I have watched maybe 5 or so films of the 40s so I have very little experience with this decade. Without posting spoilers please share some suggestions for a first time viewer. Of the films I have seen, I would say It's A Wonderful Life is my favourite.
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (My favourite movie of the decade)
- The Red Shoes (As above, directed by Powell and Pressburger, who were one of the great combos of the era and especially the 1940's but seem to forgotten nowadays, especially outside the UK)
- Black Narcissus, A Canterbury Tale and A Matter of Life and Death are also considered great films by Powell and Pressburger in the 40's
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (Notable for the great Alec Guinness playing 8 different characters)
- Akira Kurosawa was starting his career in the 40's, and Stray Dog + Drunken Angel were probably his two best films of that era
- The Third Man is a spectacular film directed by Carol Reed and featuring Orson Welles in one of his classic roles as Harry Lime
- Late Spring by Yasujiro Ozu
- The Philadelphia Story is an American classic
- Rome, Open City
I see a lot of the Powell and Pressburger films are available for free on youtube nowadays
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (My favourite movie of the decade)
- The Red Shoes (As above, directed by Powell and Pressburger, who were one of the great combos of the era and especially the 1940's but seem to forgotten nowadays, especially outside the UK)
- Black Narcissus, A Canterbury Tale and A Matter of Life and Death are also considered great films by Powell and Pressburger in the 40's
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (Notable for the great Alec Guinness playing 8 different characters)
- Akira Kurosawa was starting his career in the 40's, and Stray Dog + Drunken Angel were probably his two best films of that era
- The Third Man is a spectacular film directed by Carol Reed and featuring Orson Welles in one of his classic roles as Harry Lime
- Late Spring by Yasujiro Ozu
- The Philadelphia Story is an American classic
- Rome, Open City
I see a lot of the Powell and Pressburger films are available for free on youtube nowadays
I co-sign all of these except Double Indemnity (massively overrated, but that's coming from a Billy Wilder hater, though Edward G. Robinson rules in everything). But in that vein, I'll shout-out the film noir boom that started in the 1940s. The Maltese Falcon, Laura, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Fallen Angel, Detour, Mildred Pierce, Leave Her to Heaven, The Killers, The Big Sleep, Gilda, Dark Passage, The Lady from Shanghai, Out of the Past, Key Largo, Too Late for Tears, The Set-Up, Criss Cross...they're all great to varying degrees. The Maltese Falcon and The Third Man are the GOAT noir films, and the cycle continued into the '50s, but these are all '40s gems.
I have watched maybe 5 or so films of the 40s so I have very little experience with this decade. Without posting spoilers please share some suggestions for a first time viewer. Of the films I have seen, I would say It's A Wonderful Life is my favourite.
Of the movies listed, I went with Double Indemnity. From what I can recall, it was a thriller about insurance fraud. It's been over 20 years since I saw it though.
Picked Treasure but there's so many great ones. Double Indemnity, Sullivan's Travels, Rebecca, Scarlet Street, Wonderful Life, Late Spring, My Darling Clementine, Day of Wrath, Red River, White Heat. Also, Chaplin is my favorite director but Great Dictator is massively overratted imo. Fantastic decade though.
List is incomplete without this bc this would have had more impact on an entire generation of horror movies and dozens of werewolf movies , the first remake of this particularly adaption was Wolf 1994 .
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