Best Picture 1948
by logandarko | created - 20 Mar 2011 | updated - 16 Apr 2022 | PublicFilms I've seen from best to worst
- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Romance
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.
Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet
Votes: 13,640
2. The Red Shoes (1948)
Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann
Votes: 39,136 | Gross: $10.90M
3. Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Approved | 86 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
In Depression-era New York, an impoverished painter has a chance encounter with an enigmatic, old-fashioned little girl in Central Park who inspires him and changes his destiny.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish
Votes: 7,592
4. The Pirate (1948)
Approved | 102 min | Adventure, Comedy, Musical
A girl is engaged to the local rich man, but meanwhile she has dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. A traveling singer falls in love with her and to impress her he poses as the pirate.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper
Votes: 5,611 | Gross: $2.96M
5. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,385 | Gross: $5.01M
6. The Naked City (1948)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor
Votes: 15,492
7. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri
Votes: 175,085 | Gross: $0.33M
8. Rope (1948)
Approved | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Dick Hogan
Votes: 153,559
9. Drunken Angel (1948)
Not Rated | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reizaburô Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure
Votes: 13,360
10. Blanche Fury (1948)
90 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The childless widow of Allan Fury bequeaths the Fury estate to her Fuller relatives, but Allan's illegitimate son who masquerades as a servant hopes to grab the estate for himself.
Director: Marc Allégret | Stars: Stewart Granger, Valerie Hobson, Walter Fitzgerald, Michael Gough
Votes: 1,014
11. Easter Parade (1948)
G | 103 min | Musical, Romance
A nightclub performer hires a naive chorus girl to become his new dance partner to make his former partner jealous and to prove he can make any partner a star.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, Ann Miller
Votes: 11,077 | Gross: $9.03M
12. The Boy with Green Hair (1948)
Approved | 82 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
This parable looks at public reaction when the hair of an American war orphan mysteriously turns green.
Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale, Dean Stockwell
Votes: 3,257
13. Johnny Belinda (1948)
Unrated | 102 min | Drama
A kind doctor volunteers to tutor a deaf-mute woman, but scandal starts to swirl when his pupil is raped and falls pregnant.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 5,316
14. Key Largo (1948)
Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 43,960
15. I Remember Mama (1948)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Family
A young writer recalls her ups and downs of growing up as one of four children to Norwegian immigrant parents in 1910s San Francisco.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Philip Dorn
Votes: 6,001
16. The Snake Pit (1948)
Approved | 108 min | Drama, Mystery
A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm
Votes: 8,428 | Gross: $10.00M
17. Saraband (1948)
Approved | 96 min | Biography, Drama, History
Young Sophie Dorothea marries Prince George Louis but it's far from a love match. Then she falls for Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmark.
Director: Basil Dearden | Stars: Stewart Granger, Joan Greenwood, Flora Robson, Françoise Rosay
Votes: 623
18. Yellow Sky (1948)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Western
A pistol-packing tomboy and her grandfather discover a band of bank robbing bandits taking refuge in the neighboring ghost town.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur
Votes: 5,758
19. Port of Call (1948)
Not Rated | 100 min | Drama
A suicidal factory girl out of reformatory school, anxious to escape her overbearing mother, falls in love with a sailor who can't forgive her past.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Nine-Christine Jönsson, Bengt Eklund, Mimi Nelson, Berta Hall
Votes: 2,758
20. The Search (1948)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, War
In post-war Berlin, an American private helps a lost Czech boy find his mother.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon, Wendell Corey
Votes: 4,839
21. The Big Clock (1948)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A magazine tycoon commits a murder and pins it on an innocent man, who then tries to solve the murder himself.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, George Macready
Votes: 9,529
22. Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fugitive Bill Saunders and lonely nurse Jane Wharton are crossed by fate when he hides out in her apartment.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell
Votes: 2,136
23. The Street with No Name (1948)
Approved | 91 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A covert FBI agent infiltrates a ruthless gangster mob, but his life is at risk from a mysterious informant who funnels inside information to the hoodlums.
Director: William Keighley | Stars: Mark Stevens, Richard Widmark, Lloyd Nolan, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 3,339
24. The Three Musketeers (1948)
Not Rated | 125 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
D'Artagnan and his Musketeer comrades thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII's power.
Director: George Sidney | Stars: Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, June Allyson, Van Heflin
Votes: 6,931
25. Brighton Rock (1948)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
In Brighton in 1935, small-time gang leader Pinkie Brown murders a journalist and later desperately tries to cover his tracks but runs into trouble with the police, a few witnesses, and a rival gang.
Director: John Boulting | Stars: Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Harcourt Williams
Votes: 6,820 | Gross: $0.22M
26. The Fallen Idol (1948)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Bobby Henrey
Votes: 9,666 | Gross: $0.34M
27. The Luck of the Irish (1948)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Following American reporter Stephen Fitzgerald from Ireland to New York, a grateful leprechaun acts as the newsman's servant and conscience.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Cecil Kellaway, Lee J. Cobb
Votes: 1,175
28. Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Approved | 99 min | Comedy, Musical, Mystery
Romantic misunderstandings abound when spouses suspect each other of being unfaithful, and a nightclub singer takes a cruise under a false identity.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, Busby Berkeley | Stars: Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Doris Day, Don DeFore
Votes: 2,739
29. Raw Deal (1948)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has taken the rap for Rick (Raymond Burr), who double-crosses him with a flawed escape plan and other means intended to get rid of him.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, John Ireland
Votes: 5,605
30. Without Pity (1948)
Approved | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
An African-American soldier stationing in Italy refuses to make a deal with local gangsters. However, when a girl he loves turns desperately to prostitution, Jerry is forced to change his mind to save her.
Director: Alberto Lattuada | Stars: Carla Del Poggio, John Kitzmiller, Giulietta Masina, Folco Lulli
Votes: 407
31. Enchantment (1948)
Not Rated | 100 min | Drama, Romance
Uncle Rollo finally retires to the house he was brought up in. Lost in thoughts of his lost love, Lark, he does not want to be disturbed in his last days. However, the appearance of his ... See full summary »
Director: Irving Reis | Stars: David Niven, Teresa Wright, Evelyn Keyes, Farley Granger
Votes: 1,399
32. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
Approved | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
A man and his wife decide they can afford to have a house in the country built to their specifications. It's a lot more trouble than they think.
Director: H.C. Potter | Stars: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny
Votes: 12,807 | Gross: $6.00M
33. A Foreign Affair (1948)
Approved | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the U.S. congresswoman investigating her.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell
Votes: 8,554
34. Hamlet (1948)
Approved | 154 min | Drama
Prince Hamlet struggles over whether or not he should kill his uncle, whom he suspects has murdered his father, the former king.
Director: Laurence Olivier | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, John Laurie, Esmond Knight
Votes: 18,384 | Gross: $7.09M
35. La muerte camina en la lluvia (1948)
73 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A murderer terrorizes a city by attacking on the streets on rainy days and always leaving a card with the name "S. López".
Director: Carlos Hugo Christensen | Stars: Olga Zubarry, Guillermo Battaglia, Eduardo Cuitiño, Nicolás Fregues
Votes: 149
36. An Act of Murder (1948)
Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-line judge is tempted toward mercy-killing by his wife's terminal cancer.
Director: Michael Gordon | Stars: Fredric March, Edmond O'Brien, Florence Eldridge, Geraldine Brooks
Votes: 870
37. Sitting Pretty (1948)
Approved | 83 min | Comedy, Family
A family that hires a live-in babysitter is surprised when he turns out to be a man who's a quirky genius.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, Clifton Webb, Richard Haydn
Votes: 2,725
38. The Sign of the Ram (1948)
Approved | 84 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
A jealous, manipulative stepmother confined to a wheelchair interferes with her stepchildren's romances so that they will not get married and leave home.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Susan Peters, Alexander Knox, Phyllis Thaxter, Peggy Ann Garner
Votes: 836
39. The Emperor Waltz (1948)
Approved | 106 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A brash American gramophone salesman tries to get Emperor Franz Joseph's endorsement in turn-of-the-century Austria.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Bing Crosby, Joan Fontaine, Roland Culver, Lucile Watson
Votes: 1,914
40. Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Approved | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Fantasy
After phony stage mentalist Triton mysteriously acquires supernatural powers of precognition, he becomes frightened and abandons his act to live in anonymity.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce
Votes: 1,742
41. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 10,235
42. Sleep, My Love (1948)
Passed | 97 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
Chronic sleepwalker Alison Courtland thinks that a mysterious man wearing horned-rimmed eye glasses is out to kill her but her husband blames her tired imagination.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, Rita Johnson
Votes: 2,188 | Gross: $1.80M
43. Arch of Triumph (1948)
Approved | 120 min | Drama, Romance, War
Illegal refugees lead dark lives in pre-World War II Paris.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, Louis Calhern
Votes: 1,917 | Gross: $1.40M
44. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey
Votes: 12,549
45. Music in Darkness (1948)
87 min | Drama
A blind musician falls in love with a kindhearted girl.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Mai Zetterling, Birger Malmsten, Olof Winnerstrand, Naima Wifstrand
Votes: 1,511
46. The Woman in White (1948)
Approved | 109 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A ghostly woman warns a beautiful Victorian heiress about a count, and a strange spell haunts a mansion and its inhabitants in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel.
Director: Peter Godfrey | Stars: Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Gig Young
Votes: 1,765
47. Moonrise (1948)
Passed | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Danny is despised by his schoolmates because his father was accused of killing another man and sentenced to death.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Dane Clark, Gail Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Allyn Joslyn
Votes: 2,964
48. You Gotta Stay Happy (1948)
100 min | Comedy, Romance
A spoiled heiress who has jilted multiple fiancés embroils a commercial pilot in a series of wacky misadventures.
Directors: H.C. Potter, Walter Lantz | Stars: Joan Fontaine, James Stewart, Eddie Albert, Roland Young
Votes: 941
49. Julia Misbehaves (1948)
Approved | 99 min | Comedy, Romance
A London chorus girl tries to rekindle her relationships with her daughter, whom she gave up as an infant, and her estranged husband, when the former becomes engaged.
Director: Jack Conway | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor
Votes: 1,192
50. Deep Waters (1948)
Approved | 85 min | Drama
The friendship between a fisherman and an orphan boy disturbs others because of the dangers at sea.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Dana Andrews, Jean Peters, Cesar Romero, Dean Stockwell
Votes: 384
51. Louisiana Story (1948)
Approved | 78 min | Adventure, Drama
The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Joseph Boudreaux, Lionel Le Blanc, E. Bienvenu, Frank Hardy
Votes: 2,151
52. Joan of Arc (1948)
Approved | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War
The abbreviated life of the 15th-century French heroine.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Selena Royle, Robert Barrat
Votes: 3,777
53. The Loves of Carmen (1948)
Approved | 99 min | Adventure, Drama, Music
A beautiful but amoral gypsy girl entices a young dragoon to betray his honor and get cashiered from the service, and for her sake he soon turns to a life of crime.
Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Ron Randell, Victor Jory
Votes: 1,397
54. Berlin Express (1948)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A multinational group of train passengers become involved in a post-World War II Nazi assassination plot.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Merle Oberon, Robert Ryan, Charles Korvin, Paul Lukas
Votes: 3,596
55. Hollow Triumph (1948)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity, with unfortunate results.
Directors: Steve Sekely, Paul Henreid | Stars: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, Eduard Franz, Leslie Brooks
Votes: 3,186
56. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Not Rated | 83 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.
Directors: Charles Barton, Walter Lantz | Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi
Votes: 19,557 | Gross: $4.80M
57. Wet Blanket Policy (1948)
Passed | 6 min | Animation, Family, Short
Woody Woodpecker buys life insurance with the benifactor being Buzz Buzzard who wants to collect early.
Director: Dick Lundy | Stars: Mel Blanc, Ben Hardaway, Lionel Stander
Votes: 286
Tell Your Friends