64 articles
No Regrets for Our Youth (わが青春に悔なし)
No Regrets for Our Youth (わが青春に悔なし, Waga seishun ni kuinashi) is Akira Kurosawa's 1946 Toho drama, his first postwar film, starring Setsuko Hara as Yukie; based on the Takigawa and Sorge incidents.
Nosotros los Pobres
Nosotros los Pobres is a 1947 Mexican film directed by Ismael Rodríguez and starring Pedro Infante. It is a landmark of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.
One Wonderful Sunday (素晴らしき日曜日)
One Wonderful Sunday (素晴らしき日曜日, Subarashiki nichiyōbi) is Akira Kurosawa's 1947 Japanese drama about a couple spending a Sunday in postwar Tokyo with 35 yen, ending with a fourth-wall-breaking concert-hall scene; it won him his first Mainichi Best Director award.
Osaka Elegy (浪華悲歌)
Osaka Elegy (浪華悲歌, Naniwa erejī) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1936 Japanese drama about switchboard operator Ayako, who becomes her boss's mistress to cover her father's embezzlement debts; his first Daiichi Eiga film and first collaboration with screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda.
Queen Christina
Queen Christina (1933) is Rouben Mamoulian's MGM historical romance starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, released February 1934, a pre-Code biopic of Sweden's queen with a fabricated Spanish love affair and noted queer subtext.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (長屋紳士録)
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya shinshiroku, 長屋紳士録) is Yasujiro Ozu's 1947 Shochiku drama, his first postwar film, about a Tokyo widow (Choko Iida) reluctantly raising a lost boy; 72 minutes, Kinema Junpo 4th place, 4K-restored for Cannes 2023.
Scott of the Antarctic (1948 film)
Scott of the Antarctic (1948) is an Ealing Studios Technicolor film directed by Charles Frend, starring John Mills as Robert Falcon Scott, with a Vaughan Williams score later reworked into the Sinfonia antartica; shot in Norway and Switzerland, not Antarctica.
Sisters of the Gion (祇園の姉妹)
Sisters of the Gion (祇園の姉妹, Gion no kyōdai) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1936 Japanese black-and-white drama about two geisha sisters in Kyoto's Gion, scripted by Yoshikata Yoda, first in Kinema Junpo's 1936 Best Ten, remade in 1956.
Spring in a Small Town (小城之春) (1948 film)
Spring in a Small Town (小城之春) is Fei Mu's 1948 black-and-white Wenhua drama, written by Li Tianji, about a wife, her sick husband, and her visiting former lover; initially attacked and buried, it was rediscovered in the 1980s and ranked the greatest Chinese film in a 2005 Hong Kong Film Awards poll.
Sunday Bloody Sunday (film)
Sunday Bloody Sunday is a 1971 British drama by John Schlesinger, written by Penelope Gilliatt, in which Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson, and Murray Head play a doctor, a divorcée, and the bisexual artist they both love; it earned four Oscar nominations.
The Bells of St. Mary's
The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) is Leo McCarey's sequel to Going My Way, starring Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley and Ingrid Bergman as Sister Benedict at a failing parochial school; RKO released it December 7, 1945, and it became 1945's top-grossing film.
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), William Wyler drama produced by Samuel Goldwyn from MacKinlay Kantor's Glory for Me, follows three WWII veterans readjusting to civilian life; it won Best Picture and made Harold Russell the only actor to win two Oscars for one performance.
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (戸田家の兄妹)
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (戸田家の兄妹, Toda-ke no Kyōdai) is Yasujiro Ozu's 1941 Shochiku drama about a family's adult children neglecting their widowed mother after the indebted father dies; it ranked first in the 1941 Kinema Junpo Best Ten and anticipated Tokyo Story.
The Champ (1931 film)
The Champ (1931) is King Vidor's MGM melodrama starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as a washed-up boxer and his son; it won Oscars for Beery (tied with Fredric March) and Frances Marion and was remade in 1953 and 1979.
The Famous Sword Bijomaru (名刀美女丸)
The Famous Sword Bijomaru (名刀美女丸, Meitō Bijomaru) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1945 Shochiku jidaigeki about a swordsmith forging a blade for his beloved's revenge, released 8 February 1945, 67 minutes, black-and-white.
The Fountainhead (film)
The Fountainhead (film): 1949 Warner Bros. drama directed by King Vidor, screenplay by Ayn Rand from her 1943 novel, starring Gary Cooper as architect Howard Roark and Patricia Neal; released July 2, 1949.
The Informer (1935 film)
The Informer (1935) is John Ford's RKO drama, adapted from Liam O'Flaherty's 1925 novel, in which Gypo Nolan betrays a rebel friend in Dublin for £20. It won four Oscars and the first NYFCC best picture award.
The Love of Sumako the Actress (女優須磨子の恋)
The Love of Sumako the Actress (女優須磨子の恋, Joyū Sumako no koi) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1947 Shochiku drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka as pioneering actress Matsui Sumako and her affair with Shimamura Hogetsu, rivaling Kinugasa's The Actress.
The Most Beautiful (一番美しく)
The Most Beautiful (一番美しく, Ichiban utsukushiku) is Akira Kurosawa's 1944 second film, a Toho wartime propaganda drama about female volunteer workers at an optics factory, starring Yoko Yaguchi, whom Kurosawa married the next year.
The Murderers Are Among Us
The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns) is Wolfgang Staudte's 1946 DEFA drama, the first German postwar feature and first Trümmerfilm, starring Hildegard Knef, about guilt and a war criminal in ruined Berlin.
The Only Son (一人息子)
The Only Son (一人息子, Hitori musuko) is Yasujirō Ozu's first talkie, a 1936 Shochiku drama in which a widowed silk worker sacrifices to educate her son Ryosuke, then finds his Tokyo life a disappointment.
The Passionate Friends
The Passionate Friends is a 1949 British romantic drama directed by David Lean, adapted by Eric Ambler from H.G. Wells's 1913 novel, starring Ann Todd, Claude Rains, and Trevor Howard in a love triangle.
The Red Shoes (1948 film)
The Red Shoes (1948) is a British Technicolor film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Archers), starring ballerina Moira Shearer as Vicky Page opposite Anton Walbrook's impresario Lermontov, famous for its extended central ballet, Oscar wins for art direction and music, and Sight and Sound canon status.
The Small Back Room
The Small Back Room (1949, aka Hour of Glory) is a Powell and Pressburger black-and-white drama adapted from Nigel Balchin's 1943 novel, starring David Farrar as alcoholic bomb-disposal expert Sammy Rice, with Kathleen Byron; a box-office failure later restored in 4K.
The Snake Pit (1948 film)
The Snake Pit (1948) is Anatole Litvak's psychological drama starring Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Cunningham, adapted from Mary Jane Ward's novel; six Oscar nominations, won Best Sound, credited with spurring mental-hospital reforms in 26 states.
The Southerner
The Southerner (1945), also known as L'homme du sud, is Jean Renoir's independent American drama adapted from George Sessions Perry's novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand, starring Zachary Scott as a Texas sharecropper; it won the 1946 Venice Biennale best picture award and earned three Oscar nominations.
The Spring River Flows East (一江春水向东流)
The Spring River Flows East (一江春水向东流) is a 1947 two-part Chinese epic melodrama by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, starring Bai Yang and Tao Jin, whose Shanghai record of 712,874 admissions made it China's first film epic.
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語)
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (残菊物語, Zangiku Monogatari) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1939 Shochiku film about kabuki actor Kikunosuke and Otoku, the only surviving entry in his performing arts trilogy and his first mature long-take work.
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (残菊物語)
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (残菊物語, Zangiku Monogatari) is Kenji Mizoguchi's 1939 Shochiku film about kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke II and Otoku, first of his performing arts trilogy and its only surviving entry.
The Wicked Lady
The Wicked Lady is a 1945 Gainsborough Pictures costume melodrama directed by Leslie Arliss, starring Margaret Lockwood as a bored noblewoman turned highwaywoman alongside James Mason; Britain's top-grossing film of its year, remade by Michael Winner in 1983 with Faye Dunaway.