My favourite movies from every year: 1940-49

1940:
Grapes of Wrath(Ford
The Letter(Wyler)
The Philadelphia Story(Cukor)
Rebecca(Hitchcock)
The Thief of Bagdad(Michael Powell,various)
Pride and Prejudice

1941:
Citizen Kane(Welles)
The Maltese Falcon(Houston)
Sullivan's Travels(Sturges)
How Green was my valley(Ford)
Meet John Doe(Capra)
Dumbo(Ben Sharpsteen)

1942:
Casablanca(Curtiz)
The Magnificent Ambersons(Welles)
Now Voyager
Bambi(David Hand)
The Cat People(Tourneur)

1943:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp(Powell,Pressburger)
Shadow of a doubt(Hitchcock)

1944:
Laura(Preminger)
Jane Eyre(Stevenson)
Meet Me in St Louis(Minnelli)
Woman in the window(Lang)
Arsenic and old lace(Capra)
Double Indemnity(Wilder)
Gaslight(George Cukor)
To have and have not(Hawks)

1945:
Brief Encounter(Lean)
Detour(Edgar G Ulmer)
National Velvet(Clarence Brown)
Mildred Pierce(Curtiz)
Scarlett Street(Lang)
I Know where I am going(Powell,Pressburger)
The Spiral Staircase(Siodmak)

1946:
It's A Wonderful Life(Capra)
La Belle et la Bete(Cocteau)
The Best Years of our lives(Wyler)
Great Expectations(Lean)
The Killers(Siodmak)
A Matter of life and death(Powell,Pressburger)
The Big Sleep(Hawks)
Notorious(Hitchcock)

1947:
Miracle on 34th Street(George Seaton)
Monsieur Verdoux(Chaplin)
Black Narcissus(Powell,Pressburger)
Odd Man Out(Reed)
Out of the past(Tourneur

1948:
Bicycle Thieves(Vittorio De Sica)
Key Largo(Houston)
Hamlet(Oliver)
The Red Shoes(Powell,Pressburger)
Rope(Hitchcock)
Lady From Shanghai(Welles)
The Treasure of Sierra Madre(Houston)
The Fallen Idol(Reed)
Portrait of Jennie(Dieterle)

1949:
The Third Man(Reed)
Adam's Rib(Cukor)
White Heat(Raoul Walsh)

2001: A Space Odyssey(AKA the movie that changed me)

I remember the day clearly. It was almost 2 years ago when I was exposed to the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey, from what I remember it was a kind of Kubrick marathon(it was followed by A Clockwork Orange). 2001 is very divisive, some hate it whilst others love it. On my first viewing I didn't think too much of the movie. A couple of months passed and then one day I was browsing through a videostore and saw 2001 on the shelf at a cheap price and thought a rewatch is in order. On my first watch I really wasn't paying that much attention and thought it is rather slow in places but on the rewatch I paid full attention and loved it completely(now my favourite movie ever). At this point I must say I am not a sci fi geek at all.
The movie really is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. In the first half hour or so not a single word is spoken, it's just classical music. Then the last half hour is a visual spectacle of the highest order. What makes it even more brilliant is the ambigious ending which is open to interpretation. 2001 for me is a perfect movie and one I can rewatch over and over again and still be in complete awe over it's brilliance.