Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1939
Best Movies of 1939, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
92 films from 1939 are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Gone with the Wind ('1939), at 8.2 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.4. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Rules of the Game, 7.9 on IMDb against 99 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gone with the Wind '1939 | Drama / War / Romance | 8.2 | 90% | 97 | 7.9 | Victor Fleming |
| 2 | The Wizard of Oz '1939 | Fantasy | 8.1 | 98% | 92 | 7.6 | Victor Fleming |
| 3 | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington '1939 | Comedy / Drama | 8.1 | 85% | 73 | 7.8 | Frank Capra |
| 4 | The Rules of the Game '1939 | Drama / Comedy / Romance | 7.9 | 97% | 99 | 7.5 | Jean Renoir |
| 5 | The Roaring Twenties '1939 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.9 | 100% | 80 | 7.5 | Raoul Walsh |
| 6 | Stagecoach '1939 | Western | 7.8 | 100% | 93 | 7.6 | John Ford |
| 7 | Ninotchka '1939 | Comedy / Romance | 7.8 | 95% | - | 7.5 | Ernst Lubitsch |
| 8 | Goodbye, Mr. Chips '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.9 | 81% | - | 7.4 | Sam Wood |
| 9 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame '1939 | Drama / Romance / Horror | 7.8 | 93% | - | 7.3 | William Dieterle |
| 10 | The Women '1939 | Comedy / Drama | 7.7 | 94% | - | 7.2 | George Cukor |
| 11 | Of Mice and Men '1939 | Drama | 7.8 | 100% | 89 | 7.3 | Lewis Milestone |
| 12 | Midnight '1939 | Comedy / Romance | 7.8 | 94% | 79 | 7.4 | Mitchell Leisen |
| 13 | Only Angels Have Wings '1939 | Romance / Drama | 7.6 | 100% | 86 | 7.3 | Howard Hawks |
| 14 | Destry Rides Again '1939 | Western / Comedy | 7.6 | 96% | 81 | 7.2 | George Marshall |
| 15 | The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum '1939 | Romance / Drama | 7.8 | 94% | - | 7.8 | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| 16 | Daybreak '1939 | Crime / Drama | 7.6 | 92% | - | 7.6 | Marcel Carné |
| 17 | Wuthering Heights '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 92% | 83 | 7.2 | William Wyler |
| 18 | Young Mr. Lincoln '1939 | Drama | 7.5 | 100% | 91 | 7.2 | John Ford |
| 19 | Beau Geste '1939 | Drama / War | 7.5 | 92% | 69 | 7.0 | William A. Wellman |
| 20 | The Ugly Duckling '1939 | Animation / Comedy | 7.6 | - | - | 7.0 | Hamilton Luske |
| 21 | The Hound of the Baskervilles '1939 | Mystery / Crime / Horror / Thriller | 7.4 | 91% | - | 7.1 | Sidney Lanfield |
| 22 | Dark Victory '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.4 | 83% | - | 6.9 | Edmund Goulding |
| 23 | Bachelor Mother '1939 | Comedy / Romance | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Garson Kanin |
| 24 | On Borrowed Time '1939 | Comedy / Drama / Fantasy | 7.7 | - | - | 7.6 | Harold S. Bucquet |
| 25 | The Four Feathers '1939 | Drama / War | 7.4 | 91% | - | 7.1 | Zoltan Korda |
| 26 | The Old Maid '1939 | Drama | 7.4 | - | - | 7.0 | Edmund Goulding |
| 27 | Another Thin Man '1939 | Comedy / Mystery / Crime | 7.3 | 86% | 63 | 7.1 | W.S. Van Dyke |
| 28 | Love Affair '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.3 | 92% | 91 | 7.0 | Leo McCarey |
| 29 | The End of the Day '1939 | Drama | 7.8 | - | - | 6.8 | Julien Duvivier |
| 30 | Peace on Earth '1939 | Animation / War | 7.5 | - | - | 7.1 | Hugh Harman |
| 31 | Gunga Din '1939 | War / Action | 7.2 | 89% | - | 6.5 | George Stevens |
| 32 | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes '1939 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.2 | 80% | - | 6.9 | Alfred L. Werker |
| 33 | The Little Princess '1939 | Drama / Comedy | 7.2 | 89% | - | 6.6 | Walter Lang |
| 34 | Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp '1939 | Drama / Comedy / Animation | 7.6 | - | - | 7.1 | Dave Fleischer |
| 35 | Each Dawn I Die '1939 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.2 | 50% | - | 6.9 | William Keighley |
| 36 | Son of Frankenstein '1939 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.1 | 95% | - | 6.7 | Rowland V. Lee |
| 37 | Charlie Chan at Treasure Island '1939 | Mystery / Thriller | 7.2 | - | - | 6.7 | Norman Foster |
| 38 | Dodge City '1939 | Western | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.9 | Michael Curtiz |
| 39 | The Cat and the Canary '1939 | Comedy / Horror / Mystery | 7.1 | - | - | 6.9 | Elliott Nugent |
| 40 | Five Came Back '1939 | Drama | 7.1 | - | - | 6.3 | John Farrow |
| 41 | Donald's Lucky Day '1939 | Animation / Comedy | 7.1 | - | - | 6.4 | Jack King |
| 42 | The Autograph Hound '1939 | Animation / Comedy | 7.1 | - | - | 6.7 | Jack King |
| 43 | Officer Duck '1939 | Animation / Comedy | 7.0 | - | - | 6.0 | Clyde Geronimi |
| 44 | The Hockey Champ '1939 | Animation / Comedy | 7.0 | - | - | 6.9 | Jack King |
| 45 | The Man in the Iron Mask '1939 | - | 7.0 | - | - | 7.0 | James Whale |
| 46 | Union Pacific '1939 | Drama / Western | 7.0 | 83% | - | 6.7 | Cecil B. DeMille |
| 47 | In Name Only '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.0 | 100% | - | 7.0 | John Cromwell |
| 48 | Jesse James '1939 | Western | 7.0 | - | - | 6.6 | Henry King |
| 49 | The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex '1939 | Drama / Romance | 7.0 | 80% | - | 6.3 | Michael Curtiz |
| 50 | Drums Along the Mohawk '1939 | Drama / War | 7.0 | 82% | - | 6.5 | John Ford |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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