Best Drama Movies of 1951

The highest-rated drama films from 1951, ranked by MovieMagicScore based on authentic viewer ratings.

Drama 1950 Drama 1952 All Time Drama

Action Comedy Horror Science Fiction Thriller Romance Animation Documentary Fantasy Crime

Ace in the Hole

1951

An arrogant reporter exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to revitalize his career.

7.9

A Streetcar Named Desire

1951

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.

7.6

The Day the Earth Stood Still

1951

An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.

7.5

Early Summer

1951

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry.

7.9

Diary of a Country Priest

1951

An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.

7.5

Scrooge

1951

Ebenezer Scrooge malcontentedly shuffles through life as a cruel, miserly businessman, until he is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve who show him how his unhappy childhood and adult behavior has left him a selfish, lonely old man.

7.4

A Place in the Sun

1951

A young social climber wins the heart of a beautiful heiress but his former girlfriend's pregnancy stands in the way of his ambition.

7.3

Miracle in Milan

1951

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

7.3

Quo Vadis

1951

After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.

7.1

#10

Othello

1951

When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.

7.3

#11

Summer Interlude

1951

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.

7.4

#12

The River

1951

Director Jean Renoir’s entrancing first color feature—shot entirely on location in India—is a visual tour de force. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the film eloquently contrasts the growing pains of three young women with the immutability of the Bengal river around which their daily lives unfold. Enriched by Renoir’s subtle understanding and appreciation for India and its people, The River gracefully explores the fragile connections between transitory emotions and everlasting creation.

7.2

#13

The Enforcer

1951

After years of investigation, Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson has managed to build a solid case against an elusive gangster whose top lieutenant is about to testify.

7.1

#14

Detective Story

1951

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.

7.0

#15

The Idiot

1951

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.

7.0

#16

The Thing from Another World

1951

Scientists and US Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while investigating at a remote arctic outpost.

6.7

#17

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

1951

The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

6.7

#18

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

1951

Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.

6.6

#19

On Dangerous Ground

1951

A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.

6.6

Best Drama Movies of 1951

This ranking features the top drama movies released in 1951, sorted by MovieMagicScore viewer ratings. Looking for more? Browse all genres from 1951 or see the best drama movies of all time.