daughter as a wife. But the gipsy girl was in fact Adeline, the daughter of the recruiting officer. Once he has discovered the stratagem, Fanfan refuses to forget this dream and decides to fulfill the destiny of the fake prediction. Fantastic swashbuckling adventures in a 18th century setting, with a light criticism of the war and the mighty.

Le Notti Bianche(1957)

1h 41min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.8/5 (with 85 votes)

A lonely city transplant and a sheltered girl, haunted by a lover’s promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion.

Don Camillo's Last Round(1955)

1h 37min | Comedy, History
3.6/5 (with 74 votes)

Bewildered, Don Camillo learns that Peppone intends to stand for parliament. Determined to thwart his ambitions, the good priest, ignoring the recommendations of the Lord, decides to campaign against him.

General Della Rovere(1959)

2h 12min | War, Drama
3.8/5 (with 54 votes)

The Gestapo forces con man Victorio Bardone to impersonate a dead partisan general in order to extract information from his fellow inmates.

The Tiger of Eschnapur(1959)

3.1/5 (with 54 votes)

In Eschnapur, a German architect saves the life of the Maharajah's favorite temple dancer and becomes Maharajah's friend but their friendship is tested when the architect and the dancer fall in-love, triggering the Maharajah's vengeful ire.

The Return of Don Camillo(1953)

1h 55min | Comedy
3.6/5 (with 82 votes)

Energetic priest Don Camillo returns to the town of Brescello for more political and personal duels with Communist mayor Peppone.

La Pointe Courte(1956)

1h 20min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.4/5 (with 42 votes)

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.

Directed by Agnès Varda - With Silvia Monfort, Philippe Noiret, Sète

Journey to Italy(1954)

1h 25min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.7/5 (with 116 votes)

This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.

Touchez Pas au Grisbi(1954)

NR
| 1h 35min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.6/5 (with 92 votes)

Gentleman gangster Max and his partner, Riton, pull off their last, most successful heist and find themselves comfortable enough to retire in the style they enjoy. However, Max confides the details of the theft to his younger mistress, Josey -- who has secretly taken up with ambitious young rival gangster Angelo. Angelo then has Riton kidnapped and demands the stash of gold as ransom, which threatens Max's dreams of the perfect retirement.

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