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1940s Crime Drama Movies

Public list by WPS with 225 movies or TV shows/series

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225 movies found (page 1/8):

Rope(1948)

1h 21min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
4.0/5 (with 1,118 votes)

Two men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.

Out of the Past(1947)

3.8/5 (with 236 votes)

Jeff Bailey seems to be a mundane gas station owner in remote Bridgeport, California. He is dating local girl Ann Miller and lives a quiet life. But Jeff has a secret past, and when a mysterious stranger arrives in town, Jeff is forced to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

The Naked City(1948)

1h 36min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
3.6/5 (with 101 votes)

The Naked City portrays the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, finding the girl's killer.

Ossessione(1944)

3.8/5 (with 99 votes)

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.

Detour(1945)

NR
| 1h 7min | Drama, Thriller
3.6/5 (with 143 votes)

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.

Laura(1944)

NR
| 1h 28min | Drama, Mystery
3.8/5 (with 337 votes)

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Fallen Angel(1945)

3.2/5 (with 44 votes)

An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely waitress Stella, he also begins romancing a quiet and well-to-do woman named June Mills. Since Stella isn't interested in Eric unless he has money, the lovelorn guy comes up with a scheme to win her over, and it involves June. Before long, murder works its way into this passionate love triangle.

Scarlet Street(1945)

NR
| 1h 43min | Drama, Thriller, Crime
3.8/5 (with 145 votes)

Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.

The Woman in the Window(1944)

NR
| 1h 39min | Drama, Thriller, Mystery, Crime
3.8/5 (with 137 votes)

A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.

The Postman Always Rings Twice(1946)

NR
| 1h 53min | Crime, Drama, Romance / Love, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 131 votes)

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.

Brute Force(1947)

1h 38min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.7/5 (with 73 votes)

Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?

The Letter(1940)

3.7/5 (with 86 votes)

After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.

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Key Largo(1948)

1h 40min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.8/5 (with 214 votes)

A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco holes up - and holds at gunpoint hotel owner James Temple, his widowed daughter-in-law Nora, and ex-GI Frank McCloud.

High Sierra(1941)

NR
| 1h 40min | Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 129 votes)

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

Shoeshine(1946)

1h 27min | Drama
4.0/5 (with 101 votes)

At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride...

Kiss of Death(1947)

NR
| 1h 38min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 57 votes)

An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.

Mildred Pierce(1945)

NR
| 1h 51min | Crime, Drama
3.8/5 (with 159 votes)

A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.

This Gun for Hire(1942)

1h 21min | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 66 votes)

Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

Call Northside 777(1948)

NR
| 1h 51min | Crime, Drama
3.3/5 (with 62 votes)

In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

Nightmare Alley(1947)

NR
| 1h 50min | Drama, Crime
3.6/5 (with 82 votes)

Stanton Carlisle joins a seedy carnival, working with "Mademoiselle Zeena" and her alcoholic husband, Pete.

Crossfire(1947)

NR
| 1h 26min | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
3.3/5 (with 46 votes)

A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?

The Killers(1946)

1h 45min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
3.7/5 (with 155 votes)

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

Brighton Rock(1948)

1h 32min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 45 votes)

Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.

Born to Kill(1947)

NR
| 1h 32min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.3/5 (with 32 votes)

Helen Brent has just received a Reno divorce. That night, she discovers her neighbor Laury Palmer and a gentleman caller murdered in Palmer's home. The killer is her neighbor's other boyfriend Sam Wilde, an insanely jealous man who won't abide anyone "cutting in" on him.

Force of Evil(1948)

1h 18min | Crime, Drama
3.3/5 (with 48 votes)

Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.

A Scandal in Paris(1946)

NR
| 1h 40min | Comedy, Crime, Romance / Love
3.1/5 (with 12 votes)

A smooth-talking French thief wangles his way into an important position as prefect of police.

Jenny Lamour(1947)

1h 50min | Drama, Thriller
3.7/5 (with 66 votes)

Paris, France, December 1946. Jenny Lamour, an ambitious cabaret singer, and Maurice, her extremely jealous pianist husband, become involved in the thorough investigation of the murder of a shady businessman, led by Antoine, a peculiar and methodical police inspector.

They Live by Night(1949)

NR
| 1h 36min | Drama, Crime, Romance / Love
3.4/5 (with 70 votes)

An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

D.O.A.(1949)

1h 23min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
3.5/5 (with 77 votes)

Frank Bigelow is about to die, and he knows it. The accountant has been poisoned and has only 24 hours before the lethal concoction kills him. Determined to find out who his murderer is, Frank, with the help of his assistant and girlfriend, Paula, begins to trace back over his last steps. As he frantically tries to unravel the mystery behind his own impending demise, his sleuthing leads him to a group of crooked businessmen and another murder.

Lady in the Lake(1946)

NR
| 1h 45min | Mystery, Thriller, Crime
3.0/5 (with 37 votes)

Private eye Phillip Marlowe wants to get out of the detective racket and into crime writing. But when he's called to the office of editor Adrienne Fromsett, it's not to talk about his story ideas — she wants him to locate the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby. The assignment quickly becomes complicated when bodies start turning up.

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