In 1955, he won an Academy Award for Broken Lance. It was a remake of 1949's "House of Strangers", and he did not write single word. He won his Oscar for Best Original Story for material in the story files that had formed the basis for House of Strangers, salvaged, provided a Western context, and refurbished by producer-writer Michael Blankfort. Yordan formed his own company, Security Pictures. In 1949, he announced he would write and produce "The Big Blonde" based on a story by Dorothy Parker. Irving Lerner was going to direct. It was not made – the rights to the story went to Mark Robson's company. For Walter Wanger he did "The Black Book" (1949). He did some uncredited work on "Panic in the Streets" (1950) and "No Way Out" (1950), both for Fox, and wrote "Edge of Doom" (1950) for Sam Goldwyn. The King Brothers used him for a Western, "Drums in the Deep South" (1951), and a South Sea film, "Mutiny" (1952). He did "Detective Story" (1951) for William Wyler at Paramount and provided the story for "Mara Maru" (1952) at Warners. "Detective Story" earned Yordan an Oscar nomination. Yordan adapted "Houdini" (1953) for Paramount and "Blowing Wild" (1953) for Warner Bros.  Security Pictures made "The Big Combo" (1955), a co-production with the company of star Cornel Wilde; Yordan wrote the script and produced with Sidney Harmon. Yordan wrote "The Man from Laramie" (1955) for James Stewart and director Anthony Mann, the last film Stewart and Mann made together. Yordan wrote "Conquest of Space" (1955) for Haskin. He worked on the script for "Joe MacBeth" (1955), and did another for Mann, "The Last Frontier" (1955). Yordan produced and adapted Budd Schulberg's novel "The Harder They Fall" (1956), which was directed by Mark Robson. For Security Pictures he produced "The Wild Party" (1956) and wrote "Four Boys and a Gun" (1957). He provided the story for "Street of Sinners" (1957) for Security. Yordan wrote "No Down Payment" (1957) for Martin Ritt at Fox, and "Island Women" (1957) at Security.