20 Films From The 1950s That Everybody Should Watch

15. White Christmas

Okay, so you can wait until next December before sitting down to watch this one if you haven't already. Originally meant to be another musical partnership between Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, who had starred together in 1942's Holiday Inn on which the film is based, White Christmas went on to become the highest grossing film of 1954, albeit with Danny Kaye in place of Astaire, who dropped out early on. The film is a simple light-hearted comedy, but features such a wonderful soundtrack and endless festive cheer that it has become of Hollywood's definitive Christmas movies, regularly to be seen on wintery afternoon TV every year. But one of the main reasons White Christmas makes this list is that it's notable as being the first picture filmed in VistaVision. Paramount adopted a cutting-edge widescreen process that meant using twice the surface area of standard 35mm film. This meant a much finer-grained image, and certainly a more impressive picture than audiences would get from their new television sets. Even today, the film stands up as being wonderfully shot and a spectacular image.