Best 40s Movies
by gernot-majer | created - 05 Jan 2013 | updated - 09 Feb 2019 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. 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: 167,476 | Gross: $5.72M
2. 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: 466,029 | Gross: $1.59M
3. 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: 17,781
4. 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: 31,184
5. 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: 107,286 | Gross: $10.46M
6. 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: 181,849 | Gross: $0.45M
7. 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: 153,660
8. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Votes: 23,721 | Gross: $3.48M
9. 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
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