1940's Movie List
by pauluzell | created - 19 Aug 2013 | updated - 23 Aug 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. 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: 31,148
Really good movie.. but not your typical Alfred Hitchcock movie..
2. Band Waggon (1940)
TV-G | 85 min | Comedy, Musical
A plot involving spies in a haunted castle gives this team of celebrated British wireless comedians plenty of scope for laughs.
Director: Marcel Varnel | Stars: Arthur Askey, Jack Hylton and His Band, Richard Murdoch, Pat Kirkwood
Votes: 223
3. Brother Orchid (1940)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
When retired racket boss John Sarto tries to reclaim his place and former friends try to kill him, he finds solace in a monastery and reinvents himself as a pious monk.
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sothern, Donald Crisp
Votes: 3,166
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: 4,259
5. Blackout (1940)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Early in World War II, Danish sea captain Andersen, delayed in a British port, tangles with German spies.
Director: Michael Powell | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Hay Petrie, Joss Ambler
Votes: 1,350
6. French Without Tears (1940)
86 min | Comedy
The love affairs of three young Englishmen at a language cramming school in the south of France. Diana, the sister of one of the boys, arrives in town to flirt with all of her brothers' schoolmates.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Ray Milland, Ellen Drew, Janine Darcey, David Tree
Votes: 119
7. Gaslight (1940)
Not Rated | 84 min | Mystery, Thriller
Twenty years after the murder of Alice Barlow, her house is finally occupied again. However, the husband from the couple who have moved in has a secret which he will do anything to keep hidden.
Director: Thorold Dickinson | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell
Votes: 5,264
8. The Ghost Breakers (1940)
Passed | 85 min | Comedy
A radio broadcaster, his quaking manservant and an heiress investigate the mystery of a haunted castle in Cuba.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas
Votes: 4,144
Classic Hope.. Comedy/Horror fun..
9. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
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: 99,848 | Gross: $0.06M
10. The Invisible Woman (1940)
Approved | 72 min | Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi
An attractive model with an ulterior motive volunteers as guinea pig for an invisibility machine.
Director: A. Edward Sutherland | Stars: Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, John Howard, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 3,348
11. 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: 10,966 | Gross: $4.36M
12. The Mortal Storm (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Drama
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan
Votes: 6,028
13. Phantom Raiders (1940)
Passed | 70 min | Mystery
An insurance company tasks with Carter and Beeswax to go to Panama where cargo ships are mysteriously exploding and sending their valuable cargoes to the bottom with all hands.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Donald Meek, Joseph Schildkraut, Florence Rice
Votes: 487
14. 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: 73,774
Great Movie.. Great Cast.. Hepburn and your zaniest best..
15. Pinocchio (1940)
G | 88 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A living puppet, with the help of a cricket as his conscience, must prove himself worthy to become a real boy.
Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Mel Blanc, Don Brodie
Votes: 159,668 | Gross: $84.25M
16. Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Approved | 118 min | Drama, Romance
The arrival of wealthy bachelors in town causes an uproar when families with single daughters aggressively seek engagements, including the Bennet family, with five eligible daughters.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver
Votes: 9,215
17. Remember the Night (1939)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Love blooms between a sympathetic attorney and the comely shoplifter he has taken home for the Christmas holiday.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson
Votes: 7,183 | Gross: $0.17M
18. Safari (1940)
Approved | 80 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Millionaire Baron de Courland and his fiancée Linda Stewart employ Jim Logan as a guide for their hunting trip in the jungle. Linda finds unplanned adventure in her sudden love for Jim, ... See full summary »
Director: Edward H. Griffith | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Madeleine Carroll, Tullio Carminati, Lynne Overman
Votes: 84
19. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 38,408 | Gross: $0.20M
20. 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: 14,485 | Gross: $0.27M
21. Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Romance
A single magazine editor pretends to be married in order to avoid advances from male colleagues, but complications ensue when she meets a potential suitor.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Walburn, Lee Bowman
Votes: 1,135
22. You'll Find Out (1940)
Approved | 97 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
The manager of Kay Kyser's band books them for a birthday party bash for an heiress at a spooky mansion, where sinister forces try to kill her.
Director: David Butler | Stars: Kay Kyser, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 1,449
23. The Smiling Ghost (1941)
Passed | 71 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
An heiress seems to be cursed as each of her intended grooms meets with a horrible end.
Director: Lewis Seiler | Stars: Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith, Alan Hale
Votes: 802
24. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 14,026
25. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 465,521 | Gross: $1.59M
Ok if you haven't seen this, well hurry up you should.. Brilliant..
26. The Corsican Brothers (1941)
Passed | 111 min | Adventure, Romance
After their parents are killed, co-joined twin boys are separated, with one raised as a gentleman in Paris and the other in the mountains becoming a bandit.
Director: Gregory Ratoff | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ruth Warrick, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish
Votes: 757
27. Bombsight Stolen (1941)
Not Rated | 90 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
Allied spies and Nazi Agents insinuate themselves at a Scottish cottage (converted to a wartime hospital) with interests on an inventor's nearly perfected bomb sight.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Leslie Banks, Alastair Sim, Jeanne De Casalis, Carla Lehmann
Votes: 1,360
28. The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Romance
A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn
Votes: 4,757
29. Father Takes a Wife (1941)
Approved | 79 min | Comedy, Romance
Frederick Osborne Junior is slightly agitated because his father, Senior, is acting more like a college student than the president of a huge mercantile fleet. Senior reveals that he is ... See full summary »
Director: Jack Hively | Stars: Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swanson, John Howard, Desi Arnaz
Votes: 616
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