In HE’s judgment, 25 exceptional, high-quality films were released in 1959. (There were another 9 or 10 that were good, decent, not bad.) By today’s standards, here’s how the top 25 rank:

1. Billy Wlder‘s Some Like It Hot (released on 3.29.59)

2. Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest (released on 7.1.59)

3. John Ford‘s The Horse Soldiers (released on 6.12.59)

4. George Stevens‘ The Diary of Anne Frank (released 3.18.59)

5. Stanley Kramer‘s On The Beach (released on 12.17.59)

6. William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur (released on 11.18.59)

7. Alain Resnais‘s Hiroshima, Mon Amour (released in France on 6.10.59)

8. Lewis Milestone‘s Pork Chop Hill (released on 5.29.59)

9. Otto Preminger‘s Anatomy of a Murder (released on 7.2.59)

10. Francois Truffaut‘s The 400 Blows (released in France on 5.4.59)

11. Howard Hawks‘ Rio Bravo (released on 4.4.59)

12. Sidney Lumet‘s The Fugitive Kind (released on 4.14.59)

13. Tony Richardson‘s Look Back in Anger (released on 9.15.59)

14. Grigory Chukhray‘s Ballad of a Soldier (released on 12.1.59)

15. Robert Bresson‘s Pickpocket (released on 12.16.59)

16. Robert Wise‘s Odds Against Tomorrow (released on 10.15.59)

17. Delbert Mann‘s Middle of the Night (released on 6.17.59)

18. Robert Stevenson‘s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (released on 6.26.59)

19. Fred Zinnemann‘s The Nun’s Story (released on 6.18.59)

20. Guy Hamilton‘s The Devil’s Disciple (released on 8.20.59)

21. Roger Vadim‘s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (released on 9.9.59)

22. Richard Fleischer‘s Compulsion (released on 4.1.59)

23. Val Guest‘s Expresso Bongo (released on 12.11.59)

24. Carol Reed‘s Our Man in Havana (released in England on 12.30.59 / stateside on 1.27.60)

25. J. Lee Thompson‘s Tiger Bay (released in March 1959)

Bonus:

Charles Barton‘s The Shaggy Dog (released on 3.19.59).