20 Films From The 1950s That Everybody Should Watch

7. Seven Samurai

Another film clocking in at over 200 minutes, Seven Samurai is perhaps one of the most reworked stories in motion picture history. Telling the story of seven Samurais enlisted to defend a village from crop-stealing bandits, its influence can be seen in close adaptations like The Magnificent Seven, the US interpretation starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, and as far flung as Disney animation A Bug's Life. Such intricate and impressive action sequences hadn't been seen before this film, director Akira Kurosawa making use of a multiple camera setup to place audiences right in the centre of the film. So detailed was his approach, that he would choreograph camera movements beforehand using diagrams, then spend hours at night editing the days footage. His approach led to such a huge amount of film that the worldwide releases had to be cut down significantly due to fears that audiences wouldn't sit through the whole thing. If you do have a spare 207 minutes, the film is much-needed viewing for many of the same reasons that The Ten Commandments is: it's quite simply staggering to look at.