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1940s Drama Movies

Public list by WPS with 1,692 movies or TV shows/series

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1,673 movies found (page 1/56):

Citizen Kane(1941)

PG
| 1h 59min | Mystery, Drama
4.0/5 (with 2,550 votes)

Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

Bambi(1942)

G
| 1h 5min | Animation, Drama, Kids & Family
3.5/5 (with 2,574 votes)

Bambi's tale unfolds from season to season as the young prince of the forest learns about life, love, and friends.

The Best Years of Our Lives(1946)

NR
| 2h 51min | Drama, Romance / Love, War
3.9/5 (with 258 votes)

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Bicycle Thieves(1948)

1h 29min | Drama
4.1/5 (with 1,032 votes)

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

49th Parallel(1941)

NR
| 2h 3min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller, War
3.5/5 (with 44 votes)

In the early days of World War II, a German U-boat is sunk in Canada's Hudson Bay. Hoping to evade capture, a small band of German soldiers led by commanding officer Lieutenant Hirth attempts to cross the border into the United States, which has not yet entered the war and is officially neutral. Along the way, the German soldiers encounter brave men such as a French-Canadian fur trapper, Johnnie, a leader of a Hutterite farming community, Peter, an author, Philip and a soldier, Andy Brock.

How Green Was My Valley(1941)

NR
| 1h 58min | Drama, Kids & Family
3.6/5 (with 169 votes)

A man in his fifties reminisces about his childhood growing up in a Welsh mining village at the turn of the 20th century.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre(1948)

NR
| 2h 6min | Adventure, Drama, Western
4.0/5 (with 488 votes)

Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin, both down on their luck in Tampico, Mexico in 1925, meet up with a grizzled prospector named Howard and decide to join with him in search of gold in the wilds of central Mexico. Through enormous difficulties, they eventually succeed in finding gold, but bandits, the elements, and most especially greed threaten to turn their success into disaster.

Hamlet(1948)

NR
| 2h 35min | Drama
3.8/5 (with 99 votes)

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

The Grapes of Wrath(1940)

NR
| 2h 9min | Drama
3.9/5 (with 400 votes)

Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.

Black Narcissus(1947)

NR
| 1h 40min | Drama
3.8/5 (with 185 votes)

A group of Anglican nuns, led by Sister Clodagh, are sent to a mountain in the Himalayas. The climate in the region is hostile and the nuns are housed in an odd old palace. They work to establish a school and a hospital, but slowly their focus shifts. Sister Ruth falls for a government worker, Mr. Dean, and begins to question her vow of celibacy. As Sister Ruth obsesses over Mr. Dean, Sister Clodagh becomes immersed in her own memories of love.

Great Expectations(1946)

NR
| 1h 58min | Romance / Love, Drama, History
3.6/5 (with 131 votes)

In this Dickens adaptation, orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

The Lost Weekend(1945)

NR
| 1h 41min | Drama
3.8/5 (with 236 votes)

Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last - one way or another.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray(1945)

NR
| 1h 50min | Drama, Fantasy, Thriller, Horror
3.5/5 (with 106 votes)

Posing for a portrait, Dorian Gray talks with Lord Henry Wotton, who says that men should pursue their sensual longings, but laments that only the young get to do so. Taken with the idea, Dorian imagines a scenario in which the painting will age as he stays youthful. His wish comes true, and his boyish looks aid him as he indulges his every whim. But when a stunning revelation forces him to see what he's become, Dorian faces some very dangerous questions.

The Magnificent Ambersons(1942)

NR
| 1h 28min | Drama, Romance / Love, History
3.7/5 (with 173 votes)

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Lifeboat(1944)

1h 36min | War, Drama
3.7/5 (with 179 votes)

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

The Search(1948)

NR
| 1h 44min | Drama, War, Adventure
3.5/5 (with 30 votes)

In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers(1946)

NR
| 1h 55min | Drama, Thriller
3.6/5 (with 66 votes)

Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect combination to dominate the corrupt city of Iverstown at will. But the unexpected return of Sam, after years of absence, deeply disturbs the life of the odd couple.

Waterloo Bridge(1940)

NR
| 1h 49min | Drama, Romance / Love, War
3.8/5 (with 63 votes)

On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.

The Little Foxes(1941)

3.8/5 (with 71 votes)

The ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan lives in, and poisons, their part of the deep South at the turn of the 20th century. Regina Giddons née Hubbard has her daughter under her thumb. Mrs. Giddons is estranged from her husband, who is convalescing in Baltimore and suffers from a terminal illness. But she needs him home, and will manipulate her daughter to help bring him back. She has a sneaky business deal that she's cooking up with her two elder brothers, Oscar and Ben. Oscar has a flighty, unhappy wife and a dishonest worm of a son. Will the daughter have to marry this contemptible cousin? Who will she grow up to be - her mother or her aunt? Or can she escape the fate of both?

Leave Her to Heaven(1945)

NR
| 1h 50min | Drama, Romance / Love, Thriller
3.7/5 (with 95 votes)

A young novelist, Richard Harland, meets beautiful Ellen Berent on a train where they fall in love and are soon married. When tragedies take first his handicapped young brother, then his unborn son from him, Harland gradually realises that his wife's insane jealousy may be the cause of the tragedies in his life. Yet another shock awaits them all, as Ellen's emotions become uncontrollable.

The Lady from Shanghai(1947)

NR
| 1h 27min | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
3.7/5 (with 269 votes)

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

Gentleman's Agreement(1947)

PG
| 1h 58min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.6/5 (with 98 votes)

A magazine writer poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism.

La Terra Trema(1948)

2h 45min | Drama
3.9/5 (with 65 votes)

In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.

Directed by Luchino Visconti, Francesco Rosi, Franco Zeffirelli - With Giuseppe Arcidiacono, Salvatore Vicari, Mario Pisu, Aci Trezza, Antonio Pietrangeli, Luchino Visconti, ...

Oliver Twist(1948)

NR
| 1h 56min | Adventure, Drama, Kids & Family
3.8/5 (with 93 votes)

When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

Dragonwyck(1946)

NR
| 1h 43min | Drama, Romance / Love, Thriller
3.3/5 (with 46 votes)

For Miranda Wells, moving to New York to live in Dragonwyck Manor with her rich cousin, Nicholas, seems like a dream. However, the situation gradually becomes nightmarish. She observes Nicholas' troubled relationship with his tenant farmers, as well as with his daughter, to whom Miranda serves as governess. Her relationship with Nicholas intensifies after his wife dies, but his mental imbalance threatens any hope of happiness.

No Regrets for Our Youth(1946)

1h 50min | Drama
3.5/5 (with 29 votes)

Yukie, the well-bred daughter of a university professor, is shocked when her father is relieved of his post for his political teachings during a purge of anti-militarism in pre-war Kyoto. Years go by as she is courted by two of her father's former students; one a fiery leftist, the other more moderate and equable.

The Pride of the Yankees(1942)

NR
| 2h 8min | Drama, Kids & Family
3.7/5 (with 49 votes)

The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.

The Fallen Idol(1948)

1h 36min | Drama, Thriller
3.6/5 (with 68 votes)

Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, idolizes Baines, his father's butler, a kind of hero in the eyes of the child, whose perception changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.

Drunken Angel(1948)

1h 38min | Drama
3.8/5 (with 106 votes)

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.

The Yearling(1946)

3.3/5 (with 37 votes)

Jody convinces his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?

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