Best Movies of the 1940s

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.

Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.

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?

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

After 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.

A shy young heiress marries a charming gentleman, and soon begins to suspect he is planning to murder her.

A young Spanish aristocrat must masquerade as a fop in order to maintain his secret identity of Zorro as he restores justice to early California.

A New York inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire with a capricious high-society sister.

A young man accused of sabotage goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Upon his return to his father's estate, aristocrat Larry Talbot meets a beautiful woman, attends a mystical carnival and uncovers a horrifying curse.

When a newspaper editor's ace reporter ex-wife is about to quit her job and remarry, he buys himself time to win her back by promising her an exclusive interview with a death row convict.

A living puppet, with the help of a cricket as his conscience, must prove himself worthy to become a real boy.

A teenage girl, overjoyed when her uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.

Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. His obsessive interest in the house rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane.

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

A wife suspecting infidelity starts divorce proceedings, so the husband pretends to be insane in order to delay the divorce and clear up the misunderstanding.

Henpecked Egbert Sousé has comic adventures as a substitute film director and unlikely bank guard.

As a reward for capturing a bank robber, Stan and Ollie get scholarships to Oxford, but are met with resentment by other students.

After Germany invades Czechia, the German and the British intelligence services try to capture Czech scientist Dr. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt), inventor of a new type of armor-plating.

Boxer Joe Pendleton dies 50 years too soon due to a heavenly mistake and is given a new life as a millionaire playboy.

Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'

During World War II, an American expatriate helps transport a French Resistance leader and his wife to Martinique while romancing a lounge singer.

Londoner Dorian Gray stays young, but his portrait ages.

A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.

The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.