1940s films
by ClementineCherie | created - 02 Oct 2016 | updated - 3 months ago | Public1940s films I've watched.
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1. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
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: 606,262 | Gross: $1.02M
2. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Romance, War
During the German occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart
Votes: 43,052
3. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 466,137 | Gross: $1.59M
4. 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: 12,376
5. Scarlet Street (1945)
Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A man in mid-life crisis befriends a young woman, though her fiancé persuades her to con him out of the fortune they mistakenly assume he possesses.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay
Votes: 19,206
6. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Not Rated | 118 min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller
A Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson
Votes: 74,988
7. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Votes: 14,785
8. You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
Passed | 97 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
In Buenos Aires, a man who has decreed that his daughters must marry in order of age allows an American dancer to perform at his club under the condition that he play suitor to his second-oldest daughter.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou, Isobel Elsom
Votes: 4,087 | Gross: $0.67M
9. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri
Votes: 175,232 | Gross: $0.33M
10. Gilda (1946)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.
Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 35,288
11. 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: 63,194 | Gross: $0.30M
12. 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: 10,933
13. 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: 38,511 | Gross: $0.20M
14. No Time for Comedy (1940)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Playwright Gaylord Esterbrook scores a hit with his first Broadway play, both with the critics and with leading lady Linda Paige. He and Linda are happily married until a patroness of the ... See full summary »
Director: William Keighley | Stars: Rosalind Russell, James Stewart, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 1,189
15. 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: 20,902
16. 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: 73,879
17. 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: 5,944
18. Easter Parade (1948)
G | 103 min | Musical, Romance
A nightclub performer hires a naive chorus girl to become his new dance partner to make his former partner jealous and to prove he can make any partner a star.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, Ann Miller
Votes: 11,094 | Gross: $9.03M
19. The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Passed | 109 min | Comedy, Musical
A married musical team splits up so the wife can become a serious actress.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant, Billie Burke
Votes: 3,502
20. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
A New York inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire with a capricious high-society sister.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee
Votes: 12,881 | Gross: $0.44M
21. 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: 2,789
22. Nightmare Alley (1947)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker
Votes: 13,419
23. 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: 10,981 | Gross: $4.36M
24. 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: 2,889
25. The Major and the Minor (1942)
Passed | 100 min | Comedy, Romance
A frustrated city girl disguises herself as a youngster in order to get a cheaper train ticket home. But little "Sue Sue" finds herself in a whole heap of grown-up trouble when she hides out in a compartment with a handsome Major.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Robert Benchley
Votes: 7,646 | Gross: $6.38M
26. Moon Over Miami (1941)
Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Sisters Kay and Barbara arrive in Miami from Texas looking for rich husbands.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Robert Cummings, Carole Landis
Votes: 1,390
27. The Crooked Way (1949)
Passed | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
War hero recovers from amnesia and is confronted by his criminal past.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: John Payne, Sonny Tufts, Ellen Drew, Rhys Williams
Votes: 1,403
28. Golden Hoofs (1941)
68 min | Comedy
Jane's grandfather must sell his trotting horse farm. She falls for the business-minded young man who buys it and hopes to teach him the pleasures of trotting.
Director: Lynn Shores | Stars: Jane Withers, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Kay Aldridge, George Irving
Votes: 52
29. Her Cardboard Lover (1942)
Passed | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
A wealthy woman, trying to discourage a former boyfriend from pursuing her, hires a young songwriter who needs money to pay off his gambling debts to pretend to be her boyfriend. The ... See full summary »
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, George Sanders, Frank McHugh
Votes: 804
30. No Time for Love (1943)
Approved | 83 min | Comedy, Romance
An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Ilka Chase, Richard Haydn
Votes: 988
31. Rings on Her Fingers (1942)
Approved | 86 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
Two con artists take a shopgirl under their wing, but she disrupts their marrying-for-money scheme by falling for a mathematician.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar, Shepperd Strudwick
Votes: 1,081
32. Down Argentine Way (1940)
Approved | 89 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
An American girl on vacation in Argentina falls for a wealthy racehorse owner.
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood
Votes: 1,365
33. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
PG | 130 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 499,345
34. It Had to Be You (1947)
98 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A woman is noted for leaving her bridegrooms at the altar until a dashing fireman walks into her life.
Directors: Don Hartman, Rudolph Maté | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, Percy Waram, Spring Byington
Votes: 824
35. Maddalena, Zero for Conduct (1940)
Not Rated | 79 min | Comedy
A teacher writes sample letters to a fictional Mr. Hartman with her students, but the recipient really exists.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Vittorio De Sica, Vera Bergman, Carla Del Poggio, Irasema Dilián
Votes: 404
36. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A high school girl falls for a playboy artist, with screwball results.
Director: Irving Reis | Stars: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple, Rudy Vallee
Votes: 9,611
37. Late Spring (1949)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chishû Ryû, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura
Votes: 19,351
38. State Fair (1945)
Passed | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
Each member of the Frake clan has his/her own reason for attending the annual Iowa State Fair.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine
Votes: 4,498
39. It Started with Eve (1941)
Passed | 90 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
In order to please his dying father, a man convinces a hat-check girl to impersonate his fiancée, but complications arise when the father's health suddenly improves.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Charles Laughton, Robert Cummings, Guy Kibbee
Votes: 1,833
40. Second Chorus (1940)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
When perennial college students Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are forced to make it on their own, the competitive pair get jobs with Artie Shaw's band and reunite with ex-manager Ellen Miller.
Director: H.C. Potter | Stars: Fred Astaire, Paulette Goddard, Artie Shaw, Charles Butterworth
Votes: 1,762
41. Blood and Sand (1941)
Approved | 125 min | Drama, Romance, Sport
Illiterate peasant Juan Gallardo rises meteorically to fame and fortune in the bullfight arena only to sow the seeds of his own fall.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, Alla Nazimova
Votes: 3,139 | Gross: $5.92M
42. That Wonderful Urge (1948)
Approved | 82 min | Comedy, Romance
When an heiress finds out that the friendly young man she's met at Sun Valley is really an investigative reporter, she ruins his career by falsely claiming they're married.
Director: Robert B. Sinclair | Stars: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Reginald Gardiner, Arleen Whelan
Votes: 1,037
43. Come Live with Me (1941)
Passed | 86 min | Comedy, Romance
Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, Ian Hunter, Verree Teasdale
Votes: 2,457
44. Guest Wife (1945)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Romance
A newspaper correspondent who has convinced his publisher he is married implores his friend's wife to pose as his bride.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Dick Foran, Charles Dingle
Votes: 500
45. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 14,064
46. Best Foot Forward (1943)
Passed | 94 min | Musical, Comedy
Lucille Ball accepts a cadet's invitation to a military academy's senior prom in order to boost her career.
Director: Edward Buzzell | Stars: Lucille Ball, William Gaxton, Virginia Weidler, Tommy Dix
Votes: 1,017
47. The Clock (1945)
Passed | 90 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In 1945, during a 48-hour leave, a soldier accidentally meets a girl at Pennsylvania Station and spends his leave with her, eventually falling in love with the lovely New Yorker.
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 4,047 | Gross: $2.78M
48. 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: 17,345
49. So Goes My Love (1946)
Approved | 88 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country girl Jane Budden goes to the big city determined to find and marry a wealthy man. Instead, she meets and marries Hiram Maxim, a struggling inventor. After their marriage, his ... See full summary »
Director: Frank Ryan | Stars: Myrna Loy, Don Ameche, Rhys Williams, Bobby Driscoll
Votes: 443
50. 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: 237,443 | Gross: $0.29M
51. 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: 9,437
52. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A couple who have been married for three years are shocked to learn that their marriage is not legally valid.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson
Votes: 11,323
53. 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: 7,479
54. That Night in Rio (1941)
Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An entertainer in Rio impersonates a wealthy aristocrat. When the aristocrat's wife asks him to carry the impersonation further, complications ensue.
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, S.Z. Sakall
Votes: 932
55. Meet John Doe (1941)
Passed | 122 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A penniless drifter is recruited by an ambitious columnist to impersonate a non-existent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest, and a social movement begins.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan
Votes: 14,908
56. Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)
72 min | Drama
A young boy follows Tashiro home to his tenement housing complex on the outskirts of Tokyo, the boy who was separated from his carpenter father somehow and somewhere in Kudan. All Tashiro ... See full summary »
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chôko Iida, Hôhi Aoki, Eitarô Ozawa, Mitsuko Yoshikawa
Votes: 2,252
57. The Razor's Edge (1946)
Approved | 145 min | Drama, Romance
An adventuresome young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter
Votes: 6,791 | Gross: $5.00M
58. The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Romance
A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn
Votes: 4,774
59. One Touch of Venus (1948)
Approved | 82 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Musical
Fantasy comedy about a young window dresser who kisses a statue of Venus, which then comes to life in the form of Ava Gardner. However, the problems begin when Venus falls in love with him.
Directors: William A. Seiter, Gregory La Cava | Stars: Robert Walker, Ava Gardner, Dick Haymes, Eve Arden
Votes: 1,647
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