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Best Mystery Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
101 mystery films from the 1940s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Citizen Kane (1941), at 8.2 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.5. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Citizen Kane, 8.2 on IMDb against 100 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Citizen Kane '1941 | Mystery / Drama | 8.2 | 99% | 100 | 8.0 | Orson Welles |
| 2 | The Third Man '1949 | Thriller / Mystery | 8.1 | 99% | 97 | 7.9 | Carol Reed |
| 3 | Rebecca '1940 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 8.0 | 98% | 86 | 7.9 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 4 | The Maltese Falcon '1941 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 99% | 97 | 7.7 | John Huston |
| 5 | The Big Sleep '1946 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 86 | 7.6 | Howard Hawks |
| 6 | Laura '1944 | Drama / Mystery | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Otto Preminger |
| 7 | Shadow of a Doubt '1943 | Thriller / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 100% | 94 | 7.5 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 8 | Gaslight '1944 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 94% | 78 | 7.5 | George Cukor |
| 9 | Stray Dog '1949 | Crime / Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 10 | Meshes of the Afternoon '1943 | Mystery / Horror | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Maya Deren |
| 11 | The Killers '1946 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | - | 7.4 | Robert Siodmak |
| 12 | Le Corbeau '1943 | Mystery / Drama / Thriller | 7.8 | 97% | - | 7.5 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 13 | Jenny Lamour '1947 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.7 | 100% | 89 | 7.5 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 14 | A Letter to Three Wives '1949 | Romance / Drama / Mystery | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 15 | Portrait of Jennie '1948 | Drama / Romance / Fantasy / Mystery | 7.6 | 93% | - | 7.2 | William Dieterle |
| 16 | Spellbound '1945 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.5 | 86% | 78 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 17 | The Lady from Shanghai '1947 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.5 | 86% | - | 7.3 | Orson Welles |
| 18 | Dark Passage '1947 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.5 | 90% | 68 | 7.3 | Delmer Daves |
| 19 | The Naked City '1948 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.5 | 85% | 74 | 7.2 | Jules Dassin |
| 20 | The Snake Pit '1948 | Drama / Mystery | 7.5 | 100% | 76 | 7.1 | Anatole Litvak |
| 21 | Murder, My Sweet '1944 | Mystery / Drama | 7.5 | 94% | - | 7.2 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 22 | The Great Piggy Bank Robbery '1946 | Animation / Comedy / Mystery | 7.7 | - | - | 7.0 | Robert Clampett |
| 23 | Foreign Correspondent '1940 | Thriller / Mystery / Action | 7.4 | 95% | 89 | 7.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 24 | Intruder in the Dust '1949 | Drama / Crime / Mystery | 7.6 | 93% | - | 7.3 | Clarence Brown |
| 25 | Kings Row '1942 | Romance / Drama / Mystery | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.3 | Sam Wood |
| 26 | Sorry, Wrong Number '1948 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.3 | 86% | - | 6.8 | Anatole Litvak |
| 27 | And Then There Were None '1945 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.0 | René Clair |
| 28 | The Spiral Staircase '1946 | Horror / Mystery / Thriller / Drama | 7.3 | 86% | - | 7.0 | Robert Siodmak |
| 29 | Green for Danger '1946 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 73% | - | 6.7 | Sidney Gilliat |
| 30 | A Canterbury Tale '1944 | Mystery / War / Drama | 7.3 | 94% | 85 | 6.9 | Michael Powell |
| 31 | Crossfire '1947 | Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | 88% | - | 6.7 | Edward Dmytryk |
| 32 | The Thin Man Goes Home '1944 | Comedy / Mystery | 7.3 | 75% | - | 7.1 | Richard Thorpe |
| 33 | Suspicion '1941 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.2 | 97% | 74 | 7.1 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 34 | D.O.A. '1949 | Mystery / Thriller / Crime | 7.2 | 89% | - | 6.9 | Rudolph Maté |
| 35 | Boomerang! '1947 | Drama / Mystery | 7.2 | 75% | - | 7.0 | Elia Kazan |
| 36 | The Verdict '1946 | Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | - | - | 6.5 | Don Siegel |
| 37 | The Unsuspected '1947 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.2 | - | - | 6.7 | Michael Curtiz |
| 38 | Ride the Pink Horse '1947 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.2 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Robert Montgomery |
| 39 | Cat People '1942 | Mystery / Horror / Romance | 7.2 | 92% | 85 | 6.9 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 40 | Gaslight '1940 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Thorold Dickinson |
| 41 | The Uninvited '1944 | Mystery / Horror | 7.2 | 95% | - | 6.9 | Lewis Allen |
| 42 | The Murderer Lives at Number 21 '1942 | Comedy / Mystery / Thriller | 7.3 | 80% | - | 7.2 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 43 | Shadow of the Thin Man '1941 | Comedy / Crime / Mystery | 7.2 | 88% | 63 | 7.0 | W.S. Van Dyke |
| 44 | I Wake Up Screaming '1941 | Mystery / Crime | 7.2 | 86% | - | 6.9 | H. Bruce Humberstone |
| 45 | Night Has a Thousand Eyes '1948 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.0 | 83% | - | 6.8 | John Farrow |
| 46 | Phantom Lady '1944 | Mystery / Thriller / Crime | 7.2 | 94% | - | 6.9 | Robert Siodmak |
| 47 | The Dark Mirror '1946 | Thriller / Mystery / Horror | 7.1 | 78% | - | 7.0 | Robert Siodmak |
| 48 | Who Done It? '1942 | Comedy / Mystery | 7.3 | - | - | 6.9 | Erle C. Kenton |
| 49 | The House of Fear '1945 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.1 | - | - | 6.9 | Roy William Neill |
| 50 | The Blue Dahlia '1946 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.7 | George Marshall |
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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Action of the 1940s Animation of the 1940s Comedy of the 1940s Crime of the 1940s Drama of the 1940s Fantasy of the 1940s Horror of the 1940s Musical of the 1940s Romance of the 1940s Sci-Fi of the 1940s Thriller of the 1940s War of the 1940s Western of the 1940s
Directors on this list
Orson Welles Carol Reed Alfred Hitchcock John Huston Howard Hawks Otto Preminger George Cukor Akira Kurosawa Maya Deren Robert Siodmak Henri-Georges Clouzot Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Actors on this list
Orson Welles Joseph Cotten Alida Valli Laurence Olivier Joan Fontaine Humphrey Bogart Mary Astor Lauren Bacall Dana Andrews Gene Tierney Teresa Wright Charles Boyer