Best Drama Movies of 1949

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

In the early days of daylight bombing raids over Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a 'hard luck' bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets.

When a woman attempts to kill her uncaring husband, prosecutor Adam Bonner gets the case. Unfortunately for him his wife Amanda (who happens to be a lawyer too) decides to defend the woman in court. Amanda uses everything she can to win the case and Adam gets mad about it. As a result, their perfect marriage is disturbed by everyday quarrels.

All The King's Men is the story of the rise of politician Willie Stark from a rural county seat to the governor's mansion.

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

Lora May Hollingsway, who grew up next to the wrong side of the tracks, married her boss who thinks she is just a gold digger. Rita Phipps makes as much money writing radio scripts at night as her school teacher husband does. Deborah Bishop looked great in a Navy uniform in WWII but fears she'll never be dressed just right for the Country Club set. These three wives are boarding a boat filled with children going on a picnic when a messenger on a bicycle hands them a letter addressed to all three from Addie who has just left town with one of their husbands. They won't know which one until that night.

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.

Louisa May Alcott's autobiographical account of her life with her three sisters in Concord Mass in the 1860s. With their father fighting in the civil war, the sisters: Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at home with their mother - a very outspoken women for her time. The story is of how the sisters grow up, find love and find their place in the world.

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret. The classic story of Samson and Delilah as told by Cecil B. DeMille.

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.

In 1831, Irishman Charles Adare travels to Australia to start a new life with the help of his cousin who has just been appointed governor. When he arrives he meets powerful landowner and ex-convict, Sam Flusky, who wants to do a business deal with him. Whilst attending a dinner party at Flusky's house, Charles meets Flusky's wife Henrietta who he had known as a child back in Ireland. Henrietta is an alcoholic and seems to be on the verge of madness.

Nick Garcos comes back from his tour of duty in World War II planning to settle down with his girlfriend, Polly Faber. He learns, however, that his father was recently beaten and burglarized by mob-connected trucker Mike Figlia, and Nick resolves to get even. He partners with prostitute Rica, and together they go after Mike, all the while getting pulled further into the local crime underworld.

A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.

When Cholera takes the parents of Mary Lennox, she is shipped from India to England to live with her Uncle Craven. Mary changes the lives of those she encounters at her Uncle's remote estate.

An unscrupulous boxer fights his way to the top, but eventually alienates all of the people who helped him on the way up.

Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, Pinky has fallen in love with a young white doctor, Dr. Thomas Adams, who knows nothing about her black heritage.

Rosa, the self-serving wife of a small-town doctor, gets a better offer when a wealthy big-city man insists she get a divorce and marry him instead. Soon she demonstrates she is capable of rather deplorable acts -- including murder.

A woman is torn between the love of her life, who is married to someone else, and her older husband.

An imaginative boy who frequently makes things up witnesses a murder, but can't get his parents or the police to believe him. The only people taking him seriously are the killers - who live upstairs, know that he saw what they did, and are out to permanently silence him.

Gino Monetti is a ruthless Italian-American banker who is engaged in a number of criminal activities. Three of his four grown sons refuse to help their father stay out of prison after he's arrested for his questionable business practices. Three of the sons take over the business but kick their father out. Max, a lawyer, is the only son that stays loyal to his father.

In Colorado territory, outlaw Wes McQueen escapes jail to pull a railroad robbery but, upon meeting pretty settler Julie Ann, he wonders about going straight. Western remake of High Sierra with Joel McCrea taking over the Humphrey Bogart role.

Based on the French literary classic, this drama presents author Gustave Flaubert narrating his tale of infidelity and narcissism. After marrying small-town doctor Charles Bovary, Emma becomes tired of her limited social status and begins to have affairs, first with the young Leon Dupuis and later with the wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger. Eventually, however, her self-involved behavior catches up with her.

The film concentrates on the camaraderie and the divisions between the troops as they ready for the big offensive. Told in a taut narrative, the men of the 101st, led by Van Johnson, wait out the winter in the Ardennes forest to confront the German army in what would be the last major offensive of World War II. The men are demoralized and trapped, with no hope of support from the Allies.

A young woman, Jill Young, grew up on her father's ranch in Africa, raising a large gorilla named Joe from an infant. Years later, she brings him to Hollywood to become a star.

Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, Warren can no longer bear it. He decides to assume a new identity in order to murder his wife's lover without leaving a trace. Along the way, his plans are complicated by an attractive neighbor, as well as a shocking discovery that opens up a new world of doubts and accusations.

Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.

Two nuns arrive unannounced in the small New England town of Bethlehem, where they recruit various townspeople to help them build a children's hospital.

In the final days of World War II, in a MASH unit in Burma, a severely wounded corporal watches in dismay as fellow soldiers pack-up to return home but a caring nurse and five remaining soldiers bring him solace.

Agatha Christie tale of a man on trial for murder: a trial featuring surprise after surprise. Not to be confused with the later Hollywood adaptation.

Star major league pitcher Monty Stratton loses a leg in a hunting accident, but becomes determined to leave the game on his own terms.

At the height of World War II, the Germans begin dropping a new type of booby-trapped bomb on England. Sammy Rice, a highly-skilled but haunted bomb-disposal officer, must overcome his personal demons to defeat this new threat.

The story concerns two agents, one Mexican (PJF) and one American, who are tasked to stop the smuggling of Mexican migrant workers across the border to California. The two agents go undercover, one as a poor migrant.

An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards. An army officer, who is also a fanatic about cards, murders her for the secret, then finds himself haunted by the woman's spirit.

A vain businessman puts strains on his happy marriage to a rich, beautiful socialite by allowing himself to be seduced by a former girlfriend.

This film-noir piece, told in semi-documentary style, follows police on the hunt for a resourceful criminal who shoots and kills a cop.

After straight-arrow district attorney Joseph Foster says in frustration that he would sell his soul to bring down a local mob boss, a smooth-talking stranger named Nick Beal shows up with enough evidence to seal a conviction. When that success leads Foster to run for governor, Beal's unearthly hold on him turns the previously honest man corrupt, much to the displeasure of his wife and his steadfast minister.

It was Leonora Eames' childhood dream come true. She had married Smith Ohlrig, a man worth millions. But her innocent dream became a nightmare once she realizes the truth about her husband - he is power mad and insane! Since he will not grant her a divorce, she leaves her life of luxury on Long Island and goes to work as a receptionist in an impoverished doctor's office in NYC's lower east side. After Smith deceives her into a temporary reconciliation, Leonora becomes pregnant. By the time she realizes she is expecting, she and one of the doctors, Larry Quinada (James Mason), have fallen in love. But she is again lured backed to her wealthy husband to give her child financial security. Her sadistic husband is hell-bent on keeping her and her child prisoner. What will happen to Leonora?

The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who, after gaining supreme power and establishing a reign of terror ruled by death, now intends to become the dictator of France.

After learning the finer points of carrier aviation in the 1920s, career officer Jonathan Scott and his pals spend the next two decades promoting the superiority of naval air power. But military and political "red tape" continually frustrate their efforts, prompting Scott to even consider leaving the Navy for a more lucrative civilian job. Then the world enters a second World War and Scott finally gets the opportunity to prove to Washington the valuable role aircraft carriers could play in winning the conflict. But what will it cost him and his comrades personally?

Army Lieutenant Halliday, accused of stealing the Army payroll, pursues the real thief on a frantic chase through Mexico aided by the thief's ex-girlfriend and is in turn being chased by his accuser, Capt. Blake.

Cleve Marshall is an assistant district attorney who falls for the shadowy Thelma Jordon. With her sordid past -- and her relationship with thief Tony Laredo kept secret from the married attorney, Jordon seduces the easily swayed Marshall, and uses him to cover up her misdeeds. When Jordon becomes the prime suspect for the murder of her wealthy aunt, she turns to Marshall, who goes to great lengths to clear her name.

A strange and ultimately tragic tale of a young boy who learns how to pick winners at the racetrack by riding his rocking horse to aid his parents out of their endless round of debts.

A young man succumbs to gambling fever.

After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.

After living abroad for several years, journalist John Royer returns to the United States just after the U.S. enters World War II. His boast that he could easily smuggle rubber, a key wartime natural resource, out of Malaya has him tasked with doing just that. He manages to get someone from his past, Carnaghan, sprung from Alactraz and together they head off to South East Asia posing as Irishmen. Once there, Carnaghan lines up some of his old cronies and with Royer and a few plantation owners plans to smuggle the rubber out from under the Japanese army's watchful eye.

United States Federal agent Rigby travels to the Central American island Carlotta to investigate a stolen aircraft engines smuggling racket.

Following the death of his only son, a ruthless businessman reflects on his life, his unhappy marriage and his questionable parenting skills.