Rebel Without a Cause
1955 film directed by Nicholas Ray
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American coming-of-age melodrama film, directed by Nicholas Ray. The film stars James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, William Hopper, and Nick Adams. It is also the film debut of Dennis Hopper, albeit in a minor role. It was filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format. Focusing on emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers, the film offers both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments.
The film was an attempt to portray the moral decay of American youth, critique parental styles, and explore the differences and conflicts between generations, namely the Interbellum Generation and the Silent Generation. The title was adopted from psychologist Robert M. Lindner's 1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath, although the film itself does not make any other references to Lindner's book. Warner Bros. Pictures released the film on October 27, 1955, nearly a month after Dean's death in a car crash on September 30, 1955.
Over the years, the film has achieved landmark status for the performance of Dean, fresh from his Oscar-nominated role in East of Eden, in his most celebrated role.
The public source identifies “Rebel Without a Cause” as 1955 film directed by Nicholas Ray. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rebel, Without and Cause.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q426346. VIAF identifies the subject as 316753489. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rebel Without a Cause” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.