Year by year: 1943

by cafg-0 | created - 10 Dec 2017 | updated - 9 months ago | Public

My 50 favorite films of 1943

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1. Casablanca (1942)

PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War

100 Metascore

A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains

Votes: 605,333 | Gross: $1.02M

2. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)

Passed | 75 min | Drama, Western

When a posse captures three men suspected of killing a local farmer, they become strongly divided over whether or not to lynch the men.

Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn

Votes: 24,931 | Gross: $1.64M

3. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

94 Metascore

A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers

Votes: 70,432

4. Day of Wrath (1943)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, History

The young wife of an aging priest falls in love with his son amidst the horror of a merciless witch hunt in 17th-century Denmark.

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neiiendam, Kirsten Andreasen

Votes: 11,061

5. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Not Rated | 163 min | Drama, Romance, War

From the Boer War through World War II, a soldier rises through the ranks in the British military.

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, James McKechnie

Votes: 16,329

6. Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Passed | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main

Votes: 12,326

7. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Passed | 170 min | Adventure, Drama, History

68 Metascore

During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.

Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova

Votes: 10,215 | Gross: $17.80M

8. The Raven (1943)

Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

A French village doctor becomes the target of poison-pen letters sent to village leaders, accusing him of affairs and practicing abortion.

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson

Votes: 10,878 | Gross: $0.03M

9. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett

Votes: 13,651

10. The More the Merrier (1943)

Passed | 104 min | Comedy

During the World War II housing shortage in Washington, two men and a woman share a single apartment and the older man plays Cupid to the other two.

Director: George Stevens | Stars: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines

Votes: 7,462

11. This Land Is Mine (1943)

Approved | 103 min | Drama, War

A mild-mannered school teacher in a German-occupied town during World War II finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance.

Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, George Sanders, Walter Slezak

Votes: 3,725

12. Carnival of Sinners (1943)

Approved | 80 min | Fantasy, Horror

Roland Brissot bought for a nickel a talisman that gives him love, fame, and wealth. The talisman is a cut left hand, and it works perfectly. Of course, there is nothing free in this world,... See full summary »

Director: Maurice Tourneur | Stars: Pierre Fresnay, Josseline Gaël, Noël Roquevert, Guillaume de Sax

Votes: 1,791

13. The Song of Bernadette (1943)

Approved | 156 min | Biography, Drama, Mystery

14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, living in a small town in the south of 1850s France, claims to have seen a divine vision, prompting extreme skepticism, concern from her family, and religious and political turmoil.

Director: Henry King | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, William Eythe, Vincent Price

Votes: 7,633

14. Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

Passed | 134 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

After the German administrator of Czechoslovakia is shot, his assassin tries to elude the Gestapo and struggles with his impulse to give himself up as hostages are executed.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart

Votes: 6,378

15. Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

Passed | 96 min | Thriller, War

In the North African campaign a British straggler manages to pass himself off as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may have an even better use.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff, Fortunio Bonanova

Votes: 6,805

16. Watch on the Rhine (1943)

Approved | 114 min | Drama, Thriller

A German-born engineer, his American wife and their children travel from Mexico to the United States to visit her family, but a Romanian count complicates their plans.

Directors: Herman Shumlin, Hal Mohr | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lucile Watson

Votes: 4,966

17. Edge of Darkness (1943)

Passed | 119 min | Drama, War

After two years under German rule, a small Norwegian fishing village rises up and revolts against the occupying Nazis.

Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman

Votes: 2,996

18. Holy Matrimony (1943)

Not Rated | 87 min | Comedy, Drama

From Arnold Bennett's novel "Buried Alive". An artist returning from years abroad takes the identity of his dead valet to escape the attentions of the press.

Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Laird Cregar, Una O'Connor

Votes: 895

19. Sahara (I) (1943)

Approved | 97 min | Action, Drama, War

After the fall of Tobruk in 1942, during the Allied retreat in the Libyan desert, an American tank picks-up a motley group of survivors but they face advancing Germans and a lack of water.

Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Lloyd Bridges

Votes: 9,736

20. The Leopard Man (1943)

Approved | 66 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Thriller

A seemingly-tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell

Votes: 5,951

21. The Hard Way (1943)

Passed | 109 min | Drama, Musical, Romance

Embittered, ambitious Helen Chernen sees an opportunity to escape her drab small-town life by becoming a 'stage mother' to her musically-talented younger sister.

Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Ida Lupino, Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson

Votes: 1,490

22. Obsession (1943)

TV-14 | 140 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna, and they plan to get rid of her older husband.

Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Dhia Cristiani, Elio Marcuzzo

Votes: 8,266

23. Hi Diddle Diddle (1943)

Approved | 72 min | Comedy, Musical

When the bride's mother is supposedly swindled out of her money by a spurned suitor, the groom's father orchestrates a scheme of his own to set things right. He is aided by a cabaret singer, while placating a jealous wife.

Directors: Andrew L. Stone, Friz Freleng | Stars: Adolphe Menjou, Martha Scott, Pola Negri, Dennis O'Keefe

Votes: 681

24. So Proudly We Hail! (1943)

Passed | 126 min | Drama, Romance, War

A group of nurses returning from the war in the Philippines recall their experiences in combat and in love.

Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, George Reeves

Votes: 2,077

25. Madame Curie (1943)

Passed | 124 min | Biography, Drama, Romance

Despite himself, accomplished physicist and avowed bachelor Pierre Curie falls for brilliant student Marie, and together they embark on the discovery of radium.

Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Albert Lewin | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, Albert Bassermann

Votes: 3,181

26. The Human Comedy (1943)

Passed | 117 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

Teenager Homer Macauley stays at home in small-town Ithaca to support his family while his older brother Marcus prepares to go to war.

Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig, Marsha Hunt

Votes: 2,447

27. Air Force (1943)

Approved | 124 min | Action, Drama, History

The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy

Votes: 3,812

28. Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

Not Rated | 79 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Sugata, a young man, struggles to learn the nuance and meaning of judo, and in doing so comes to learn something of the meaning of life.

Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Denjirô Ôkôchi, Susumu Fujita, Yukiko Todoroki, Ryûnosuke Tsukigata

Votes: 5,618

29. In Which We Serve (1942)

Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, War

This "story of a ship", the British destroyer H.M.S. Torrin, is told in flashbacks by survivors as they cling to a life raft.

Directors: Noël Coward, David Lean | Stars: Noël Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson

Votes: 6,439 | Gross: $0.45M

30. The Man in Grey (1943)

Approved | 90 min | Drama, History, Romance

After a brutish, hedonistic Marquis marries a pretty young Clarissa to act as a 'brood sow,' he begins an affair with her friend who plots to take her place.

Director: Leslie Arliss | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger

Votes: 1,592

31. Destination Tokyo (1943)

Passed | 135 min | Adventure, War

In order to provide information for the first air raid over Tokyo, a U.S. submarine sneaks into Tokyo Bay and places a spy team ashore.

Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, John Ridgely

Votes: 5,744

32. The Moon and Sixpence (1942)

Approved | 89 min | Drama, Romance

Loosely inspired by Gauguin's life, the story of Charles Strickland, a middle-aged stockbrocker who abandons his middle-class life, his family, and his duties to start painting, as he has ... See full summary »

Director: Albert Lewin | Stars: George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Doris Dudley, Eric Blore

Votes: 867

33. Stormy Weather (1943)

Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Drama, Music

The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.

Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Katherine Dunham and Her Troupe

Votes: 2,885

34. Action in the North Atlantic (1943)

Passed | 126 min | Drama, War

An American tanker is sunk by a German U-boat, and the survivors spend 11 days at sea on a raft. Their next assignment - bound for Murmansk through the sub-stalked N. Atlantic.

Directors: Lloyd Bacon, Byron Haskin, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Julie Bishop

Votes: 4,543

35. Princess O'Rourke (1943)

Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance

A pilot falls in love with a woman he believes is heading cross country to become a maid, little suspecting that she's actually a princess.

Director: Norman Krasna | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Jack Carson

Votes: 1,543

36. The Constant Nymph (1943)

Passed | 112 min | Drama, Music, Mystery

The daughter (Joan Fontaine) of a musical mentor (Montagu Love) is hopelessly in love with her cousin's husband (Charles Boyer), a handsome composer.

Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine, Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith

Votes: 1,580

37. Girl Crazy (1943)

Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Musical

84 Metascore

A philandering young playboy is sent to college somewhere in the American West, and organizes a show, together with his sweetheart, to save the college from closure due to falling enrollments.

Directors: Norman Taurog, Busby Berkeley | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gil Stratton, Robert E. Strickland

Votes: 2,243 | Gross: $3.77M

38. Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Music, Mystery

After one member of their group is murdered, the performers at a burlesque house must work together to find out who the killer is before he strikes again.

Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Michael O'Shea, J. Edward Bromberg, Iris Adrian

Votes: 2,774

39. Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Passed | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A compulsive gambler dies during a shooting, but he'll receive a second chance to reform himself and to make up with his worried wife.

Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Busby Berkeley | Stars: Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong

Votes: 3,405

40. Immortal Sergeant (1943)

Passed | 91 min | Drama, Romance, War

During a WW2 patrol in the North-African desert, a Canadian corporal reminisces about his sweetheart and must lead his platoon when the sergeant gets wounded.

Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, Thomas Mitchell, Allyn Joslyn

Votes: 1,014

41. Desert Victory (1943)

62 min | Documentary, War

The Allied campaign to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa is analysed, with the major portion of the film examining the battles at El Alamein, including a re-enactment.

Directors: Roy Boulting, David MacDonald | Stars: Harold Alexander, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Bernard L. Montgomery

Votes: 370

42. Claudia (1943)

Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

Child bride Claudia Naughton has made life difficult for her husband David because she can't stand living so far away from her mother. She's also afraid that her husband doesn't find her ... See full summary »

Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Ina Claire, Reginald Gardiner

Votes: 464

43. Saludos Amigos (1942)

Passed | 42 min | Animation, Short, Adventure

60 Metascore

Disney animators tour South America and present four animated shorts inspired by their trip.

Directors: Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Norman Ferguson | Stars: Fred Shields, José Oliveira, Lee Blair, Mary Blair

Votes: 7,889

44. Victory Through Air Power (1943)

Approved | 70 min | Documentary, Animation, History

An animated documentary promoting of the soundness of strategic aerial bombing in World War II.

Directors: James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, H.C. Potter | Stars: Alexander de Seversky, Art Baker, Billy Mitchell

Votes: 1,172 | Gross: $0.80M

45. Lassie Come Home (1943)

Passed | 89 min | Adventure, Drama, Family

78 Metascore

After her destitute family is forced to sell her, a collie named Lassie escapes from her new owner and begins the long trek from Scotland to her Yorkshire home.

Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn

Votes: 5,927

46. The Sky's the Limit (I) (1943)

Approved | 89 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance

Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes incognito for several days off.

Director: Edward H. Griffith | Stars: Fred Astaire, Joan Leslie, Robert Benchley, Robert Ryan

Votes: 1,218

47. Hello Frisco, Hello (1943)

Approved | 99 min | Musical

In turn-of-the-century San Francisco, an ambitious vaudevillian takes his quartet from a honky tonk to the big time, while spurning the love of his troupe's star singer for a selfish heiress.

Director: H. Bruce Humberstone | Stars: Alice Faye, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Lynn Bari

Votes: 556 | Gross: $3.40M

48. The North Star (1943)

Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance, War

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the German invasion of June 1941.

Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan

Votes: 1,779

49. Johnny Come Lately (1943)

Passed | 97 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

Newspaper man wanders about and helps older woman save her paper.

Director: William K. Howard | Stars: James Cagney, Grace George, Marjorie Main, Marjorie Lord

Votes: 744

50. The Fallen Sparrow (1943)

Passed | 94 min | Film-Noir, Mystery

In 1940, an American former Republican prisoner during the Spanish Civil War, John McKittrick, is determined to find the killer of NYPD Lieutenant Louie Lepetino, who had helped him escape.

Director: Richard Wallace | Stars: John Garfield, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, Patricia Morison

Votes: 1,988



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