1940's

by miguelrgalrinho | created - 08 Apr 2012 | updated - 13 Jun 2013 | Public

My favorite films of the decade of 1940 (no specific order).

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1. 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: 26,496

2. Brief Encounter (1945)

Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance

92 Metascore

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: 44,260

3. 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: 100,002 | Gross: $0.06M

4. 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: 13,646

5. 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: 39,185 | Gross: $10.90M

6. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

PG | 130 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy

89 Metascore

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: 499,361

7. Late Spring (1949)

Not Rated | 108 min | Drama

93 Metascore

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: 19,351

8. Casablanca (1942)

PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War

100 Metascore

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: 606,291 | Gross: $1.02M

9. 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: 20,903

10. They Live by Night (1948)

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

82 Metascore

An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen

Votes: 9,357

11. 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: 11,094

12. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

94 Metascore

Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family.

Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer

Votes: 27,691 | Gross: $7.57M

13. 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: 40,942



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