My Top Ten Films of 1946

This post is part of my ongoing project to create Top Ten movie lists for the years before I began this blog, working my way as far back as I can.  Below, find my Top Ten films for 1946, unranked.

Notorious - The suspense sequences in this film still work for me, even though I've seen them multiple times and I know how it will all turn out.  In the moment, Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic magic still works as well as it ever did.  And Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, at the height of their charismatic powers, playing high stakes spy games with Claude Rains and the Nazis, is still absolutely irresistible.  

It's a Wonderful Life - It's not Christmas if somewhere, Jimmy Stewart isn't learning that one man can make a difference, and isn't on the receiving end of the generosity and heart of the little town of Bedford Falls.  Skip the first, plodding hour if you must, but "It's a Wonderful Life" is one of cinema's most enduring classics, with the happiest of happy endings I will never get tired of watching every year.   

Beauty and the Beast - Easily the most popular film that Jean Cocteau ever made, full of arresting poetic images and little moments of film magic.  Jean Marais' Beast remains the best live action Beast, a masterpiece of animal magnetism and Gallic charm.  The well intentioned remake from a few years ago, despite borrowing heavily from the original's imagery, never comes close to achieving the same wonder. 

A Matter of Life and Death - A lovely fantasy romance from Powell and Pressburger, which has one of the best examples of a film using both black-and-white and Technicolor photography in the same production.  The love story between David Niven and Kim Hunters' characters is sublime, and the opening sequence of the doomed mission remains one of the most touching things I've seen in all of cinema.

Shoeshine - Vittorio de Sica's neorealist classic is full of childish joy and crushing heartache, following the brief criminal careers of a pair of shoeshine boys.  The rawness and the purity of the characters' emotions is still instantly engaging, and difficult to forget.  The film had such an impact at the time of release, it kicked off what would become the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars.  

Panic - A French crime film that deals with the subject of mob revenge and post-war tensions.  It's very insightful about the social realities of France in this era, and perhaps this is why it was also a total failure at the box office.  Michael Simon cuts an especially tragic figure as the scapegoat, Monsieur Hire, whose only real crime seems to be that he's an oddball and a loner in a deeply suspicious, unhappy society.   

Gilda - The title character is possibly the most famous and complicated film noir femme fatale, and Rita Hayworth's most famous role.  I had a hard time deciding whether to include this film or "The Postman Always Rings Twice," on this list, but "Gilda" is undeniably more memorable and entertaining.  Hayworth lights up the screen, and a young Glenn Ford doesn't do a bad job of keeping up with her.   

The Yearling - I frequently got this film confused with "Old Yeller" when I was younger, as the plots are similar - both deal with a young boy's love for a pet, and the heartache that results when that pet becomes a threat to the boy's family.  The protagonist in this story is younger, and the fight to keep the yearling is more drawn out, which made this the more emotionally fraught viewing experience for me.

The Best Years of Our Lives - A tender film about WWII veterans reintegrating into their old lives after the war.  This has such a different attitude from the more cynical takes on this kind of homecoming story after later wars that it occasionally feels very naive and old fashioned.  However, Harold Russell's performance is still terribly inspiring, and the rest of the star studded cast isn't too shabby either.  

The Stranger - Orson Welles directed and starred in this suspense film, which serves as an early example of Hollywood grappling with the crimes of the Nazis, and was one of the first narrative films to use footage from the concentration camps.  Welles and Edward G. Robinson deliver strong performances, and the filmmaking serves the suspense very well - probably why this is Welles' only real box office hit.

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