1940s-60s
by melaf-53130 | created - 17 Oct 2021 | updated - 03 Nov 2021 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. 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
2. Adventure in Manhattan (1936)
Passed | 73 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime
A reporter meets an actress whose producer is a presumed-dead thief, and stakes his reputation on predicting the next crime.
Director: Edward Ludwig | Stars: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Reginald Owen, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 840
3. The Affairs of Susan (1945)
Approved | 110 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Susan is about to be married, but the wedding may get called off after her fiancé summons three former beaus. Each reveals a different portrait of Susan: one describes her as a naive ... See full summary »
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Joan Fontaine, George Brent, Dennis O'Keefe, Walter Abel
Votes: 425
4. Christmas in July (1940)
Passed | 67 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
After the co-workers of an ambitious clerk trick him into thinking he has won $25,000 in a slogan contest, he begins to use the money to fulfill his dreams. What will happen when the ruse is discovered?
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr
Votes: 4,268
5. The Apartment (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,905 | Gross: $18.60M
6. 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: 7,618
7. My Man Godfrey (1936)
Approved | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A scatterbrained socialite hires a vagrant as a family butler - but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick
Votes: 26,458
8. Where the Boys Are (1960)
Approved | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Four very different college girls drive to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break and seek out various adventures and romance for themselves.
Director: Henry Levin | Stars: Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton
Votes: 3,097
9. Harvey (1950)
Approved | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Due to his insistence that he has an invisible six foot-tall rabbit for a best friend, a whimsical middle-aged man is thought by his family to be insane - but he may be wiser than anyone knows.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: James Stewart, Wallace Ford, William H. Lynn, Victoria Horne
Votes: 58,246
10. Rear Window (1954)
PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 522,221 | Gross: $36.76M
11. Strangers When We Meet (1960)
Approved | 117 min | Drama, Romance
A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.
Director: Richard Quine | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Ernie Kovacs, Barbara Rush
Votes: 2,635
12. River of No Return (1954)
Approved | 91 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The titular river unites a farmer recently released from prison, his young son, and an ambitious saloon singer. In order to survive, each must be purged of anger, and each must learn to understand and care for the others.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun, Tommy Rettig
Votes: 13,002
13. Dial M for Murder (1954)
PG | 105 min | Crime, Thriller
A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams
Votes: 188,856 | Gross: $0.01M
14. To Catch a Thief (1955)
PG | 106 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A retired jewel thief sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams
Votes: 79,778 | Gross: $8.75M
15. Love Nest (1951)
Not Rated | 84 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two married New Yorkers purchase an old, run-down building full of colorful tenants.
Director: Joseph M. Newman | Stars: June Haver, William Lundigan, Frank Fay, Marilyn Monroe
Votes: 1,451
16. Mogambo (1953)
Passed | 116 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Clark Gable, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Donald Sinden
Votes: 9,175
17. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 22,891 | Gross: $8.33M
18. 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: 51,437 | Gross: $4.36M
19. Mildred Pierce (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Votes: 28,674
20. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, David Wayne
Votes: 24,892
21. 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: 14,905
22. Lifeboat (1944)
Not Rated | 97 min | Drama, War
Several survivors of a torpedoed merchant ship in World War II find themselves in the same lifeboat with one of the crew members of the U-boat that sank their ship.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, William Bendix
Votes: 31,186
23. A Summer Place (1959)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Romance
A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 3,852
24. The Strange Woman (1946)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
In 1820s New England beautiful but poor and manipulative Jenny Hager marries rich old man Isaiah Poster but also seduces his son and his company foreman.
Directors: Edgar G. Ulmer, Douglas Sirk | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 2,456
25. Intermezzo (1939)
Approved | 70 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A violinist's piano accompanist retires. He hears his daughter's piano teacher (Ingrid Bergman) play, asks her to play on his next international tour, and they fall in love.
Director: Gregory Ratoff | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Leslie Howard, Edna Best, Ann E. Todd
Votes: 2,905
26. 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: 74,982
27. Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Not Rated | 130 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A middle-aged playboy becomes fascinated by the daughter of a private detective who has been hired to entrap him with the wife of a client.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver
Votes: 17,070
28. Harvey (1950)
Approved | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Due to his insistence that he has an invisible six foot-tall rabbit for a best friend, a whimsical middle-aged man is thought by his family to be insane - but he may be wiser than anyone knows.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: James Stewart, Wallace Ford, William H. Lynn, Victoria Horne
Votes: 58,246
29. Gidget (1959)
Not Rated | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A young girl discovers surfing and love (in that order) during one transitive summer.
Director: Paul Wendkos | Stars: Sandra Dee, James Darren, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O'Connell
Votes: 3,824
30. Fedora (1942)
95 min | Drama, Romance
This first Italian-made feature film released in the United States following WWII relates the story of Russian Princess Fedora (Louise Ferida), in Czarist times, whose royal lover is ... See full summary »
Director: Camillo Mastrocinque | Stars: Luisa Ferida, Amedeo Nazzari, Osvaldo Valenti, Rina Morelli
Votes: 27
31. River of No Return (1954)
Approved | 91 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The titular river unites a farmer recently released from prison, his young son, and an ambitious saloon singer. In order to survive, each must be purged of anger, and each must learn to understand and care for the others.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun, Tommy Rettig
Votes: 13,002
32. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Not Rated | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
When his family goes away for the summer, a hitherto faithful husband with an overactive imagination is tempted by a beautiful neighbor.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes, Sonny Tufts
Votes: 42,481 | Gross: $12.00M
33. Two for the Seesaw (1962)
Approved | 119 min | Drama, Romance
Robert Wise directs Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine in this spicy and poignant love story about a free-spirited Greenwich Village girl who hooks up with a brooding Nebraska lawyer. In HD.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine, Edmon Ryan, Elisabeth Fraser
Votes: 2,060 | Gross: $3.82M
34. Niagara (1953)
Not Rated | 92 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter
Votes: 19,735
35. To Catch a Thief (1955)
PG | 106 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A retired jewel thief sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams
Votes: 79,778 | Gross: $8.75M
36. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
The sensuous wife of a roadside diner proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordid, steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.
Director: Bob Rafelson | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos, Michael Lerner
Votes: 25,795 | Gross: $12.38M
37. Island in the Sky (1953)
Approved | 109 min | Adventure, Drama
A C-47 transport plane, named the Corsair, makes a forced landing in the frozen wastes of Quebec, and the plane's pilot, Captain Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while waiting for rescue.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: John Wayne, Lloyd Nolan, Walter Abel, James Arness
Votes: 3,783
38. Where the Boys Are (1960)
Approved | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Four very different college girls drive to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break and seek out various adventures and romance for themselves.
Director: Henry Levin | Stars: Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton
Votes: 3,097
39. He Stayed for Breakfast (1940)
Approved | 89 min | Comedy
In Paris, the estranged wife of a wealthy banker hides a fiery communist fugitive in her apartment.
Director: Alexander Hall | Stars: Loretta Young, Melvyn Douglas, Alan Marshal, Eugene Pallette
Votes: 214
40. 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: 167,503 | Gross: $5.72M
41. Too Many Husbands (1940)
Passed | 81 min | Comedy, Romance
Long-missing Bill Cardew returns to find his wife Vicky remarried...and in no hurry to settle for just one husband.
Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, Melvyn Douglas, Harry Davenport
Votes: 1,697
42. Honeymoon in Bali (1939)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A Manhattan career woman tries to resist a man who wants her to be his wife.
Director: Edward H. Griffith | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Madeleine Carroll, Allan Jones, Akim Tamiroff
Votes: 452
43. Cafe Society (1939)
83 min | Comedy, Romance
A wealthy young lady marries a reporter on a bet, but things might not work out so well when he finds out the truth.
Director: Edward H. Griffith | Stars: Madeleine Carroll, Fred MacMurray, Shirley Ross, Jessie Ralph
Votes: 114
44. Alice Adams (1935)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A working-class girl is thwarted and embarrassed in her attempts to move up socially by her gauche family and unstable father.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable
Votes: 4,566
45. 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: 73,867
46. Never on Sunday (1960)
Not Rated | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An American scholar in Greece sets about improving the prostitute with whom he is infatuated.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, Giorgos Foundas, Titos Vandis
Votes: 6,148
47. Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Not Rated | 130 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A middle-aged playboy becomes fascinated by the daughter of a private detective who has been hired to entrap him with the wife of a client.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver
Votes: 17,070
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