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Best Crime Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
134 crime films from the 1940s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Double Indemnity (1944), at 8.3 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.6. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Maltese Falcon, 7.9 on IMDb against 97 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Double Indemnity '1944 | Crime / Thriller | 8.3 | 97% | 95 | 8.1 | Billy Wilder |
| 2 | White Heat '1949 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 94% | 89 | 7.7 | Raoul Walsh |
| 3 | Kind Hearts and Coronets '1949 | Comedy / Crime | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Robert Hamer |
| 4 | Rope '1948 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.9 | 93% | 73 | 7.9 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 5 | The Maltese Falcon '1941 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 99% | 97 | 7.7 | John Huston |
| 6 | The Big Sleep '1946 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 86 | 7.6 | Howard Hawks |
| 7 | Arsenic and Old Lace '1944 | Comedy / Crime | 7.9 | 86% | - | 7.6 | Frank Capra |
| 8 | Out of the Past '1947 | Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 88% | 85 | 7.7 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 9 | Mildred Pierce '1945 | Crime / Drama | 7.9 | 88% | 88 | 7.6 | Michael Curtiz |
| 10 | Shadow of a Doubt '1943 | Thriller / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 100% | 94 | 7.5 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 11 | His Girl Friday '1940 | Comedy / Romance / Crime | 7.8 | 99% | 94 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 12 | Gaslight '1944 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 94% | 78 | 7.5 | George Cukor |
| 13 | Monsieur Verdoux '1947 | Comedy / Crime / Drama | 7.8 | 97% | - | 7.7 | Charlie Chaplin |
| 14 | Stray Dog '1949 | Crime / Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 15 | Key Largo '1948 | Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | 74 | 7.5 | John Huston |
| 16 | The Killers '1946 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | - | 7.4 | Robert Siodmak |
| 17 | The Set-Up '1949 | Drama / Crime | 7.8 | 85% | - | 7.4 | Robert Wise |
| 18 | Scarlet Street '1945 | Drama / Crime | 7.7 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Fritz Lang |
| 19 | Ball of Fire '1941 | Comedy / Romance / Crime | 7.7 | 100% | 78 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 20 | Odd Man Out '1947 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | 87 | 7.3 | Carol Reed |
| 21 | The Big Clock '1948 | Crime / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.3 | John Farrow |
| 22 | The Woman in the Window '1944 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 83% | - | 7.4 | Fritz Lang |
| 23 | Panique '1947 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.4 | Julien Duvivier |
| 24 | Spellbound '1945 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.5 | 86% | 78 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 25 | The Lady from Shanghai '1947 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.5 | 86% | - | 7.3 | Orson Welles |
| 26 | The Naked City '1948 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.5 | 85% | 74 | 7.2 | Jules Dassin |
| 27 | High Sierra '1941 | Crime / Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.5 | 92% | - | 7.1 | Raoul Walsh |
| 28 | Brute Force '1947 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 95% | 80 | 7.3 | Jules Dassin |
| 29 | Bitter Rice '1949 | Drama / Crime | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Giuseppe De Santis |
| 30 | Obsession '1943 | Crime / Drama / Romance | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Luchino Visconti |
| 31 | The Letter '1940 | Crime / Drama | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.3 | William Wyler |
| 32 | Thieves' Highway '1949 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.3 | Jules Dassin |
| 33 | The Postman Always Rings Twice '1946 | Drama / Romance / Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 90% | 84 | 7.1 | Tay Garnett |
| 34 | Call Northside 777 '1948 | Crime / Drama | 7.4 | 81% | - | 6.7 | Henry Hathaway |
| 35 | Kiss of Death '1947 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 89% | - | 7.1 | Henry Hathaway |
| 36 | Intruder in the Dust '1949 | Drama / Crime / Mystery | 7.6 | 93% | - | 7.3 | Clarence Brown |
| 37 | Criss Cross '1949 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 86% | - | 7.1 | Robert Siodmak |
| 38 | They Live by Night '1949 | Crime / Romance / Drama | 7.4 | 96% | 82 | 6.8 | Nicholas Ray |
| 39 | This Gun for Hire '1942 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 94% | - | 7.0 | Frank Tuttle |
| 40 | The Window '1949 | Thriller / Crime | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Ted Tetzlaff |
| 41 | The Stranger '1946 | Thriller / Crime | 7.3 | 97% | 76 | 7.2 | Orson Welles |
| 42 | And Then There Were None '1945 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.0 | René Clair |
| 43 | Brighton Rock '1948 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 95% | - | 6.8 | John Boulting |
| 44 | Green for Danger '1946 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 73% | - | 6.7 | Sidney Gilliat |
| 45 | Too Late for Tears '1949 | Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 100% | - | 6.8 | Byron Haskin |
| 46 | House of Strangers '1949 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 71% | - | 7.0 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 47 | The Suspect '1945 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | - | - | 6.8 | Robert Siodmak |
| 48 | Tension '1949 | Thriller / Crime | 7.3 | - | - | 6.8 | John Berry |
| 49 | Obsession '1949 | Thriller / Crime | 7.3 | - | - | 6.8 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 50 | Cry of the City '1948 | Crime / Drama | 7.2 | 93% | - | 6.7 | Robert Siodmak |
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
Billy Wilder Raoul Walsh Alfred Hitchcock John Huston Howard Hawks Frank Capra Jacques Tourneur Michael Curtiz George Cukor Charlie Chaplin Akira Kurosawa Robert Siodmak
Actors on this list
Fred MacMurray Barbara Stanwyck James Cagney Alec Guinness James Stewart Humphrey Bogart Mary Astor Lauren Bacall Cary Grant Robert Mitchum Joan Crawford Jack Carson