Best Picture 1946
by logandarko | created - 20 Mar 2011 | updated - 21 May 2022 | PublicFilms I've seen from best to worst
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1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Not Rated | 93 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A beautiful young woman takes her father's place as the prisoner of a mysterious beast, who wishes to marry her.
Directors: Jean Cocteau, René Clément | Stars: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély, Nane Germon
Votes: 28,077 | Gross: $0.30M
2. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
PG | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron
Votes: 24,835
3. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Votes: 107,243 | Gross: $10.46M
4. Duel in the Sun (1946)
Passed | 129 min | Drama, Romance, Western
Beautiful, biracial Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between two brothers, one good and the other bad.
Directors: King Vidor, Otto Brower, William Dieterle, Sidney Franklin, William Cameron Menzies, David O. Selznick, Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 9,480 | Gross: $20.41M
5. My Darling Clementine (1946)
Passed | 97 min | Drama, Romance, Western
After their cattle are stolen and their brother murdered, the Earp brothers have a score to settle with the Clanton family.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs
Votes: 25,752
6. The Big Sleep (1946)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers
Votes: 90,498 | Gross: $6.54M
7. The Locket (1946)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Just before a wedding, the bridegroom hears a complex tale painting his lovely bride as devilish and unbalanced.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Laraine Day, Robert Mitchum, Brian Aherne, Gene Raymond
Votes: 3,063
8. Green for Danger (1946)
Not Rated | 91 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
After the nurse who declares that a recent surgical death was a murder also dies, an enigmatic Scotland Yard inspector arrives to investigate.
Director: Sidney Gilliat | Stars: Alastair Sim, Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Leo Genn
Votes: 5,614
9. The Spiral Staircase (1946)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith
Votes: 11,258
10. Cluny Brown (1946)
Passed | 100 min | Comedy, Romance, War
A free-spirited parlor maid and a Czech refugee surprise an English village with their unconventional ways.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker
Votes: 4,108
11. The Killers (1946)
Passed | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker
Votes: 23,627
12. Great Expectations (1946)
Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Director: David Lean | Stars: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager, Jean Simmons
Votes: 26,401
13. 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: 35,252
14. The Yearling (1946)
Approved | 128 min | Drama, Family, Western
A boy persuades his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr., Chill Wills
Votes: 6,467 | Gross: $5.20M
15. 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: 499,007
16. It Rains on Our Love (1946)
95 min | Drama, Romance
Young love confronts stupidity and boredom of society.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Barbro Kollberg, Birger Malmsten, Gösta Cederlund, Ludde Gentzel
Votes: 1,693
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: 22,870 | Gross: $8.33M
18. I See a Dark Stranger (1946)
Approved | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Thriller
A young Irish woman hates England so much she becomes a spy for Germany.
Director: Frank Launder | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Trevor Howard, Raymond Huntley, Michael Howard
Votes: 1,760
19. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Approved | 170 min | Drama, Romance, War
Three World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March, Teresa Wright
Votes: 70,526 | Gross: $23.65M
20. Somewhere in the Night (1946)
Passed | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, while trying to track down his old identity, he stumbles onto a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: John Hodiak, Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte
Votes: 3,523
21. A Day in the Country (1946)
Not Rated | 40 min | Short, Comedy, Drama
The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Sylvia Bataille, Jane Marken, Georges D'Arnoux, André Gabriello
Votes: 7,096
22. Under the Bridges (1946)
99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two barge skippers fall in love with the same woman.
Director: Helmut Käutner | Stars: Hannelore Schroth, Carl Raddatz, Gustav Knuth, Margarete Haagen
Votes: 863
23. Gates of the Night (1946)
100 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
It's Paris in the winter after its liberation. A tramp who may also be Destiny predicts that Jean Diego will fall in love with a beautiful girl. That same evening, Jean meets Malou.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Pierre Brasseur, Serge Reggiani, Yves Montand, Nathalie Nattier
Votes: 1,295
24. Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Passed | 106 min | Adventure, Film-Noir, Romance
In WW2, the Allies race against time to persuade two nuclear scientists working for the Germans to switch sides.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Gary Cooper, Robert Alda, Lilli Palmer, Vladimir Sokoloff
Votes: 3,441
25. The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
Passed | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
In a turn-of-the-century Renaissance Italian mansion, its tyrannical owner, a wheelchair-bound one-handed pianist with a strong belief in the occult is murdered.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen
Votes: 3,012
26. Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
Passed | 128 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
In 1862, a young Englishwoman becomes royal tutor in Siam and befriends the King.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Lee J. Cobb
Votes: 2,636
27. 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: 6,786 | Gross: $5.00M
28. La otra (1946)
98 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Dolores Del Rio plays a dual role as identical twins - one good and one bad.
Director: Roberto Gavaldón | Stars: Dolores Del Río, Agustín Irusta, Víctor Junco, José Baviera
Votes: 534
29. Medan porten var stängd (1946)
89 min | Drama
About a number of people in an apartment building during a night full of dramatic events and entanglements.
Director: Hasse Ekman | Stars: Tollie Zellman, Olof Winnerstrand, Inga Landgré, Marianne Löfgren
Votes: 247
30. Child of Divorce (1946)
Passed | 62 min | Drama
An eight-year-old girl is an unwilling and disturbed witness of parental quarrels in her home, and when the parents finally secure a divorce, the judge decrees that the young girl live with... See full summary »
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Sharyn Moffett, Regis Toomey, Madge Meredith, Walter Reed
Votes: 270
31. Crisis (1946)
Not Rated | 93 min | Drama, Romance
A small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's real mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Inga Landgré, Stig Olin, Marianne Löfgren, Dagny Lind
Votes: 3,497
32. Wanted for Murder (1946)
Approved | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A woman becomes the target of a man who is gradually becoming insane, unable to resist his urge to strangle women to death, but who appears to be purposely leaving pieces of evidence behind.
Director: Lawrence Huntington | Stars: Eric Portman, Dulcie Gray, Derek Farr, Roland Culver
Votes: 803
33. The Dark Corner (1946)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A secretary tries to help her boss who's been framed for murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens
Votes: 5,196
34. The Jolson Story (1946)
Approved | 128 min | Biography, Drama, Music
This movie shows the idealized career of the singer Al Jolson, a little Jewish boy who goes against the will of his father in order to be in showbiz. He becomes a star, falls in love with a... See full summary »
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Larry Parks, Evelyn Keyes, William Demarest, Bill Goodwin
Votes: 1,769
35. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Unrated | 116 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A man is reunited with his childhood friend and her husband who believes he knows the truth about the death of her rich aunt years earlier.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas
Votes: 11,085
36. Three Strangers (1946)
Approved | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Three strangers, each dealing with a serious problem, share a sweepstakes ticket which they wished upon together before a Chinese idol.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Joan Lorring
Votes: 2,564
37. Black Angel (1946)
Passed | 81 min | Adventure, Crime, Film-Noir
When Kirk Bennett is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife tries to prove him innocent...aided by the victim's ex-husband.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford
Votes: 3,950
38. The Dark Mirror (1946)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A man is found murdered, and witnesses are sure about the woman they saw leaving his apartment. However, it becomes apparent that the woman has a twin, and finding out which one is the killer seems impossible.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Long
Votes: 5,674
39. Undercurrent (1946)
Passed | 116 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
Middle-aged bride Ann Hamilton soon begins to suspect that her charming husband is really a psychotic who plans to murder her.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn
Votes: 3,530
40. Till the End of Time (1946)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, Romance, War
Drama about former WW2 Marines readjusting to civilian life and dealing with their mental and physical traumas.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Robert Mitchum, Guy Madison, Bill Williams
Votes: 1,602
41. 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: 28,707
42. A Stolen Life (1946)
Passed | 109 min | Drama
When a woman's twin sister is drowned, she assumes her identity in order to be close to the man she feels her sister took from her years before.
Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan
Votes: 4,084
43. The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Passed | 96 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
An ex-bomber pilot is suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva
Votes: 9,657 | Gross: $2.70M
44. The Crime of Bordadores Street (1946)
92 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
On a dark night, the body of a well-known society woman is found; the investigators immediately suspect that the killer was the woman's maid. For her part, the maid demands that the woman's... See full summary »
Director: Edgar Neville | Stars: Manuel Luna, Mary Delgado, Antonia Plana, Julia Lajos
Votes: 300
45. Deception (1946)
Approved | 115 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Music
After marrying her long-lost love, a musician finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, John Abbott
Votes: 4,134
46. Canyon Passage (1946)
Passed | 92 min | Western
Businessman Logan Stuart is torn between his love of two very different women in 1850's Oregon and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, Patricia Roc
Votes: 2,652
47. Dragonwyck (1946)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A simple Connecticut farm girl is recruited by a distant relative, an aristocratic patroon, to be governess to his young daughter in his Hudson Valley mansion.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan
Votes: 5,398
48. The Madonna's Secret (1946)
Not Rated | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The sister of a murdered model poses for the same artist to try to catch her killer.
Director: Wilhelm Thiele | Stars: Francis Lederer, Gail Patrick, Ann Rutherford, Edward Ashley
Votes: 284
49. Tomorrow Is Forever (1946)
Not Rated | 104 min | Drama, Romance, War
An American World War I soldier whose disfigured face is reconstructed by Austrian plastic surgeons returns home after 20 years, but no one recognizes him, his widow is married to another man, and his son is a grown young man.
Director: Irving Pichel | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent, Lucile Watson
Votes: 2,984 | Gross: $3.25M
50. The Harvey Girls (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, History
On a train trip West to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley (Judy Garland) meets a cheery crew of young women travelling out to open a "Harvey House" restaurant at a remote whistle-stop.
Director: George Sidney | Stars: Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, John Hodiak, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 4,845
51. The Chase (1946)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance
Chuck Scott gets a job as chauffeur to tough guy Eddie Roman; but Chuck's involvement with Eddie's fearful wife becomes a nightmare.
Director: Arthur Ripley | Stars: Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Lloyd Corrigan
Votes: 2,647
52. From This Day Forward (1946)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
Incidents of a marriage are recalled in flashback.
Director: John Berry | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Mark Stevens, Rosemary DeCamp, Harry Morgan
Votes: 474
53. To Each His Own (1946)
Approved | 122 min | Drama, Romance
An unwed mother, forced to give up her child to avoid scandal, follows her son's life from afar even as she prospers in business.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, John Lund, Mary Anderson, Roland Culver
Votes: 3,024
54. Sister Kenny (1946)
Approved | 116 min | Biography, Drama
An Australian nurse discovers an effective new treatment for infantile paralysis, but experiences great difficulty in convincing doctors of the validity of her claims.
Director: Dudley Nichols | Stars: Rosalind Russell, Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger, Philip Merivale
Votes: 1,263
55. Margie (1946)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A woman reminisces about her teenage years in the 1920s, when she fell in love with her teacher.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Glenn Langan, Lynn Bari, Alan Young
Votes: 866
56. Dressed to Kill (1946)
Passed | 76 min | Crime, Mystery
Sherlock Holmes sets out to discover why a trio of murderous villains, including a dangerously attractive female, are desperate to obtain three unassuming and inexpensive little music boxes.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Patricia Morison, Edmund Breon
Votes: 6,906
57. Bedlam (1946)
Approved | 79 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Nell Bowen, the protégé of Lord Mortimer, wants to help change the conditions of notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (Bedlam). Though she tries to reform Bedlam, the cruel Master Sims ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, Billy House, Richard Fraser
Votes: 4,376
58. Humoresque (1946)
Approved | 125 min | Drama, Music, Mystery
A classical musician from the slums is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy, neurotic socialite.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant, J. Carrol Naish
Votes: 4,950 | Gross: $2.28M
59. The Green Years (1946)
Passed | 127 min | Drama
An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stands in his way.
Director: Victor Saville | Stars: Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 1,079
60. She-Wolf of London (1946)
Passed | 61 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse and has begun committing ghastly murders in a nearby park.
Director: Jean Yarbrough | Stars: Don Porter, June Lockhart, Sara Haden, Jan Wiley
Votes: 3,025
61. The Storybook Review (1946)
TV-G | 11 min | Animation, Short, Fantasy
A compilation of 4 Mother Goose stories "photographed in three dimensional animation" and unified by a prologue and an epilogue with Mother Goose herself magically setting up a projector to... See full summary »
Director: Ray Harryhausen
Votes: 150
62. Never Say Goodbye (1946)
Approved | 97 min | Comedy
After divorce, 7-year-old Flip is unhappy. She begins corresponding with a Marine, sending him a photo of Ellen pretending she wrote the flirtatious letters. When the Marine arrives to meet his pen pal, Ellen uses it to make Phil jealous.
Director: James V. Kern | Stars: Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, Lucile Watson, S.Z. Sakall
Votes: 1,316
63. Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
After a woman he meets is murdered, a soon-to-ship-out sailor has until dawn to find the killer, aided by a weary dance hall girl.
Directors: Harold Clurman, William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 2,134
64. Night in Paradise (1946)
Approved | 84 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Storyteller Aesop tries to help loony King Croesus and manages to fall in love on the way.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Merle Oberon, Turhan Bey, Thomas Gomez, Gale Sondergaard
Votes: 181
65. Lady in the Lake (1946)
Passed | 105 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
The lady editor of a crime magazine hires Phillip Marlowe to find the wife of her boss. The private detective soon finds himself involved in murder.
Director: Robert Montgomery | Stars: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully
Votes: 6,361
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