1940s
by milouhibou | created - 10 Jan 2016 | updated - 25 Aug 2021 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Approved | 118 min | Drama, Romance
The arrival of wealthy bachelors in town causes an uproar when families with single daughters aggressively seek engagements, including the Bennet family, with five eligible daughters.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver
Votes: 9,228
2. Career Girl (1944)
Approved | 69 min | Musical
Joan Terry, a girl from the country wants to become a Broadway Star, but this proves to be not so easy.
Director: Wallace Fox | Stars: Frances Langford, Edward Norris, Iris Adrian, Craig Woods
Votes: 216
3. Cover Girl (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
Rusty Parker wins a contest and becomes a celebrated cover girl; this endangers her romance with dancing mentor Danny.
Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers
Votes: 5,946
4. Little Men (1940)
Approved | 84 min | Comedy, Drama
Jo March and her husband Professor Bhaer operate the Plumfield School for poor boys. When Dan, a tough street kid, comes to the school, he wins Jo's heart despite his hard edge, and she ... See full summary »
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Kay Francis, Jack Oakie, George Bancroft, Jimmy Lydon
Votes: 413
5. Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It (1941)
Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama
The plot pits Hornleigh and Bingham against a clever gang of Nazi espionage agents. Most of the action takes place aboard a speeding train, with our heroes never quite certain who can be ... See full summary »
Director: Walter Forde | Stars: Gordon Harker, Alastair Sim, Phyllis Calvert, Edward Chapman
Votes: 291
6. Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Passed | 140 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Musical
A pair of sailors on leave try to help a movie extra become a singing star.
Directors: George Sidney, Joseph Barbera, William Hanna | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, José Iturbi
Votes: 9,439
7. Little Women (1949)
Approved | 122 min | Drama, Family, Romance
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor
Votes: 8,237 | Gross: $7.47M
8. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,860 | Gross: $4.36M
9. The Great Dictator (1940)
G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Votes: 237,507 | Gross: $0.29M
10. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Two turn-of-the-century baseball players, who work in vaudeville during the off-season, run into trouble with their team's new female owner and a gambler who doesn't want them to win the pennant.
Director: Busby Berkeley | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett
Votes: 4,077
11. The Heiress (1949)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance
A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man her emotionally abusive father suspects is only a fortune hunter.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins
Votes: 17,358
12. Now, Voyager (1942)
Passed | 117 min | Drama, Romance
A frumpy spinster blossoms under therapy and becomes an elegant, independent woman.
Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper
Votes: 19,028
13. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best
Votes: 20,905
14. Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
Passed | 101 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A nightclub's coatroom attendant who's in love with the club's singer accidentally sips a drugged drink that makes him dream he's French King Louis XV, courting the infamous Madame Du Barry.
Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, Virginia O'Brien
Votes: 1,724
15. On the Town (1949)
Passed | 98 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly | Stars: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller
Votes: 18,791
16. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,566 | Gross: $5.72M
17. Ziegfeld Follies (1945)
Approved | 110 min | Comedy, Musical
The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. looks down from Heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.
Directors: Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney, Merrill Pye, Charles Walters | Stars: William Powell, Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire
Votes: 3,636 | Gross: $7.93M
18. Rope (1948)
Approved | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Dick Hogan
Votes: 153,809
19. Night Train to Munich (1940)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
After Germany invades Czechoslovakia, the German and the British intelligence services try to capture Czech scientist Dr. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt), inventor of a new type of armor-plating.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid, Basil Radford
Votes: 5,588
20. Laura (1944)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Votes: 51,509 | Gross: $4.36M
21. The Stranger (1946)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale
Votes: 28,730
22. Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Passed | 132 min | Biography, Musical
Biography of songwriter and Broadway pioneer, Jerome Kern (Robert Walker). Unable to find immediate success in the U.S., Kern sought recognition abroad. He journeyed to England where his dreams of success became real and where he met his future wife Eva Leale (Dorothy Patrick).
Directors: Richard Whorf, Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney | Stars: Robert Walker, Van Heflin, Lucille Bremer, June Allyson
Votes: 2,713 | Gross: $6.72M
23. Shock (1946)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A psychologically distraught woman is committed to a private sanitarium by the man she witnessed commit a murder.
Director: Alfred L. Werker | Stars: Vincent Price, Lynn Bari, Frank Latimore, Anabel Shaw
Votes: 3,304
24. New Orleans (1947)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Arturo de Córdova, Dorothy Patrick, Marjorie Lord, Irene Rich
Votes: 672
25. Springtime in the Rockies (1942)
Approved | 91 min | Musical, Romance
Broadway partners Vicky Lane and Dan Christy have a tiff over Christy's womanizing. Jealous Vicky takes up with her old flame and former dance partner, Victor Price, and Dan's career takes ... See full summary »
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, John Payne, Cesar Romero
Votes: 753
26. Bluebeard (1944)
Passed | 72 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
In Paris, an artist hires portrait models, and after he finishes their portraits, he strangles them.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: John Carradine, Jean Parker, Nils Asther, Ludwig Stössel
Votes: 2,135
27. Impact (1949)
Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker
Votes: 4,724
28. 'Pimpernel' Smith (1941)
Passed | 120 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Professor Horatio Smith, while seeming very unassuming, rescues victims of Nazi persecution during World War II.
Director: Leslie Howard | Stars: Leslie Howard, Francis L. Sullivan, Allan Jeayes, Mary Morris
Votes: 1,850
29. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,207 | Gross: $0.30M
30. Tulsa (1949)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, Western
In Tulsa, after a rancher dies during a feud with a major oil company, his daughter, driven by revenge, starts digging for oil herself.
Director: Stuart Heisler | Stars: Susan Hayward, Robert Preston, Pedro Armendáriz, Lloyd Gough
Votes: 1,360
31. Orchestra Wives (1942)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
Connie Ward is in seventh heaven when Gene Morrison's band rolls into town. She is swept off her feet by trumpeter Bill Abbot. After marrying him, she joins the bands tour and learns about ... See full summary »
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: George Montgomery, Ann Rutherford, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, Lynn Bari
Votes: 1,147
32. Life with Father (1947)
Passed | 118 min | Comedy, Family
A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor, Edmund Gwenn
Votes: 6,399
33. Dishonored Lady (1947)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama
A beautiful editor at a fashion magazine has a breakdown due to the pressures of her work and her disappointing love life. A psychiatrist recommends that she start life fresh by moving into a smaller apartment and under another name.
Director: Robert Stevenson | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan
Votes: 1,689
34. A Stranger in Town (1943)
Passed | 67 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In a small corrupt town, an honest crusading lawyer running for mayor gets unexpected help from a tourist who happens to be a Supreme Court judge.
Director: Roy Rowland | Stars: Frank Morgan, Richard Carlson, Jean Rogers, Porter Hall
Votes: 1,018
35. Mother Wore Tights (1947)
Approved | 107 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
In this chronicle of a vaudeville family, Myrtle McKinley (class of 1900) goes to San Francisco to attend business school, but ends up in a chorus line. Soon, star Frank Burt notices her ... See full summary »
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Mona Freeman, Connie Marshall
Votes: 796
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