Topic: 1940s

Direction John Sturges

Cast Spencer Tracy · Robert Ryan · Lee Marvin · Anne Francis

Plot One of the first Hollywood films to deal openly with white racism toward Japanese Americans during World War II, this drama directed by 1950s action maestro John Sturges (The Great...

Direction Grigori Chukhrai

Cast Vladimir Ivashov · Zhanna Prokhorenko · Antonina Maksimova · Nikolay Kryuchkov

Plot During World War II, 19 year old soldier Alyosha gets a medal as a reward for a heroic act at the front. Instead of this medal he asks for a...

Direction Christophe Barratier

Cast Gérard Jugnot · François Berléand · Jean-Baptiste Maunier · Jacques Perrin

Plot Set in 1948, a professor of music, Clement Mathieu, becomes the supervisor at a boarding school for the rehabilitation for minors. What he discovers disconcerts him--the current situation is repressive....

Direction José Antonio Nieves Conde

Cast Luis Peña · María Asquerino · Francisco Arenzana · Marisa de Leza

Plot At the end of the Spanish Civil War, a working-class family that migrates from rural Spain to Madrid in the hopes of finding a better life, and their hopes are...

Direction Paola Cortellesi

Cast Paola Cortellesi · Valerio Mastandrea · Vinicio Marchioni · Romana Maggiora Vergano

Plot It is springtime and the whole family is in an uproar over the impending engagement of the beloved eldest daughter, Marcella, who, for her part, only hopes to quickly marry...

Direction Vittorio De Sica

Cast Sophia Loren · Jean-Paul Belmondo · Raf Vallone · Eleonora Brown

Plot Cesira is a beautiful widow and a successful grocery store owner in Rome. WWII is raging, and she fears for her beloved daughter, 13-year-old Rosetta, amid the daily bombings. They...

Direction Vitali Kanevsky

Cast Pavel Nazarov · Dinara Drukarova · Yelena Popova · Valeri Ivchenko

Plot Two children living in a remote mining town in the distant wastes of Siberia in 1947, survive poverty and hardship through the warmth of their friendship and a shared sense...

Direction Dino Risi

Cast Alberto Sordi · Lea Massari · Franco Fabrizi · Lina Volonghi

Plot The existence of a minority of Italians unable to adapt to "bourgeois" civilian life after spending too many years soldiering during the 2nd world war.

Direction Alejandro Amenábar

Cast Nicole Kidman · Fionnula Flanagan · Christopher Eccleston · Alakina Mann

Plot Towards the end of World War II, Grace (Kidman) retires to a remote island mansion on the English coast to await her husband's return from battle, and to nurse her...

Direction Ron Howard

Cast Russell Crowe · Jennifer Connelly · Ed Harris · Paul Bettany

Plot Obsessed with finding a truly original mathematical idea, the brilliant student John Forbes Nash (Russell Crowe) arrives at Princeton in 1947 for graduate study – as an outsider, a loner,...

Direction Alberto Marquardt

Direction Jack Clayton

Cast Simone Signoret · Laurence Harvey · Heather Sears · Hermione Baddeley

Plot The English factory town is dreary but Joe Lampton has landed a job with a future. To have something to do at night he joins a theatrical group. His boss's...

Direction John Kahrs

Plot An animated short that follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful...

Direction Clint Eastwood

Cast Forest Whitaker · Diane Venora · Michael Zelniker · Samuel E. Wright

Plot This film is a tribute to the life and genius of saxophonist great Charlie Parker. Bird is a collage of passages from Parker's remarkable life, from his childhood in Kansas...

Direction Christopher Morahan · Jim O'Brien

Cast Peggy Ashcroft · Tim Pigott-Smith · Art Malik · Charles Dance

Plot A fifteen-hour adaptation of four novels by Paul Scott, collectively known as the "Raj Quartet," which describe the final years of Great Britain's colonial rule in India. The action begins...

Direction Woody Allen

Cast Mia Farrow · Dianne Wiest · Seth Green · Julie Kavner

Plot These are the 40s, the golden age of radio, when the peculiar members of a working-class New York family live with the set on all day long. The music, tear-jerking...

Direction Vincente Minnelli

Cast Frank Sinatra · Dean Martin · Shirley MacLaine · Martha Hyer

Plot Dave Hirsch, a writer and army veteran, returns to 1948 Parkman, Indiana, his hometown. His prosperous brother introduces him to Gwen French, a local teacher. But the more flamboyant Ginny...

Direction Joel Coen

Cast John Turturro · John Goodman · Judy Davis · Michael Lerner

Plot In 1941, New York intellectual playwright Barton Fink comes to Hollywood to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Staying in the eerie Hotel Earle, Barton develops severe writer's block. His...

Direction Bernardo Bertolucci

Cast Jean-Louis Trintignant · Stefania Sandrelli · Dominique Sanda · Gastone Moschin

Plot This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more...

Direction Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Cast Hanna Schygulla · Klaus Löwitsch · Ivan Desny · Gisela Uhlen

Plot While bombs are fall ing all over the place during World War II , Hermann Braun and Maria get married. One night is all they have before Herrmann has to...