Page "1950s" Paragraph 69

European cinema experienced a renaissance in the ' 50s following the deprivations of World War II.

Italian director Federico Fellini won the first foreign language film Academy Award with La strada and garnered another Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria.

In 1955, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman earned a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Smiles of a Summer Night and followed the film with masterpieces The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.

Jean Cocteau's Orphée, a film central to his Orphic Trilogy, starred Jean Marais and was released in 1950.

French director Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge is now widely considered the first film of the French New Wave.

Notable European film stars of the period include Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Max von Sydow, and Jean-Paul Belmondo.