1940
by guimes | created - 08 Sep 2013 | updated - 19 Jul 2014 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Not Rated | 112 min | Comedy, Romance
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey
Votes: 73,776
2. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 99,854 | Gross: $0.06M
3. 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: 9,216
4. 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: 237,103 | Gross: $0.29M
5. Kitty Foyle (1940)
Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance
A hard-working white-collar girl from a middle-class family meets and falls in love with a young socialite, but she soon clashes with his family.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Eduardo Ciannelli
Votes: 4,047
6. 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: 63,083 | Gross: $0.30M
7. The Mortal Storm (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Drama
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan
Votes: 6,028
8. The Westerner (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Drama, Western
Judge Roy Bean, a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegarroon, Texas, befriends saddle tramp Cole Harden, who opposes Bean's policy against homesteaders.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport, Fred Stone
Votes: 6,785
9. Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance, War
Myra and Roy meet and fall in love on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid. Their love will be one of the war's unspoken casualties.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Virginia Field
Votes: 10,920
10. The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Approved | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Family
A young Spanish aristocrat must masquerade as a fop in order to maintain his secret identity of Zorro as he restores justice to early California.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard
Votes: 10,968 | Gross: $4.36M
11. The Letter (1940)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort
Votes: 14,574
12. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 38,410 | Gross: $0.20M
13. My Little Chickadee (1940)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Western
After a scandal runs a gold-digger out of town, she meets a con artist and becomes embroiled in a string of petty deceits.
Director: Edward F. Cline | Stars: Mae West, W.C. Fields, Joseph Calleia, Dick Foran
Votes: 3,057
14. Strange Cargo (1940)
Passed | 113 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure (Ian Hunter).
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Ian Hunter, Peter Lorre
Votes: 2,969
15. Pinocchio (1940)
G | 88 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A living puppet, with the help of a cricket as his conscience, must prove himself worthy to become a real boy.
Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Mel Blanc, Don Brodie
Votes: 159,674 | Gross: $84.25M
16. Remember the Night (1939)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Love blooms between a sympathetic attorney and the comely shoplifter he has taken home for the Christmas holiday.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson
Votes: 7,183 | Gross: $0.17M
17. Primrose Path (1940)
Approved | 93 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A young woman from a family of prostitutes falls in love with a hard-working man, but when he finds out the truth about her background, their romance becomes jeopardized.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Travers
Votes: 1,786
18. City for Conquest (1940)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Sport
Danny is a content truck driver, but his girl Peggy shows potential as a dancer and hopes he too can show ambition. Danny acquiesces and pursues boxing to please her, but the two begin to spend more time working than time together.
Directors: Anatole Litvak, Jean Negulesco | Stars: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp
Votes: 2,709
19. Knute Rockne All American (1940)
Approved | 98 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The story of legendary Notre Dame football player and coach Knute Rockne.
Directors: Lloyd Bacon, William K. Howard | Stars: Pat O'Brien, Gale Page, Ronald Reagan, Donald Crisp
Votes: 2,154
20. New Moon (1940)
Passed | 105 min | Adventure, Musical, Romance
On a Louisiana-bound ship, a nobleman planning a campaign for liberty encounters an heiress.
Directors: Robert Z. Leonard, W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Mary Boland, George Zucco
Votes: 641
21. Edison, the Man (1940)
Passed | 107 min | Biography, Drama
82 year old inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Alva Edison is honored in 1929 and he reflects back on his sixty year career of scientific achievement.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Rita Johnson, Lynne Overman, Charles Coburn
Votes: 1,774
22. Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Passed | 102 min | Musical
Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who thinks he is one of the people they lent money to gives him the name of his partner.
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan
Votes: 2,777
23. Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Passed | 79 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime
A cuckolded embezzler on the verge of suicide is helped by a tout, an alcoholic playwright, and a pick-up girl to reimburse the money with a gambling sting.
Directors: Ben Hecht, Lee Garmes | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen
Votes: 1,332
24. Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940)
Approved | 88 min | Comedy, Family, Romance
Judge Hardy takes his family to New York City, where Andy quickly falls in love with a socialite. However, he finds the high-society life too expensive and eventually decides that he liked it better back home.
Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden
Votes: 1,014
25. It's a Date (1940)
Approved | 103 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An aspiring actress is offered the lead in a major new play, but discovers that her mother, a more seasoned performer, expects the same part. The situation is further complicated when they both become involved with the same man.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Eugene Pallette
Votes: 669
26. My Favorite Wife (1940)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
Missing for seven years and presumed dead, a woman returns home on the day of her husband's second marriage.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick
Votes: 11,501
27. Boom Town (1940)
Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance, Western
Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a ten-year period both love the same woman.
Director: Jack Conway | Stars: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr
Votes: 3,773 | Gross: $9.17M
28. Bitter Sweet (1940)
Passed | 94 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, George Sanders, Ian Hunter
Votes: 559
29. Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)
Approved | 110 min | Biography, Drama, History
Humble Abraham Lincoln gains the respect of his Illinois neighbors, growing in stature and respect until he is elected President in 1860 and departs for Washington.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard
Votes: 2,052
30. Comrade X (1940)
Passed | 104 min | Comedy, Romance
An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr, Oscar Homolka, Felix Bressart
Votes: 1,825
31. They Drive by Night (1940)
Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When one of two truck-driving brothers loses an arm, they both join a transport company where the other is falsely charged as an accessory in the murder of the owner.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino
Votes: 8,796
32. Black Friday (1940)
Approved | 70 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Dr. Sovac transplants the brain of a gangster into his professor friend's body to save his life, but there is a side effect that causes a dangerous split personality.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel
Votes: 2,875
33. The Howards of Virginia (1940)
Approved | 116 min | Drama, History, War
Just prior to the American War of Independence, aristocratic Virginian Jane Peyton marries unsophisticated rustic farmer and surveyor Matt Howard who takes her to his Shenandoah Valley plantation and later goes to war.
Director: Frank Lloyd | Stars: Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Cedric Hardwicke, Alan Marshal
Votes: 1,263
34. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Votes: 23,673 | Gross: $3.48M
35. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Passed | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.
Director: Joe May | Stars: Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, John Sutton
Votes: 5,282
36. The Sea Hawk (1940)
Approved | 127 min | Action, Adventure, History
Geoffrey Thorpe, a buccaneer, is hired by Queen Elizabeth I to nag the Spanish Armada. The Armada is waiting for the attack on England and Thorpe surprises them with attacks on their galleons where he shows his skills on the sword.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp
Votes: 10,710
37. 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: 146,562 | Gross: $4.36M
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