Oscar-winning films don’t always stand the test of time – some disappear from memory almost instantly while others become rightful classics celebrated for decades to come. But, for sure, they will always be the films that won that particularly coveted award.
Here are the Best Picture Oscar-winning films from 1956 to 1965 and where to stream them currently.
Enjoy!
Oscar-winning films: quick links
Best Picture Oscar-winning films 1956 to 1965
Marty – 1956 winner
Film (1955). Delbert Mann’s directorial debut spins a romantic drama from the story of an unmarried thirty-something Italian-American butcher (Marty) who lives with his mother amid clamouring calls from his friends to get married and have some kids.
It’s never going to happen, Marty thinks, but then he meets a jilted high-school teacher called Clara outside a dance hall and starts to revise his life plans.
Starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Prime Video.
Around the World in 80 Days – 1957 winner
Film (1956). Widely considered one of the worst, if not the very worst, Best Picture Oscar winner ever (Crash has also been in critics’ sights lately), Michael Anderson’s film – based on Jules Verne’s 1873 novel – follows upper-class English gentleman Phileas Fogg and his wager to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. His servant Passepartout comes along for the laughs, as does Shirley MacLaine as, implausibly, an Indian princess.
Starring David Niven, Cantinflas and Shirley MacLaine. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Prime Video.
The Bridge on the River Kwai – 1958 winner
Film (1957). David Lean’s war epic, based on the novel of the same name, sets fictional characters against the torturous real-life construction of the Burma Railway by British prisoners of war in a Japanese camp during World War Two.
Regularly included in lists of the best films ever made, and the winner of seven Oscars, it remains as moving and disturbing as ever.
Starring William Holden, Alec Guiness, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on BritBox.
Gigi – 1959 winner
Film (1958). Vincente Minnelli’s romantic comedy musical won all nine of its Oscar nominations in 1959, including Best Picture and Best Director. It’s set at the turn of the 20th century in Belle Époque Paris and considered the last of the great MGM musicals.
With songs by Lerner and Loewe that have definitely not aged well – not least Thank Heaven for Little Girls – and costumes and set pieces that remain breathtaking for all the right reasons, we follow a wealthy playboy and a young trainee courtesan as their platonic relationship morphs into something else.
Starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan. Watch the trailer.
Currently unavailable to stream.
Ben-Hur – 1960 winner
Film (1959). William Wyler’s religious epic isn’t as big as Ben-Hur, because it actually is Ben-Hur, the very yardstick of what ‘big’ means, with a bigger budget and sets than any film previously, and an estimated 10,000 extras.
The story follows a Jewish prince, sent into slavery by his backstabbing Roman friend in Jerusalem, 1AD, but you’d better believe he’ll gain his freedom and seek almighty revenge. The nine-minute chariot race sequence, directed by Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, is spectacular, but there’s plenty more to keep you gripped. I mean, it’s bigger than …
Starring Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet and Martha Scott. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Prime Video.
The Apartment – 1961 winner
Film (1960). Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy-drama zeroes in on an insurance clerk who tries to curry favour with his superiors, and thereby advance his career, by letting them use his apartment as a love nest for their illicit affairs. But then he falls for his office’s elevator operator, who is entangled already with the company’s head of personnel.
Not without controversy at the time for its lewd storyline, the film won five Oscars, was a critical and commercial hit, and is now feted as one of the all-time greatest films.
Starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on MGM.
West Side Story – 1962 winner
Film (1961). Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name fits the bones of Romeo and Juliet with Tony and Maria, two lovestruck young adults whose worlds are at war – Maria being linked via family and social circumstances to The Sharks, a Puerto Rican street gang, and Tony to The Jets, a group of whites brawling with The Sharks for control of New York’s Upper West Side in the late 1950s.
Love, tragedy, dancing and an incredible score by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, combine in a story that became the highest-grossing film of 1961 and has endured in the decades since. The 2021 adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg is also worth your time.
Starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Prime Video.
Lawrence of Arabia – 1963 winner
Film (1962). David Lean’s sandy and sumptuous epic, based on the life of the British Army officer TE Lawrence as described in his 1926 book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, charts Lawrence’s time in Hejaz and Syria during World War One and his split loyalties between Arabia and his native Britain.
Winning seven Oscars from its ten nominations, it’s never far from the top of ‘best-ever’ film lists. And that score by Maurice Jarre!
Starring Peter O’Toole, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Binge.
Tom Jones – 1964 winner
Film (1963). Tony Richardson directed this period comedy adaptation of Henry Fielding’s classic novel, bringing to the screen the romantic adventures of Tom in 18th-century England.
Starring Albert Finney, Susannah York and Hugh Griffith. Watch the trailer.
Currently unavailable on streaming services.
My Fair Lady – 1965 winner
Film (1964). George Cukor’s adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical of the same name caused some raised eyebrows for its casting – particularly as Julie Andrews had played the protagonist Eliza Doolittle to great acclaim in the stage version and was thought to be the obvious choice for the film – but few (except maybe Andrews) would think of Audrey Hepburn now as anything other than the embodiment of the poor Cockney flower-seller, who becomes part of an experiment by the pompous Henry Higgins, who wagers he can turn her into a refined lady worthy of Edwardian London.
A delight of a film (even when you’re hating on Professor Higgins and wishing Eliza would smack him round the head with something heavy), with songs such as I Could Have Danced All Night, Just You Wait and Wouldn’t it be Loverly …
Starring Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway. Watch the trailer.
Streaming on Binge.
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