What are some good 1940 based movies?

Streetcar Named Desire, a 1940s Tennessee Williams play. I don’t know when it was made into a movie, but it was.

Just watch old movies from the 40’s.

If your tag is correct and you do mean the 1920s and 30s also, might I suggest the following:

Barton Fink
Ragtime
The Godfather Part II
There Will Be Blood
The Color Purple
The Cat’s Meow
Gosford Park
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Rabbit-Proof Fence
The Untouchables
Devil in a Blue Dress
Inglourious Basterds
The Remains of the Day
A League of Their Own
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

Some WWII based movies:
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Life is Beautiful
Jakob the Liar
Schindlers List
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
Pan’s Labyrinth
Defiance
The Others

Also The Shawshank Redemption

What about “Sophie’s choice”?

Shining Through
Swing Kids

The Piano

Well, it was certainly an extremely fertile and rich era in which to set films. The years leading up to the war, WWII on the battlefield and on the home front and the immediate post-war years. There are so many good ones. Some not already mentioned are:

Summer of ‘42
Farewell My Lovely
A League of Their Own
Shawshank Redemption
A Soldier’s Story

And one, about that period, actually made in that period, one of my very favorite films and really one of the finest films ever made about this period, in my opinion, is William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives which follows several men returning home in the aftermath of WWII and examines their struggles and adjustments in coming home after the war is over, adjusting because they are neither the men they were when they left for war, some of them drastically different, and because home is not quite the place it was when they left it. Really, a fine film and if you haven’t seen it I strongly recommend it.

First off, no romance movie is as good as The Notebook (2004) IMO. (Her giggle is the most endearing thing I have ever seen put to film – bar none.) Ingrid Bergman and Casablanca (1941) are next.

These come to mind that depict the era:

L.A. Confidential (1997)
A River Runs Through It (1992)
Bound for Glory (1976)
Chinatown (1974)
Miller’s Crossing (1990)

1941

Since you included the 30s in your tags, I’ll include a classic set in the American South of 1936.

To Kill a Mockingbird

It seems from your Q that you enjoy the atmosphere of films set in that time frame.

Another good one for that is

My Dog Skip

There’s also a little known film with a bit of a time travel twist to it as it goes back to the 40s alternating with the present is

Frequency

Summer of ‘42 is Wonderful. And a true story.

The Great Train Robbery: In Victorian England, a gentleman criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train. (1903)

Lassiter: a jewel thief is blackmailed into breaking into the German Embassy. (1930)

The Wind & the Lion: Teddy Roosevelt and the rescue of an American woman in Morocco abducted by Berbers. Sean Connery (1904)

Tucker: The Man & His Dream: Preston Tucker, maverick car designer, fights against conventional car makers in order to get his innovative vehicles into production. (1948)

Howard’s End: Study of the meeting of three social classes. Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave. (1910)

The Sting: A young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con. (1930)

Widows’ Peak: A mysterious newcomer moves into the neighborhood known as “Widows’ Peak”. Long-time resident Miss O’Hare and she have an immediate dislike for each other, with their rivalry ever escalating. (c. 1930)

His Girl Friday: A Chicago newspaper editor is about to lose his best reporter — his ex-wife — and cons her into writing one last big story. Cary Grant, Rosalind Russel (c.1940)

Bedknobs & Broomsticks: An apprentice witch, 3 kids, & a cynical conman search for the missing component to a magic spell to defend Britain against a Nazi invasion. Disney (1940)

Pollyanna: (1925)

Fallen Idol: the 8-yr-old son of the French ambassador to England tries to keep his beloved butler, Baines, from being arrested for murder. (1948)

The Public Eye: A free-lance photographer, who specializes in crime scene photos, gets mixed up with the mob. (1940)

The Englishman That Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain: A village is horrified to learn that, according to two cartographers, their mountain has shrunk to a hill. They distract the Englishmen from leaving as they attempt to make it into a mountain again. Hugh Grant (1917)

Laura: A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he’s investigating. (1944)

Shining Through: A secretary learns that her boss really works for the State Department. Eventually she volunteers to go to Germany to find out as much as she can about a high-ranking Nazi officer. Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith (1940)

The Shop Around the Corner: The manager of a gift shop falls in love with a woman he knows only through exchanging letters via a post office box. Set in Budapest. Jimmy Stewart (1940)

Bad Day at Black Rock: A man arrives in Black Rock to find a local Japanese farmer but the townsfolk block him at every turn. Spencer Tracy (post WWII)

Gone With The Wind
Grapes of Wrath
South Pacific
Aunty Mame…...didn’t you say, just set in a past time period, not necessarily the 1940’s?