40s - worth to see (250 +11 movies)
by martinhakl | created - 10 Feb 2019 | updated - 27 Mar 2021 | PublicIncludes movies from 1940 - 1949 with -
- at least 2 500 votes and user rating at least 7,4
- Academy Award for Best Picture
- multiple Academy Awards (4x Oscar; 3x Oscar & 7x nomination; 2x Oscar & 8x nomination; 1x Oscar & 9x nomination; 10x nomination ...)
- top 50 "number of votes" by IMDb users
- top 10 most significant Czechia movies from my point of view
- my favorite movies (not included in the list)
- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. 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: 499,053
2. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 605,875 | Gross: $1.02M
3. The Great Dictator (1940)
G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Votes: 237,308 | Gross: $0.29M
4. 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: 465,875 | Gross: $1.59M
5. 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: 167,426 | Gross: $5.72M
6. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri
Votes: 175,117 | Gross: $0.33M
Italy
7. The Red Shoes (1948)
Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann
Votes: 39,150 | Gross: $10.90M
UK
8. Children of Paradise (1945)
Not Rated | 189 min | Drama, Romance
The theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan in 1830s Paris and the four men who love her.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Renoir
Votes: 21,167
France
9. Late Spring (1949)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chishû Ryû, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura
Votes: 19,322
Japan
10. 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: 35,739
11. The Third Man (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
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: 181,803 | Gross: $0.45M
UK
12. The Heiress (1949)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance
A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man her emotionally abusive father suspects is only a fortune hunter.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins
Votes: 17,339
13. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,402 | Gross: $5.01M
14. I Remember Mama (1948)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Family
A young writer recalls her ups and downs of growing up as one of four children to Norwegian immigrant parents in 1910s San Francisco.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Philip Dorn
Votes: 6,003
15. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Not Rated | 163 min | Drama, Romance, War
From the Boer War through World War II, a soldier rises through the ranks in the British military.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, James McKechnie
Votes: 16,347
UK
16. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Romance, War
During the German occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart
Votes: 42,999
17. The Little Foxes (1941)
Approved | 116 min | Drama, Romance
The ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan lives in, and poisons, their part of the Deep South at the turn of the twentieth century.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson
Votes: 13,112
18. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Not Rated | 106 min | Comedy, Crime
A distant poor relative of the Duke D'Ascoyne plots to inherit the title by murdering the eight other heirs who stand ahead of him in the line of succession.
Director: Robert Hamer | Stars: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood
Votes: 39,704
UK
19. Rome, Open City (1945)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.
Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero, Vito Annichiarico
Votes: 28,964
Italy
20. 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: 24,847
UK
21. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
PG | 129 min | Drama, Family, Romance
Encouraged by her idealistic if luckless father, a bright and imaginative young woman comes of age in a Brooklyn tenement during the early 1900s.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan
Votes: 8,406
22. Brief Encounter (1945)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance
Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey
Votes: 44,219
UK
23. 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: 70,534 | Gross: $23.65M
24. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Passed | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Hollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest
Votes: 28,515
25. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
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: 166,550 | Gross: $2.11M
26. 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: 38,451 | Gross: $0.20M
27. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,686 | Gross: $4.36M
28. 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: 99,926 | Gross: $0.06M
29. 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: 153,594
30. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Romance
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.
Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet
Votes: 13,643
31. Out of the Past (1947)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 40,901
32. Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Passed | 124 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A suave but cynical man supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money, but the job has some occupational hazards.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mady Correll, Allison Roddan, Robert Lewis
Votes: 19,126 | Gross: $0.33M
33. Black Narcissus (1947)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama
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: 27,653
34. Shoeshine (1946)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama
Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Rinaldo Smordoni, Franco Interlenghi, Annielo Mele, Bruno Ortensi
Votes: 8,110
Italy
35. 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: 107,260 | Gross: $10.46M
36. 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: 90,506 | Gross: $6.54M
37. 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
France
38. 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: 28,650
39. 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: 40,184 | Gross: $9.46M
40. 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: 51,405 | Gross: $4.36M
41. 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: 74,961
42. Day of Wrath (1943)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, History
The young wife of an aging priest falls in love with his son amidst the horror of a merciless witch hunt in 17th-century Denmark.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neiiendam, Kirsten Andreasen
Votes: 11,079
Denmark
43. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Western
When a posse captures three men suspected of killing a local farmer, they become strongly divided over whether or not to lynch the men.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn
Votes: 24,951 | Gross: $1.64M
44. Random Harvest (1942)
Passed | 126 min | Drama, Romance
An amnesiac World War I veteran falls in love with a music hall star, only to suffer an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-war life.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters
Votes: 8,404 | Gross: $10.14M
45. Now, Voyager (1942)
Passed | 117 min | Drama, Romance
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: 19,011
46. 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: 73,831
47. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,136 | Gross: $0.30M
48. The Set-Up (1949)
Approved | 73 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Sport
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter
Votes: 10,078
49. Stray Dog (1949)
Not Rated | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
During a sweltering summer, a rookie homicide detective tries to track down his stolen Colt pistol.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi
Votes: 18,929
Japan
50. La Terra Trema (1948)
Not Rated | 160 min | Drama
In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.
Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Luchino Visconti, Antonio Pietrangeli, Antonio Arcidiacono, Giuseppe Arcidiacono
Votes: 5,593
Italy
51. The Search (1948)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, War
In post-war Berlin, an American private helps a lost Czech boy find his mother.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon, Wendell Corey
Votes: 4,839
52. 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
53. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Not Rated | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
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: 54,907 | Gross: $2.65M
54. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best
Votes: 20,872
55. Germany Year Zero (1948)
Not Rated | 78 min | Drama
A young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.
Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Edmund Moeschke, Ernst Pittschau, Ingetraud Hinze, Franz-Otto Krüger
Votes: 13,709
Italy
56. The Time of Their Lives (1946)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Fantasy, History
A psychiatrist stays in a mansion haunted by prankish ghosts from the Revolutionary War.
Director: Charles Barton | Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marjorie Reynolds, Binnie Barnes
Votes: 3,676
57. 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: 26,402
UK
58. 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: 19,172
59. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
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: 37,998
60. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943)
Approved | 98 min | Comedy, Romance, War
After an all-night send-off party for the troops, a small-town girl with an awkward boyfriend wakes up to find herself married and pregnant, but with no memory of her husband's identity.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest
Votes: 7,942
61. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
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: 70,486
62. 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: 7,471
63. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Romance
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
Directors: Orson Welles, Fred Fleck, Robert Wise | Stars: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
Votes: 26,748
64. The Lady Eve (1941)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
A trio of classy card sharks targets a socially awkward brewery heir, until one of them falls in love with him.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette
Votes: 23,375
65. 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: 6,036
66. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Not Rated | 132 min | Drama, War
A tough-as-nails general (Gregory Peck as General Savage) takes over a B-17 bomber unit suffering from low morale and whips them into fighting shape.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell
Votes: 15,795
67. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Passed | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A letter is addressed to three wives from their "best friend" Addie Ross, announcing that she is running away with one of their husbands - but she does not say which one.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas
Votes: 10,798
68. Drunken Angel (1948)
Not Rated | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reizaburô Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure
Votes: 13,360
Japan
69. Red River (1948)
Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western
Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson | Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan
Votes: 34,364
70. Oliver Twist (1948)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama
In Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Francis L. Sullivan
Votes: 13,651
UK
71. Johnny Belinda (1948)
Unrated | 102 min | Drama
A kind doctor volunteers to tutor a deaf-mute woman, but scandal starts to swirl when his pupil is raped and falls pregnant.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 5,317
72. Hamlet (1948)
Approved | 154 min | Drama
Prince Hamlet struggles over whether or not he should kill his uncle, whom he suspects has murdered his father, the former king.
Director: Laurence Olivier | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, John Laurie, Esmond Knight
Votes: 18,387 | Gross: $7.09M
UK
73. The Fallen Idol (1948)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Bobby Henrey
Votes: 9,665 | Gross: $0.34M
UK
74. Odd Man Out (1947)
Approved | 116 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A wounded Irish nationalist leader attempts to evade police following a failed robbery in Belfast.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: James Mason, Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, F.J. McCormick
Votes: 11,414
UK
75. Nightmare Alley (1947)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker
Votes: 13,413
76. Body and Soul (1947)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Sport
A talented boxer's young career hits difficult terrain when an unethical promoter takes interest in him.
Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere
Votes: 5,367
77. 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: 25,751
78. 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
79. The Woman in the Window (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a conservative middle aged professor engages in a relationship with a femme fatale, he's plunged into a nightmarish world of blackmail and murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon
Votes: 17,769
80. 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: 6,677
81. 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: 31,170
82. Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
Passed | 101 min | Comedy, War
Woodrow is discharged from the military for hay fever, but fabricates receiving a heroic honorable discharge before returning home.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, Raymond Walburn, William Demarest
Votes: 5,140
83. Gaslight (1944)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. His obsessive interest in the home rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, May Whitty
Votes: 33,877
84. The Punch Bowl (1944)
97 min | Comedy, Family
A successful writer, home-schooled in his youth, masquerades as a student at a secondary school to experience all the fun and pranks he missed out on.
Director: Helmut Weiss | Stars: Heinz Rühmann, Karin Himboldt, Hilde Sessak, Erich Ponto
Votes: 6,613
Germany
85. The Raven (1943)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A French village doctor becomes the target of poison-pen letters sent to village leaders, accusing him of affairs and practicing abortion.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson
Votes: 10,894 | Gross: $0.03M
France
86. Obsession (1943)
TV-14 | 140 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna, and they plan to get rid of her older husband.
Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Dhia Cristiani, Elio Marcuzzo
Votes: 8,274
Italy
87. Sergeant York (1941)
Passed | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
A Tennessee farmer and marksman is drafted in World War I, and struggles with his pacifist inclinations before becoming one of the most celebrated war heroes.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias
Votes: 19,786 | Gross: $16.40M
88. How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Family
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: 26,480
89. 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: 14,053
90. Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance, War
Myra and Roy meet and fall in love on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid. Their love will be one of the war's unspoken casualties.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Virginia Field
Votes: 10,927
91. Fantasia (1940)
G | 124 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy
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: 103,966 | Gross: $76.41M
92. Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
Approved | 105 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A man dreams of revenge when he suspects his wife is unfaithful.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 5,860
93. Bitter Rice (1949)
Not Rated | 108 min | Crime, Drama
Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.
Director: Giuseppe De Santis | Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone
Votes: 4,875
Italy
94. 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
95. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders
Votes: 33,300 | Gross: $0.01M
96. The Big Clock (1948)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A magazine tycoon commits a murder and pins it on an innocent man, who then tries to solve the murder himself.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, George Macready
Votes: 9,533
97. The Silence of the Sea (1949)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Romance, War
In occupied France, an elderly man and his niece are forced to give shelter to a German army lieutenant who seemingly loves their country and culture.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, Jean-Marie Robain, Ami Aaröe
Votes: 5,656
France
98. Jenny Lamour (1947)
Not Rated | 106 min | Crime, Drama
A flirtatious wife runs off to meet an older man and the husband closes in with intend to murder him, but finds the deed already done.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Louis Jouvet, Simone Renant, Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair
Votes: 6,412 | Gross: $0.03M
France
99. It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
Passed | 116 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
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
100. Brute Force (1947)
Passed | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
At a tough penitentiary, prisoner Joe Collins plans to rebel against Captain Munsey, the power-mad chief guard.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo
Votes: 11,536
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