History Main / The50s

See Also: TheRoaring20s, TheThirties, The40s, The60s, The70s, The80s, The90s, TurnOfTheMillennium, TheNew10s, and TheNew20s.

* ''Film/FridayThe13th1980'': Prologue set in 1958.

* ''Film/{{Hollywoodland}}'': 2006 BioPic of George Reeves.

* ''Manga/PrincessKnight''

[[caption-width-right:350:"There's a dead body in the shed out back. But don't tell anyone, okay? It's our little secret."]]

* ''Film/{{Hoosiers}}'': Like ''The Last Picture Show'' in the "Nostalgic Fifties" folder, it's a bit more complicated than some on this list. It's also set in 1951 (thus predating a lot of the standard decade tropes), with the real-life event on which it was {{very loosely based|OnATrueStory}} having occurred in 1954. Its rural Indiana setting also places it at some remove from the middle-class "mainstream" of the era.

* ''Film/{{Loving}}'': 2016 BioPic about the passing of the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia Loving v. Virginia]] act.

For a glimpse of what (some) Americans actually living in the Fifties thought of their world, read the TimeTravel stories of Jack Finney. His heroes are generally lonely, frustrated, unhappy bachelors eager to escape from their conformist gray-flannel-suited world, usually into TheGay90s. Likewise actual 50s film are also a good depiction, not only Hollywood but also independent films such as ''Film/{{Shadows}}'' by Creator/JohnCassavetes (actually shot in 50s New York and dealt with working-class African-American characters). FilmNoir was a major genre during the Fifties, that doesn't easily fit in with any of the mainstream versions of the decade listed above, even if many 50s FilmNoir actually dealt with the underbelly of crime and represented it in this period and indeed one of the key period films depicting this time is of course ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}'' (Henry Hill's childhood and teenage years). This includes modern noir ''set'' during the Fifties like ''Film/LAConfidential1997'' or ''Film/TheBlackDahlia''. The other popular genres in this decade are TheMusical, TheWestern, the BMovie, the EpicMovie, widescreen cinema. Formerly the 50s was considered a weak era for Hollywood, these days a growing contingent considers it the greatest period of [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood Hollywood's Golden Age]].

The political decade of the fifties began with [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII V-J Day]] on August 15, 1945, the start of UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar on June 25, 1950 and the election of UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower as President on November 4, 1952 ending two decades of Democrat dominance in Washington and ended with the [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement March on Washington]] on August 28, 1963 and the [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy Kennedy assassination]] on November 22, 1963. Culturally speaking, it started with the mass production of TV sets in 1946 and the premiere of ''Series/ILoveLucy'' on October 15, 1951 and ended with the theatrical release of ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' on September 8, 1960 and the American debut of Music/TheBeatles on ''Series/TheEdSullivanShow'' on February 9, 1964. In many ways it is one of the longest cultural "decades" since, when looking at the furthest possible endpoints, it covers the whole period between V-J Day to the start of UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion (1945-64). Shifts in this period include 1955-57 as TV ownership reached a tipping point, tailfin cars got REALLY wild, women's skirts got shorter in reaction against the neo-Victorian "New Look" that had started in the late '40s, RockAndRoll started getting serious radio play and the first wave of [[BabiesEverAfter Baby Boomers]] reached JuniorHigh. Another shift was the October 1957 launch of Sputnik which launched the Space Race, the point where the decade's futurism and science-fiction dreams went into government policy.

* The end of the Golden Ages of [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood film]], [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation animation]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks comic books]]. Film and animation in the USA finally got First Amendment free speech protection during this decade for the first time in generations while comic books [[UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode experienced the exact opposite]].

* LimitedAnimation: While this technique wasn't invented in this era, it did help cement the usage of it in the industry. At first, they were used in a more stylistic choice, thanks to [[Creator/ColumbiaCartoons United Productions of America]] becoming more popular, popularizing the trend. As time goes on, though, thanks to the UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem, animation Studios either had to cut their budgets or closed their units, and by the end, only three with consistent quality remained; Creator/{{Disney}} with their WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts, and even then the quantity of them had declined over the decade as Creator/WaltDisney moved to TV, Creator/{{Universal}}, and Creator/WarnerBros with their ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' series. By the time Creator/HannaBarbera came, it became a necessity for those studios to cut their animation budgets for any sort of revenue.

* UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation began as studios used the techniques of limited animation as an excuse to crank out productions faster. Many Dark Age TV shows through the [[The60s late '60s]] depicted a NuclearFamily straight out of The Fifties, with the rare subversive cartoon (including fifties animated shorts ''[[UnbuiltTrope themselves]]'', that hadn't been told what the decade was about.)

* The first part of the ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles1'' takes place in 1955, which coincides with the collapse of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks.

* UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks began in this period, following the red-baiting and obscenity hysteria fueled by the publication of Dr. Frederick Wertham's book ''Seduction of the Innocent'', which helped end the E.C. Horror Comics catalog that had supplanted superhero comics through most of the 1950s with grotesque and ''Magazine/WeirdTales'' ''[[ComicBook/TalesFromTheCrypt from the Crypt]]''. The only E.C. comic to survive was...

* UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood wound down during the Fifties, drifting into formulaic musicals, [[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode Hays Code]]-approved thrillers, and big production numbers, leading to more adventurous directors refining their technique in romantic films and character dramas.

** Paris was the buzzword for sophistication in this decade. Following its liberation, the city immediately went back to business as if the Germans never invaded the city at all. With cafés filled to the brim with writers and intellectuals, fashion boutiques displaying the cutting-edge "New Look" dresses, films always showing [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench la Tour d'Eiffel]] [[TheEiffelTowerEffect wherever they're set]], and people walking with their poodles on the street.

For a glimpse of what (some) Americans actually living in the Fifties thought of their world, read the TimeTravel stories of Jack Finney. His heroes are generally lonely, frustrated, unhappy bachelors eager to escape from their conformist gray-flannel-suited world, usually into TheGay90s. Likewise actual 50s film are also a good depiction, not only Hollywood but also independent films such as ''Film/{{Shadows}}'' by Creator/JohnCassavetes (actually shot in 50s New York and dealt with working-class African-American characters). FilmNoir was a major genre during the Fifties, that doesn't easily fit in with any of the mainstream versions of the decade listed above, even if many 50s FilmNoir actually dealt with the underbelly of crime and represented it in this period and indeed one of the key period films depicting this time is of course ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}'' (Henry Hill's childhood and teenage years). This includes modern noir ''set'' during the Fifties like ''L.A. Confidential'' or ''The Black Dahlia''. The other popular genres in this decade are TheMusical, TheWestern, the BMovie, the EpicMovie, widescreen cinema. Formerly the 50s was considered a weak era for Hollywood, these days a growing contingent considers it the greatest period of [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood Hollywood's Golden Age]].

[[caption-width-right:350:"There's a dead body in the shed out back. But don't tell anyone, okay? It's our secret."]]

* ''Series/Forever2014'': The flashbacks that are set in this decade show Henry and Abigail’s married life and them raising raising their adoptive son Abe.

* ''Series/Forever2014'': The flashbacks that are set in this decade show Henry and Abigail’s romance and Henry abandoning a dying man, while Henry himself is shot, to avoid revealing the fact that he’s immortal.