Best Drama Movies of 1944

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.

A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

In the year before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

A brother and sister move into an old seaside house that has been abandoned for many years on the Cornwellian coast only to soon discover that it is haunted by the ghost of the mother of their neighbor's granddaughter, with whom the brother has fallen in love.

Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley led a colorful life of sports, song, and romance before joining the Roman Catholic clergy. After being appointed to a run-down New York parish, O'Malley's worldly knowledge helps him connect with a gang of boys looking for direction, eventually winning over the aging, conventional Parish priest.

Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.

Amy, the young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed, befriends her father's late first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

In Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up seven crosses and, as the Gestapo returns each escapee he is put to death on a cross. The seventh cross is still empty as George Heisler seeks freedom in Holland.

In 1919, Frank Gibbons returns home from army duty and moves into a middle-class row house, bringing with him wife Ethel, carping mother-in-law Mrs. Flint, sister-in-law Sylvia and three children. Years pass, with the daily routine of family infighting and reconciliation occasionally broken by a strike or a festival.

A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.

Three modern day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town on the way to Canterbury.

A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.

A mystery woman is a murder suspect's only alibi for the night of his wife's death.

The famous Borgia Pearl, a valuable gem with a history of bringing murder and misfortune to its owner since the days of the Borgias, is brought to London, thanks in part to Sherlock Holmes. But before long the jewel is stolen, due to an error on Holmes' part, and shortly thereafter, a series of horrible murders begin, the murderer leaving his victims with their spines snapped and surrounded by a mass of smashed china.

A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.

While husband Tim is away during World War II, Anne Hilton copes with problems on the homefront. Taking in a lodger, Colonel Smollett, to help make ends meet and dealing with shortages and rationing are minor inconveniences compared to the love affair daughter Jane and the Colonel's grandson conduct.

A dramatised life of Samuel Langhorn Clemens, or Mark Twain.

Passengers on an ocean liner can't recall how they got onboard or where they are going. Soon it becomes apparent that they all have something in common.

Mary Marshall, serving a six year term for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough from prison to visit her closest relatives, her uncle and his family in a small Midwestern town. On the train she meets Zach Morgan, a troubled army sergeant on leave for the holidays from a military hospital. Although his physical wounds have healed, he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and is subject to panic attacks. The pair are attracted to one another and in the warm atmosphere of the Christmas season friendship blossoms into romance, but Mary is reluctant to tell him of her past and that she must shortly return to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence.

The lives of a close-knit group of brothers growing up in Iowa during the days of the Great Depression and of World War II and their eventual deaths in action in the Pacific theater are chronicled in this film based on a true story.

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

Susan travels with her father to England for a vacation. Invited to a society ball, Susan meets Sir John Ashwood and marries him after a whirlwind romance. However, American Susan never quite adjusts to life as a new member of the British gentry. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Ashwood is sent to the trenches and never returns. When her son goes off to fight in World War II, Susan fears the same tragic fate may befall him too.

A French playboy gets serious when his country is threatened during World War II.

In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

In this family saga, Mrs. Parkington recounts the story of her life, beginning as a hotel maid in frontier Nevada where she is swept off her feet by mine owner and financier Augustus Parkington. He moves them to New York, tries to remake her into a society woman, and establishes their home among the wealthiest of New York's high society. Family and social life is not always peaceful, however, and she guides us, in flashbacks, through the rises and falls of the Parkington family fortunes.

In Victorian era London, the inhabitants of a family home with rented rooms upstairs fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.

The descendent of a ghost imprisoned for cowardice hopes to free the spirit by displaying courage when under duress.

When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.

An aircraft carrier is sent on a decoy mission around the Pacific, with orders to avoid combat, thus lulling Japanese alertness before the battle of Midway.

A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.

A freedom-loving French journalist sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny.

Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted and accidentally smuggles his girlfriend aboard his Pacific-bound troopship.

The political career of Woodrow Wilson is chronicled, beginning with his decision to leave his post at Princeton to run for Governor of New Jersey, and his subsequent ascent to the Presidency of the United States. During his terms in office, Wilson must deal with the death of his first wife, the onslaught of German hostilities leading to American involvement in the Great War, and his own country's reticence to join the League of Nations.

As the Japanese sweep through the East Indies during World War II, Dr. Wassell is determined to escape from Java with some crewmen of the cruiser Marblehead. Based on a true story of how Dr. Wassell saved a dozen or so wounded sailors who were left behind when able bodied men were evacuated to Australia.

Chinese detective Charlie Chan solves a murder linked to the occult. This movie had an alternative title: Meeting at Midnight.

Don't be fooled by the title. Christmas Holiday is a far, far cry from It's a Wonderful Life. Told in flashback, the story begins as Abigail Martin marries Southern aristocrat Robert Monette. Unfortunately, Robert has inherited his family's streak of violence and instability, and soon drags Abigail into a life of misery.

The lives of a small Chinese village are turned Upside down when the Japanese invade it. An heroic young Chinese woman leads her fellow villagers in an uprising against Japanese Invaders.

Construction workers in World War II in the Pacific are needed to build military sites, but the work is dangerous and they doubt the ability of the Navy to protect them. After a series of attacks by the Japanese, something new is tried, Construction Battalions (CBs=Seabees). The new CBs have to both build and be ready to fight.

A guerilla leader falls in love with a mysterious woman in World War II Lisbon.

When an itinerant reluctantly returns home to help his sickly mother run her shop, they're both tempted to turn to crime to help make ends meet.

A naive small-town girl comes to New York City to meet her husband, and discovers that he may be a murderer.

A poor family in Florida saves all the money they can in order to plan something special for the soldier they've invited to Sunday dinner. They don't realize that their request to invite the soldier never got mailed. On the day of the scheduled dinner, another soldier is brought to their home and love soon blossoms between him and Tessa, the young woman who runs the home.

In 1903, Doctor Huntington Bailey meets a friendly older lady during a train trip. She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died. Shortly afterward, he meets the strange couple and gets suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife.

Scout William F. Cody (Joel McCrea) marries a U.S. senator's daughter (Maureen O'Hara), fights the Cheyenne and leads a Wild West show.

The Merry Monahans is one of the higher-budgeted Universal musicals of the 1940s, even though the storyline is strictly grade-B material. During the first two decades of the 20th century the film concerns a family vaudeville troupe headed by patriarch Pete Monahan (Jack Oakie). Because of his love affair with the bottle, Pete manages to get himself and his family blacklisted from every major vaude house in the country. Though Pete's kids Jimmy (Donald O'Connor) and Patsy (Peggy Ryan) love their dad, they're forced to break away from the act and go off on their own to survive. Eventually, the whole gang is reunited in a shamelessly lachrymose musical finale. Producer-scripters Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano, whose other works include such offbeat comedies as San Diego I Love You, Frontier Gal and That's the Spirit, manage to keep the proceedings relatively cliché-free, though it's an uphill climb.

A man (Jon Hall) tracks his kidnapped bride (Maria Montez) to a jungle island, where her twin is the high priestess.