Movie Auditor › Rankings › 1940s › Romance
Best Romance Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
180 romance films from the 1940s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Casablanca (1943), at 8.5 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.7. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Notorious, 7.9 on IMDb against 100 on Metacritic.
Filter, sort and search this list live
| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Casablanca '1943 | Drama / Romance | 8.5 | 99% | 100 | 8.1 | Michael Curtiz |
| 2 | Children of Paradise '1945 | Drama / Romance | 8.3 | 98% | 96 | 8.0 | Marcel Carné |
| 3 | The Best Years of Our Lives '1946 | Drama / Romance / War | 8.1 | 97% | 93 | 7.7 | William Wyler |
| 4 | The Red Shoes '1948 | Drama / Romance | 8.1 | 98% | - | 8.0 | Michael Powell |
| 5 | To Be or Not to Be '1942 | Comedy / War / Romance | 8.1 | 96% | 86 | 7.8 | Ernst Lubitsch |
| 6 | Rebecca '1940 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 8.0 | 98% | 86 | 7.9 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 7 | The Heiress '1949 | Drama / Romance | 8.1 | 100% | - | 7.8 | William Wyler |
| 8 | Brief Encounter '1945 | Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 95% | 92 | 7.7 | David Lean |
| 9 | The Shop Around the Corner '1940 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 99% | 96 | 8.1 | Ernst Lubitsch |
| 10 | A Matter of Life and Death '1946 | Romance / Fantasy / Drama | 8.0 | 97% | - | 7.7 | Emeric Pressburger |
| 11 | Notorious '1946 | Drama / Romance / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 100 | 7.7 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 12 | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp '1943 | War / Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 97% | - | 7.5 | Emeric Pressburger |
| 13 | Sullivan's Travels '1941 | Comedy / Romance | 7.9 | 100% | 89 | 7.4 | Preston Sturges |
| 14 | Beauty and the Beast '1946 | Drama / Fantasy / Romance | 7.9 | - | 92 | 7.5 | Jean Cocteau |
| 15 | The Philadelphia Story '1940 | Comedy / Romance | 7.8 | 100% | 96 | 7.5 | George Cukor |
| 16 | His Girl Friday '1940 | Comedy / Romance / Crime | 7.8 | 99% | 94 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 17 | To Have and Have Not '1945 | Romance / War | 7.8 | 97% | 90 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 18 | Great Expectations '1946 | Drama / Romance | 7.8 | 100% | 90 | 7.3 | David Lean |
| 19 | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir '1947 | Romance / Fantasy / Drama | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 20 | Letter from an Unknown Woman '1948 | Drama / Romance | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.8 | Max Ophüls |
| 21 | Now, Voyager '1942 | Romance / Drama | 7.8 | 91% | 70 | 7.4 | Irving Rapper |
| 22 | Random Harvest '1942 | Romance / Drama | 7.9 | 92% | 62 | 7.3 | Mervyn LeRoy |
| 23 | The Lady Eve '1941 | Comedy / Romance | 7.7 | 99% | 96 | 7.3 | Preston Sturges |
| 24 | Ball of Fire '1941 | Comedy / Romance / Crime | 7.7 | 100% | 78 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 25 | Gilda '1946 | Romance / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 90% | - | 7.5 | Charles Vidor |
| 26 | The Magnificent Ambersons '1942 | Drama / Romance | 7.6 | 89% | 93 | 7.3 | Orson Welles |
| 27 | Mrs. Miniver '1942 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.6 | 93% | 77 | 7.1 | William Wyler |
| 28 | Waterloo Bridge '1940 | Drama / Romance | 7.7 | 83% | 73 | 7.5 | Mervyn LeRoy |
| 29 | Leave Her to Heaven '1945 | Drama / Thriller / Romance | 7.6 | 85% | - | 7.5 | John M. Stahl |
| 30 | Meet John Doe '1941 | Drama / Comedy / Romance | 7.6 | 92% | 63 | 7.3 | Frank Capra |
| 31 | A Letter to Three Wives '1949 | Romance / Drama / Mystery | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| 32 | Portrait of Jennie '1948 | Drama / Romance / Fantasy / Mystery | 7.6 | 93% | - | 7.2 | William Dieterle |
| 33 | Spellbound '1945 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.5 | 86% | 78 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 34 | It Happened on Fifth Avenue '1947 | Comedy / Romance / Musical | 7.6 | - | 66 | 7.1 | Roy Del Ruth |
| 35 | Meet Me in St. Louis '1944 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 99% | 94 | 7.0 | Vincente Minnelli |
| 36 | Obsession '1943 | Crime / Drama / Romance | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Luchino Visconti |
| 37 | The More the Merrier '1943 | Comedy / Romance | 7.6 | - | - | 6.9 | George Stevens |
| 38 | A Day in the Country '1946 | Drama / Romance / Comedy | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.3 | Jean Renoir |
| 39 | The Palm Beach Story '1942 | Comedy / Romance | 7.5 | 94% | - | 7.0 | Preston Sturges |
| 40 | The Devil and Miss Jones '1941 | Comedy / Romance | 7.6 | 90% | - | 7.6 | Sam Wood |
| 41 | The Mark of Zorro '1940 | Romance | 7.5 | 93% | - | 7.2 | Rouben Mamoulian |
| 42 | The Postman Always Rings Twice '1946 | Drama / Romance / Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 90% | 84 | 7.1 | Tay Garnett |
| 43 | Adam's Rib '1949 | Comedy / Romance | 7.4 | 96% | 87 | 7.1 | George Cukor |
| 44 | The Talk of the Town '1942 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 89% | - | 7.4 | George Stevens |
| 45 | Here Comes Mr. Jordan '1941 | Comedy / Fantasy / Romance | 7.5 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Alexander Hall |
| 46 | The Miracle of Morgan's Creek '1944 | Comedy / Romance / War | 7.5 | 87% | 86 | 6.9 | Preston Sturges |
| 47 | They Live by Night '1949 | Crime / Romance / Drama | 7.4 | 96% | 82 | 6.8 | Nicholas Ray |
| 48 | Remember the Night '1940 | Comedy / Romance / Drama | 7.5 | 100% | 78 | 7.3 | Mitchell Leisen |
| 49 | Unfaithfully Yours '1948 | Comedy / Romance | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.2 | Preston Sturges |
| 50 | Mr. Skeffington '1944 | Drama / Romance | 7.5 | 57% | - | 6.8 | Vincent Sherman |
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.
All romance movies
All movies of the 1940s
Romance in other decades
Romance of the 1920s Romance of the 1930s Romance of the 1950s Romance of the 1960s Romance of the 1970s Romance of the 1980s Romance of the 1990s Romance of the 2000s Romance of the 2010s Romance of the 2020s
Other genres in the 1940s
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 Mystery of the 1940s Sci-Fi of the 1940s Thriller of the 1940s War of the 1940s Western of the 1940s
Directors on this list
Michael Curtiz Marcel Carné William Wyler Michael Powell Ernst Lubitsch Alfred Hitchcock David Lean Preston Sturges Jean Cocteau George Cukor Howard Hawks Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Actors on this list
Humphrey Bogart Ingrid Bergman Dana Andrews Fredric March Carole Lombard Laurence Olivier Joan Fontaine Olivia de Havilland Montgomery Clift Trevor Howard James Stewart David Niven