My Best Musical Score Oscar Winners (1934-1949)
by jaredwignall | created - 16 Jan 2017 | updated - 21 Mar 2022 | PublicThe films/composers who should've won the Academy Award for Best Musical Score of the 1930s and 1940s (Adaption/Musical, Original and Song Score)
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1. One Night of Love (1934)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
Mary Barrett is an aspiring Opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working hours together and arguing, their ... See full summary »
Director: Victor Schertzinger | Stars: Grace Moore, Tullio Carminati, Lyle Talbot, Mona Barrie
Votes: 748
Thematic Score
2. The Informer (1935)
Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama
In 1922, an Irish rebel informs on his friend, then feels doom closing in.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame
Votes: 7,181 | Gross: $2.07M
Dramatic Score
3. Winterset (1936)
Approved | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Immigrant radical Bartolomeo Romagna is falsely condemned and executed for a payroll robbery. Years later, his son Mio sets out to find the truth of the crime and to bring to account the gangster Trock Estrella.
Director: Alfred Santell | Stars: Burgess Meredith, Margo, Eduardo Ciannelli, John Carradine
Votes: 500
Original Score
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Approved | 83 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
Exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, Roy Atwell
Votes: 215,539 | Gross: $184.93M
Musical Score
5. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
PG | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence in 1190s England, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a resistance movement.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains
Votes: 54,515 | Gross: $3.98M
Original Score
6. Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
Approved | 106 min | Drama, Music, Musical
This send-up of ragtime song and dance begins in 1915 San Francisco when society boy Roger Grant decides to pursue popular rather than serious music.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman
Votes: 2,322
Musical Score
7. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 121,421 | Gross: $9.60M
Original Score
8. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
PG | 102 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
Directors: Victor Fleming, King Vidor | Stars: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Votes: 428,796 | Gross: $2.08M
Musical Score
9. The Great Dictator (1940)
G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Votes: 237,431 | Gross: $0.29M
Original Score
10. Tin Pan Alley (1940)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
Songwriters Calhoun and Harrigan get Katie and Lily Blane to introduce a new one. Lily goes to England, and Katy joins her after the boys give a new song to Nora Bayes. All are reunited when the boys, now in the army, show up in England.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Jack Oakie, John Payne
Votes: 564
Musical Score
11. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 466,115 | Gross: $1.59M
Original Score
12. Dumbo (1941)
G | 64 min | Animation, Adventure, Drama
Ridiculed because of his enormous ears, a young circus elephant is assisted by a mouse to achieve his full potential.
Directors: Samuel Armstrong, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen, John Elliotte | Stars: Sterling Holloway, Edward Brophy, Herman Bing, Billy Bletcher
Votes: 142,137 | Gross: $1.60M
Musical Score
13. The Black Swan (1942)
Approved | 87 min | Adventure, Drama
An ex-pirate contends with rowdy buccaneers and a love/hate relationship with an aristocratic woman who's tougher than she seems.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 5,087 | Gross: $1.01M
Original Score
14. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Passed | 126 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer, and singer George M. Cohan.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Whorf
Votes: 16,867 | Gross: $11.80M
Musical Score
15. The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Approved | 156 min | Biography, Drama, Mystery
14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, living in a small town in the south of 1850s France, claims to have seen a divine vision, prompting extreme skepticism, concern from her family, and religious and political turmoil.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, William Eythe, Vincent Price
Votes: 7,643
Original Score
16. Coney Island (1943)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy
Set at the turn of the century, smooth talking con man Eddie Johnson weasels his way into a job at friend and rival Joe Rocco's Coney Island night spot. Eddie meets the club's star ... See full summary »
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Betty Grable, George Montgomery, Cesar Romero, Charles Winninger
Votes: 537 | Gross: $3.50M
Musical Score
17. Since You Went Away (1944)
Approved | 177 min | Drama, Romance, War
With her husband away to fight in World War II, a housewife must care for their two daughters alone.
Directors: John Cromwell, Edward F. Cline, Tay Garnett, David O. Selznick | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
Votes: 5,095
Original Score
18. Cover Girl (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
Rusty Parker wins a contest and becomes a celebrated cover girl; this endangers her romance with dancing mentor Danny.
Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers
Votes: 5,943
19. State Fair (1945)
Passed | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
Each member of the Frake clan has his/her own reason for attending the annual Iowa State Fair.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine
Votes: 4,498
Original Score
20. Spellbound (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 52,261 | Gross: $7.00M
Dramatic Score
21. Night and Day (1946)
Approved | 128 min | Biography, Drama, Musical
A fictionalized biopic of composer Cole Porter from his days at Yale in the 1910s through the height of his success to the 1940s.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, Monty Woolley, Ginny Simms
Votes: 3,206
Original Score
22. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Approved | 170 min | Drama, Romance, War
Three World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March, Teresa Wright
Votes: 70,575 | Gross: $23.65M
Dramatic Score
23. Captain from Castile (1947)
Passed | 140 min | Adventure, Drama
The invasion of Mexico by Cortez, as seen by a young Spanish officer fleeing the Inquisition.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Jean Peters, Cesar Romero, Lee J. Cobb
Votes: 2,226
Original Score
24. Mother Wore Tights (1947)
Approved | 107 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
In this chronicle of a vaudeville family, Myrtle McKinley (class of 1900) goes to San Francisco to attend business school, but ends up in a chorus line. Soon, star Frank Burt notices her ... See full summary »
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Mona Freeman, Connie Marshall
Votes: 796
Musical Score
25. Joan of Arc (1948)
Approved | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War
The abbreviated life of the 15th-century French heroine.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Selena Royle, Robert Barrat
Votes: 3,782
Original Score
26. Easter Parade (1948)
G | 103 min | Musical, Romance
A nightclub performer hires a naive chorus girl to become his new dance partner to make his former partner jealous and to prove he can make any partner a star.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, Ann Miller
Votes: 11,093 | Gross: $9.03M
Musical Score
27. The Heiress (1949)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance
A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man her emotionally abusive father suspects is only a fortune hunter.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins
Votes: 17,345
Original Score
28. On the Town (1949)
Passed | 98 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly | Stars: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller
Votes: 18,789
Musical Score
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