Columbia’s Golden Era

Columbia’s Golden Era

9 Episodes

While for many major Hollywood studios the 1950s marked the beginning of their decline, for Columbia Pictures it was a decade of ascendance. Spurred by the desire to differentiate their cinematic output from their television programming, the studio went bold with ambitious prestige productions like FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, ON THE WATERFRONT, and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI—all of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. From genre gems like the Southern Gothic mystery SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER to some of the era’s best stage-to-screen adaptations (A RAISIN IN THE SUN, PICNIC), Columbia Pictures carried the torch for the big-screen experience.

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Columbia’s Golden Era

9 Episodes

  • Columbia’s Golden Era Teaser
    01:01
    Columbia’s Golden Era Teaser
    Episode 1

    Columbia’s Golden Era Teaser

    Episode 1

  • From Here to Eternity
    1:58:13
    From Here to Eternity
    Episode 2

    From Here to Eternity

    Episode 2

    Directed by Fred Zinnemann • 1953 • United States
    Starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr

    Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make waves in this landmark blockbuster about raging passions and stormy personal dramas on a Hawaiian military base in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Har...

  • On the Waterfront
    1:47:59
    On the Waterfront
    Episode 3

    On the Waterfront

    Episode 3

    Directed by Elia Kazan • 1954 • United States
    Starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb

    Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry. A raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and soc...

  • Bonjour tristesse
    1:33:50
    Bonjour tristesse
    Episode 4

    Bonjour tristesse

    Episode 4

    Directed by Otto Preminger • 1958 • United Kingdom
    Starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg

    Otto Preminger’s second collaboration with the singular Jean Seberg casts her as Cecile, a hedonistic teenager living on the French Riviera with her similarly decadent father Raymond (David Niven),...

  • The Bridge on the River Kwai
    2:41:34
    The Bridge on the River Kwai
    Episode 5

    The Bridge on the River Kwai

    Episode 5

    Directed by David Lean • 1957 • United Kingdom
    Starring William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins

    A highly principled British colonel (Alec Guinness) becomes obsessed with leading a band of World War II POWs to build a bridge at the behest of their Japanese captors in Burma—setting up an explo...

  • Suddenly, Last Summer
    1:54:24
    Suddenly, Last Summer
    Episode 6

    Suddenly, Last Summer

    Episode 6

    Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz • 1959 • United States, United Kingdom
    Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift

    Gay panic, incest, and a sprinkling of cannibalism: Tennessee Williams’s one-act southern-gothic shocker gets an appropriately lurid screen adaptation cowritten ...

  • A Raisin in the Sun
    2:08:06
    A Raisin in the Sun
    Episode 7

    A Raisin in the Sun

    Episode 7

    Directed by Daniel Petrie • 1961 • United States
    Starring Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee

    Lorraine Hansberry’s immortal “A Raisin in the Sun” was the first play by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. Two years later, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. T...

  • Picnic
    1:53:17
    Picnic
    Episode 8

    Picnic

    Episode 8

    Directed by Joshua Logan • 1955 • United States
    Starring William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field

    William Holden and Kim Novak make sparks in this torrid adaptation of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play. Holden is the handsome stranger who drifts into a small Kansas town to visit an old fr...

  • Born Yesterday
    1:42:26
    Born Yesterday
    Episode 9

    Born Yesterday

    Episode 9

    Directed by George Cukor • 1950 • United States
    Starring Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden

    Judy Holliday pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Oscar history when she beat out both Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE and Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BOULEVARD for the Academy Award for bes...

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