Best Mystery Movies of 1956

A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emmanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.

Air Force Colonel Kenneth Penmark and his wife, Christine, dote on their daughter, Rhoda -- as does their lonely landlady, Monica Breedlove. But self-centered Rhoda has a secret tendency for selfishness and loves to accumulate gifts, whether given or stolen, in her room. Christine keeps her knowledge of her daughter's darker side to herself, but when a schoolmate of Rhoda's dies mysteriously, her self-deception unravels.

Daffy Duck is a detective who is hunting for the Shorepshire Slasher.

Scotland Yard detectives attempt to solve a spate of safe robberies across England beginning with clues found at the latest burglary in London. The film is notable for using a police procedural style made popular by Ealing in their 1950 film The Blue Lamp. It is known in the US as The Third Key.

A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.

Philip Hannon, a blind playwright living in London, overhears part of a conversation , that leads him into a desperate race, to find a kidnapped child. When he gets no help from the police, he along with his butler, and his ex fiancée, attempt to track down the crooks.

A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.

Army radiation experiments awaken a subterranean monster from a fissure that feeds on energy and proceeds to terrorise a remote Scottish village. An American research scientist at a nearby nuclear plant joins with a British investigator to discover why the victims were radioactively burned and why, shortly thereafter, a series of radiation-related incidents are occurring in an ever-growing straight line away from the fissure.

A terrified stewardess is stalked by her psychotic estranged husband.

Opportunistic con man Dan Kehoe ingratiates himself with the cantankerous mother of four outlaws and their beautiful widows in order to find their hidden gold.

U.S. Embassy employee Lee Cochrane and his wife, Sue, receive a shock when they discover that their 18-month-old son, Simon, has disappeared in London. He was last seen with their nanny, and the couple seemingly have no leads that might help police Detective Craig in his investigation. The media sensationalizes the incident, causing an unnecessary distraction as the couple prepares to confront the culprit face-to-face.

A high-school music teacher is the victim of a student who writes indecent notes and assaults women.

Oil explorers suspect a South American jungle boy (Sabu) of murder.

Film producer Reggie Wilson is worried he may have a dual personality. Fleeing Hollywood, he finds himself in England and married to the studio boss's daughter after which he quickly rises through the studio ranks. Then the letters begin to appear from a lovesick American actress who wants to know why he has thrown her over.

During a massive manhunt for escaped convict Sam Cobbett, Cobbett invades a house where young housewife Mary Schaffner is home alone.

A group of schoolchildren come upon an alien from Venus, and help him against a gang of criminals who are trying to kidnap him.

Alcoholic detective investigating the murder of an actress starts getting worried when all fingers begin to point at him.

After being consulted by a friend concerning a murder case, a private eye learns the friend has become the next victim. Passport to Treason was put together by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman, the same team who’d later collaborate on the UK TV series The Saint. Rod Cameron stars as an American private eye, stationed in London. For the sake of a murdered friend, the detective takes over the dead man’s case, which turns out to have international ramifications. The villains are members of a phony pacifistic society, all of whom harbor plans for taking over the world.

An army veteran with a shattered leg returns to his home in Port Afrique after war only to find his wife has been murdered. He's determined to find the killer, even if it means uncovering family secrets he never knew about.

An artist suffering from mental problems from his experiences during the war goes to Acapulco on his honeymoon. Soon young women are turning up dead in the area, and the ex-GI comes to believe he might be responsible, as he has long stretches where he can't remember anything.

A woman believes herself to be the reincarnated spirit of an ancient prince's lover. Meanwhile, a murderer turns out to be the reincarnated spirit of the prince himself.

A serial killer known as "the strangler" terrorizes a New York neighborhood.

Herbert Carpenter plans to murder his wife Hermione, bury her body in the basement, and then leave on a long business trip.

A university professor, confident that everything which occurs in life has a rational explanation, finds his beliefs severely challenged when he awakens horrors beyond human understanding. A decade before the BBC's version of MR James' supernatural classic came this chilling version from the North Downs Cinematograph Society.

A nosy housewife sets out to prove that the new neighbor has murdered his wife.

A British theater actress unable to get out of her contract is assisted by an American playwright when a pair of her scissors is discovered lodged in her producer's back.

Why does the gaslight flicker so ominously in Mrs. Manningham's house? And is she really losing her mind?