1940 was a productive year for movies. Hollywood was operating at full confidence, international tensions were reshaping political consciousness, and cinema had not yet settled into the rigid genre expectations that would later define the studio era. The result was a year of extraordinary range.
The classics of 1940 include sweeping literary adaptations, radical political satire, romantic comedies refined to near perfection, daring experiments in animation, and thrillers that pushed psychological unease into new territory. Some were celebrated instantly, others grew in stature over time, but all have earned their reputations through durability.
10
‘The Mortal Storm’ (1940)
“There are storm clouds rising.” The Mortal Storm is a quietly devastating political drama that confronts Nazism head-on. It’s about a German family whose peaceful academic life is torn apart by the rise of the Nazi regime. The main character, a young woman named Freya (Margaret Sullavan) gradually realizes that neutrality is impossible in a society built on fear and exclusion. Ideological loyalty replaces moral decency, friendships fracture, and love itself becomes dangerous.
Director Frank Borzage frames fascism not as a distant evil, but as something that infiltrates everyday life, corrupting neighbors, institutions, and even family bonds. Violence is often implied rather than shown, which makes its consequences feel more chilling. In this, the movie was ahead of the curve. Long before the full horrors of World War II were widely acknowledged, The Mortal Storm insisted that complicity was itself a form of violence, a message that remains painfully relevant.
9
‘Foreign Correspondent’ (1940)
“War didn’t begin in the field. It began in the minds of men.” Foreign Correspondent is a fast-moving banger from Alfred Hitchcock, a political thriller about a world on the brink of war. In it, an American reporter (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe to cover rising international tensions, only to become entangled in espionage, assassination plots, and misinformation campaigns. From here, the expands across multiple countries, blending romance, suspense, and political intrigue the whole way through.
While not as ambitious as the masterpieces that would follow, Foreign Correspondent still showcases Hitchcock’s growing mastery of scale and momentum, using set pieces that escalate both danger and moral urgency. Here, the director balances entertainment with warning, never losing sight of the stakes beneath the spectacle. A clear sign that the movie was effective lies in the fact that Joseph Goebbels himself commented on it, calling Foreign Correspondent a “masterpiece of propaganda”.
8
‘Pinocchio’ (1940)
“A lie keeps growing and growing until it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Pinocchio may be children’s entertainment, but it’s also frightening and morally demanding it is, an archetypal tale of growing up and taking responsibility. Dickie Jones voices the iconic wooden puppet brought to life, forced on a journey to learn honesty and compassion to become a real boy. The plot is episodic, taking Pinocchio through temptations that grow increasingly dangerous, from exploitative authority figures to outright predatory environments.
Director Ben Sharpsteen and the Disney team present the world as full of wonder, but also full of consequence. Bad choices don’t result in gentle lessons but in transformation, loss, and terror. Pleasure Island, in particular, remains one of the most disturbing sequences in family cinema, precisely because it treats indulgence as a trap rather than a joke. In other words, this movie is deceptively deep, ranking among Disney’s greatest achievements.
7
‘Fantasia’ (1940)
“Music is an art which is realized through sound.” Disney put out not one but two classics that year. Where Pinocchio draws on traditional storytelling, Fantasia is bold and experimental, presenting a series of animated sequences set to classical music. Rather than telling a single story, the film, each episode explores mood, movement, and abstraction in radically different ways. The plot, such as it exists, is purely musical.
Some segments are playful, others scary (the demon atop the mountain!), a few spiritually grand. Through all this, the movie invites viewers to feel rather than follow. Initially divisive and commercially risky, Fantasia has grown in stature as audiences recognized how far ahead of its time it was. It expanded the language of animation, its sheer ambition paving the way for so many masterworks to follow. Not for nothing, Fantasia is now frequently ranked among the greatest animated films ever made.
6
‘The Shop Around the Corner’ (1940)
“I can’t help it if I don’t like people.” This gentle romantic comedy follows two employees (played by Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart) at a small Budapest shop who constantly clash at work, unaware that they are secretly falling in love through anonymous letters. The drama unfolds through misunderstandings and quiet revelations rather than grand gestures. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch (Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be), The Shop Around the Corner exemplifies his signature touch: elegant, restrained, and deeply humane.
Characters are flawed but never mocked, vulnerable without being sentimentalized. As a result, its emotional climax is modest yet deeply satisfying. This recipe went down well with audiences in 1940, and, if anything, the movie is viewed even more favorably now. The movie has been praised for its warm themes, likable protagonists, hilarious dialogue, and skillful use of point of view. It currently holds a 99% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
5
‘The Philadelphia Story’ (1940)
“You’ll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman until you learn to have some regard for human frailty.” That year, James Stewart also appeared in The Philadelphia Story, another sparkling romantic comedy with real emotional heft. Katherine Hepburn leads the cast as Tracy Lord, a wealthy socialite preparing to remarry while navigating unresolved feelings for her ex-husband (Cary Grant) and an unexpected connection with a reporter (Stewart, in a performance that won him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar).
The movie was directed by George Cukor, whose storytelling is typically light-touch and sensitive here. He turns what could have been a conventional love triangle into a study of vulnerability and self-acceptance. One of the main strengths of the movie is the way the characters develop over the course of it. Tracy, for instance, begins icy and superior, but the film gently peels away that armor, revealing her insecurities and fear of intimacy.
4
‘His Girl Friday’ (1940)
“What does it matter what I think?” One of the defining screwball comedies, His Girl Friday is a masterclass in velocity and verbal combat. It centers on a newspaper editor (Cary Grant) trying to lure his star reporter (and ex-wife) back into journalism just as she (Rosalind Russell) plans to remarry. The plot unfolds at breakneck speed, driven by overlapping dialogue, ethical compromises, and romantic rivalry.
Here, director Howard Hawks treats language as action, turning conversation into a competitive sport. This approach was hugely influential, inspiring countless screenwriters in the decades since (not least Quentin Tarantino). The movie is also surprisingly modern in the way it treats gender dynamics. Gender roles are inverted, professional ambition is celebrated, and romance is framed as a partnership rather than a rescue. The film’s cynicism about media ethics feels remarkably current, too, as does its portrayal of work as identity.
3
‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1940)
“Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.” Adapted from John Steinbeck’s classic novel, John Ford‘s version of The Grapes of Wrath is a profound portrait of economic displacement and human resilience. It focuses on an Oklahoma family forced off their land during the Great Depression, now journeying west in search of work and dignity. Their odyssey involves hardship after hardship, but the movie never reduces the characters’ suffering to spectacle.
Crucially, Ford strikes a balance between individual focus and social critique. Poverty is presented not as failure, but as injustice. The family’s endurance is not romanticized; it is necessary, exhausting, and fragile. Attempting to translate such acclaimed source material to the screen is always a daunting task, but Ford and his cast (including Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell) rise to the occasion. The result is a well-crafted and perceptive drama.
2
‘The Great Dictator’ (1940)
“We don’t want to hate and despise one another.” The Great Dictator is one of the boldest political comedies ever made. Charlie Chaplin is in top form in it, playing two characters brilliantly: a Jewish barber and a fascist dictator, whose physical resemblance allows for biting satire. The madcap antics build toward a final act where comedy gives way to direct moral address. The climactic monologue is one of the most famous in cinema, containing a moving plea for brotherhood and goodwill.
What makes The Great Dictator endure is its courage. Released before the United States entered World War II, the movie openly mocked Hitler and condemned fascism at a time when such clarity was rare. Chaplin uses humor to disarm, but never trivializes the danger. Ultimately, while some comedic elements are rooted in their era, the film’s moral urgency has not faded. It’s one of Chaplin’s finest achievements.
1
‘Rebecca’ (1940)
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Hitchcock strikes again. The best movie of 1940 is Rebecca, his masterful psychological thriller about absence and obsession. The story follows a young woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries a wealthy widower (Laurence Olivier), only to find herself haunted by the memory of his first wife, whose presence dominates the household despite her death. Hitch’s suspense skills are very much on display here: he gradually transforms romance into pure menace, using atmosphere rather than violence to generate dread.
Hitchcock’s restraint allows tension to simmer rather than explode, making the final revelations all the more unsettling. Intriguingly, the antagonist is not a ghost, but memory itself, curated, enforced, and weaponized. The heroine’s loss of identity feels eerily modern, reflecting anxieties about comparison and erasure. All in all, Rebecca is a gothic romance at its most effective, fantastically acted and shot in striking black and white.
Rebecca
- Release Date
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March 23, 1940
- Runtime
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121 minutes
- Writers
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Daphne Du Maurier, Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison, Philip MacDonald, Michael Hogan
