Best Drama Movies of 1957

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson , the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

When Leonard Vole is arrested for the sensational murder of a rich, middle-aged widow, the famous Sir Wilfrid Robarts agrees to appear on his behalf. Sir Wilfrid, recovering from a near-fatal heart attack, is supposed to be on a diet of bland, civil suits—but the lure of the criminal courts is too much for him, especially when the case is so difficult.

New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.

The rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell.

While on a boating trip, Scott Carey is exposed to a radioactive cloud. Nothing seems amiss at first, but several months later Scott realizes that he's shrunk in height by several inches. He sees a doctor, who admits that he's baffled. As Scott continues to shrink, decreasing to three feet tall, he becomes bitter, and lashes out at his wife, Louise. He begins to fear a cure will never be found -- since even as he becomes a national sensation, he's still shrinking.

A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - but will it happen?

Dan Evans, a small time farmer, is hired to escort Ben Wade, a dangerous outlaw, to Yuma. As Evans and Wade wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma, Wade's gang is racing to free him.

The crew of the American destroyer escort, the USS Haynes, detects a German U-Boat—resulting in a prolonged, deadly battle of wits.

Lovestruck conservatory student Ariane pretends to be just as much a cosmopolitan lover as the worldly mature Frank Flannagan hoping that l’amour will take hold.

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.

Prohibition-era nightclub crooner Joe E. Lewis (Frank Sinatra) has his career and nearly his life cut short when his throat is slashed as payback for leaving the employ of Chicago mob boss Georgie Parker (Ted de Corsia). A broken alcoholic, Joe is brought back from the abyss by his faithful piano player, Austin Mack (Eddie Albert), who helps turn the former singer into a successful stand-up comedian. But Joe's demons plague his romantic life even as he reaches new heights of success.

A recently-deposed "Estrovian" monarch seeks shelter in New York City, where he becomes an accidental television celebrity. Later, he's wrongly accused of being a Communist and gets caught up in subsequent HUAC hearings.

Charles 'Slim' Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.

After a massive luxury liner sinks into the ocean, the ship's officer must command a rickety lifeboat, built for only nine, that is stuffed with over twenty desperate and injured passengers. As a hurricane approaches and the many wounded passengers struggle for life, difficult decisions must be made about who will remain on the boat and who must be cast to the sea in order to give others the chance to survive.

A saucy American showgirl in London is wooed by a roving-eyed Duke, but his estranged son, the young King, interrupts their late supper with politics and angry accusations.

After serving time for manslaughter, young Vince Everett becomes a teenage rock star.

A movie producer is slowly working himself to death.

A doctor treats a woman suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.

A Korean War veteran's morphine addiction wreaks havoc upon his family.

Sports biopic depicting the athletic, domestic, and emotional struggles of Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins). He achieved stardom as a member of the Boston Red Sox but battled mental illness and intense pressure from his father.

A Roman Catholic nun and a hard-bitten US Marine are stranded together on a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific during World War II. Under constant threat of discovery by a ruthless enemy, they hide in a cave and forage for food together. Their forced companionship and the struggle for survival forge a powerful emotional bond between them.

An army deserter and a black dock worker join forces against a corrupt manager.

Julie Andrews was nominated for an Emmy for portraying the titular scullery maid who finds true love with a prince in this legendary adaptation of one of the most famous fairy tales of all time. A musical, made-for-television, with music by Richard Rodgers and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, it is the only of the legendary composing team's musicals created specifically for that medium. It was originally broadcast live on CBS on March 31, 1957, and was a phenomenal success, viewed by more than 107 million people. Though it originally aired in full color, only a black & white kinescope of the production has survived.

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only german prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.

Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits his guilt and Edwards' superiors are impatiently pushing Edwards to move this case to court martial, Edwards becomes convinced of Cargill's innocence.

An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.

In the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place, shopkeeper Constance McKenzie tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson, falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page.

The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.

In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.

Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver (Marlon Brando) is reassigned to a Japanese air base, and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily an officer who is by-the-book, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) falls in love with a Japanese woman Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki) and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.

To save his career, an ad man wants a sex symbol to endorse a lipstick. But she wants something too: he has to pretend to be her new lover.

The marital difficulties of four couples living in a southern California housing development become intertwined. Among the unhappy couples are ne'er-do-well Jerry Flagg and his long-suffering wife Isabelle, flirtatious Leola Boone and her sadistic husband Troy, hard working Herman Kreitzer and his understanding wife Betty, and newlyweds Jean and David Martin.

An opportunistic singer woos a wealthy widow to boost his career.

Four sisters in New Zealand fall for four U.S. soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.

This is a story based on fact that follows a husband and wife who emigrate from Scotland to Wisconsin in the 1850s. They work very hard and become welcome citizens of their new town, Eureka. They have six children. They prosper in the husband's boat-building business. But when their eldest is 12, tragedy strikes the family, and the 12-year-old is burdened with a terrible task which he handles as well as any adult could.

Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec's father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son's name while battling "the bottle."

In effect, modern cow town Spurline is run by Virgil Renchler, owner of the Golden Empire Ranch. One night, two of Virgil's henchmen go a little too far and beat a "bracero" ranch hand to death. Faced with an obvious cover-up and opposition on every hand, sheriff Ben Sadler is goaded into investigating. His unlikely ally: Renchler's lovely, self-willed and overprotected daughter. Will Ben survive Renchler's wrath?

Three vignettes of old Irish country life, based on a series of short stories. In "The Majesty of the Law," a police officer must arrest a very old-fashioned, traditional fellow for assault. The man's principles have the policeman and the whole village, including the man he slugged, sympathizing with him. "One Minute's Wait" is about an little train station and glimpses into the lives of the passengers, with a series of comic setups. The third piece is called "1921" and is about a condemned Irish nationalist and his daring escape. Tyrone Power introduces each story.

In 1950s Canada, during a commercial flight, the pilots and some passengers suffer food poisoning, thus forcing an ex-WW2 fighter pilot to try to land the airliner in heavy fog.

The story of Frank W. "Spig" Wead - a Navy-flyer turned screenwriter.

Eddie Rico, the erstwhile bookkeeper for a big Mafia boss, is now making a living as an honest merchant in Florida with his family. Things go sour when the police start a search for his syndicate-linked brothers who are on the lam after a big hit, forcing Eddie to get involved with the Mafia again.

In 1859, idealist John Wickliff Shawnessey, a resident of Raintree County, Indiana, is distracted from his high school sweetheart Nell Gaither by Susanna Drake, a rich New Orleans girl. This love triangle is further complicated by the American Civil War, and dark family history.

During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.

Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher's efforts are threatened when the Korean "police action" breaks out in 1950.

Young Joan of Arc comes to the palace in France to make The Dauphin King of France and is appointed to head the French Army. After winning many battles she is not needed any longer and soon she is thought of as a witch.

Deke Rivers is a delivery man who is discovered by publicist Glenda Markle and country-western musician Tex Warner who want to promote the talented newcomer to fame and fortune, giving him every break he deserves. Romantic complications arise as Susan, another singer in the group, offers him devoted admiration as Glenda leads him on with promises of a golden future.

Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island's German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.