1940
by Baceseras | created - 12 Sep 2013 | updated - 13 Sep 2013 | PublicThis is a list-in-progress of some favorite movies from 1940. The numbers are not rankings; the list is alphabetical, although the displayed form of some titles may not reflect this.
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1. The Bank Dick (1940)
Not Rated | 72 min | Comedy
Henpecked Egbert Sousé has comic adventures as a substitute film director and unlikely bank guard.
Director: Edward F. Cline | Stars: W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Evelyn Del Rio
Votes: 7,804
2. Christmas in July (1940)
Passed | 67 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
After the co-workers of an ambitious clerk trick him into thinking he has won $25,000 in a slogan contest, he begins to use the money to fulfill his dreams. What will happen when the ruse is discovered?
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr
Votes: 4,269
3. Dark Command (1940)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Romance, War
In Kansas during the Civil War, opposing pro-Union and pro-Confederate camps clash and visiting Texan Bob Seton runs afoul of William Cantrell's Raiders.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Walter Pidgeon, Roy Rogers
Votes: 3,037
4. De Mayerling à Sarajevo (1940)
89 min | Drama
In the late 1800's, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, falls for Sophie Chotek, a Czech countess. He's already a problem to the Crown because of his political ideas; this... See full summary »
Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: Edwige Feuillère, John Lodge, Aimé Clariond, Jean Worms
Votes: 301 | Gross: $0.01M
5. 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: 23,731 | Gross: $3.48M
6. 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: 5,279
7. The Great McGinty (1940)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy
Dan McGinty has great success in his chosen field of crooked politics, but he endangers it all in one crazy moment of honesty.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, Allyn Joslyn
Votes: 4,412
8. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,197 | Gross: $0.30M
9. June Night (1940)
TV-PG | 88 min | Drama
When Kerstin Norback is shot and gravely wounded by her lover, the trial causes a public scandal, forcing her to move to Stockholm under an assumed name. There she befriends a group of women and attempts to rebuild her life.
Director: Per Lindberg | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gunnar Sjöberg, Olof Widgren, Marianne Löfgren
Votes: 675
10. The Letter (1940)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort
Votes: 14,607
11. The Long Voyage Home (1940)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, War
A merchant ship's crew tries to survive the loneliness of the sea and the coming of war.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter, Ward Bond
Votes: 4,924
12. Maddalena, Zero for Conduct (1940)
Not Rated | 79 min | Comedy
A teacher writes sample letters to a fictional Mr. Hartman with her students, but the recipient really exists.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Vittorio De Sica, Vera Bergman, Carla Del Poggio, Irasema Dilián
Votes: 404
13. My Favorite Wife (1940)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
Missing for seven years and presumed dead, a woman returns home on the day of her husband's second marriage.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick
Votes: 11,517
14. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Not Rated | 112 min | Comedy, Romance
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.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey
Votes: 73,883
15. Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Approved | 118 min | Drama, Romance
The arrival of wealthy bachelors in town causes an uproar when families with single daughters aggressively seek engagements, including the Bennet family, with five eligible daughters.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver
Votes: 9,226
16. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
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.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,831 | Gross: $4.36M
17. The Sea Hawk (1940)
Approved | 127 min | Action, Adventure, History
Geoffrey Thorpe, a buccaneer, is hired by Queen Elizabeth I to nag the Spanish Armada. The Armada is waiting for the attack on England and Thorpe surprises them with attacks on their galleons where he shows his skills on the sword.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp
Votes: 10,746
18. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 38,514 | Gross: $0.20M
19. The Stars Look Down (1940)
Approved | 110 min | Drama
In a small coal-mining village, Bob Fenwick leads a strike over safety standards at the local colliery. Meanwhile, his son David goes off to university with the hope one day to return to help the miners with their working conditions.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Edward Rigby, Emlyn Williams
Votes: 1,180
20. The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Not Rated | 106 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
After being tricked and cast out of Bagdad by the evil Jaffar, King Ahmad joins forces with a thief named Abu to reclaim his throne, the city, and the Princess he loves.
Directors: Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Sabu, June Duprez, John Justin
Votes: 14,507 | Gross: $0.27M
21. Three Faces West (1940)
Approved | 79 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Austrian refugees Dr Braun and his daughter Leni join the town's plan to relocate to Oregon. The town leader falls for Leni, but she is betrothed to the man who helped them escape from the Third Reich.
Director: Bernard Vorhaus | Stars: John Wayne, Sigrid Gurie, Charles Coburn, Spencer Charters
Votes: 966
22. Travelling Actors (1940)
70 min | Comedy
Story about a group of actors mostly based on the guys playing the horse.
Director: Mikio Naruse | Stars: Kamatari Fujiwara, Kan Yanagiya, Minoru Takase, Sôji Kiyokawa
Votes: 207
23. The Well-Digger's Daughter (1940)
Approved | 142 min | Comedy, Drama
A rural maiden's two suitors go off to war, leaving her pregnant.
Director: Marcel Pagnol | Stars: Raimu, Fernandel, Josette Day, Line Noro
Votes: 690
24. The Westerner (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Drama, Western
Judge Roy Bean, a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegarroon, Texas, befriends saddle tramp Cole Harden, who opposes Bean's policy against homesteaders.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport, Fred Stone
Votes: 6,805
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