Defining Era
THE 1940S
NOIR AND THE WAR
Out of the shadows of wartime came film noir, Welles, and the films that taught Hollywood it could mean something.
1940 — 1949
1,686
Films Catalogued
67.3
Avg Master Score
6.7
Avg IMDb
RAOUL WALSH
Top Director
128
Oscar-Winning
The Defining Three
ESSENTIAL VIEWING
Top-ranked by master score. If you only saw three films from this decade, these are the three.
Filter the List
1,686/1,686 films
Master Score
Awards
Showing 60 of 1,686
01
The Big Sleep
1946 · Howard Hawks
92.9
02The Best Years of Our Lives
1946 · William Wyler · 7 Oscars
92.2
03Children of Paradise
1945 · Marcel Carné · 1 nom
91.9
04Notorious
1946 · Alfred Hitchcock · 2 noms
91.7
05Kind Hearts and Coronets
1949 · Robert Hamer
91.3
06Rome, Open City
1945 · Roberto Rossellini · 1 nom
91.3
07The Shop Around the Corner
1940 · Ernst Lubitsch
91.1
08Late Spring
1949 · Yasujirô Ozu
91.1
09The Great Dictator
1940 · Charles Chaplin · 5 noms
90.5
10Shadow of a Doubt
1943 · Alfred Hitchcock · 1 nom
90.0
11Day of Wrath
1943 · Carl Theodor Dreyer
90.0
12His Girl Friday
1940 · Howard Hawks
89.9
13Casablanca
1942 · Michael Curtiz · 3 Oscars
89.8
14Out of the Past
1947 · Jacques Tourneur
89.7
15Brief Encounter
1945 · David Lean · 3 noms
89.5
16To Have and Have Not
1944 · Howard Hawks
89.3
17The Ox-Bow Incident
1943 · William A. Wellman · 1 nom
89.1
18Arsenic and Old Lace
1944 · Frank Capra
89.0
19The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
1947 · Joseph L. Mankiewicz · 1 nom
88.9
20The Killers
1946 · Robert Siodmak · 4 noms
88.8
21Monsieur Verdoux
1947 · Charles Chaplin · 1 nom
88.6
22The Little Foxes
1941 · William Wyler · 9 noms
88.5
23Ball of Fire
1941 · Howard Hawks · 4 noms
88.5
24Bambi
1942 · James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, David Hand · 3 noms
88.4
25The Maltese Falcon
1941 · John Huston · 3 noms
88.4
26The Lost Weekend
1945 · Billy Wilder · 4 Oscars
88.3
27Letter from an Unknown Woman
1948 · Max Ophüls
88.1
28The Lady Eve
1941 · Preston Sturges · 1 nom
88.0
29Drunken Angel
1948 · Akira Kurosawa
87.7
30The Red Shoes
1948 · Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger · 2 Oscars
87.3
31Mrs. Miniver
1942 · William Wyler · 6 Oscars
87.3
32The Fallen Idol
1948 · Carol Reed · 2 noms
87.3
33Odd Man Out
1947 · Carol Reed · 1 nom
87.2
34Cat People
1942 · Jacques Tourneur
87.0
35Sahara
1943 · Zoltan Korda · 3 noms
86.7
36It's a Wonderful Life
1946 · Frank Capra · 5 noms
86.6
37Brute Force
1947 · Jules Dassin
86.4
38Murder, My Sweet
1944 · Edward Dmytryk
86.3
39The Letter
1940 · William Wyler · 7 noms
86.3
40The Big Clock
1948 · John Farrow
86.2
41Adam's Rib
1949 · George Cukor · 1 nom
86.2
42Random Harvest
1942 · Mervyn LeRoy · 7 noms
86.1
43The Magnificent Ambersons
1942 · Orson Welles, Fred Fleck, Robert Wise · 4 noms
86.0
44Citizen Kane
1941 · Orson Welles · 1 Oscar
85.8
45Fantasia
1940 · James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr.
85.6
46Meet John Doe
1941 · Frank Capra · 1 nom
85.6
47The Woman in the Window
1944 · Fritz Lang · 1 nom
85.6
48La Terra Trema
1948 · Luchino Visconti
85.6
49Went the Day Well?
1942 · Alberto Cavalcanti
85.5
50Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
1948 · Charles Barton, Walter Lantz
85.5
51I Remember Mama
1948 · George Stevens · 5 noms
85.5
52Meet Me in St. Louis
1944 · Vincente Minnelli · 4 noms
85.5
53Beauty and the Beast
1946 · Jean Cocteau, René Clément
85.4
54Nightmare Alley
1947 · Edmund Goulding
85.4
55Foreign Correspondent
1940 · Alfred Hitchcock · 6 noms
85.3
56Double Indemnity
1944 · Billy Wilder · 7 noms
85.1
57Record of a Tenement Gentleman
1947 · Yasujirô Ozu
85.0
58The Set-Up
1949 · Robert Wise
84.9
59The Major and the Minor
1942 · Billy Wilder
84.9
60How Green Was My Valley
1941 · John Ford · 5 Oscars
84.9
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