Highest-Rated Movies about '1940s'

The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), Schindler's List (1993), Life Is Beautiful (1997) , Saving Private Ryan (1998), Cinema Paradiso (1988), Grave of the Fireflies (1988) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best 1940s movies.

#1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Storyline: Chronicles the experiences of a formerly successful banker as a prisoner in the gloomy jailhouse of Shawshank after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit. The film portrays the man's unique way of dealing with his new, torturous life; along the way he befriends a number of fellow prisoners, most notably a wise long-term inmate named Red.

Plot Keywords: wrongful imprisonment, prison, escape from prison, based on the works of stephen king, friendship between men, suicide by hanging, wrongful conviction ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#2. The Godfather (1972)

Storyline: The Godfather "Don" Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone mafia family in New York. He is at the event of his daughter's wedding. Michael, Vito's youngest son and a decorated WW II Marine is also present at the wedding. Michael seems to be uninterested in being a part of the family business. Vito is a powerful man, and is kind to all those who give him respect but is ruthless against those who do not. But when a powerful and treacherous rival wants to sell drugs and needs the Don's influence for the same, Vito refuses to do it. What follows is a clash between Vito's fading old values and the new ways which may cause Michael to do the thing he was most reluctant in doing and wage a mob war against all the other mafia families which could tear the Corleone family apart.

Plot Keywords: mafia, patriarch, mob boss, violence, part of trilogy, rise to power, organized crime ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Storyline: The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

Plot Keywords: revenge, bloody body of child, corrupt politician, mafia, moral corruption, brutality, dysfunctional family ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#4. Schindler's List (1993)

Storyline: Oskar Schindler is a vainglorious and greedy German businessman who becomes an unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric German Nazi reign when he feels compelled to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler who managed to save about 1100 Jews from being gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp, it is a testament to the good in all of us.

Plot Keywords: accountant, full frontal female nudity, female pubic hair, champagne, villa, womanizer, shaving ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#5. Life Is Beautiful (1997)

Storyline: In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.

Plot Keywords: jewish, schoolteacher, world war two, nazi occupation, child's point of view, family relationships, jewish family ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Storyline: Opening with the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion under Cpt. Miller fight ashore to secure a beachhead. Amidst the fighting, two brothers are killed in action. Earlier in New Guinea, a third brother is KIA. Their mother, Mrs. Ryan, is to receive all three of the grave telegrams on the same day. The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, is given an opportunity to alleviate some of her grief when he learns of a fourth brother, Private James Ryan, and decides to send out 8 men (Cpt. Miller and select members from 2nd Rangers) to find him and bring him back home to his mother...

Plot Keywords: rescue mission, world war two, normandy, 1940s, d day, year 1944, shot to death ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#7. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Storyline: A boy who grew up in a native Sicilian Village returns home as a famous director after receiving news about the death of an old friend. Told in a flashback, Salvatore reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo, a projectionist at Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence of Alfredo, Salvatore fell in love with film making, with the duo spending many hours discussing about films and Alfredo painstakingly teaching Salvatore the skills that became a stepping stone for the young boy into the world of film making. The film brings the audience through the changes in cinema and the dying trade of traditional film making, editing and screening. It also explores a young boy's dream of leaving his little town to foray into the world outside.

Plot Keywords: cinema, flashback, coming of age, movie theatre, generation gap, haunted by the past, melodrama ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#8. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Storyline: The story of Seita and Satsuko, two young Japanese siblings, living in the declining days of World War II. When an American firebombing separates the two children from their parents, the two siblings must rely completely on one another while they struggle to fight for their survival.

Plot Keywords: homelessness, orphan, girl, friendship, death of sister, crying, beach ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#9. Casablanca (1942)

Storyline: The story of Rick Blaine, a cynical world-weary ex-patriate who runs a nightclub in Casablanca, Morocco during the early stages of WWII. Despite the pressure he constantly receives from the local authorities, Rick's cafe has become a kind of haven for refugees seeking to obtain illicit letters that will help them escape to America. But when Ilsa, a former lover of Rick's, and her husband, show up to his cafe one day, Rick faces a tough challenge which will bring up unforeseen complications, heartbreak and ultimately an excruciating decision to make.

Plot Keywords: nazi, love triangle, lovers reunited, 1940s, resistance fighter, visa, morocco ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#10. The Pianist (2002)

Storyline: In this adaptation of the autobiography "The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945," Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jewish radio station pianist, sees Warsaw change gradually as World War II begins. Szpilman is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, but is later separated from his family during Operation Reinhard. From this time until the concentration camp prisoners are released, Szpilman hides in various locations among the ruins of Warsaw.

Plot Keywords: holocaust, pianist, based on true story, based on autobiography, poland, survival, jewish ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#11. Das Boot (1981)

Storyline: SmhIt is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so-called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy British shipping. With better escorts of the destroyer class, however, German U-boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of the crew wbof one such U-Boat, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers and attempted to accomplish impossible missions, all the while attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served.

Plot Keywords: anti war, germany, claustrophobia, war correspondent, world war two, submarine, u boat ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#12. To Live (1994)

Storyline: Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry. Addicted to gambling, Fugui loses everything. In the years that follow he is pressed into both the nationalist and communist armies, while Jiazhen is forced into menial work. They raise a family and survive, managing "to live" from the 40's to the 70's in this epic, but personal, story of life through an amazing period.

Plot Keywords: puppet show, mute, death in childbirth, gambling addiction, communism, accidental death, gambling ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#13. A Man Escaped (1956)

Storyline: Captured French Resistance fighter Lieutenant Fontaine awaits a certain death sentence for espionage in a stark Nazi prison in Lyon, France. Facing malnourishment and paralyzing fear, he must plot an extraordinary escape, complicated by the questions of whom to trust, and what lies beyond the small portion of the prison they are housed in.

Plot Keywords: escape from prison, based on true story, world war two, 1940s, escape plan, resistance fighter, prison cell ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#14. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Storyline: In German-occupied France, young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller takes a rapid interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theater she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl's plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history.

Plot Keywords: world war two, alternate history, nazi, movie theater, racism, scalping, reference to adolf hitler ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#15. Come and See (1985)

Storyline: The feature film directed by Elem Klimov, shot in the genre of military drama. The action takes place on the territory of Belarus in 1943. In the center of the story is a Belarusian boy, who witnesses the horrors of the Nazi punitive action, turning from a cheerful teenager into a gray-haired old man for two days.—Peter-Patrick76 (peter-patrick@mail.com)

Plot Keywords: mass murder, massacre, world war two, partisan, war crime, brutality, year 1943 ...

Movie Details Click Here!