Obscure-ish Movies of the 1950s

Last month, I wrote up a list of “Obscure-ish Movies of the 1940s,” inspired by Catherine of Cinema Enthusiast and her decade-by-decade viewing schedule. Now she’s moving on to the ’50s, and so am I! Below are 50 more obscure-ish movie recommendations. (I say “obscure-ish,” mind you, because obscurity is so relative.) And so you know, this list was almost dominated by Samuel Fuller, Anthony Mann, and Nicholas Ray, so you can really just pretend that the entirety of their ’50s outputs are there.

1950

• Caged
• The Furies
• Panic in the Streets
• The Sound of Fury
• Young Man with a Horn

1951

• His Kind of Woman
• The Man from Planet X
• The Man in the White Suit
• The River
• The Tales of Hoffman

1952

• The Marrying Kind
• On Dangerous Ground
• Scandal Sheet
• The Sniper
• Sudden Fear

1953

• Beat the Devil
• The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
• The Hitch-Hiker
• Niagara
• I Vitelloni

1954

• Animal Farm
• Hobson’s Choice
• The Naked Jungle
• Salt of the Earth
• Touchez pas au grisbi

1955

• The Big Combo
• Cast a Dark Shadow
• I Live in Fear
• The Phenix City Story
• La Pointe Courte

1956

• Seven Men from Now
• Street of Shame
• Tea and Sympathy
• While the City Sleeps
• The Wrong Man

1957

• A Face in the Crowd
• Forty Guns
• The Invisible Boy
• Tokyo Twilight
• 20 Million Miles to Earth

1958

• Bell, Book and Candle
• The Defiant Ones
• The Horse’s Mouth
• Man of the West
• Murder by Contract

1959

• A Bucket of Blood
• Night of the Ghouls
• Room at the Top
• Santa Claus
• The Tingler