Subscribe to CommentsMy top ten films for each year of the 1940s. These are always up for revision as I watch more films, revisit ones I’ve seen before, and think about them over time. The films as listed in the “Best of Year” section are held fast at the end of the year (and include a listing of all films I saw that year as well as films released that year).
Oh, and I don’t really believe in top “ten” lists, despite using the common nomenclature for the title of this page. This is going to be the top several films of each year, down to whatever point I think the films stop being worthy of inclusion. Might be eight one year, might be twenty-three another.
1949
- On the Town
- The Third Man
- Little Rural Riding Hood
- White Heat
- Adam’s Rib
- Kind Hearts and Coronets
- Criss Cross
- The Stratton Story
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Stray Dog
Late Spring
The Heiress
Thieves’ Highway
Sands of Iwo Jima
1948
- The Red Shoes
- Bicycle Thieves
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Unfaithfully Yours
- Red River
- Key Largo
- The Fallen Idol
- Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
- Hamlet
- The Pirate
- Rope
- Sorry Wrong Number
- Raw Deal
- The Paleface
- Easter Parade
- The Live By Night
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Drunken Angel
Fort Apache
Oliver Twist
Germany Year Zero
1947
- Black Narcissus
- Monsieur Verdoux
- I Know Where I’m Going
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Possessed
- Out of the Past
- Dark Passage
- Nightmare Alley
- Gentleman’s Agreement
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Odd Man Out
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Brute Force
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The Paradine Case
1946
- The Big Sleep
- Notorious
- Beauty and the Beast
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- My Darling Clementine
- The Killers
- Hair-Raising Hare
- Gilda
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- Anna and the King of Siam
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Great Expectations
The Stranger
Song of the South
Shoeshine
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
1945
- Mildred Pierce
- Children of Paradise
- Detour
- The Clock
- National Velvet
- They Were Expendable
- Dead of Night
- Brief Encounter
- Open City
- The Lost Weekend
- Spellbound
- Scarlet Street
- Anchors Aweigh
- State Fair
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Spiral Staircase
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Fallen Angel
Conflict
Les Dames du Bois de Bologne
1944
- Double Indemnity
- Laura
- Arsenic and Old Lace
- Gaslight
- To Have and Have Not
- Meet Me in St. Louis
- Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
- The Woman in the Window
- Hail the Conquering Hero
- The Uninvited
- Murder My Sweet
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Ivan the Terrible Part 1
Passage to Marseilles
Mr. Skeffington
The Great Moment
A Canterbury Tale
1943
- Casablanca
- Shadow of a Doubt
- Lassie Come Home
- I Walked With a Zombie
- The Ox-Bow Incident
- Red Hot Riding Hood
- Girl Crazy
- Meshes of the Afternoon
- Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
- The Constant Nymph
- Cabin in the Sky
- The More the Merrier
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Le Corbeau
Five Graves to Cairo
The Outlaw
For Whom the Bell Tolls
1942
- To Be or Not to Be
- Bambi
- The Palm Beach Story
- Mrs. Miniver
- Cat People
- Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Now, Voyager
- The Major and the Minor
- The Dover Boys
- The Magnificent Ambersons
- Saboteur
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Woman of the Year
The Glass Key
In Which We Serve
Went the Day Well
Across the Pacific
1941
- The Lady Eve
- Citizen Kane
- The Maltese Falcon
- Sullivan’s Travels
- Ball of Fire
- They Died With Their Boots On
- Dumbo
- The Little Foxes
- High Sierra
- Suspicion
- How Green Was My Valley
- Blossoms in the Dust
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Wolf Man
Sergeant York
The Devil and Daniel Webster
The 49th Parallel
The 47 Ronin
1940
- His Girl Friday
- The Philadelphia Story
- The Grapes of Wrath
- The Great Dictator
- Pinocchio
- Fantasia
- Night Train to Munich
- My Favorite Wife
- The Letter
- Foreign Correspondent
- Rebecca
TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Thief of Bagdad
The Mortal Storm
The Great McGinty
All This, And Heaven Too
The Sea Hawk
