1959: Year's Best Movies

After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.

The head of a Japanese theatre troupe returns to a small coastal town where he left a son who thinks he is his uncle, and tries to make up for the lost time, but his current mistress grows jealous.

An upstate Michigan lawyer defends a soldier who claims he killed an innkeeper due to temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?

A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.

In need of quick money, a fallen former cop recruits a hard-bitten ex-con and a debt-ridden nightclub singer to pull off a bank job. But as the animosity between them boils over, the entire plan threatens to implode.

A young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

Two wealthy law-school students go on trial for murder in this version of the Leopold-Loeb case.

Cassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.

Michel passes the time by picking pockets, careful to never be caught despite being watched by the police. His friend Jacques may suspect, while both men may have their eyes on Jeanne, the pretty neighbor of Michel's ailing mother.

An aspiring white actress takes in an African American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white.

During World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

A Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, but it's not long before he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

After being snubbed by the royal family, a malevolent fairy places a curse on a princess which only a prince can break, along with the help of three good fairies.

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

An interior decorator and a playboy songwriter share a telephone party line and size each other up.

A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.

The Italian Army fought against the Austrians during World War I.

A French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.

Suresh Sinha, a famous director, discovers star potential in Shanti, a woman he stumbled into one rainy evening, and casts her as the lead in a film. In a twist of fate, Shanti becomes a superstar and Suresh faces a decline in his career.

Jane Osgood runs a lobster business, which supports her two young children. Railroad staff inattention ruins her shipment, so with her lawyer George, Jane sues Harry Foster Malone, director of the line and the "meanest man in the world".

A bounty hunter escorts a killer to be tried for murder, with the killer's brother after them.

A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

An ambitious young accountant plots to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter despite falling in love with a married older woman.

This final installment in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy follows Apu's life as an orphaned adult aspiring to be a writer.

A retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set during the time of the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.