[5] Away from both studio interference and sound stage constrictions, Donen and cinematographer Harold Rosson shot a scene on the streets of New York City that pioneered many cinematic techniques that would be adopted by the French New Wave a decade later.

Donen's biographer Joseph A. Casper stated that the scene avoids being gratuitous or amateurish, while still "developing plot, describing the setting while conveying its galvanizing atmosphere and manic mood, introducing and delineating character.

"[6]: 34 On the Town starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin as three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York whose romantic pursuits lead them to Ann Miller, Betty Garrett and Vera-Ellen.

[5] After being replaced as director on Pagan Love Song over personal differences with star Esther Williams, Donen was given the chance to direct his boyhood idol Fred Astaire.

[5][4]: 122–126  In the film, Powell's love affair with a wealthy Englishman (Peter Lawford) threatens to ruin the brother-sister act, while Astaire finds his own romance with another dancer (Sarah Churchill).

[15] The film stars Larry Parks as a streetwise show business agent who is compelled to marry an innocent young dance teacher (Elizabeth Taylor).

[16]: 201  The reason for the film's delayed release (by over a year) was Parks's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his eventual admission of his former membership in the Communist Party, and for naming other participants.

The film was produced by Freed, written by Comden and Green, photographed by Harold Rosson and starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charisse.

[16]: 2 Donen, along with Kelly, were brought in by Freed (who also hired Comden and Green to write a script)[16]: 28  to make a musical using old songs that he and composer Nacio Herb Brown wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Comden, Green and Donen interviewed everyone at MGM who was in Hollywood during that period,[16]: 19  poking fun at both the first movie musicals and the technical difficulties with early sound films.

With help from his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and love interest Kathy Selden (Reynolds), Lockwood saves his career by turning his latest film into a musical.

The "Give a Girl a Break" dance between Reynolds and Fosse was choreographed backwards and then played in reverse to create the illusion that the two are surrounded by hundreds of balloons that instantly appear at the touch of their fingers.

[5] Based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, the film's music is by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and choreography by Michael Kidd.

Envisioned as a sequel to On the Town, Kelly, Dailey and Kidd play three ex-GIs who reunite 10 years after World War II and discover that none of their lives have turned out how they had expected.

[4]: 229  Astaire plays an aging fashion photographer who discovers the intellectual bohemian Hepburn at a used bookstore in Greenwich Village and turns her into his new model while falling in love with her in Paris.

[4]: 261  With a plot that strongly resembles On the Town, the film features Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden as three navy officers on leave in San Francisco in 1944.

Adapted by Harry Kurnitz from his own stage play, the film was shot in Paris and starred Yul Brynner as a tyrannical orchestra conductor whose mistress (Kay Kendall) grows tired of his tantrums and plots to marry him in order to quickly divorce him for his money.

The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box-office returns, and Donen was unable to produce the projects that he was pursuing at that time: playwright Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons and A Patch of Blue, both of which became successful films for other directors.

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play the earl and countess of a large estate in England who are forced to permit guided tours of their mansion in order to help their financial problems.

[5] One of Donen's most praised films was Charade (1963), starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass.

It starred George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Red Buttons, Michael Kidd and Eli Wallach and premiered in competition at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1978.

[4]: 338 In 1993, Donen was preparing to produce and direct a movie musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring Michael Jackson.

[32] Donen is credited with having made the transition of Hollywood musical films from realistic backstage dramas to a more integrated art form in which the songs were a natural continuation of the story.

[4]: 92 When Donen and Kelly released On the Town, they boldly opened the film with an extravagant musical number shot on location in New York with fast-paced editing and experimental camera work, thus breaking from the conventions of that time.

"[4]: 161  Charness stated that Singin' in the Rain's references to Berkeley "marks the first time the Hollywood musical had ever been reflexive, and amused at its own extravagant non-dancing inadequacy, at that" and that Berekeley's "overhead kaleidoscope floral pattern is predominantly featured, as is the line of tap-dancing chorines, who are seen only from the knees down.

[4]: 106 However, actress Kathleen Freeman stated that when people visited the set of Singin' in the Rain to relate their experiences during the silent era, they would ask to speak with Kelly.

[4]: 333 With the deaths in the 2000s of Billy Wilder, George Sidney, Elia Kazan, Robert Wise, and Jules Dassin, Donen became the last surviving notable film director of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Scorsese gave tribute to Donen speaking about his career and his impact on film before playing a montage of his work in the movies from Singin' in the Rain, and Funny Face, to On the Town and Charade.

David Thomson dismisses most of his later comedy films, but praises him for leading "the musical in a triumphant and personal direction: out of doors ... Not even Minnelli can rival the fresh-air excitement of such sequences.

"[4]: 182–183 Among Donen's admirers are film directors Woody Allen,[61] Pedro Almodóvar,[62] Lindsay Anderson,[4]: 317  Charlie Chaplin,[4]: 169  Damien Chazelle,[63] Jules Dassin,[4]: 165  Guillermo del Toro[64] William Friedkin,[65] Jean-Luc Godard,[4]: 259  Stanley Kubrick,[4]: 316  Christopher McQuarrie,[66] Karel Reisz,[4]: 55  Martin Scorsese,[67] Steven Spielberg,[66] François Truffaut,[4]: 317  and Edgar Wright.