1940's:The Best Of The Decade!

by johnny_vip-914-127828 | created - 08 Mar 2014 | updated - 11 Dec 2021 | Public
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1. This Gun for Hire (1942)

Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

When assassin Philip Raven shoots a blackmailer and his beautiful female companion dead, he is paid off in marked bills by his treasonous employer who is working with foreign spies.

Director: Frank Tuttle | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar

Votes: 10,614

2. So Proudly We Hail! (1943)

Passed | 126 min | Drama, Romance, War

A group of nurses returning from the war in the Philippines recall their experiences in combat and in love.

Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, George Reeves

Votes: 2,086

3. Bataan (1943)

Approved | 114 min | Drama, History, War

In 1942, in the Bataan peninsula of the Philippines, a ragtag American unit commanded by Sergeant Bill Dane attempts to blow-up a bridge in order to slow the Japanese advance.

Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Robert Taylor, George Murphy, Lloyd Nolan, Thomas Mitchell

Votes: 2,705

4. 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

5. The Glass Key (1942)

Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.

Director: Stuart Heisler | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy, Bonita Granville

Votes: 7,399

6. The Uninvited (1944)

Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery

A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.

Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner

Votes: 12,462

7. Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Not Rated | 118 min | Drama, Romance

A reporter pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism, and personally discovers the true depths of bigotry and hatred.

Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield, Celeste Holm

Votes: 17,772

8. Lifeboat (1944)

Not Rated | 97 min | Drama, War

78 Metascore

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: 31,172

9. The Bishop's Wife (1947)

G | 109 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

73 Metascore

A debonair angel comes to Earth to help an Episcopalian bishop and his wife in their quest to raise money for the new church.

Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Monty Woolley

Votes: 20,900

10. It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)

Passed | 116 min | Comedy, Music, Romance

66 Metascore

Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.

Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore

Votes: 6,299

11. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Not Rated | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

88 Metascore

After a divorced New York mother hires a nice old man to play Santa Claus at Macy's, she is startled by his claim to be the genuine article. When his sanity is questioned, a lawyer defends him in court by arguing that he's not mistaken.

Director: George Seaton | Stars: Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Gene Lockhart

Votes: 54,910 | Gross: $2.65M

12. 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: 74,964

13. To Have and Have Not (1944)

Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir

90 Metascore

During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran

Votes: 37,999

14. Dark Passage (1947)

Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

68 Metascore

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try to prove his innocence.

Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead

Votes: 21,964

15. The Big Sleep (1946)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

86 Metascore

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: 90,511 | Gross: $6.54M

16. The Lost Weekend (1945)

Passed | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir

The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva

Votes: 40,186 | Gross: $9.46M

17. 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: 43,966

18. Pinky (1949)

Approved | 102 min | Drama

A light-skinned black woman falls in love with a white doctor, though he is unaware of her true race.

Directors: Elia Kazan, John Ford | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, William Lundigan

Votes: 3,415 | Gross: $4.20M

19. Lassie Come Home (1943)

Passed | 89 min | Adventure, Drama, Family

78 Metascore

After her destitute family is forced to sell her, a collie named Lassie escapes from her new owner and begins the long trek from Scotland to her Yorkshire home.

Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn

Votes: 5,933

20. Double Indemnity (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

95 Metascore

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: 167,431 | Gross: $5.72M

21. Crossfire (1947)

Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of demobilized soldiers he met in a bar. But which one? And why?

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame

Votes: 9,704 | Gross: $1.30M

22. Sorrowful Jones (1949)

Not Rated | 88 min | Comedy, Drama

A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. Her father disappears and he learns that taking care of her cramps his free-wheeling life. Sorrowful must evade gangsters and do some horse-thieving.

Director: Sidney Lanfield | Stars: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, William Demarest, Bruce Cabot

Votes: 857

23. Born to Kill (1947)

Approved | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with the hotheaded murderer romancing her foster sister.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry

Votes: 6,065

24. Angel on My Shoulder (1946)

Approved | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

The Devil arranges for a deceased gangster to return to Earth as a well-respected judge to make up for his previous life.

Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, Claude Rains, Onslow Stevens

Votes: 3,194

25. And Then There Were None (1945)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

Seven guests, a newly hired secretary and two staff are gathered at a manor house on an isolated island by an unknown absentee host and are killed off one-by-one. They work together to determine who the killer is before it's too late.

Director: René Clair | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young

Votes: 16,637

26. 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: 2,140 | Gross: $4.00M

27. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Approved | 101 min | Comedy, Romance

64 Metascore

A food writer who has lied about being the perfect housewife must try to cover her deception when her boss and a returning war hero invite themselves to her home for a traditional family Christmas.

Director: Peter Godfrey | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner

Votes: 12,023

28. Dead Reckoning (1946)

Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A soldier runs away rather than receive the Medal of Honor, so his buddy gets permission to investigate, and love and death soon follow.

Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, Morris Carnovsky, Charles Cane

Votes: 8,721

29. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

97 Metascore

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre

Votes: 166,555 | Gross: $2.11M

30. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

94 Metascore

A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers

Votes: 70,490

31. Unconquered (1947)

Passed | 146 min | Adventure, Drama, History

Intrepid frontiersman Chris Holden foils the political and personal ambitions of renegade Martin Garth in the Ohio Valley following the French and Indian War.

Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff

Votes: 2,889

32. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Romance

59 Metascore

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: 9,610

33. Command Decision (1948)

Passed | 112 min | Action, Drama, War

Army generals struggle with the decision to prioritize bombing the German factories producing new jet fighters over the extremely high casualties the mission will cost.

Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Brian Donlevy

Votes: 2,169

34. Daisy Kenyon (1947)

Passed | 99 min | Drama, Romance

A commercial artist having an affair with a married attorney becomes involved with a returning soldier and must choose between the two.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Joan Crawford, Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda, Ruth Warrick

Votes: 3,035

35. Decoy (1946)

Approved | 76 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A mortally wounded female gangster recounts how she and her gang revived an executed killer from the gas chamber, to try and find out where he buried a fortune in cash.

Director: Jack Bernhard | Stars: Jean Gillie, Edward Norris, Robert Armstrong, Herbert Rudley

Votes: 2,195

36. Devotion (1946)

Passed | 107 min | Biography, Drama, Mystery

Genius authors Emily and Charlotte Brontë fall in love with their curate as they seek to get their work published.

Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet

Votes: 1,015

37. Conflict (1945)

Passed | 86 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

An engineer trapped in an unhappy marriage murders his wife in the hope of marrying her younger sister.

Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Rose Hobart

Votes: 4,606

38. Black Narcissus (1947)

Not Rated | 101 min | Drama

86 Metascore

A group of nuns struggle to establish a convent in the Himalayas, while isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad.

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Jenny Laird

Votes: 27,654

39. 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: 5,676

40. Fallen Angel (1945)

Approved | 98 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A slick con man arrives in a small town looking to make some money, but soon gets more than he bargained for.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford

Votes: 6,512

41. The Fountainhead (1949)

Approved | 114 min | Drama, Romance

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

Director: King Vidor | Stars: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith

Votes: 10,905

42. Fantasia (1940)

G | 124 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy

96 Metascore

A series of eight famous pieces of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted in animation by Walt Disney's team of artists.

Directors: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr., Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Leopold Stokowski, Deems Taylor, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Corey Burton

Votes: 103,971 | Gross: $76.41M

43. 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: 35,263

44. 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: 12,362

45. Johnny Eager (1941)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

The step-daughter of a district attorney falls in love with a gangster on parole who her father originally imprisoned.

Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin

Votes: 3,421

46. Kitty Foyle (1940)

Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance

A hard-working white-collar girl from a middle-class family meets and falls in love with a young socialite, but she soon clashes with his family.

Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Eduardo Ciannelli

Votes: 4,055

47. 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: 51,408 | Gross: $4.36M

48. 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: 14,772

49. Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger

Votes: 14,703

50. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

84 Metascore

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: 22,877 | Gross: $8.33M

51. Cass Timberlane (1947)

Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance

Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. After their baby is stillborn, Virginia turns more and more to Cass' attorney friend Bradd Criley... See full summary »

Director: George Sidney | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Zachary Scott, Tom Drake

Votes: 1,108

52. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.

Director: Albert Lewin | Stars: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury

Votes: 14,445

53. 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: 11,086

54. Pursued (1947)

Passed | 101 min | Western

A boy haunted by nightmares about the night his entire family was murdered is brought up by a neighboring family in the 1880s. He falls for his lovely adoptive sister but his nasty adoptive brother and mysterious uncle want him dead.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Teresa Wright, Robert Mitchum, Judith Anderson, Dean Jagger

Votes: 3,832

55. Passage to Marseille (1944)

Passed | 109 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

Five patriotic convicts are helped to escape imprisonment in Devil's Island so they can fight for occupied Free French forces against the Nazis.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn

Votes: 5,038

56. 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: 7,603

57. 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: 12,549

58. The Snake Pit (1948)

Approved | 108 min | Drama, Mystery

76 Metascore

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: 8,430 | Gross: $10.00M

59. 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

60. The Stranger (1946)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

76 Metascore

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: 28,708

61. 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: 19,176

62. The Third Man (1949)

Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

97 Metascore

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard

Votes: 181,809 | Gross: $0.45M

63. The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Not Rated | 106 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy

After being tricked and cast out of Bagdad by the evil Jaffar, King Ahmad joins forces with a thief named Abu to reclaim his throne, the city, and the Princess he loves.

Directors: Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Sabu, June Duprez, John Justin

Votes: 14,496 | Gross: $0.27M

64. Whirlpool (1950)

Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A woman suffering from kleptomania is hypnotized in an attempt to cure her. Soon afterwards, she's found at the scene of a murder with no memory of how she got there, and seemingly no way to prove her innocence.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer, Charles Bickford

Votes: 4,795

65. 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: 10,978 | Gross: $4.36M

66. Adventures of Frank and Jesse James (1948)

Approved | 180 min | Drama, Western

Jesse James returns to Missouri, and he and brother Frank come to the aid of a young woman who owns a gold mine. Her father was murdered and she took over the mine, and now the villains who... See full summary »

Directors: Fred C. Brannon, Yakima Canutt | Stars: Clayton Moore, Steve Darrell, Noel Neill, George J. Lewis

Votes: 152

67. They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

Approved | 140 min | War, Western

75 Metascore

A highly fictionalized account of the life of George Armstrong Custer from his arrival at West Point in 1857 to his death at the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charley Grapewin

Votes: 6,908

68. Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Approved | 94 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

61 Metascore

A young woman who has raised a giant gorilla from an infant brings him to Hollywood years later seeking her fortune.

Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong, Mr. Joseph Young

Votes: 5,782

69. 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: 5,190

70. 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: 6,869

71. Boom Town (1940)

Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance, Western

Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a ten-year period both love the same woman.

Director: Jack Conway | Stars: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr

Votes: 3,781 | Gross: $9.17M

72. Suspicion (1941)

Approved | 99 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

83 Metascore

A shy young heiress marries a charming gentleman, and soon begins to suspect he is planning to murder her.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce

Votes: 42,414 | Gross: $4.50M

73. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Passed | 129 min | Drama

96 Metascore

An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin

Votes: 99,932 | Gross: $0.06M

74. How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Passed | 118 min | Drama, Family

88 Metascore

At the turn of the century in a Welsh mining village, the Morgans, he stern, she gentle, raise coal-mining sons and hope their youngest will find a better life.

Director: John Ford | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp

Votes: 26,482

75. Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

Approved | 110 min | Biography, Drama, History

Humble Abraham Lincoln gains the respect of his Illinois neighbors, growing in stature and respect until he is elected President in 1860 and departs for Washington.

Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard

Votes: 2,060

76. Edison, the Man (1940)

Passed | 107 min | Biography, Drama

82 year old inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Alva Edison is honored in 1929 and he reflects back on his sixty year career of scientific achievement.

Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Rita Johnson, Lynne Overman, Charles Coburn

Votes: 1,778

77. They Drive by Night (1940)

Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

When one of two truck-driving brothers loses an arm, they both join a transport company where the other is falsely charged as an accessory in the murder of the owner.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino

Votes: 8,818

78. Samson and Delilah (1949)

Approved | 134 min | Drama, Family, History

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret.

Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury

Votes: 8,977 | Gross: $28.80M

79. The Three Musketeers (1948)

Not Rated | 125 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

D'Artagnan and his Musketeer comrades thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII's power.

Director: George Sidney | Stars: Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, June Allyson, Van Heflin

Votes: 6,933

80. Holiday Affair (1949)

Approved | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

63 Metascore

A young widow is torn between a boring attorney and a romantic ne'er-do-well.

Director: Don Hartman | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey, Gordon Gebert

Votes: 7,049

81. City for Conquest (1940)

Passed | 104 min | Drama, Sport

Danny is a content truck driver, but his girl Peggy shows potential as a dancer and hopes he too can show ambition. Danny acquiesces and pursues boxing to please her, but the two begin to spend more time working than time together.

Directors: Anatole Litvak, Jean Negulesco | Stars: James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp

Votes: 2,711

82. Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller

89 Metascore

On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders

Votes: 23,713 | Gross: $3.48M

83. The Blue Bird (1940)

Approved | 88 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy

Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl, a woodchopper's children, are led by the Fairy Berylune on a magical trip through the past, present, and future to locate the Blue Bird of Happiness.

Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Nigel Bruce, Gale Sondergaard

Votes: 1,978

84. The Sea Hawk (1940)

Approved | 127 min | Action, Adventure, History

Geoffrey Thorpe, a buccaneer, is hired by Queen Elizabeth I to nag the Spanish Armada. The Armada is waiting for the attack on England and Thorpe surprises them with attacks on their galleons where he shows his skills on the sword.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp

Votes: 10,732

85. Dr. Cyclops (1940)

Passed | 77 min | Adventure, Drama, Horror

A mad scientist working in the South American jungle miniaturizes his colleagues when he feels his megalomania is threatened.

Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Albert Dekker, Thomas Coley, Janice Logan, Charles Halton

Votes: 2,890

86. Strange Cargo (1940)

Passed | 113 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure (Ian Hunter).

Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Ian Hunter, Peter Lorre

Votes: 2,973

87. 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: 19,234

88. 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: 3,138 | Gross: $5.92M

89. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Passed | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi

Dr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.

Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp

Votes: 9,872 | Gross: $3.92M

90. Sun Valley Serenade (1941)

Passed | 86 min | Comedy

After Phil Corey's band arrives at the Idaho ski resort, its pianist Ted Scott is smitten with a Norwegian refugee he has sponsored, Karen Benson. Later, soloist Vivian Dawn quits and Karen stages an ice show as a substitute.

Director: H. Bruce Humberstone | Stars: Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle

Votes: 1,951

91. Orchestra Wives (1942)

Approved | 98 min | Drama, Musical, Romance

Connie Ward is in seventh heaven when Gene Morrison's band rolls into town. She is swept off her feet by trumpeter Bill Abbot. After marrying him, she joins the bands tour and learns about ... See full summary »

Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: George Montgomery, Ann Rutherford, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, Lynn Bari

Votes: 1,146

92. Now, Voyager (1942)

Passed | 117 min | Drama, Romance

70 Metascore

A frumpy spinster blossoms under therapy and becomes an elegant, independent woman.

Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper

Votes: 19,012

93. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Passed | 74 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

The resurrected Wolf Man, seeking a cure for his malady, enlists the aid of a mad scientist, who claims he will not only rid the Wolf Man of his nocturnal metamorphosis, but also revive the frozen body of Frankenstein's inhuman creation.

Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill

Votes: 9,956

94. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Not Rated | 83 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy

69 Metascore

The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.

Directors: Charles Barton, Walter Lantz | Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi

Votes: 19,563 | Gross: $4.80M

95. Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Approved | 146 min | Drama, Romance

Popular and beautiful Fanny Trellis is forced into a loveless marriage with an older man, Jewish banker Job Skeffington, in order to save her beloved brother Trippy from an embezzlement charge.

Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel, George Coulouris

Votes: 6,678

96. 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: 4,952 | Gross: $2.28M

97. Out of the Past (1947)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming

Votes: 40,900

98. Possessed (1947)

Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a severely catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there.

Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks

Votes: 5,910 | Gross: $1.99M

99. Act of Violence (1948)

Passed | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

An embittered, vengeful POW stalks his former commanding officer who betrayed his men's planned escape attempt from a Nazi prison camp.

Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor

Votes: 5,713

100. The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

Approved | 82 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

This parable looks at public reaction when the hair of an American war orphan mysteriously turns green.

Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale, Dean Stockwell

Votes: 3,259



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