The African Queen
Ship captain and drunkard Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), who ferries supplies to small villages in East Africa during World War I, picks up Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn), the sister of a missionary, to take her back to civilization. The two initially can't stand each other, but as time goes on, they get closer and closer.

All About Eve
In this story of fame, ambition, and betrayal, aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) manages to enter the inner circle of her idol, aging Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis). Eve becomes Margo's understudy for a play directed by Margo's fiancé, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill). Eve has an aggressive agenda: She wants to be a star and is willing to do whatever it takes to reach the top, including attempts to seduce Bill and a married playwright (Hugh Marlowe), whose wife (Celeste Holm) had supported her earlier. A cynical theater critic (George Sanders) oversees it all and is amused by Eve's remarkable rise.

All Quiet on the Western Front
A German college student and his friends enlist in the military after an inspirational lecture from one of their professors, but once they get to the front lines, they quickly realize that fighting in a war isn't at all like they thought it would be.

An American in Paris
One of the greatest of 1950s screen musicals is a happy collaboration between the grace and athleticism of Gene Kelly and colorful palette of Vincente Minnelli. An American G.I. lingers in Paris after the war to study painting and soon falls in love with Caron, an engaged mademoiselle, much to the chagrin of his romance-minded benefactress. Features a seventeen-minute, avant-garde ballet choreographed by Kelly to George Gershwin's unbeatable melodies. Academy Award Nominations: 8, including Best Director. Academy Awards: 6, including Best Picture, Best Story and Screenplay. Kelly won a special Oscar for his achievements.

The Apartment
A clerk at a large corporation (Jack Lemmon) climbs the business ladder by lending out his apartment to his bosses for extramarital flings. But when he falls for an elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) who turns out to be his boss's mistress, things get complicated.

Ben-Hur
When a rich Jewish prince (Heston) is deceived by a Roman friend and forced into slavery, he vows revenge.

The Best Years of Our Lives
Perhaps the most memorable film about the aftermath of World War II, it unfolds with the homecoming of three veterans to the same small town. The leads all touch emotional truths: Myrna Loy seems able to express longing, joy, fear and surprise--mostly with her back turned--in a particularly poignant welcome home. The movie never glosses over the reality of altered lives and the inability to communicate the experience of war on the front lines or the home front. A landmark achievement. WWII vet Harold Russell, who lost his hands in the war, is the only person to win two Oscars for the same role, Best Supporting Actor and a special Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance."

Breakfast at Tiffany's
Based on Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's opens with a young socialite (Audrey Hepburn) shopping at Tiffany's in New York City in the wee hours, following a "date." She's secretly a call girl and is running messages for the mob on the side, plus she has a past life as a housewife who abandoned her family. She meets a young writer (George Pepard) on the day he moves into her apartment building and discovers he's also being paid for services by a wealthy older woman. The two become friends as they search for their true identities.

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Set in a Burmese POW camp in 1943, the story follows a British colonel (Alec Guinness) trying to build a bridge over the river Kwai and an escaped American prisoner (William Holden) hoping to redeem himself by blowing up the bridge.

Casablanca
A Czech woman (Ingrid Bergman) flees from the Nazis and arrives in Casablanca, only to find her ex-boyfriend, Rick (Humphrey Bogart), running a cafe there. Officials give her a brief refuge from her pursuers, but Rick holds the only two passports that guarantee a safe passage out of the area.

Citizen Kane
Routinely hailed as the greatest movie ever made, Orson Welles' masterpiece follows the life of fictional newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (based on multimillionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst). At the start of the film, he's alone on his deathbed at his Xanadu mansion, where his last word is the cryptic "rosebud." The film then moves in flashbacks, as a reporter tracks down those who knew the man. Much is revealed, including how his greed and abuse of power led to his downfall, and finally, the meaning of the word uttered in his final breath.

City Lights
This Charlie Chaplin masterpiece tells a bittersweet tale about a blind girl who is restored to sight with the help of that quintessential urban misfit, the Tramp, who falls in love with her. One of Chaplin's best.

Double Indemnity
An insurance representative becomes involved with a woman's scheme to kill her husband and collect on his life-insurance policy.

From Here to Eternity
Based on James Jones' novel, the story is about the lives of soldiers and their women on the base at Pearl Harbor, days before the 1941 surprise Japanese attack propelled the United States into World War II. Montgomery Clift plays Prew, a former boxer and bugler who is transferred to a new regiment, run by Capt. Holmes (Philip Ober) and his right-hand man, Sgt. Warden (Burt Lancaster). Prew has no interest in boxing, despite the captain's pressure, and his decision to buck the system leads to harassment from the captain and other boxers. Only the scrappy Maggio (Frank Sinatra) sticks by Prew, who also finds comfort in the arms of a nightclub hostess (Donna Reed). Sgt. Warden, meanwhile, is having an affair with the captain's bored wife (Deborah Kerr). As these two romances evolve, the characters suddenly are thrown into war, and everything changes.

Giant
In James Dean's last film before his death, the Hollywood icon co-stars with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Giant is an epic drama, the story of a Texas cattle rancher, Bick Benedict (Hudson), and his romance with Leslie, the daughter of a Maryland farmer. Dean plays Jett Rink, an oil tycoon.

Gone With the Wind
This epic love story takes place in Atlanta during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) is a beautiful, pampered Southern belle who schemes to be with Ashley (Leslie Howard), a married Conderate soldier. But when she meets the mysterious and dashing Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), they begin a passionate romance, which Scarlett's fickle ways may undo.

The Grapes of Wrath
An ex-con (Henry Fonda) returns to his Oklahoma town to find that his family has been forced off their land and is moving to California in hopes of finding work.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Groundbreaking at the time for its portrayal of interracial romance, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner unfolds when the white daughter of Matt and Christina Drayton (played by real-life longtime couple Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) brings home her new fiancé (Sidney Poitier), who happens to be black.

High Noon
Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is set to retire as marshal of a small Western village and marry his sweetheart (Grace Kelly), when he learns that three old enemies are in town and a fourth is on the way. Will's friends and neighbors tell him to leave, and he does, but his pride gets the better of him and he returns, with the hope that the community will band together and root out the bad men. But as the fourth villain approaches on the noon train, Will realizes his colleagues are backing down and he'll have to fight the four alone.

His Girl Friday
Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) learns one morning that his ex-wife Hildy (Rosalind Russell), who's still his star reporter, is remarrying the next day and plans to quit the biz. But Burns is a schemer with a sharp wit and a silver tongue, and he manages to concoct untrue stories about her fiancé, a boring insurance salesman, while trying to sucker Hildy into covering one more story.

It Happened One Night
Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) marries wealthy aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), to the dismay of her controlling father (Walter Connolly). Ellie runs away, hoping to return to her husband, but on a bus bound for New York, she meets an out-of-work newspaper reporter who offers her a choice: Either she sticks with him until he gets her back to her husband, or he'll blow the whistle on Ellie to her father. Either way, the reporter gets what (he thinks!) he wants

It's a Wonderful Life
A good but slightly ineffectual man tries to off himself after an error that really wasn't his fault. In Christmas Carol fashion, his crusty-but-lovable guardian angel shows up to give him a tour of the world without his presence, and it isn't a pretty place. Moral courage, small-town American life, civic cooperation, and family love are glorified; corporate greed and self-involvement are vilified; at the climax, a blanket of snow like spun sugar makes everything pure and clean like redemption itself.

King Kong
Carl Denham, a documentary filmmaker, travels to Skull Island with his starring actress, Ann Darrow, who is kidnapped by the natives and sacrificed to a giant ape named King Kong. Kong saves Ann, however, and Denham and his cronies eventually capture Kong and take him to New York, where he escapes and wreaks havoc, finally winding up at the top of the Empire State Building.

Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean's sprawling epic tells the biography of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole), a World War I British officer who requests a transfer to Arabia, where he proves his worth to Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) and helps lead his Arab tribesmen into battle against the Turks. Because he's smart and brave, Lawrence is viewed as a leader and possible messiah by the Arabs. He becomes allies with Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness) and Auda Abu Tayi during his trials and tribulations in the desert, and his superiors grow concerned that Lawrence's allegiances are with Arabia, not England.

The Maltese Falcon
John Huston made his directorial debut with this classic film noir, based on the Dashiell Hammett novel. Private dick Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) gets involved in a deadly case when he's hired by Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) to protect her. After Spade's partner is shot and killed while tailing O'Shaughnessy, things get personal, and Spade uncovers a web of intrigue involving Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), Kaspar Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet), and a jewel-covered statue of a falcon.

The Manchurian Candidate
Former infantryman Bennet Marco (Frank Sinatra) is haunted by nightmares about his platoon having been captured and brainwashed in Korea. Gradually, he comes to believe that Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who served with him in the war, has been brainwashed and plans to assassinate a presidential candidate.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart), the bumpkin leader of his local Boy Rangers, is appointed by the state's governor to serve in the senate, under the assumption that he can be molded and influenced by the state's older, more experienced senator, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains). But Smith proves to be an upbeat idealist who's unwilling to conform to the cynical, shady ways of Washington, D.C., including a crooked plan to finance a new dam. Smith's unusual outlook impresses his skeptical secretary (Jean Arthur), but it also leads to a nasty conflict with Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), the state political boss. When Smith can't be bought, Taylor tries to smear his name. Will Smith's morals win out in the end?

My Fair Lady
Linguistics professor Henry Higgins takes a bet from Colonel Pickering challenging him to transform an unrefined Cockney girl named Eliza (Audrey Hepburn) into a well-spoken lady. Over the course of teaching her manners and eliminating her accent, he becomes accustomed to her charms, but when he takes sole credit for her transformation, Eliza abruptly runs off with a young gentleman.

North by Northwest
Benign ad exec Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) gets mistaken for a man named George Kaplan, leading to his kidnapping and various attempts on his life. While fleeing from the cops, who are also after him for some reason, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who helps him as he tries to figure out what's going on.

On the Waterfront
Marlon Brando plays Terry Malloy, a longshoreman who testifies against his union, in this 1954 Elia Kazan film that's as famous for its controversial back story (Kazan agreed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee prior to the flick's production) as it is for the performance of its star.

The Philadelphia Story
Socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) is about to get remarried in a private ceremony, but her ex-husband (Cary Grant), is blackmailed into sneaking a tabloid reporter (James Stewart) in to cover the event.

A Place in the Sun
George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) seems to have everything going for him: a job with his uncle, and the eye of Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), an upper-class woman. But George's former dalliances with factory worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters) come back to haunt him and ultimately result in tragedy.

Rear Window
Photographer L.B. Jeffries, bedridden with a broken leg, spends his days peering into his neighbors' apartments with his binoculars. In particular, he keeps an eye on a traveling salesman, whose wife mysteriously disappears, leading Jeffries to suspect foul play.

Rebecca
A shy young woman (Joan Fontaine) marries a dashing widower (Laurence Olivier) after they fall in love while vacationing in the Riviera. But once the couple moves into the man's English estate, the new bride finds that the estate's servants don't take too kindly too her. In fact, they're openly hostile. The reason for this is only revealed when the second wife finds out what happened to the first.

Rebel Without a Cause
Teen Jimmy Stark (James Dean) struggles to find an identity in the face of a nagging mother and a spineless father, getting into knife fights and other trouble. After a tragic, lethal car race, he meets up with generally good girl Judy (Natalie Wood) and geeky, needy Plato (Sal Mineo) and the three form a surrogate family of sorts. Of course, the bad boys are still after them, and the evening ends in tragedy.

Shane
Shane (Alan Ladd) steps into a conflict between homesteaders and cattle ranchers and discovers that one man, Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer), has sent for an ace gunslinger, Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), to get rid of him.

Singin' in the Rain
Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are trying to move from the silent-film era, in which they were stars, to the new "talkie" pictures. Their latest movie is a musical, and with the help of Don's pal Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), a cheerful guy and accomplished pianist, the numbers are coming together. The only problem is Lina's voice, or lack thereof. Don has fallen for a chorus girl who can sing (Debbie Reynolds), so she's brought in secretly to dub Lina's lines and sing the songs. Unfortunately, Lina finds out.

Some Like It Hot
Two Chicago musicians (Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis) accidentally witness the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre and decide to dress in drag to join an all-girl orchestra and flee town. Aboard a train bound for Miami, Joe (Curtis), a k a "Josephine," falls for the group's lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), who's searching for a millionaire. Joe takes the cue, claiming to be an oil heir who owns a yacht, a boat that actually belongs to a married man (Joe E. Brown) making the moves on Jerry (Lemmon), a k a "Daphne," while the gangsters descend on Miami.

Stagecoach
Eight passengers traveling from Tonto to Lordsburg find their coach attacked by Geronimo and his band of warriors.

A Streetcar Named Desire
This adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play stars Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois, who moves in with her sister, Stella (Kim Hunter), and her husband, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), in New Orleans. Blanche is desperately trying to cling to her sanity and forget her unwholesome past, but Stanley's lack of sympathy and suspicion of her motives don't make it easy. Things build to a final, brutal run-in between Stanley and Blanche.

Sullivan's Travels
Director of escapist Hollywood fare John Sullivan longs to make movies that are closer to art than shallow blockbusters. But when he proposes an art-house drama to his studio execs, they cite his lack of credibility. To prove to them that he's capable of serious work, Sullivan embarks on a road trip to learn how the less fortunate live.

Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder's film noir classic won an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1951 and was nominated for 10 other Oscars. William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a broke, down-on-his-luck screenwriter whose fortunes change when fate leads him to the Sunset Boulevard mansion of retired silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). When she learns Joe's a writer, she invites him to live with her and help rewrite her "comeback" script. Joe begins to feel trapped, and his friendship with a script reader who wants to collaborate makes him realize he's wasting his time. But Norma is borderline delusional in how she sees herself and her relationship with Joe, and her possessiveness leads to tragedy.

The Third Man
A pulp western writer (Joseph Cotten) travels to post–World War II Vienna to meet an old friend, but when he gets there, he discovers that his friend has been murdered.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this Depression-era story is set in a small town in Alabama, where a black man is falsely accused of raping a white woman. The climate of the time is seen through the eyes of 8-year-old Scout Finch, whose widower father, Atticus (Gregory Peck), is a principled attorney who makes the controversial decision to defend the accused man. The story takes place over two summers, and Scout and her brother, Jem, learn valuable lessons from their father about principles, honor, pride, and prejudice. Even their views of the local bogeyman, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall), change upon further examination.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
An American (Humphrey Bogart) slumming through Tampico, Mexico, meets another Yankee bum (Tim Holt) and the two of them go to work for a shady contractor who nearly refuses to pay them for their work until the two knock some sense into 'em. With a few bucks in their pockets, the two head for a local bar and then later to a flophouse, where they meet a colorful old gold prospector (Walt Huston). He tells them there's still gold in them there hills and the three of them, who've become close, set out to find their fortunes. But will greed ruin them and their friendship?

Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock's psychological suspense thriller is about Scottie Ferguson, an acrophobic detective (Jimmy Stewart) hired by an old friend (Tom Helmore) to tail his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), whose erratic behavior has her husband concerned. After following her daily, Scottie begins to fall for this mysterious woman, and eventually the two meet. They become lovers, but her subsequent death sends him into a tailspin … until he meets Judy (also Novak), a dead ringer for Madeleine.

West Side Story
This retelling of Romeo and Juliet updates the story to contemporary city life, focusing on street gangs the Sharks and the Jets. Tony, a founder of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Shark leader Bernardo.

The Wizard of Oz
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) is a Kansas girl swept away in a tornado. She lands in Oz, where she meets a scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a lion (Bert Lahr), and a tin man (Jack Haley). Together they set off for the city in hopes of finding a wizard who can help Dorothy get back home.

Wuthering Heights
When Lockwood (Miles Mander) arrives at Wuthering Heights, it is dark and snowing. Lockwood needs shelter, but he is not welcome. His host, Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), is ungracious, if not positively hostile. Lockwood wakes in the night and, as he tries to close a window, feels hands clasping at his. He screams for help. Heathcliff arrives, then plunges into the night. Lockwood wonders what this means, and Ellen (Flora Robson) begins to tell him the story of Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw (Merle Oberon), how they came together on the Yorkshire moors and how their passion was thwarted.

Yankee Doodle Dandy
An outstanding musical about the life and times of George M. Cohan, playwright, entertainer, composer and patriot. Academy Award Nominations: 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Story. Academy Awards: Best Actor--James Cagney, Best Sound Recording, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.