443 Films & TV Shows Set In North America During The 1950s
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The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Michigan The 1950sThis house knows what makes you tick. — When ten-year-old Lewis is suddenly orphaned, he is sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan in a creaky (and creepy) old mansion with a mysterious ticking noise that emanates from the walls. Upon discovering that his uncle is a warlock, Lewis begins learning magic, but when he rebelliously resurrects an evil warlock he must find the secret of the house and save the world from destruction.
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Tales from the Hood 2
Mississippi The 1950sMr. Simms returns to tell more eerie, unsettling tales involving dolls, psychics, possession and ghosts.
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Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Pennsylvania The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980sA little kindness makes a world of difference. — Fred Rogers used puppets and play to explore complex social issues: race, disability, equality and tragedy, helping form the American concept of childhood. He spoke directly to children and they responded enthusiastically. Yet today, his impact is unclear. Have we lived up to Fred's ideal of good neighbors?
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My Mother's Letters
Quebec The 1950sIn this very personal and poetic film, veteran documentarian Serge Giguère pores through 100 letters written by his late mother to him and his 15 siblings. In them, she details the trials and tribulations of raising 16 children in rural Quebec, while helping to run a family carpentry business. Through inventive and playful techniques, Giguère brings the stories alive, applying creative approaches to family photographs, archival footage and staged reenactments. He mixes his mother's stories with his own memories and those of his siblings, some of whom hear for the first time what their mother had to say about them. Through these intertwining stories, the film presents not only a testament of a mother's complicated love for her many children, but also offers an intimate look at 1950s working class Quebec. - Aisha Jamal (Hot Docs Film Festival)
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Leatherface
Texas The 1960s The 1950sThe origin story of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — A young nurse is kidnapped by a group of violent teens who escape from a mental hospital and take her on the road trip from hell. Pursued by an equally deranged lawman out for revenge, one of the teens is destined for tragedy and horrors that will destroy his mind, moulding him into a monster named Leatherface.
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Suburbicon
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1950sWelcome to the neighborhood. — In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.
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Novitiate
Tennessee The 1960s The 1950sIn the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.
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Wonder Wheel
New York The 1950sThe story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny, an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty, Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey, a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina, Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.
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Dolores
California The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 2000sRebel. Activist. Feminist. Mother. — Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country's first farm worker's union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.
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Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
🇨🇦 Canada Louisiana North Dakota The 1930s The 1950s The 1970s The 1960s The 1980sDocumentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.
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Hello Again
New York The 1900s The 1910s The 1920s The 1940s The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980s The 2000s The 2010sA Musical Love Affair Spinning Through Time — Ten lost souls slip in and out of one another's arms in a daisy-chained musical exploration of love's bittersweet embrace. A film adaptation of Michael John LaChiusa's celebrated musical, originally based on Arthur Schnitzler's play, La Ronde.
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All the Money in the World
California England 🇫🇷 France 🇮🇹 Italy 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia 🇲🇦 Morocco The 1970s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940sJ. Paul Getty had a fortune. Everyone else paid the price. — The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom.
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My Nephew Emmett
Mississippi The 1950sThis visually ravishing and thought-provoking work portrays one of the USA’s great shames—the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till by two white men in Mississippi—and movingly reminds us of this dark episode’s enduring relevance.
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Mission Kathmandu: The Adventures of Nelly & Simon
🇳🇵 Nepal Quebec The 1950sQuebec, 1956. The impulsive and headstrong Nelly Maloye, a novice private eye, joins the methodical and pragmatic Simon Picard, a research scientist in a dubious quest to prove the existence of the elusive Yeti. The brave-hearted heroes come face-to-face with countless dangers during their trek through the heart of the Himalayas.
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Hail, Caesar!
California The 1950sLights. Camera. Abduction. — When a Hollywood star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, the studio sends their fixer to get him back.
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Rules Don't Apply
California The 1960s The 1950s The 1970sIt's Hollywood, 1958. Small town beauty queen and devout Baptist virgin Marla Mabrey, under contract to the infamous Howard Hughes, arrives in Los Angeles. At the airport, she meets her driver Frank Forbes, who is engaged to be married to his seventh grade sweetheart and is a deeply religious Methodist. Their instant attraction not only puts their religious convictions to the test, but also defies Hughes' number one rule: No employee is allowed to have any relationship whatsoever with a contract actress. Hughes' behavior intersects with Marla and Frank in very separate and unexpected ways, and as they are drawn deeper into his bizarre world, their values are challenged and their lives are changed.
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The Finest Hours
Massachusetts Atlantic Ocean The 1950s32 survivors, room for 12. — The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.
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The Founder
Minnesota Illinois Missouri Arizona California The 1970s The 1960s The 1950sRisk taker. Rule breaker. Game changer. — The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
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Miles Ahead
New York The 1950s The 1960s The 1970sIf you gonna tell a story, come with some attitude. — An exploration of the life and music of Miles Davis.
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The Odyssey
New York The 1970s The 1960s The 1940s The 1950sThe aquatic adventure of the highly influential and fearlessly ambitious pioneer, innovator, filmmaker, researcher, and conservationist, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, covers roughly thirty years of an inarguably rich in achievements life.
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Loving
Virginia District of Columbia The 1950sAll love is created equal — The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court.
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Indignation
Ohio The 1950sBased on the novel by Philip Roth. — In 1951, Marcus Messner, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with anti-Semitism, sexual repression, and the ongoing Korean War.
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Grease Live
California The 1960s The 1950sAn electrifying LIVE television event! — After enjoying a holiday romance, high school students Danny and Sandy are unexpectedly reunited when she transfers to Rydell High, where she must contend with cynical Rizzo and the Pink Ladies.
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Maudie
Nova Scotia The 1950s The 1930sTriumph epitomizes adversity — Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis falls in love with a fishmonger while working for him as a live-in housekeeper.
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Fences
Pennsylvania The 1950sSome people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in. — In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
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