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Luc Haasbroek
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Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap.
Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week.
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The late 1950s were an interesting, varied year for cinema. This was a time when world cinema, Hollywood spectacle, and emerging film movements all collided. The medium was rapidly transforming, and influential new voices were rising through the ranks.
Without further ado, here are the defining classics of 1959 from the French New Wave’s birth pangs to Brazilian myth-poetry, Hitchcockian suspense to Hawksian cool.
10 ‘Pickpocket’ (1959)
"I had to become someone… someone intelligent." A landmark of European art cinema, Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket is one of the great minimalist crime films, a kind of spiritual character study disguised as a thriller. The plot centers on Michel (Martin LaSalle), a lonely young Parisian who begins stealing not out of desperation but out of compulsion. His thefts are precise, almost ritualistic. Over the course of the movie, Michel drifts between petty crime and fleeting human connection, especially with Jeanne (Marika Green), a gentle woman who offers him a chance at redemption.
Bresson tells the story with his signature stripped-down style, leaning into realism and subtext and thematic depth. The film winds up being a lot more profound than it seems on the surface, delving into topics like guilt, grace, and the possibility of moral rebirth. And yet Pickpocket is still light and breezy, distilling so much into a lean 75 minutes.
9 ‘Shadows’ (1959)
Image via British Lion Films
"The world’s a jungle. You gotta be strong." This was John Cassavetes' directorial debut, and it's incredibly accomplished for a first feature. Shadows is one of the foundational works of American independent cinema, a jazz-infused, semi-improvised portrait of bohemian life in late-'50s New York. At the heart of the story are three Black siblings (played by Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni, and Hugh Hurd) navigating love, race, insecurity, and artistic ambition.
Benny struggles to find his place, Hugh tries to maintain dignity as a lounge singer, and Lelia falls for a white man who reacts badly upon discovering her family background. The film’s loose structure and raw performances give it an immediacy almost unheard of in Hollywood productions of the era. Cassavetes shot much of it in real Manhattan locations and a documentarian's eye. What emerged was a new kind of filmmaking: intimate, chaotic, emotional, and deeply human.
8 ‘Black Orpheus’ (1959)
Image via Lopert Pictures
"Orpheus, sing, or the sun will not rise." Black Orpheus reimagines the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the favelas of Rio during Carnival. Orfeu (Breno Mello) is a streetcar driver and local celebrity; Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) is a mysterious young woman on the run. Their romance unfolds amid masks, music, and chaos, shadowed by a figure representing Death (Adhemar da Silva). While the plot follows the tragic arc of myth, the movie’s emotional impact comes from its energy and sense of place.
The movie is incredibly vibrant and lively, pulsing with samba rhythms, swirling colors, and undercurrents of danger. In this regard, it's a lot more energetic than most '50s movies. Audiences responded. Black Orpheus won both the Palme d’Or and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and although modern critics debate aspects of its portrayal of Brazil, it remains a cornerstone of world cinema.
7 ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ (1959)
Image via Cocinor
"You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing." Hiroshima Mon Amour recounts a brief affair between a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) shooting a film in Hiroshima and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) she meets during her stay. Their conversations, intimate, confessional, and elliptical, weave together personal loss and the collective grief of war. Flashbacks to the actress’s past love affair in wartime France blend seamlessly with present-day imagery of Hiroshima’s ruins and memorials.
As a result, the film becomes a meditation on remembering and forgetting. It suggests that neither is fully possible. To convey that, the writing and visuals are all poetically intense. In the end, Hiroshima Mon Amour is both a love story and a philosophical inquiry. The movie's narrative experimentation was also radical for the time, making it one of the most groundbreaking works of the early French New Wave. Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer both cited it as a major influence.
6 ‘The 400 Blows’ (1959)
Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Donel standing on a beach in The 400 Blows.Image via Cocinor
"I’ve been lied to my whole life." Another foundational text of the French New Wave. The 400 Blows was the directorial debut of critic-turned-filmmaker François Truffaut. At the heart of it is Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a Parisian teenager neglected by his parents and misunderstood by his teachers. Constantly in trouble (often unfairly), Antoine drifts toward petty crime, skipping school, lying to authority figures, and eventually landing in a juvenile detention center. Yet the movie treats him not as a rebel but as a child searching desperately for freedom, dignity, and affection.
This character depth is heightened by the film's restraint, realism, and authentic style. Shot with handheld cameras and natural light, The 400 Blows captures Paris with documentary-like immediacy while infusing everyday moments with emotional weight. The final freeze-frame of Antoine on the beach remains one of cinema’s most haunting images.
5 ‘Some Like It Hot’ (1959)
'Some Like It Hot' Movie starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack LemmonImage via United Artists
"Well, nobody’s perfect." One of Billy Wilder's many masterpieces, and perhaps the funniest. Some Like It Hot begins with two musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who witness a mob hit and flee Chicago disguised as female performers in an all-women band heading to Florida. Complications erupt when Curtis falls for the band’s singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), while Lemmon’s disguise attracts the romantic attention of an eccentric millionaire.
Through all this, Wilder uses farce, gender play, and pitch-perfect comic timing to create a comedy that still feels modern, balancing rapid-fire jokes with genuine warmth. Monroe is luminous, Lemmon is hysterical, and Curtis plays dual roles with slick charisma. Yet beneath the humor lies a sharp critique of Prohibition-era violence, identity, and desire. This makes it way more interesting than most comedies of its time. Some Like It Hot pushed the boundaries of its era, and its success helped sweep away the stifling Production Code.
4 ‘Ben-Hur’ (1959)
Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur steering white horses in a chariot race in 'Ben-Hur' (1959).Image via MGM
"Now we are the people of Israel no more… but the people of God." William Wyler’s Ben-Hur is the quintessential Hollywood epic: grand in scale, intimate in emotion, and anchored by Charlton Heston’s commanding lead performance. He plays Judah, a Jewish prince betrayed by his childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) and forced into slavery. His journey leads through Roman galleys, desert escapes, and a massive chariot race, one of the most famous action sequences ever filmed.
Shot in glorious widescreen with massive sets and thousands of extras, Ben-Hur represents Hollywood at its most ambitious. It won a record-breaking 11 Oscars and remains a towering achievement in cinematic spectacle. Still, the emotional core, a man struggling with betrayal, rage, and redemption, is what keeps it timeless. The main themes are vengeance and forgiveness, culminating in Judah’s encounter with Jesus and a path toward grace.
3 ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959)
Jimmy Stewart as Paul Biegler talking to Ben Gazzara's Lt. Frederick Manion in Anatomy of a MurderImage via Columbia Pictures
"Facts are stubborn things." Anatomy of a Murder is one of the greatest courtroom movies ever made, a cool, provocative exploration of justice, manipulation, and reasonable doubt. Countless legal dramas since owe it a debt of gratitude. In it, James Stewart plays Paul Biegler, a small-town lawyer defending an Army lieutenant accused of murdering a man who allegedly assaulted his wife. The trial becomes a battle of legal strategies, moral ambiguities, and psychological gamesmanship.
Director Otto Preminger pushes boundaries for the era, openly discussing sexual assault, trauma, and the blurred lines between truth and performance. Indeed, the movie's strength is its refusal to offer clear moral answers. In the process, it makes for a subtle but pointed critique of the justice system's limits. The aesthetic is also startlingly modern, all long takes, procedural dialogue, and realism. The finishing touch is the jazz score by Duke Ellington, adding a layer of icy detachment to the tension.
2 ‘Rio Bravo’ (1959)
John Wayne and Dean Martin as John T. Chance and Dude in 'Rio Bravo'Image via Warner Bros.
"Sorry doesn’t get it done, Dude." Rio Bravo is one of the great American westerns; relaxed, confident, and character-driven. John Wayne leads the cast as Sheriff John Chance, who arrests a powerful rancher’s brother for murder. When the rancher hires mercenaries to free him, Chance must hold the jail with the help of an eclectic group: a washed-up drunk (Dean Martin), a young gunslinger (Ricky Nelson), and a tough saloon girl (Angie Dickinson).
This sounds like the setup for gunfights galore, but rather than building nonstop action, director Howard Hawks focuses on camaraderie, competence, and moral grit. The result is a western that feels both mythic and lived-in. In other words, while the siege structure offers suspense, the true pleasure comes from the characters. For this reason, Rio Bravo has become a touchstone for filmmakers from John Carpenter to Quentin Tarantino, who admire its rhythm and swagger.
1 ‘North by Northwest’ (1959)
Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, wearing a suit and running away from a crop duster plane in North by NorthwestImage via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
"Now you listen to me: I’m an advertising man, not a red herring!" North by Northwest is the ultimate chase thriller, a stylish, witty, and endlessly inventive adventure starring Cary Grant at his most debonair. He plays Roger Thornhill, an ad executive mistaken for a government agent and pursued across the United States by mysterious spies. The plot sends him from New York skyscrapers to the Midwest plains, culminating at Mount Rushmore. Along the way, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), a seductive woman whose loyalties remain tantalizingly unclear.
Blending romance, paranoia, comedy, and impeccable visual design, North by Northwest essentially invented the modern action-thriller template. It contains some of Hitchcock’s most iconic sequences, including the crop-duster attack in an empty field, and that innuendo-laden closing shot. Today, it remains as suspenseful, charming, and technically dazzling as ever, a true espionage classic. It hinted at the bolder stories its creator would tell in the decade to follow.
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