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Movies: Popular Movies of 1940

Movies in chronological context: 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1940th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 940th year of the 2nd millennium, the 40th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1940s decade. A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. ()

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1,518 movies found (page 1/51):

Pinocchio(1940)

G
| 1h 28min | Animation, Kids & Family
3.6/5 (with 2,639 votes)

Lonely toymaker Geppetto has his wishes answered when the Blue Fairy arrives to bring his wooden puppet Pinocchio to life. Before becoming a real boy, however, Pinocchio must prove he's worthy as he sets off on an adventure with his whistling sidekick and conscience, Jiminy Cricket.

The Great Dictator(1940)

NR
| 2h 5min | Comedy, War
4.2/5 (with 1,461 votes)

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

Fantasia(1940)

G
| 2h 4min | Animation, Kids & Family
3.7/5 (with 1,354 votes)

Walt Disney's timeless masterpiece is an extravaganza of sight and sound! See the music come to life, hear the pictures burst into song and experience the excitement that is Fantasia over and over again.

Rebecca(1940)

4.0/5 (with 766 votes)

Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.

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.

The Philadelphia Story(1940)

NR
| 1h 53min | Comedy, Romance / Love
3.9/5 (with 360 votes)

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.

His Girl Friday(1940)

3.7/5 (with 354 votes)

Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wife. She’s threatening to quit and settle down with a new beau, but, as Walter knows, she has a weakness: she can’t resist a juicy scoop.

The Shop Around the Corner(1940)

NR
| 1h 39min | Comedy, Drama, Romance / Love
4.2/5 (with 299 votes)

Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

Foreign Correspondent(1940)

NR
| 2h | Action, Mystery, Thriller, War
3.5/5 (with 154 votes)

The European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Johnny Jones, an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, has a nose for a good story—which promptly leads him to the crime of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring and—not entirely coincidentally—falls in love.

The Thief of Bagdad(1940)

3.6/5 (with 108 votes)

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Letter(1940)

3.7/5 (with 86 votes)

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

The Mark of Zorro(1940)

3.6/5 (with 85 votes)

Around 1820 the son of a California nobleman comes home from Spain to find his native land under a villainous dictatorship. On the one hand he plays the useless fop, while on the other he is the masked avenger Zorro.

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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.

My Favorite Wife(1940)

3.5/5 (with 62 votes)

Seven years after a shipwreck in which she was presumed dead, Ellen Arden arrives home to find that her husband Nick has just remarried. The overjoyed Nick struggles to break the news to his new bride. But he gets a shock when he hears the whole story: Ellen spent those seven years alone on a desert island with another man.

Pride and Prejudice(1940)

NR
| 1h 58min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.5/5 (with 60 votes)

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes. But pride, prejudice and misunderstandings all combine to complicate their relationships and to make happiness difficult.

The Return of Frank James(1940)

1h 32min | Action, Drama, Western
3.2/5 (with 52 votes)

Farmer Frank and his ward hunt brother Jesse's killers, the back-shooting Fords.

The Sea Hawk(1940)

3.7/5 (with 49 votes)

Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.

The Bank Dick(1940)

1h 12min | Comedy
3.2/5 (with 48 votes)

Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard. Soon, he is approached by charlatan J. Frothingham Waterbury about buying shares in a mining company. Egbert persuades teller Og Oggilby to lend him bank money, to be returned when the scheme pays off. Unfortunately, bank inspector Snoopington then makes a surprise appearance.

The Invisible Man Returns(1940)

3.1/5 (with 46 votes)

The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.

They Drive by Night(1940)

1h 35min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
3.5/5 (with 45 votes)

Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.

The Westerner(1940)

NR
| 1h 40min | Action, Western, Romance / Love
3.5/5 (with 42 votes)

Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by claiming to be a friend of stage star Lillie Langtry, with whom the judge is obsessed, even though he has never met her. Tensions rise when Harden comes to the defense of a group of struggling homesteaders who Judge Bean is trying to drive away.

You’re Missing the Point(1940)

1h 52min | Comedy
4.1/5 (with 40 votes)

Cantinflas, the boyfriend of the servant of a rich industrial man, gets into the house in order to kill a mad dog. Suddenly this man appears so the servant tells him that Cantinflas is his wife's brother (Leonardo), who had been lost for years. The rich man then remembers that his father in law's testament could only be paid when all brothers get together, so treats Cantinflas, a real bum, as a king.

Stranger on the Third Floor(1940)

3.3/5 (with 39 votes)

Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.

Remember the Night(1940)

NR
| 1h 34min | Comedy, Drama, Romance / Love
3.7/5 (with 38 votes)

When Jack, an assistant District Attorney, takes Lee, a shoplifter caught in the act, home with him for Christmas, the unexpected happens and love blossoms.

Gaslight(1940)

1h 24min | Thriller, Mystery
3.7/5 (with 36 votes)

Twenty years removed from Alice Barlow's murder by a thief looking for her jewels, newlyweds Paul and Bella Mallen move into the very house where the crime was committed. Retired detective B.G. Rough, who worked on the Barlow case, is still in the area and grows suspicious of Paul, who he feels bears a striking resemblance to one of Barlow's relatives. Rough must find the truth before the killer can strike again and reclaim his bounty.

Go West(1940)

NR
| 1h 20min | Comedy, Western
3.3/5 (with 33 votes)

Embezzler, shill, all around confidence man S. Quentin Quale is heading west to find his fortune; he meets the crafty but simple brothers Joseph and Rusty Panello in a train station, where they steal all his money. They're heading west, too, because they've heard you can just pick the gold off the ground. Once there, they befriend an old miner named Dan Wilson whose property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. They loan him their last ten dollars so he can go start life anew, and for collateral, he gives them the deed to the Gulch. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival, Terry Turner (who's also in love with his daughter, Eva), has contacted the railroad to arrange for them to build through the land, making the old man rich and hopefully resolving the feud. But the evil Red Baxter, owner of a saloon, tricks the boys out of the deed, and it's up to them - as well as Quale, who naturally finds his way out west anyway - to save the day.

Saps at Sea(1940)

57min | Comedy
3.4/5 (with 33 votes)

Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.

The Mummy's Hand(1940)

3.0/5 (with 33 votes)

A couple of young, out-of-work archaeologists in Egypt discover evidence of the burial place of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka. After receiving funding from an eccentric magician and his beautiful daughter, they set out into the desert only to be terrorized by a sinister high priest and the living mummy Kharis who are the guardians of Ananka’s tomb.

The Devil Bat(1940)

2.7/5 (with 32 votes)

Dr. Paul Carruthers feels bitter at being betrayed by his employers, Heath and Morton, when they became rich as a result of a product he devised. He gains revenge by electrically enlarging bats and sending them out to kill his employers' family members by instilling in the bats a hatred for a particular perfume he has discovered, which he gets his victims to apply before going outdoors. Johnny Layton, a reporter, finally figures out Carruthers is the killer and, after putting the perfume on himself, douses it on Carruthers in the hopes it will get him to give himself away. One of the two is attacked as the giant bat makes one of its screaming, swooping power dives.

Night Train to Munich(1940)

NR
| 1h 36min | Drama, Thriller, War
3.7/5 (with 32 votes)

Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.

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