# Top 22 Black-and-White Films of the 1950s

> Hollywood noir, samurai epics, and European art-house landmarks share one thing: shadow and light doing the heavy lifting long before color took over. Which monochrome masterpiece reigns supreme? Where do you stand?

*By YPB Team · Published July 3, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/top-22-black-and-white-films-of-the-1950s*

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## Current results (3 votes)

1. **Seven Samurai** — 66.67% (2 votes · score 1000/1000)
   Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic in which a village hires seven warriors to fight off marauding bandits.
2. **Sunset Boulevard** — 33.33% (1 votes · score 917/1000)
   Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir about a faded silent-film star and a struggling screenwriter.
3. **The Night of the Hunter** — 0% (0 votes · score 679/1000)
   Charles Laughton's 1955 noir fairy tale about a murderous preacher hunting two children.
4. **Ikiru** — 0% (0 votes · score 560/1000)
   Akira Kurosawa's 1952 drama about a dying bureaucrat searching for meaning in his final days.
5. **Tokyo Story** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 meditation on family, aging, and generational distance in postwar Japan.
6. **Rashomon** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece recounting a crime through four contradictory eyewitness accounts.
7. **Sweet Smell of Success** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   Alexander Mackendrick's 1957 noir about a ruthless press agent and a powerful gossip columnist.
8. **12 Angry Men** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   Sidney Lumet's 1957 courtroom drama confined to a jury room as one holdout juror sways the rest.
9. **The Seventh Seal** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   Ingmar Bergman's 1957 allegory of a knight playing chess with Death during the plague.
10. **Strangers on a Train** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 thriller about two men who agree to swap murders.
11. **Diabolique** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 French thriller about a wife and mistress who conspire to kill a cruel headmaster.
12. **The 400 Blows** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Francois Truffaut's 1959 French New Wave debut following a troubled Parisian boy.
13. **Paths of Glory** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Stanley Kubrick's 1957 anti-war drama about French soldiers court-martialed for refusing a suicidal attack.
14. **Some Like It Hot** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy about two musicians who disguise themselves in an all-female band.
15. **Umberto D.** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Vittorio De Sica's 1952 neorealist portrait of an elderly pensioner and his devoted dog.
16. **La Strada** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Federico Fellini's 1954 fable about a brutish strongman and the naive woman he buys as an assistant.
17. **On the Waterfront** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   Elia Kazan's 1954 drama starring Marlon Brando as a dockworker who takes on mob corruption.
18. **Wild Strawberries** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   Ingmar Bergman's 1957 drama following an elderly professor's day of reflection and regret.
19. **A Streetcar Named Desire** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   Elia Kazan's 1951 adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.
20. **Anatomy of a Murder** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   Otto Preminger's 1959 courtroom drama starring James Stewart as a small-town defense lawyer.
21. **All About Eve** — 0% (0 votes · score 162/1000)
   Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1950 drama about an aging Broadway star and her scheming young admirer.
22. **Touch of Evil** — 0% (0 votes · score 162/1000)
   Orson Welles's 1958 noir opening with one of cinema's most famous long tracking shots.

Tags: movies, classic, 50s, black and white