Best movie of this year hands down!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A bit overwrought and florid, but very enjoyable. Several reviewers pick on it because they seem to think that the characters are walking around in a totally depressed state throughout the movie. I don't see this at all. In fact, I perceive them as incredibly upbeat and positive about their situation, all things considered. One of the aspects of this film that I enjoy the most is the pure villainy of the bad guy. It's rare nowadays to see such an uncompromising and ungrateful jerk written into a script. He's human and believable, but he has no redeeming qualities at all. Also, he accomplishes this without the aid of technology, secret weapons, or even any sort of clever scheming or evil plans.The cinematography is pretty good, with some startling shots and quite a bit of hand-held camera.Finally, and I simply can't pass on this, the title is numerically correct for the majority of the movie. A couple other reviewers have stated that it is incorrect and I'm not sure if they're numerically challenged or what.

I saw this movie late one night way-y-y back in the 60's. I was only 7 or 8 and my dad let me stay up to watch it with him. Oh, I watched it, but with my hands over my eyes most of the time. Not a great movie for a little kid! After that one viewing, that was the last, and I do mean, The Last, I've ever heard of this movie. Until I looked it up on IMDb I wasn't even sure I'd actually seen it. It didn't become a cult favourite, nor has it, obviously ever been considered something kitschy. It kind of just fell off the face of the earth until I looked it up today. As a kid? I found it to be haunting. I remember very loud, very eerie, extremely haunting and scary, air raid sirens and lots of skeletons at the beginning. I probably fell asleep after that! Would definitely love to see it again to see if my memory corresponds with the actual film!!

TMC should be saluted for reviving this seldom seen film from 1950. I hadn't seen it in many years since it was never a staple of the Late Show. That's not surprising since Five features a no-name cast on a topic bound to depress even Disneyland-- nuclear annihilation. I did see the movie as a boy on initial release and it made a lasting impression. I expect that sort of impact was Oboler's purpose in writing, directing, and producing the project.Consider the movie's time period. In 1949, the Soviets tested their first nuclear device, meaning that the US no longer had a monopoly and-- given the emerging Cold War -- nuclear war became a real possibility for the first time. But such a conflict would be nothing like the wars preceding the atomic age in scope, killing power, or aftermath. Likely, this was the alarm that Oboler was hoping to sound to a complaisant American public coming off the great victories of WWII. The people of that period, however, were looking forward to a refrigerator, washing machine and a good job, and the last thing they wanted to be reminded of was a newer and more apocalyptic world war. The fact that Five was obviously made on a shoestring speaks volumes, I think, as to how Hollywood viewed the subject matter. And though movie sci-fi was overrun with nuclear mutants for the remainder of the decade, I don't believe there was another realistic effort until decade's end with On the Beach (I could be wrong). The topic itself became politically controversial once it was argued that the nation had to take the nuclear risk in order to protect our way of life. Nonetheless, Oboler appears to be testing new ground in neighborhood theatres with a politically charged subject. And for that, the movie has a genuine significance over and above its obscure status and conspicuous limitations.The movie itself is fairly effective in tackling a big topic with a small budget. Phipps is superb as the steadfast survivor, showing the kind of untapped talent lying behind so many of the ordinary-looking movie people. Sad-faced Susan Douglas is excellent too as a survivor who can't let go of what is now gone forever, along with Charles Lampkin as the ill-fated black man eager to help. In my book, the movie's biggest problem lies with James Anderson's near cartoon-like villain with a French accent so obviously phony, it looks like someone wasn't paying attention. Then too, the character is poorly written compounding the problem. Too bad that Anderson's role is so central to the drama.Of course, in a time of limited special effects, the production's biggest challenge was portraying world destruction. Shrewdly, Oboler makes good use of the desolate SoCal scrublands to suggest a wider desolation in the many panoramic shots surrounding the isolated hill house. Just as important, the hill house's modernistic design projects us into a possible future. The opening montage of a traumatized Douglas wandering through the surrounding destruction creates the appropriate mood of dislocation. The visit to the city, however, is trickier. Notice how Oboler uses truncated shots of skyscrapers to denote the city, along with the more elaborate street sets. No doubt, today's digital technology would create vast smoking vistas of urban destruction. But that sort of spectacle, impressive as it is, risks overwhelming the human element which Oboler never loses sight of. Note too, the effective use of the ocean as another panorama of a world gone suddenly barren. That expanse also shrewdly suggests an eternity on whose edge humanity's survivors are now perched. It's this expert use of background that helps lift the results beyond the merely economical.It appears the movie was not well received critically. Certainly some of the dialog sounds stilted, a surprise since Oboler made his mark in radio drama. That, along with the unfortunate Anderson performance, may have soured opinion. Then again, the subject matter was both novel and threatening, even though the film ends on a hopeful note. However that may be, Five remains an unusual example of Hollywood minimalism that deserves broader viewing even now, 60 years later. For, unless I'm badly mistaken, there are currently thousands more nuclear weapons than there were in 1950. By no means has the movie lost relevance.

Seeing this as a six year old on a local television channel in 1963 proved a traumatizing experience! One that generated nightmares for years.Why you ask?--the sight of a forlorn, bedraggled, and very wretched young woman (Susan Douglas) wondering in absolute exhaustion, back bent, arms dangling forward through a skeleton infested ghost town. Only the wind and a few birds accompany her solitary odyssey.Even in her exhaustion, she screams out "Somebody help me!" to no avail, her shouts in counterpoint to a tolling church bell the wind has activated, a bell and church no longer destined to call forth any living congregants.Susan Douglas's predicament: a world in which she is seemingly the sole survivor--her emotional response: benumbed stupor--proved far more unsettling to this six year old than the exploits of Frankenstein.Seen in 2008, those haunting images still retain their unsettling power. Miss Douglas, by the way, later became a regular cast member of the daytime serial, "The Guiding Light."