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Best Action Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
39 action films from the 1940s are in our catalog; the 39 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Twelve O'Clock High (1949), at 7.7 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 6.6. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Foreign Correspondent, 7.4 on IMDb against 89 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Twelve O'Clock High '1949 | War / Action / Drama | 7.7 | 96% | - | 7.2 | Henry King |
| 2 | High Sierra '1941 | Crime / Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.5 | 92% | - | 7.1 | Raoul Walsh |
| 3 | Foreign Correspondent '1940 | Thriller / Mystery / Action | 7.4 | 95% | 89 | 7.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 4 | Battleground '1949 | Action / Drama / War | 7.4 | 78% | - | 6.7 | William A. Wellman |
| 5 | Objective, Burma! '1945 | War / Drama / Action | 7.3 | 86% | 79 | 6.9 | Raoul Walsh |
| 6 | Superman '1941 | Action / Animation / Sci-Fi / Fantasy | 7.3 | - | - | 7.0 | Dave Fleischer |
| 7 | The Mechanical Monsters '1941 | Action / Animation / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 7.4 | - | - | 6.9 | Dave Fleischer |
| 8 | All Through the Night '1942 | Comedy / Action / Thriller | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.7 | Vincent Sherman |
| 9 | Mighty Joe Young '1949 | Fantasy / Drama / Action | 7.0 | 91% | 61 | 6.4 | Ernest B. Schoedsack |
| 10 | Return of the Bad Men '1948 | Drama / Western / Action | 6.3 | - | - | 6.3 | Ray Enright |
| 11 | Air Force '1943 | Action / Drama / War | 7.0 | 82% | - | 6.5 | Howard Hawks |
| 12 | Billion Dollar Limited '1942 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 7.0 | - | - | 7.0 | Dave Fleischer |
| 13 | The Magnetic Telescope '1942 | Animation / Fantasy / Action / Sci-Fi | 7.0 | - | - | 6.9 | Dave Fleischer |
| 14 | Volcano '1942 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 6.9 | - | - | 6.9 | Dave Fleischer |
| 15 | The Bulleteers '1942 | Action / Animation / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 6.9 | - | - | 6.5 | Dave Fleischer |
| 16 | Electric Earthquake '1942 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 6.8 | - | - | 6.5 | Dave Fleischer |
| 17 | The Arctic Giant '1942 | Fantasy / Animation / Action / Sci-Fi | 6.8 | - | - | 7.0 | Dave Fleischer |
| 18 | Angel and the Badman '1947 | Western / Romance / Action | 6.8 | 71% | - | 6.4 | James Edward Grant |
| 19 | Terror on the Midway '1942 | Animation / Fantasy / Action / Sci-Fi | 6.5 | - | - | 6.5 | Dave Fleischer |
| 20 | Jungle Drums '1943 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Thriller / War | 6.3 | - | - | 6.0 | Dan Gordon |
| 21 | Japoteurs '1942 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 6.3 | - | - | 6.0 | Seymour Kneitel |
| 22 | Flying Tigers '1942 | Action / Drama / War | 6.7 | 70% | - | 6.3 | David Miller |
| 23 | Tarzan and the Amazons '1945 | Action / Romance | 6.2 | - | - | 6.4 | Kurt Neumann |
| 24 | North West Mounted Police '1940 | Action / Western / Romance | 6.3 | - | - | 6.4 | Cecil B. DeMille |
| 25 | Reap the Wild Wind '1942 | Action / Romance | 6.6 | 80% | - | 6.3 | Cecil B. DeMille |
| 26 | Blood on the Sun '1945 | Action / Drama / War | 6.0 | 80% | - | 5.9 | Frank Lloyd |
| 27 | Tarzan's Secret Treasure '1941 | Action | 6.4 | - | - | 5.9 | Richard Thorpe |
| 28 | Eleventh Hour '1942 | Animation / Action / Fantasy / Sci-Fi / War | 6.0 | - | - | 5.9 | Dan Gordon |
| 29 | Tarzan's New York Adventure '1942 | Action | 6.5 | 83% | - | 6.4 | Richard Thorpe |
| 30 | The Fighting Seabees '1944 | Drama / Action / War | 6.4 | 100% | - | 6.2 | Edward Ludwig |
| 31 | Tarzan and the Leopard Woman '1946 | Action | 6.0 | - | - | 5.7 | Kurt Neumann |
| 32 | Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two '1945 | Action / Drama | 6.0 | - | - | 6.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 33 | Tarzan Triumphs '1943 | Action / War | 6.2 | - | - | 6.2 | Wilhelm Thiele |
| 34 | Arabian Nights '1942 | Action | 6.1 | - | - | 6.0 | John Rawlins |
| 35 | Batman and Robin '1949 | Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller / Crime | 5.9 | - | - | 5.6 | Spencer Gordon Bennet |
| 36 | Tarzan's Desert Mystery '1943 | Action | 6.1 | - | - | 6.1 | Wilhelm Thiele |
| 37 | Batman '1943 | Action / Crime | 6.0 | - | - | 6.2 | Lambert Hillyer |
| 38 | Tarzan and the Mermaids '1948 | Action | 5.5 | - | - | 6.0 | Robert Florey |
| 39 | Africa Screams '1949 | Comedy / Action | 6.0 | 67% | - | 5.7 | Charles Barton |
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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Directors on this list
Henry King Raoul Walsh Alfred Hitchcock William A. Wellman Dave Fleischer Vincent Sherman Ernest B. Schoedsack Howard Hawks David Miller Kurt Neumann Cecil B. DeMille Frank Lloyd
Actors on this list
Gregory Peck Hugh Marlowe Ida Lupino Humphrey Bogart Joel McCrea Van Johnson Errol Flynn Henry Hull Bud Collyer Joan Alexander Conrad Veidt Ben Johnson