The Best Films of the 1940s Decade
The greatest films of the 1940s, from Italian neorealism to the birth of film noirs.
Ivan the Terrible (1944-46)
It is a little ironic that Joseph Stalin should see so much of him himself in the first Tsar of Russia, yet Sergei Eisenstein nevertheless takes the metaphor as a creative challenge in Ivan the Terrible, painting a vision of oppressive tyranny in bold, inflammatory strokes that stands true across centuries.
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49th Parallel (1941)
It takes a communal sense of justice, democracy, and moral fortitude among the everyday civilians of 49th Parallel to not only pick off the six Nazi fugitives who have been stranded in Canada, but also to thoroughly undermine the hateful ideology which they represent, as Michael Powell’s wartime fable spurs the western world to make a stand against fascism with egalitarian pride.
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Beauty and the Beast (1946)
It is not just the fantastical designs and living furniture which imbue the enchanted castle of Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast with an air of otherworldly awe, but its illusory logic makes for a dreamscape as inventively surreal as it is fearsome, penetrating deceptive facades of beauty and ugliness that conceal the true nature of our humanity.
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My Darling Clementine (1946)
Through John Ford’s grand cinematic mythologising in My Darling Clementine, lawman Wyatt Earp becomes a guardian of modern civilisation and legendary hero of the American frontier, cultivating seeds of growth in the rural town of Tombstone while challenging those who threaten to spoil its future.
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Brief Encounter (1945)
Time is a precious resource at the train station where the secret lovers of Brief Encounter fall into a reverie, though David Lean exerts a fine control over its gentle flow in Laura’s nostalgic recollections, intertwining love and guilt within a complex affair that forces this heartbroken housewife into an even greater repression.
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Notorious (1946)
There is remarkable dramatic tension in Notorious’ thickly plotted conflict of romance and thriller conventions that tugs a pair of post-war spies between deep passion and cold pragmatism, but through his motifs of seemingly innocuous refreshments Alfred Hitchcock also develops an even more intricate formal structure, containing darker secrets within them than one might expect.
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Scene by Green 