Top 100 Films of the 1940s

I cannot believe I’m closing in on the last month of this series! Only three posts left after this one, which I honestly thought I’d never get through. The 1940s was a little on the tougher side for me. While there are incredible titles that I had to cram into the top 25, there was also a lot of titles that I watched out of obligation (or necessity to fill out the list) that were rather forgettable to me personally. You can chalk this up to a cultural or generational barrier (one I’m really going to have to cut through for the next two lists) and because of that, my analysis is significantly shorter than in other decades.

The decade of war. Obviously. World War II was raging and every major country was putting their focus there. Which, ultimately, reflected in the culture. Leading up to and during the war film was plagued by propaganda. Additionally, many of the films that Hollywood produced during this time were distractions from the war. Disney films are a great example of this, as the 1940s was one of the studio’s most powerful decades; during this decade alone they released the classics Bambi, Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia—the last of which had revolutionary animation for its time. As the war waned and eventually ended films began to depict the American victory, as well as reflections on the changing culture. Noir films, at their height, introduced the Femme Fatale: a woman who was typically either 1) financially independent 2) cheating on her significant other or 3) a fiercely independent criminal with the sole purpose of leading the starring man astray (think: Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity). In almost all of these films, the women are punished for their actions and the warning is clear: a financially or sexually independent woman needs to be punished. This isn’t an accident, either: it is literally part of the Hays Code. And it played nicely into the growing anxieties around women taking men’s place in the work world (and earning their own money) while the men fought in the war. When they returned home there was a large cultural riff: women wanted to continue to work and earn their own money, and many men wanted them to stay home. I’m not really here to take sides, but rather to point out that Hollywood harnessed the anxieties that were had around the thought of women finding financial stability without men, and that this concern was brought out by the war (as I woman I totally value my independence though sooooo).

Speaking of the Hays Code (yeah that pesky thing again) guess what Hollywood scriptwriters were balls deep in? Between that and the first wave of McCarthy-inspired blacklists (perpetuated by rats like Elia Kazan and Ronald Reagan), free speech did not exist within Hollywood during the 40s. Although screenwriters tried to work around these things they were substantial barriers that prevented many performers of color from landing significant roles and relegated them, to offensive bit parts. Women, as mentioned, also were frequently given roles steeped in misogyny. The interesting thing to me, and something I really want to cover in my upcoming Hollywood History segment, is how this “wholesomeness” was a veneer. And how it was imposed upon creative individuals by politicians in order to keep what was the status quo. I don’t have time to dig into this in this post or even next week’s post on the 30s, but it is really important to consider when dissecting tropes that we still see today and I do promise a further autopsy of this.

Abroad things were MUCH different. Italian neo-realism was ramping up. Fascism had ripped its way through the country and the artists of the time were grappling with this, and poverty, and overall disillusionment with non-profession films. They weren’t the stylized and moralizing films of Hollywood: they had no make-up, non-professional actors, long cuts and unrelated scenes, and most importantly: very, VERY small budgets. Day of Wrath, released 3 years after the Nazis began occupying Denmark, chronicles the Church’s oppression of women and bad people doing misguided and bad things centuries beforehand; paralleling with the Catholic-backed fascism that controlled the filmmaker’s country at the time. Japanese cinema, which had been almost exclusively propaganda during the war, was now required to be translated into English and face a censorship board itself. And, similarly to Hollywood films, there was a ban on excessive violence and suicide meaning that any Japanese historical film became bogged down with censorship. From this, the contemporary drama was born, and careers like that of Kurosawa and Ozu were born. This decade was particularly influential for Japanese cinema of the future, and it’s a topic I am really interested in learning further, and if I find any good resources I will certainly be sharing them with you all!

The 40s were certainly interesting, at least because they were fundamental to cinema how we know it now. I got lost ranking these, REALLY lost, and I’d say that’s probably because so much of the era’s films were so vanilla. But the history of the decade is truly rich, and it makes me want to explore it in greater depth.

As usual, here are the posters on Letterboxd.

100. Pittsburgh

99. Miracle on 34th Street

98. Dead of Night

97. Gilda

96. Ball of Fire

95. A Matter of Life and Death

94. Adam’s Rib

93. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

92. Now, Voyager

91. The Lady Eve

90. The Grapes of Wrath

89. The Fallen Idol

88. Odd Man Out

87. Great Expectations

86. Letter From an Unknown Woman

85. Caught

84. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

83. The Heiress

82. A Hen in the Wind

81. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

80. The 47 Ronin

79. All That Money Can Buy

78. The Best Years of Our Lives

77. The Pirate

76. The Seventh Victim

75. The Strawberry Blonde

74. Thieve’s Highway

73. The Palm Beach Story

72. Utamaro and His Five Women

71. This Land is Mine

70. The Thief of Bagdad

69. Spring in a Small Town

68. Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne

67. Beauty and the Beast

66. Scarlet Street

65. A Canterbury Tale

64. Ivan the Terrible, Part I

63. The Woman in the Window

62. Not Wanted

61. Lifeboat

60. Paisan

59. Brute Force

58. A Foreign Affair

57. Leave Her to Heaven

56. The Letter

55. Brief Encounter

54. Random Harvest

53. I Know Where I’m Going!

52. I Married a Witch

51. The Long Voyage Home

50. Kitty Foyle

49. Mildred Pierce

48. The Shop Around the Corner

47. Ivan the Terrible Part II: The Boyar’s Plot

46. They Were Expendable

45. Fort Apache

44. Red River

43. On the Town

42. I Walked with a Zombie

41. Bringing Up Baby

40. The Philadelphia Story

39. High Sierra

38. Out of the Past

37. The Lady From Shanghai

36. The Uninvited

35. Laura

34. The Wolf Man

33. Fantasia

32. Waterloo

31. Twelve O’Clock High

30. Germany Year Zero

29. Cat People

28. Black Narcissus

27. The Treasure of Sierra Madre

26. It’s a Wonderful Life

25. Gaslight

24. The Third Man

23. Shoeshine

22. Dumbo

21. Rebecca

20. A Man Escaped

19. Late Spring

18. Drunken Angel

17. Children of Paradise

16. Arsenic and Old Lace

15. Pinocchio

14. La Terra Trema

13. Rome, Open City

12. Double Indemnity

11. The Maltese Falcon

10. Bambi

9. The Great Dictator

8. Rope

7. His Girl Friday

6. The Big Sleep

5. Citizen Kane

4. Casablanca

3. Bicycle Thieves

2. The Red Shoes

1. Day of Wrath

Just two more decades and then the ultimate list! I have really enjoyed this project, but in some ways, I am happy to be seeing the light at the end of this tunnel. I hope you see the year out with me.