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Best Thriller Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
149 thriller 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: Notorious, 7.9 on IMDb against 100 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 | The Third Man '1949 | Thriller / Mystery | 8.1 | 99% | 97 | 7.9 | Carol Reed |
| 3 | White Heat '1949 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 94% | 89 | 7.7 | Raoul Walsh |
| 4 | Rebecca '1940 | Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 8.0 | 98% | 86 | 7.9 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 5 | Rope '1948 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 7.9 | 93% | 73 | 7.9 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 6 | The Maltese Falcon '1941 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 99% | 97 | 7.7 | John Huston |
| 7 | Notorious '1946 | Drama / Romance / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 100 | 7.7 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 8 | The Big Sleep '1946 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 96% | 86 | 7.6 | Howard Hawks |
| 9 | Out of the Past '1947 | Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 88% | 85 | 7.7 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 10 | Shadow of a Doubt '1943 | Thriller / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 100% | 94 | 7.5 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 11 | Gaslight '1944 | Thriller / Drama / Mystery / Crime | 7.8 | 94% | 78 | 7.5 | George Cukor |
| 12 | Stray Dog '1949 | Crime / Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.8 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 13 | Key Largo '1948 | Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | 74 | 7.5 | John Huston |
| 14 | The Killers '1946 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | - | 7.4 | Robert Siodmak |
| 15 | Le Corbeau '1943 | Mystery / Drama / Thriller | 7.8 | 97% | - | 7.5 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 16 | Nightmare Alley '1947 | Drama / Thriller | 7.7 | 87% | 75 | 7.2 | Edmund Goulding |
| 17 | Gilda '1946 | Romance / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 90% | - | 7.5 | Charles Vidor |
| 18 | Jenny Lamour '1947 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.7 | 100% | 89 | 7.5 | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| 19 | Odd Man Out '1947 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | 87 | 7.3 | Carol Reed |
| 20 | The Big Clock '1948 | Crime / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.3 | John Farrow |
| 21 | Leave Her to Heaven '1945 | Drama / Thriller / Romance | 7.6 | 85% | - | 7.5 | John M. Stahl |
| 22 | The Woman in the Window '1944 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 83% | - | 7.4 | Fritz Lang |
| 23 | The Fallen Idol '1948 | Drama / Thriller | 7.6 | 100% | 88 | 7.2 | Carol Reed |
| 24 | Panique '1947 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.9 | 100% | - | 7.4 | Julien Duvivier |
| 25 | Spellbound '1945 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Romance / Thriller | 7.5 | 86% | 78 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 26 | The Lady from Shanghai '1947 | Mystery / Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.5 | 86% | - | 7.3 | Orson Welles |
| 27 | Dark Passage '1947 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.5 | 90% | 68 | 7.3 | Delmer Daves |
| 28 | The Naked City '1948 | Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.5 | 85% | 74 | 7.2 | Jules Dassin |
| 29 | High Sierra '1941 | Crime / Drama / Action / Thriller | 7.5 | 92% | - | 7.1 | Raoul Walsh |
| 30 | Brute Force '1947 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 95% | 80 | 7.3 | Jules Dassin |
| 31 | Dead of Night '1945 | Horror / Thriller | 7.5 | 96% | - | 7.2 | Alberto Cavalcanti |
| 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 | The Strange Love of Martha Ivers '1946 | Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Lewis Milestone |
| 35 | Foreign Correspondent '1940 | Thriller / Mystery / Action | 7.4 | 95% | 89 | 7.0 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 36 | Kiss of Death '1947 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 89% | - | 7.1 | Henry Hathaway |
| 37 | Criss Cross '1949 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 86% | - | 7.1 | Robert Siodmak |
| 38 | This Gun for Hire '1942 | Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 94% | - | 7.0 | Frank Tuttle |
| 39 | Act of Violence '1949 | Thriller / Drama | 7.4 | 94% | - | 6.9 | Fred Zinnemann |
| 40 | Went the Day Well? '1942 | War / Thriller | 7.5 | 93% | - | 7.1 | Alberto Cavalcanti |
| 41 | The Window '1949 | Thriller / Crime | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Ted Tetzlaff |
| 42 | The Stranger '1946 | Thriller / Crime | 7.3 | 97% | 76 | 7.2 | Orson Welles |
| 43 | Sorry, Wrong Number '1948 | Thriller / Mystery | 7.3 | 86% | - | 6.8 | Anatole Litvak |
| 44 | Detour '1945 | Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 98% | - | 7.2 | Edgar G. Ulmer |
| 45 | Hangover Square '1945 | Thriller | 7.4 | - | - | 7.0 | John Brahm |
| 46 | Brighton Rock '1948 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 95% | - | 6.8 | John Boulting |
| 47 | The Spiral Staircase '1946 | Horror / Mystery / Thriller / Drama | 7.3 | 86% | - | 7.0 | Robert Siodmak |
| 48 | Hangmen Also Die! '1943 | Drama / Thriller / War | 7.4 | 88% | - | 6.9 | Fritz Lang |
| 49 | The Murderers Are Among Us '1946 | Drama / Romance / Thriller | 7.4 | 83% | - | 6.8 | Wolfgang Staudte |
| 50 | The Body Snatcher '1945 | Horror / Thriller | 7.3 | 86% | 74 | 7.0 | Robert Wise |
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 thriller movies
All movies of the 1940s
Thriller in other decades
Thriller of the 1930s Thriller of the 1950s Thriller of the 1960s Thriller of the 1970s Thriller of the 1980s Thriller of the 1990s Thriller of the 2000s Thriller of the 2010s Thriller 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 Romance of the 1940s Sci-Fi of the 1940s War of the 1940s Western of the 1940s
Directors on this list
Billy Wilder Carol Reed Raoul Walsh Alfred Hitchcock John Huston Howard Hawks Jacques Tourneur George Cukor Akira Kurosawa Robert Siodmak Henri-Georges Clouzot Edmund Goulding
Actors on this list
Fred MacMurray Barbara Stanwyck Joseph Cotten Alida Valli James Cagney Laurence Olivier Joan Fontaine James Stewart Humphrey Bogart Mary Astor Cary Grant Ingrid Bergman