1940's movies to watch
by Artstar-84-236801 | created - 4 months ago | updated - 3 weeks ago | PublicA to-do list
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1. Our Town (1940)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Family, Romance
Change comes slowly to a small New Hampshire town in the early 20th century.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 2,971
2. My Favorite Wife (1940)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
Missing for seven years and presumed dead, a woman returns home on the day of her husband's second marriage.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick
Votes: 11,513
3. 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
4. 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: 99,961 | Gross: $0.06M
5. All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Approved | 141 min | Drama, Romance
A duchess' irrational behavior toward her children's governess triggers tragic events that will change her family's lives forever.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 5,388
6. 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: 63,169 | Gross: $0.30M
Watched
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: 5,278
8. 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: 237,366 | Gross: $0.29M
9. 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: 38,493 | Gross: $0.20M
Watched
10. 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: 4,159
11. The House of the Seven Gables (1940)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
Based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this classic film follows a family feud between two brothers and an ancient curse that haunts them.
Director: Joe May | Stars: George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, Dick Foran
Votes: 1,516
12. 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: 7,192 | Gross: $0.17M
13. I Love You Again (1940)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Romance
Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Frank McHugh, Edmund Lowe
Votes: 3,804
14. 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: 4,773
15. 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: 28,523
16. That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy
A psychoanalyst causes a woman to doubt her happy marriage.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith, Alan Mowbray
Votes: 2,988
17. 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: 9,873 | Gross: $3.92M
18. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A couple who have been married for three years are shocked to learn that their marriage is not legally valid.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson
Votes: 11,317
19. 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: 466,006 | Gross: $1.59M
20. That Hamilton Woman (1941)
Passed | 125 min | Drama, History, Romance
The story of courtesan and dance-hall girl Emma Hamilton, including her relationships with Sir William Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson and her rise and fall, set during the Napoleonic Wars.
Director: Alexander Korda | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Alan Mowbray, Sara Allgood
Votes: 5,059
21. 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: 14,060
22. Meet John Doe (1941)
Passed | 122 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A penniless drifter is recruited by an ambitious columnist to impersonate a non-existent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest, and a social movement begins.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan
Votes: 14,904
23. Suspicion (1941)
Approved | 99 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
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: 42,439 | Gross: $4.50M
24. The Wolf Man (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: Claude Rains, Warren William, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy
Votes: 30,710
25. The Great Lie (1941)
Approved | 108 min | Drama
After a newlywed's husband apparently dies in a plane crash, she discovers that her rival for his affections is pregnant with his child.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Bette Davis, George Brent, Mary Astor, Lucile Watson
Votes: 4,344
26. 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: 23,385
27. 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: 26,758
28. 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: 606,058 | Gross: $1.02M
29. 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: 43,025
30. My Gal Sal (1942)
Passed | 103 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
At the end of the 19th century, the young Indiana boy Paul Dresser left his hometown for a long adventure that would eventually place him at the pinnacle of American music as a songwriter.
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Victor Mature, John Sutton, Carole Landis
Votes: 883
31. 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: 8,406 | Gross: $10.14M
32. Cat People (1942)
Not Rated | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph
Votes: 25,994 | Gross: $4.00M
33. Bambi (1942)
G | 69 min | Animation, Adventure, Drama
The story of a young deer growing up in the forest.
Directors: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, David Hand, Graham Heid, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Norman Wright, Arthur Davis, Clyde Geronimi | Stars: Hardie Albright, Stan Alexander, Bobette Audrey, Peter Behn
Votes: 154,101 | Gross: $102.80M
34. 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: 10,619
35. 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: 12,372
36. 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: 11,090
37. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett
Votes: 13,665
38. The Human Comedy (1943)
Passed | 117 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
Teenager Homer Macauley stays at home in small-town Ithaca to support his family while his older brother Marcus prepares to go to war.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig, Marsha Hunt
Votes: 2,451
39. The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Approved | 156 min | Biography, Drama, Mystery
14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, living in a small town in the south of 1850s France, claims to have seen a divine vision, prompting extreme skepticism, concern from her family, and religious and political turmoil.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, William Eythe, Vincent Price
Votes: 7,642
40. Phantom of the Opera (1943)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Music
An acid-scarred composer rises from the Paris sewers to boost his favorite opera understudy's career.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier
Votes: 8,311 | Gross: $3.49M
41. 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: 70,503
42. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Passed | 170 min | Adventure, Drama, History
During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova
Votes: 10,228 | Gross: $17.80M
43. Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Passed | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A compulsive gambler dies during a shooting, but he'll receive a second chance to reform himself and to make up with his worried wife.
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Busby Berkeley | Stars: Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong
Votes: 3,412
44. The Seventh Victim (1943)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 7,576
45. Madame Curie (1943)
Passed | 124 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Despite himself, accomplished physicist and avowed bachelor Pierre Curie falls for brilliant student Marie, and together they embark on the discovery of radium.
Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Albert Lewin | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, Albert Bassermann
Votes: 3,192
46. 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: 40,919
47. 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: 3,139 | Gross: $5.92M
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