Thriller 1940-1949
by BrunoBu | created - 02 Sep 2017 | updated - 15 Aug 2019 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Derailed (1942)
102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An uptown girl loses her memory after getting a disturbing message from her doctor and ends up in the wrong part of town among criminals and prostitutes.
Directors: Bodil Ipsen, Lau Lauritzen | Stars: Illona Wieselmann, Ebbe Rode, Poul Reumert, Bjarne Forchhammer
Votes: 131
2. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)
Approved | 68 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson must protect a Swiss inventor of an advanced bomb sight from falling into German hands.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill, Karen Verne
Votes: 6,651
3. White Heat (1949)
Not Rated | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
Votes: 35,756
4. High Sierra (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After being released from prison, notorious thief Roy Earle is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 19,241
5. It All Came True (1940)
Approved | 97 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
After crooked nightclub owner Chips Maguire murders a police informant, he blackmails his piano player to allow him to stay at his eccentric mother's boarding house.
Director: Lewis Seiler | Stars: Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Jeffrey Lynn, Zasu Pitts
Votes: 1,467
6. The Pearl of Death (1944)
Passed | 69 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
When a valuable pearl with a sinister reputation is stolen, Sherlock Holmes must investigate its link to a series of brutal murders.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Evelyn Ankers
Votes: 4,855
7. The House of Fear (1945)
Passed | 69 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
Sherlock Holmes investigates a series of deaths at a castle with each foretold by the delivery of orange pips to the victims.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Aubrey Mather, Dennis Hoey
Votes: 5,537
8. The Spider Woman (1943)
Passed | 63 min | Mystery, Thriller
Sherlock Holmes investigates a series of so-called "pajama suicides". He knows the female villain behind them is as cunning as Moriarty and as venomous as a spider.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Gale Sondergaard, Dennis Hoey
Votes: 5,129
9. Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
Passed | 68 min | Crime, Mystery, Romance
During WWII, several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from... See full summary »
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Arthur Margetson
Votes: 5,159
10. Pursuit to Algiers (1945)
Approved | 65 min | Adventure, Crime, Mystery
Holmes is recruited to escort the heir to a European throne safely back to his homeland after his father's assassination.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Riordan, Rosalind Ivan
Votes: 4,091
11. Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
Approved | 71 min | Mystery, Thriller, War
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson travel to Washington D.C. in order to prevent a secret document from falling into enemy hands.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord, Henry Daniell
Votes: 4,746
12. Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
Passed | 65 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
When a German saboteur jeeringly predicts to the nation new depredations, via their radio "Voice of Terror", the Intelligence Inner Council summons Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) to help in the crisis.
Director: John Rawlins | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Reginald Denny
Votes: 5,191
13. Terror by Night (1946)
Approved | 60 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When the fabled Star of Rhodesia diamond is stolen on a London to Edinburgh train and the son of its owner is murdered, Sherlock Holmes must discover which of his suspicious fellow passengers is responsible.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray, Dennis Hoey
Votes: 6,920
14. The Woman in Green (1945)
Approved | 68 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Sherlock Holmes investigates when young women around London turn up murdered, each with a finger severed. Scotland Yard suspects a madman, but Holmes believes the killings to be part of a diabolical plot.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell
Votes: 6,872
15. 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: 6,916
16. The Verdict (1946)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After an innocent man is executed in a case for which he was not responsible, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Joan Lorring, George Coulouris
Votes: 2,831
17. Eyes in the Night (1942)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Mystery
A blind detective and his seeing-eye dog investigate a murder and discover a Nazi plot.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed, Stephen McNally
Votes: 1,957
18. The Phantom Thief (1946)
Passed | 65 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Blackie tricks a blackmailer-murderer into a confession. Story involves sinister seances and ghostly apparitions.
Director: D. Ross Lederman | Stars: Chester Morris, Jeff Donnell, Richard Lane, Dusty Anderson
Votes: 287
19. Dangerously They Live (1941)
Passed | 77 min | Drama, War
After a traffic accident involving a taxi in New York City, the Jane Doe passenger is brought into the hospital She is physically all right but is suffering from retrograde amnesia from the... See full summary »
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: John Garfield, Nancy Coleman, Raymond Massey, Lee Patrick
Votes: 536
20. Out of the Fog (1941)
Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Brooklyn pier racketeer bullies boat-owners into paying protection money but two fed-up fishermen decide to eliminate the gangster themselves rather than complain to the police.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert
Votes: 2,262
21. East of the River (1940)
Passed | 74 min | Crime, Drama
Two troublesome boys grow into very different men, one becoming a hoodlum and the other embracing college, but both are in love with the same girl.
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: John Garfield, Brenda Marshall, Marjorie Rambeau, George Tobias
Votes: 473
22. Castle on the Hudson (1940)
Approved | 77 min | Crime, Drama
An arrogant mobster, sentenced to a long prison term in Sing Sing, becomes a changed man when given a chance by the fair and progressive warden.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: John Garfield, Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Burgess Meredith
Votes: 860
23. Convicted Woman (1940)
Approved | 65 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Jobless Betty Andrews, although innocent, is convicted of a department store theft and, despite the best efforts of her lawyer and noted social worker Mary Ellis and a reporter, Jim Brent ... See full summary »
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Rochelle Hudson, Frieda Inescort, June Lang, Lola Lane
Votes: 286
24. Men Without Souls (1940)
Approved | 62 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Johnny Adams arrives in a brutal prison under an assumed name after deliberately framing himself in order to kill White, a captain of the guards, because he had beaten Johnny's father to ... See full summary »
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Barton MacLane, John Litel, Rochelle Hudson, Glenn Ford
Votes: 83
25. 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: 153,669
26. Moss Rose (1947)
Approved | 82 min | Action, Crime, Film-Noir
Set in turn-of-the-century London, a woman trying to solve the mystery of a friend's murder finds that she may be the next victim.
Director: Gregory Ratoff | Stars: Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, Ethel Barrymore, Vincent Price
Votes: 712
27. Larceny, Inc (1942)
Passed | 95 min | Comedy
Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson
Votes: 3,146
28. The Spider (1939)
81 min | Crime, Drama
Man murders his business partner. A detective and his wife attempt to solve the case.
Director: Maurice Elvey | Stars: Derrick De Marney, Diana Churchill, Jean Gillie, Cecil Parker
Votes: 14
29. Man Hunt (1941)
Passed | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine
Votes: 6,439
30. Dillinger (1945)
Passed | 70 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
John Dillinger begins his life of crime as a petty thief, meets his future gang in prison and eventually masterminds a series of daring robberies.
Director: Max Nosseck | Stars: Lawrence Tierney, Edmund Lowe, Anne Jeffreys, Eduardo Ciannelli
Votes: 2,139 | Gross: $4.00M
31. 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: 5,618
32. The Lodger (1944)
Passed | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Laird Cregar, Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Cedric Hardwicke
Votes: 4,105
33. Uncertain Glory (1944)
Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After a career criminal is recaptured and knows he faces the guillotine, he offers to exchange his life for 100 hostages slated for execution by the Germans.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Errol Flynn, Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson, Faye Emerson
Votes: 1,494
34. Crime by Night (1944)
Approved | 72 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Detective Sam Campbell and his perky sidekick Robby Vance are called in on a routine child support dispute. Things take an unexpected turn when the client's ex-father-in-law, head of a chemical plant, is the victim of an axe murder.
Director: William Clemens | Stars: Jane Wyman, Jerome Cowan, Faye Emerson, Charles Lang
Votes: 583
35. I Became a Criminal (1947)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After WW2, former RAF airman Clem Morgan joins a gang of black-market smugglers-thieves but when a robbery goes wrong, Clem is caught , framed for a policeman's murder, and is sent to prison where he plots his escape and revenge.
Director: Alberto Cavalcanti | Stars: Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Griffith Jones, Rene Ray
Votes: 1,916
36. Reign of Terror (1949)
Approved | 89 min | History, Romance, Thriller
Robespierrre, a powerful figure in the French revolution, is desperately looking for his black book, a death list of those marked for the guillotine.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Richard Hart, Arlene Dahl
Votes: 2,121
37. Boston Blackie's Rendezvous (1945)
64 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Blackie helps the police rescue hostage from an escaped maniac on a killing spree.
Director: Arthur Dreifuss | Stars: Chester Morris, Nina Foch, Steve Cochran, Richard Lane
Votes: 382
38. The Iron Curtain (1948)
Approved | 87 min | Biography, Crime, History
The story of Soviet cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko who was posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa,Canada in 1943 and defected in 1945 to reveal the extent of Soviet espionage activities directed against Canada.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, June Havoc, Berry Kroeger
Votes: 1,108
39. Escape (1948)
Approved | 78 min | Thriller
A convict sentenced to three years for killing a detective escapes from a prison and goes on the run aided by a local girl.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Rex Harrison, Peggy Cummins, William Hartnell, Norman Wooland
Votes: 426
40. Criminal Court (1946)
Approved | 60 min | Crime, Drama
Steve and his girlfriend are implicated in a murder, but they are innocent! Can they convince the authorities of it in time? Tom Conway and Martha O'Driscoll. He's running for public office. ..what they all must do to get out of it.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Tom Conway, Martha O'Driscoll, June Clayworth, Robert Armstrong
Votes: 534
41. Mystery in Mexico (1948)
Approved | 66 min | Crime, Mystery
Insurance detective Steve Hastings is sent by his company to investigate the disappearance of a fellow agent. His first lead is the agent's fetching sister, Victoria, whom he trails to ... See full summary »
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: William Lundigan, Jacqueline White, Ricardo Cortez, Tony Barrett
Votes: 474
42. Confidential Agent (1945)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Thriller
In 1937, agents from the opposing sides of the Spanish Civil War travel to the neutral UK to secure coal contracts and to undermine each other's efforts.
Director: Herman Shumlin | Stars: Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, Katina Paxinou, Peter Lorre
Votes: 1,369
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