Added by Log Lady on 20 May 2010 06:56

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Best of 1940s

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Decade: Rating: List Type:

121

7.3

6.8

The 7th Victim (1943)

Director: Mark Robson
Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter

Story: A woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village, and finds that they may have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.

Log Lady's rating:

460

7.9

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély, Michel Auclair

Story: A merchant picks up a rose for his daughter Belle, and the castle's owner appears. He is a monster, half-human, half-beast, and possesses magic powers. He sentences the merchant to death, unless he gives up one of his daughters. Belle sacrifices herself for her father and goes to the castle, discovering that the Beast is not so wild and inhuman as he seems.

Log Lady's rating:

1230

8.4

8.3

Bicycle Thieves

Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda

Story: A man and his son search for a stolen bicycle vital for his job.

Log Lady's rating:

522

Brief Encounter (1945)

Director: David Lean
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey

Story: Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.

Log Lady's rating:

487

7.5

7.2

Cat People

Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph

Story: 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.

Log Lady's rating:

313

8.4

8.3

Children of Paradise

Director: Marcel Carné
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Renoir

Story: This tragic tale centers around the ill-fated love between Baptiste, a theater mime, and Claire Reine, an actress and otherwise woman-about-town who calls herself Garance. Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: Frederick, a pretentious actor; Lacenaire, a conniving thief; and Count Eduard of Monteray.

Log Lady's rating:

2846

8.2

8.3

Citizen Kane

Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead

Story: Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

Log Lady's rating:

1524

8.3

8.4

The Great Dictator (1940)

Director: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell

Story: Dictator Adenoid Hynkel has a doppelganger, a poor but kind Jewish barber living in the slums, who one day is mistaken for Hynkel.

Log Lady's rating:

264

7.8

Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (1944)

Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Mikhail Nazvanov

Story: During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

Log Lady's rating:

354

7.7

7.8

Key Largo (1948)

Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore

Story: A man visits his old friend's hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.

Log Lady's rating:

537

7.9

Laura (1944)

Director: Otto Preminger
Cast: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

Story: A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Log Lady's rating:

1228

The Maltese Falcon (1941) (2021)

Log Lady's rating:

383

8.1

7.9

Mildred Pierce

Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott

Story: After her cheating husband leaves her, Mildred Pierce proves she can become independent and successful, but can't win the approval of her spoiled daughter.

Log Lady's rating:

812

7.9

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Director: George Cukor
Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey

Story: 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.

Log Lady's rating:

516

8.2

8.1

The Red Shoes (1948)

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cast: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Austin Trevor

Story: A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.

+
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Log Lady's rating:

1137

8.3

8.1

The Third Man (1949)

Directors: Carol Reed
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard

Story: Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, black-market opportunist Harry Lime.

+
Odd Man Out (1947)

Log Lady's rating:

407

8.1

White Heat

Directors: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly

Story: A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. Shortly after the plan takes place, events take a crazy turn.

Log Lady's rating: