When the Motion Picture Academy looked back at 1959, it gave its Best Picture award to Ben-Hur. Chariot race aside, I find that one pretty dull; if you find yourself watching it and have trouble staying awake, you can amuse yourself by searching for signs of the gay subtext that Gore Vidal claims to have inserted into the script.
1. The Four Hundred Blows
Directed by François Truffaut
Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy
"To escape is bad enough, but getting caught is worse."
2. North by Northwest
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Ernest Lehman
Hitchcock's most paranoid picture.
3. Some Like it Hot
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan
Of the other male stars of the period, only Bugs Bunny was this comfortable wearing women's clothes on camera.
4. Rio Bravo
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, from a story by B.H. McCampbell
You know a director is in control of his material when he can stick a Ricky Nelson/Dean Martin duet in the middle of an action-packed picture and make it feel like the most natural thing in the world.
5. Warlock
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Written by Robert Alan Aurthur, from a novel by Oakley Hall
A cowboy movie that doubles as a bleak political fable.
6. Nazarin
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Buñuel, Julio Alejandro, and Emilio Carballido, from a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós
Buñuel had a knack for turning liturgical drama on its head.
7. Ride Lonesome
Directed by Budd Boetticher
Written by Burt Kennedy
It didn't hit me until I started compiling these lists that Rio Bravo, Warlock, and this all came out the same year. We just might have stumbled onto a golden age of the Hollywood western.
8. Jazz on a Summer's Day
Directed by Bert Stern and Aram Avakian
Written by Albert D'Annibale and Arnold Perl
The best jazz documentary this side of Straight, No Chaser and the best concert film this side of Gimme Shelter.
9. The World of Apu
Directed by Satyajit Ray
Written by Ray, from a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
The endpoint and high point of the Apu trilogy.
10. Anatomy of a Murder
Directed by Otto Preminger
Written by Wendell Mayes, from a novel by John D. Voelker
"Just answer the questions, Mr. Paquette. The attorneys will provide the wisecracks."
Honorable mentions:
11. I'm All Right Jack (John Boulting)
12. A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman)
13. Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa)
14. Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise)
15. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Jiří Trnka)
16. Science Friction (Stan van der Beek)
17. Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu)
18. Shadows (John Cassavetes)
19. Cat's Cradle (Stan Brakhage)
20. Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Manckiewicz)
Finally, let's give a shoutout to one of the giddiest, most delightful, most transcendent movie moments of all time: Criswell's introduction to Plan 9 from Outer Space. I unreservedly, unironically love that scene; to reject it is to reject the cinema itself.
Of the films of 1959 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in The Overcoat and The Great War.
