Best Drama Movies of 1960

Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.

When hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. The two make a successful onstage pair, and their chemistry extends to romance. Both the show and their relationship are threatened, however, when one of Gantry's ex-lovers decides that she has a score to settle with the charismatic performer.

A young girl comes to an embittered town and confronts its attitude with her determination to see the best in life.

After a long journey, Philip arrives at the Usher mansion seeking his loved one, Madeline. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that Madeline and her brother Roderick Usher have been afflicted with a mysterious malady: Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become catatonic. That evening, Roderick tells his guest of an old Usher family curse: any time there has been more than one Usher child, all of the siblings have gone insane and died horrible deaths. As the days wear on, the effects of the curse reach their terrifying climax.

A young woman lying in a hospital bed, her head wrapped in bandages, awaits the outcome of a surgical procedure performed by the State in a last-ditch attempt to make her look "normal."

A 22-year-old factory worker lets loose on the weekends: drinking, brawling, and dating two women, one of whom is older and married.

Victor and Hillary are down on their luck to the point that they allow tourists to take guided tours of their castle. But Charles Delacro, a millionaire oil tycoon, visits, and takes a liking to more than the house. Soon, Hattie Durant gets involved and they have a good old fashioned love triangle.

A pair of newlyweds stopping in a small town are trapped by their own superstition when playing a fortune telling machine in a local diner.

The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.

A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter.

Peter Carter, his wife Sally and their young daughter Jean move to a sleepy Canadian village, where Peter has been hired as a school principal. Their idyll is shattered when Jean becomes the victim of an elderly, and extremely powerful, paedophile. The film was neither a box office nor a critical success, it garnered criticism for breaking a significant public taboo.

Following World War II in peacetime Scotland, brigade headquarters replaces commanding officer Major Jock Sinclair, a boisterous battalion leader, with the strict, temperamental Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow. Resentful toward his replacement, Sinclair undermines Barrow's authority and damages his successor's reputation among the soldiers. Barrow faces an uphill battle in regaining the discipline and respect of his battalion.

Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.

Captain Wade Hunnicutt is the wealthiest and most powerful citizen in his Texan town; he is also a notorious womanizer, which has turned his wife Hannah against him. She has brought up their son Theron to be dependent upon her; but as he reaches adulthood, Hunnicutt insists on taking over his upbringing, initiating him in hunting and other masculine pursuits, under the watchful eye of Rafe, Hunnicutt's loyal employee. But Theron's new lifestyle leads him into a love-affair with a local girl, and thence to his learning things about his parents that were previously hidden from him.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

A young factory worker stands alone against a proposed strike.

Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.

Expatriate Englishman Jim Wormold lives in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter. Owning a poorly-performing business, he accepts an offer from the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn't got a clue where to start, so he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provide fictional tales for his masters in London, and is soon known as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere. However, it all unravels when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his 'network' and he learns that he's the target of a group out to kill him.

John Cummings, an unsuccessful cosmetics salesman, has his unpaid-for car stolen by one of the hoods in the employ of Lionel Meadows, the sadistic organizer of a London car conversion racket. The car was not insured, and since the police appear indifferent to his plight, Cummings decides to find it himself -- and gets himself involved in an underworld battle.

Kit Preston begins to unravel when she receives threatening telephone calls informing her she's soon to be murdered.

Fictionalized account of Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., who stole or created fictional identities and worked in a variety of occupations, most quite successfully.

A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

The son of a working-class British mining family has dreams of pursuing an art career, but when he strikes up an affair with an older, married woman from the town it enrages his kind but possessive mother.

In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family--Paddy, Ida, and their teenage son Sean--are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling, and a racehorse will all have a part in the final decision.

A Hong Kong sex worker tries modeling and falls for the artist who's painting her.

Ruth is an unusual character in the Bible. First she's a female protagonist, one of a select few there. Secondly her story gets its own book in the Old Testament, a short item of only four chapters. Lastly she's the first non-Hebrew protagonist in the Bible since Abraham sired the Hebrew people. It's a simple story in the Old Testament. Ruth is one of two Moabite women who marry the sons of Elimelech and Naomi. When Elimelech and sons Mahlon and Chillion die, leaving Naomi a widow with two widowed daughters-in-law, Naomi decides to return to Israel. One daughter-in-law, Orpah, bids her goodbye. Daughter-in-law Ruth however says she will not desert her. She's going to give up the life and culture of Moab and her people will be Naomi's people in the most famous line from the Book of Ruth.

Good girls Merritt, Melanie, Tuggle and Angie - all students at mid-western Penmore University - are planning on going to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break to get away from the mid-western snow despite not having much money to spend once there. On the drive down, they admit their real purpose is to go where the boys are.

An Eskimo who has had little contact with white men goes to a trading post where he accidentally kills a missionary and finds himself being pursued by the police.

At the height of his fame, Oscar Wilde angers the Marquis of Queensberry by having what is believed to be a romantic relationship with Queensberry's son Lord Alfred Douglas, who is twenty years Wilde's junior. When Queensberry slanders Wilde, the artist decides to take the matter to court and brings about his own downfall.

Alfred Eaton, an ambitious young executive, climbs to the top of New York's financial world as his marriage crumbles. At the brink of attaining his career goals, he is forced to choose between business success, married to the beautiful, but unfaithful Mary and starting over with his true love, the much younger Natalie.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

When a robbery at a racetrack goes wrong ex-con Johnny Bannion is caught and sent back to prison. He won't tell the rest of the gang where he has stashed the loot leading to violent consequences.

An aspiring musician arrives in New York in search of fame and fortune. He soon meets a taxi dancer, moves in with her, and before too long a romance develops.

Angered at stern Uncle Daniel, Toby Tyler runs away from his foster home to join the circus, where he soon befriends Mr. Stubbs, the frisky chimpanzee. However, the circus isn't all fun and games when the evil candy vendor, Harry Tupper, convinces Toby that his Aunt Olive and Uncle Daniel don't love him or want him back. Toby resigns himself to circus life, but when he finally realizes that Tupper lied to him, and that his aunt and uncle truly love him, Toby happily returns home once again.

A pair of lovers plot to kill the woman's rich husband.

The S. S. Claridon is scheduled for her five last voyages after thirty-eight years of service. After an explosion in the boiler room, Captain Robert Adams is reluctant to evacuate the steamship. While the crew fights to hold a bulkhead between the flooded boiler room and the engine room and avoid the sinking of the vessel, the passenger Cliff Henderson struggles against time trying to save his beloved wife Laurie Henderson, who is trapped under a steel beam in her cabin, with the support of the crew member Hank Lawson.

Parisian nightclub owner Simone Pistache is known for her performances of the can-can, which attracts the ire of the self-righteous Judge Philipe Forrestier. He hatches a plot to photograph her in the act but ends up falling for her — much to the chagrin of her boyfriend, lawyer François Durnais.

Sam Burton's second wife is a Kiowa, and their son is therefore born mixed-race. When a struggle starts between the whites and the native Kiowas, the Burton family is split between loyalties.

Chronicles the rise and fall of the organised crime syndicate known as Murder, Incorporated, focusing on powerful boss Lepke and violent hit man Reles.

Nick Romano lives in a poor tenement building on the south side of Chicago with his well-meaning but drug-addicted mother, Nellie. She encourages him to pursue his piano-playing talent in hopes that it will bring him a better life. Nellie's neighbors, like the alcoholic ex-lawyer who secretly loves her, help her in keeping Nick away from Louie, the resident drug dealer. But a chance meeting between Nick and Louie could change things forever.

The story of Franklin Roosevelt's bout with polio at age 40 in 1921 and how his family (and especially wife Eleanor) cope with his illness. From being stricken while vacationing at Campobello to his triumphant nominating speech for Al Smith's presidency in 1924, the story follows the various influences on his life and his determination to recover - based on the award winning Broadway play of the same name.

Mike Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer, comes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged "black sheep" brother. Once there, he discovers that the deceased has left an 8 year old boy who is being raised by Michael's sister-in-law Lucia Curcio. To make matters worse, Lucia happens to be a sexy nightclub dancer.

A Story of two love triangles...

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

The story about Gloria Wandrous, a promiscuous fashion model, who falls in love with Weston Liggett, the hard drinking son of a working class family who has married into money.