30 Favorite Films of 1948
by Blue_Leaf | created - 21 Jun 2015 | updated - 13 Jan 2016 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. All My Sons (1948)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir
During WW2, industrialist Joe Keller commits a crime and frames his business partner Herbert Deever but years later his sin comes back to haunt him when Joe's son plans to marry Deever's daughter.
Director: Irving Reis | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, Mady Christians, Louisa Horton
Votes: 2,410
2. 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: 175,273 | Gross: $0.33M
Top 1000
3. The Big Clock (1948)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A magazine tycoon commits a murder and pins it on an innocent man, who then tries to solve the murder himself.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, George Macready
Votes: 9,544
4. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 10,249
5. Drunken Angel (1948)
Not Rated | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reizaburô Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure
Votes: 13,367
6. 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: 11,099 | Gross: $9.03M
7. The Fallen Idol (1948)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Bobby Henrey
Votes: 9,672 | Gross: $0.34M
Top 1000
8. Hamlet (1948)
Approved | 154 min | Drama
Prince Hamlet struggles over whether or not he should kill his uncle, whom he suspects has murdered his father, the former king.
Director: Laurence Olivier | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, John Laurie, Esmond Knight
Votes: 18,411 | Gross: $7.09M
9. He Walked by Night (1948)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
This film-noir piece, told in semi-documentary style, follows police on the hunt for a resourceful criminal who shoots and kills a cop.
Directors: Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann | Stars: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell
Votes: 6,713
10. I Remember Mama (1948)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Family
A young writer recalls her ups and downs of growing up as one of four children to Norwegian immigrant parents in 1910s San Francisco.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Philip Dorn
Votes: 6,014
11. Johnny Belinda (1948)
Unrated | 102 min | Drama
A kind doctor volunteers to tutor a deaf-mute woman, but scandal starts to swirl when his pupil is raped and falls pregnant.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 5,319
Top 1000
12. Key Largo (1948)
Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 43,999
13. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Romance
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.
Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet
Votes: 13,649
Top 1000
14. Louisiana Story (1948)
Approved | 78 min | Adventure, Drama
The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Joseph Boudreaux, Lionel Le Blanc, E. Bienvenu, Frank Hardy
Votes: 2,152
Top 1000
15. Macbeth (1948)
Passed | 107 min | Drama, History, War
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy McDowall
Votes: 7,799
Top 1000
16. Moonrise (1948)
Passed | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Danny is despised by his schoolmates because his father was accused of killing another man and sentenced to death.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Dane Clark, Gail Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Allyn Joslyn
Votes: 2,974
17. The Naked City (1948)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor
Votes: 15,512
18. Oliver Twist (1948)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama
In Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Francis L. Sullivan
Votes: 13,668
19. Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Approved | 86 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
In Depression-era New York, an impoverished painter has a chance encounter with an enigmatic, old-fashioned little girl in Central Park who inspires him and changes his destiny.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish
Votes: 7,630
20. Quartet (1948)
Approved | 120 min | Drama, Romance
Four of W. Somerset Maugham's short stories are brought to the screen with each introduced by the author. In "The Facts of Life", a young man with great potential on the tennis courts goes ... See full summary »
Directors: Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French, Ralph Smart | Stars: Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Ian Fleming, Jack Raine
Votes: 986
21. Red River (1948)
Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western
Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson | Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan
Votes: 34,420
Top 1000
22. The Red Shoes (1948)
Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann
Votes: 39,192 | Gross: $10.90M
23. Road House (1948)
Passed | 95 min | Action, Drama, Film-Noir
A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark
Votes: 3,162
24. 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: 153,793
25. The Search (1948)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, War
In post-war Berlin, an American private helps a lost Czech boy find his mother.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon, Wendell Corey
Votes: 4,843
26. The Snake Pit (1948)
Approved | 108 min | Drama, Mystery
A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm
Votes: 8,435 | Gross: $10.00M
27. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey
Votes: 12,560
28. Spring in a Small Town (1948)
98 min | Drama, Romance
A lonely housewife finds her monotonous life altered when her childhood sweetheart returns to town.
Director: Mu Fei | Stars: Chaoming Cui, Wei Li, Yu Shi, Wei Wei
Votes: 3,356
29. The Street with No Name (1948)
Approved | 91 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A covert FBI agent infiltrates a ruthless gangster mob, but his life is at risk from a mysterious informant who funnels inside information to the hoodlums.
Director: William Keighley | Stars: Mark Stevens, Richard Widmark, Lloyd Nolan, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 3,340
30. They Live by Night (1948)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance
An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 9,360
31. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,496 | Gross: $5.01M
Top 1000
32. Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
Approved | 105 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A man dreams of revenge when he suspects his wife is unfaithful.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 5,868
33. The Winslow Boy (1948)
Not Rated | 117 min | Drama
In pre-WWI England, a youngster is expelled from a naval academy over a petty theft, and his parents raise a political furor by demanding a trial.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Robert Donat, Cedric Hardwicke, Basil Radford, Margaret Leighton
Votes: 1,815
34. Yellow Sky (1948)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Western
A pistol-packing tomboy and her grandfather discover a band of bank robbing bandits taking refuge in the neighboring ghost town.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur
Votes: 5,768
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