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Best War Movies of the 1940s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
71 war films from the 1940s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is The Great Dictator (1940), at 8.4 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.4.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Great Dictator '1940 | Comedy / War | 8.4 | 92% | - | 8.3 | Charlie Chaplin |
| 2 | The Best Years of Our Lives '1946 | Drama / Romance / War | 8.1 | 97% | 93 | 7.7 | William Wyler |
| 3 | To Be or Not to Be '1942 | Comedy / War / Romance | 8.1 | 96% | 86 | 7.8 | Ernst Lubitsch |
| 4 | Rome, Open City '1945 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Roberto Rossellini |
| 5 | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp '1943 | War / Drama / Romance | 8.0 | 97% | - | 7.5 | Emeric Pressburger |
| 6 | To Have and Have Not '1945 | Romance / War | 7.8 | 97% | 90 | 7.4 | Howard Hawks |
| 7 | Sergeant York '1941 | War / Drama | 7.7 | 81% | - | 7.2 | Howard Hawks |
| 8 | Twelve O'Clock High '1949 | War / Action / Drama | 7.7 | 96% | - | 7.2 | Henry King |
| 9 | Lifeboat '1944 | War / Drama | 7.6 | 90% | 78 | 7.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 10 | Mrs. Miniver '1942 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.6 | 93% | 77 | 7.1 | William Wyler |
| 11 | Paisan '1946 | Drama / War | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Roberto Rossellini |
| 12 | Nazi Concentration Camps '1945 | Documentary / War | 8.3 | - | - | 7.7 | George Stevens |
| 13 | The Silence of the Sea '1949 | Drama / War | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.5 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 14 | Sahara '1943 | War | 7.5 | 92% | - | 7.2 | Zoltan Korda |
| 15 | Hail the Conquering Hero '1944 | Comedy / War | 7.6 | 95% | - | 7.2 | Preston Sturges |
| 16 | The Miracle of Morgan's Creek '1944 | Comedy / Romance / War | 7.5 | 87% | 86 | 6.9 | Preston Sturges |
| 17 | Battleground '1949 | Action / Drama / War | 7.4 | 78% | - | 6.7 | William A. Wellman |
| 18 | Went the Day Well? '1942 | War / Thriller | 7.5 | 93% | - | 7.1 | Alberto Cavalcanti |
| 19 | Enamorada '1946 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.7 | - | - | 7.8 | Emilio Fernández |
| 20 | Hangmen Also Die! '1943 | Drama / Thriller / War | 7.4 | 88% | - | 6.9 | Fritz Lang |
| 21 | Let There Be Light '1946 | Documentary / War | 7.4 | 86% | - | 7.3 | John Huston |
| 22 | This Land Is Mine '1943 | Drama / War | 7.5 | 86% | - | 7.1 | Jean Renoir |
| 23 | Objective, Burma! '1945 | War / Drama / Action | 7.3 | 86% | 79 | 6.9 | Raoul Walsh |
| 24 | 49th Parallel '1941 | War / Thriller | 7.3 | 88% | - | 7.0 | Michael Powell |
| 25 | A Canterbury Tale '1944 | Mystery / War / Drama | 7.3 | 94% | 85 | 6.9 | Michael Powell |
| 26 | Five Graves to Cairo '1943 | War / Thriller / Drama | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Billy Wilder |
| 27 | They Were Expendable '1945 | Drama / War | 7.2 | 91% | 86 | 6.5 | John Ford |
| 28 | The Seventh Cross '1944 | Drama / War | 7.4 | 100% | - | 6.8 | Fred Zinnemann |
| 29 | They Died with Their Boots On '1941 | Western / War / Drama / Romance | 7.2 | 71% | 75 | 6.7 | Raoul Walsh |
| 30 | Man Hunt '1941 | Thriller / War | 7.2 | 87% | - | 6.9 | Fritz Lang |
| 31 | The Damned '1947 | Drama / War / Thriller | 7.1 | 100% | - | 6.0 | René Clément |
| 32 | The Memphis Belle '1944 | Documentary / War | 7.4 | - | - | 6.7 | William Wyler |
| 33 | Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo '1944 | War / Drama | 7.2 | 100% | 77 | 6.7 | Mervyn LeRoy |
| 34 | In Which We Serve '1942 | Drama / War | 7.2 | 90% | - | 6.7 | Noël Coward |
| 35 | Story of G.I. Joe '1945 | Drama / War | 7.1 | 81% | - | 6.5 | William A. Wellman |
| 36 | The Battle of the Rails '1946 | Drama / War | 7.0 | - | - | 6.9 | René Clément |
| 37 | Night Train to Munich '1940 | Drama / Thriller / War | 7.2 | 89% | - | 7.2 | Carol Reed |
| 38 | The Small Back Room '1949 | Drama / War / Romance | 7.1 | 92% | - | 6.8 | Michael Powell |
| 39 | Destination Tokyo '1943 | War / Drama | 7.1 | 67% | - | 6.9 | Delmer Daves |
| 40 | I Was a Male War Bride '1949 | Comedy / Romance / War | 7.0 | 76% | - | 6.9 | Howard Hawks |
| 41 | A Walk in the Sun '1945 | War | 6.9 | - | - | 5.9 | Lewis Milestone |
| 42 | Buck Privates '1941 | Comedy / Musical / War | 7.0 | - | - | 6.8 | Arthur Lubin |
| 43 | Henry V '1944 | Drama / War | 7.0 | 100% | - | 6.7 | Laurence Olivier |
| 44 | Northwest Passage '1940 | War / Drama | 7.0 | 78% | - | 6.6 | King Vidor |
| 45 | Action in the North Atlantic '1943 | War | 7.0 | - | - | 7.1 | Lloyd Bacon |
| 46 | Air Force '1943 | Action / Drama / War | 7.0 | 82% | - | 6.5 | Howard Hawks |
| 47 | For Me and My Gal '1942 | Romance / War | 7.0 | 100% | - | 6.5 | Busby Berkeley |
| 48 | One of Our Aircraft Is Missing '1942 | War / Drama | 7.0 | 100% | 74 | 6.6 | Michael Powell |
| 49 | Why We Fight: Prelude to War '1942 | Documentary / War | 7.0 | - | - | 6.4 | Frank Capra |
| 50 | Blitz Wolf '1942 | Animation / Comedy / War | 7.0 | - | - | 6.8 | Tex Avery |
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
Charlie Chaplin William Wyler Ernst Lubitsch Roberto Rossellini Howard Hawks Henry King Alfred Hitchcock George Stevens Jean-Pierre Melville Preston Sturges William A. Wellman Fritz Lang
Actors on this list
Charlie Chaplin Paulette Goddard Dana Andrews Fredric March Carole Lombard Deborah Kerr Humphrey Bogart Lauren Bacall Gary Cooper Walter Brennan Gregory Peck Hugh Marlowe