Ranking All The Movies Nominated At The 17th Academy Awards In 1945

May 14, 2018May 13, 2018 by AM Anderson

“What are the best movies nominated for the 17th Academy Awards in 1945?” We looked at all 85 movies nominated for an Oscar in 1945 and ranked them again one another to answer that very question!

We took all 85 movies that were nominated for an Academy Award in 1945 and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked on our list below, with the full chart of rankings included at the bottom of the page. We did not use Metacritic scores because of the lack of data for older movies on that site. Metacritic scores will be included when we do rankings for other years in the future.

If you want to see the rankings for additional years you can visit our Academy Award Rankings page.

Happy Viewing!

The Top 1945 Academy Award Movie Rankings

85 ) Blue-Grass Gentlemen

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, One-reel

1944 film nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Short Subject, One-Reel.

83 Tie ) New Americans

Nominated For:

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

Oscar nominated short documentary from 1944

83 Tie ) Voice in the Wind

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Sound, Recording

Former concert pianist, victim of Nazi torture, pursues a melancholic existence on the island of Guadalupe.

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82 ) Jack London

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

The true story of the adventurous and remarkable life of the American novelist Jack London(1876-1916).

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80 Tie ) Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

This Technicolor musical biopic stars Argentina-born Dick Haymes as Irish-American composer Ernest R. Ball. Climbing to fame with such sentimental songs as “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” (hence the title), Ball romances a lovely showgirl (June Haver), who in turn catches the eye of a charming underworld character (Anthony Quinn). Monty Woolley does a variation of The Man who Came to Dinner in his role as a roguish Broadway producer. Seldom cluttering up its story with the facts, Irish Eyes are Smiling is chiefly a showcase for the superb singing of Dick Haymes. The film was produced by legendary journalist Damon Runyon, which should surprise several citizens more than somewhat.

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80 Tie ) The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

79 ) The Climax

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color

Dr. Hohner (Karloff), theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer (Foster) reminds Hohner of the late diva, and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever. The singer’s fiancée (Bey) rushes to save her in the film’s climax.

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75 Tie ) 50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, One-reel

1944 short film nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Short Subject, One Reel

75 Tie ) Knickerbocker Holiday

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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75 Tie ) My Boy Johnny

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

In a departure from the usual Terrytoon, this short is based on predictions of things to come in the world after the end of World War II. It primarily deals with, in a comedy sense, what every “G.I.” Jonnny can expect when he returns home to civilian life.

75 Tie ) Sweet and Low-Down

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song

After their annual free concert at Chicago’s Dearborn Settlement, Benny Goodman and his band are packing up to go to their next engagement when a kid steals Goodman’s clarinet. Goodman and Popsie pursue him to a tenement flat where he has led them to hear his brother play the trombone. Shenanigans ensue following Goodman’s offering the brother a job with the band.

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73 Tie ) Follow the Boys

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song

During World War II, all the studios put out “all-star” vehicles which featured virtually every star on the lot–often playing themselves–in musical numbers and comedy skits, and were meant as morale-boosters to both the troops overseas and the civilians at home. This was Universal Pictures’ effort. It features everyone from Donald O’Connor to the Andrews Sisters to Orson Welles to W.C. Fields to George Raft to Marlene Dietrich, and dozens of other Universal players.

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73 Tie ) Lady, Let’s Dance

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

Singing, dancing, and ice skating are featured in this musical that focuses on ice-skating sensation Belita. The story begins as she travels to a California resort where she has been hired as a replacement for a dance team. The resort is run by a handsome fellow. As a result of the gig, the skater becomes a national star while the resort manager gets fired and becomes a drifter until he ends up in the Army. The Oscar nominated score includes the following songs: “Silver Shadows and Golden Dreams”, “Dream of Dreams”, “Rio”, “In the Days of Beau Brummel”, “Lady, Let’s Dance”, “Happy Hearts”, “Ten Million Men and a Girl”, and the rhumba standard “Esperanza”.

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71 Tie ) Dog, Cat, and Canary

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

Oscar nominated Animated Short Cartoon

71 Tie ) Main Street Today

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Two-reel

This patriotic MGM short film, set in World War II has a factory owner who produces the breech block for a key piece of army artillery. The military wants to increase production by 50% but they can barely meet their production targets as it is. Going to a third shift in the plant will need manpower, 500 in total, that is sorely missing due to the number of men in the military. The film then looks at the town’s main street seeing where the workforce might come from. Their brain storming identifies 220 men but then one of them comes up with the solution: if everyone worked just a bit harder and contributed just a bit more, the war will be won. The fictional factory found its workers, mostly women who hadn’t previously worked and others who already had a full time job, but also worked part-time at the plant.

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70 ) Janie

Nominated For:

Best Film Editing

Teenage Janie (Joyce Reynolds) falls in love with a private (Robert Hutton) from an Army base opposed by her editor father (Edward Arnold).

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68 Tie ) Dragon Seed

Nominated For:

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

Chinese peasants fight to survive the Japanese occupation during World War II.

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68 Tie ) Minstrel Man

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

Unusually elaborate for a PRC film, Minstrel Man is a lively musical drama built around the talents of veteran vaudevillian Benny Fields. The star is cast as Dixie Boy Johnson, who rises from the ranks of minstrel shows to become a top Broadway attraction. On the opening night of his greatest stage triumph, Dixie Boy’s wife dies in childbirth. Profoundly shaken, he walks out of the show, leaving the baby to be raised by his showbiz pals Mae and Lasses White (Gladys George, Roscoe Karns). The kid grows up to be an attractive young woman named Caroline (Judy Clark), who follows in her dad’s footsteps by billing herself as-that’s right-Dixie Girl Johnson. This leads to a tearful reunion between Caroline and the father she’d long assumed to be dead. If Minstrel Man seems at times to be a dress rehearsal for Columbia’s The Jolson Story (1946), it shouldn’t surprising: the PRC film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, who went on to helm Jolson Story’s musical highlights.

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61 Tie ) Brazil

Nominated For:

Best Sound, Recording
Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

Brazil is perhaps the best of the handful of American films made by Brazilian singing sensation Tito Guizar. In typical screwball-comedy fashion, the plot is set in motion by authoress Nicky Henderson (Virginia Bruce), who has hit the best-seller charts with her latest tome, Why Marry a Latin? While researching her next book in Rio De Janeiro, she finds out “why” when she meets handsome songwriter Miguel Soares (Guizar). Upon learning about Nicky’s book, Miguel decides to teach her a few lessons in affairs of the heart. Edward Everett Horton is also on hand, twittering his way through the role of a well-meaning buttinsky. Thanks to the “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1940s, South American musicals were a glut on the market, but Brazil was good enough on its own merits to pay its way at the box office.

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61 Tie ) Higher and Higher

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

1943 musical comedy with Frank Sinatra. A valet to a bankrupt millionaire plans to rebuild his boss’s fortune by passing a scullery maid off as a high-society debutante. Based on a 1940 Broadway musical.

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61 Tie ) Music in Manhattan

Nominated For:

Best Sound, Recording

Frankie Foster and Stanley Benson are a pair of small-potatoes performers. Both try to make it to the big-time after winning an amateur talent contest. Though this leads them to a few professional gigs, something is missing from their act and they are not popular. Believing a little cash will boost their career, Frankie heads for Washington, D.C. to see if her wealthy father will help them. En route Frankie is mistaken for the wife of the well-known pilot Johnny Pearson and ends up in his suite having to pretend she is his spouse. When the pilot meets her, romantic sparks fly.

61 Tie ) Secret Command

Nominated For:

Best Effects, Special Effects

Secret Command features Pat O’Brien as a onetime foreign correspondent in the wartime employ of the FBI. Under an assumed name, O’BRIEN goes to work at a shipyard, intending to keep both eyes open for potential saboteurs. To maintain the cover, O’BRIEN is given a “wife” (Carole Landis) and two children. When O’BRIEN’s brother Chester Morris shows up, he can’t comprehend the charade and nearly spills the beans to the Nazi spies O’BRIEN hopes to trap. Based on the short story The Saboteurs by John and Ward Hawkins, Secret Command offers a graying but still feisty Pat O’Brien doing what he does best.

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61 Tie ) Sensations of 1945

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

As dancer Ginny Walker performs on stage, a veiled woman in the audience stands up, accuses Ginny of stealing her husband and then fires a gun at her. After Ginny collapses and is taken to her dressing room, the woman, Julia Westcolt, a friend of Ginny’s, dashes backstage, discards her veil, and then congratulates her friend on their successful publicity stunt. When Ginny’s press agents, Gus Crane and his son Junior, visit their client backstage, she brags about her feat and chides them for not being more creative in promoting her. Horrified at Ginny’s brashness, Junior, a conservative Harvard graduate, chastises her and leaves the room.

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61 Tie ) The Woman of the Town

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Originally, producer Harry Sherman’s Woman of the Town was slated for Paramount release, but that studio was overloaded with product, so the film was deferred to United Artists. Nonetheless, the finished product has the “look” of a Paramount, right down to the presence of character actor Albert Dekker in a leading role. Dekker plays Bat Masterson, who after failing to secure a job as a newspaper reporter becomes marshal of Dodge City. Preferring socializing to peacekeeping, Masterson falls in love with Dora Hand (Claire Trevor), the obligatory golden-hearted chorus girl whose concern for the welfare of her fellow citizens at time reaches Madonna-like dimensions. When Dora is shot down cattle baron King Kennedy (Barry Sullivan), Masterson begins taking his job seriously. After taking care of Kennedy, Masterson determines to enshrine the memory of Dora, whose efforts to clean up Dodge City were largely ignored by the “decent” townsfolk.

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61 Tie ) Three Russian Girls

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Another of a wartime cycle of Hollywood films lauding the praises of America’s Soviet allies, Three Russian Girls is a remake of Russia’s The Girl From Stalingrad. Set just after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the film stars Anna Sten as Natasha, a Red Cross volunteer who is dispatched to a field hospital located in an old pre-revolution mansion. American test pilot John Hill (Kent Smith), who’d been in Russia on a goodwill mission, is wounded in battle and brought to the hospital. As he slowly recovers from his wounds, Hill falls in love with Natasha. A last-act crisis develops when the hospital personnel are forced to move immediately to Leningrad as the Nazis advance. Most of the “counter attack” scenes that follow were obviously lifted from the original Girl from Stalingrad. For the record, the other two “Russian girls” are played by Mimi Forsaythe and Cathy Frye.

58 ) Song of the Open Road

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

A beautiful child (14-year-old Jane Powell in her feature film debut) star tires of life in the spotlight and so disguises herself and sneaks off to join a Civilian Conservation Corps camp to work with normal kids. It doesn’t take her long to discover that being “normal” isn’t easy as it looks. When a crop is in danger of being ruined because there are not enough people to harvest it, the girl employs some of her famous colleagues to lend a hand. Cameo appearances include W.C. Fields, Charley McCarthy and Edgar Bergen and the dancing Condos Brothers. Songs include: “Too Much in Love,” “Here It Is Monday,” “Delightfully Dangerous,” “Hawaiian War Chant” and “Notre Dame.”

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58 Tie ) The Hairy Ape

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Aboard ship, a spoiled woman (Susan Hayward) insults the brutish stoker (William Bendix) while watching him work.

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58 Tie ) Who’s Who in Animal Land

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, One-reel (Win)

An Academy award-winning Paramount Headliner short featuring a tour of the animal kingdom with the animals tossing around quips and jokes via dubbing and special effects. The narration is by Ken Carpenter, and the ending is a rendition of “Cow-Cow Boogie” by a “cow soloist” and some cow-pasture harmonizers.

54 Tie ) Fish Fry

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

An alley cat attempts to steal the goldfish Andy Panda just bought from a pet shop, but the fish proves too clever for him.

54 Tie ) Hymn of the Nations

Nominated For:

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

Conductor Arturo Toscanini is shown at his home in New York City and leading tenor Jan Peerce and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations” and “Overture to ‘La Forza del Destino.'”

54 Tie ) Kismet

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color
Best Cinematography, Color
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Sound, Recording

Hafiz, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself.

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54 Tie ) The Desert Song

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color

Paul Hudson, leads a group of desert bandits against some Nazis, who want to use them as cheap labor for their railroad.

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53 ) Up in Mabel’s Room

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Newly-married Gary Ainsworth (Dennis O’Keefe) once gave his former sweetheart Mabel (Gail Patrick) a sexy negligee with his initials embroidered in the lacework. It is Gary’s unenviable task to retrieve the incriminating undergarment from Mabel’s room before his wife Geraldine (Marjorie Reynolds) gets wise.

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52 ) Step Lively

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White

Fly-by-night producers dodge bill collectors while trying for one big hit. Step Lively was based on the 1937 play Room Service, by Allen Boretz and John Murray, which also was the basis for the Marx Brothers’ film by the same name.

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51 ) Movie Pests

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, One-reel

A humorous look at the inconsiderate pests whose annoying habits make enjoying a movie impossible.

49 Tie ) Casanova Brown

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Sound, Recording

Cass Brown is about to marry for the second time; his first marriage, to Isabel was annulled. But when he discovers that Isabel just had their baby, Cass kidnaps the infant to keep her from being adopted. Isabel’s parents hunt for the child and discover that Cass and Isabel are still hopelessly in love

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49 Tie ) Days of Glory

Nominated For:

Best Effects, Special Effects

A heroic guerilla group fights back against impossible odds during the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia.

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46 Tie ) I Won’t Play

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Two-reel (Win)

In this Warner Bros. short, a Marine in a South Sea island during World War II, Joe Fingers, tells tales of the influence he’s had on various personalities. In the words of one of his buddies, he’s either the biggest liar in the world or the most important man in show business.

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46 Tie ) Lady in the Dark

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color
Best Cinematography, Color
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

A neurotic editor (Ginger Rogers) sees a psychoanalyst about the adman (Ray Milland), movie star (Jon Hall) and other man in her life.

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46 Tie ) Resisting Enemy Interrogation

Nominated For:

Best Documentary, Features

A downed American bomber crew quickly falls prey to the clever interrogation techniques of the Germans in this dramatic training film.

45 ) And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

43 Tie ) Home in Indiana

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Color

Sparke’ Thorton, a lad with a penchant for trouble, is sent to live with his Uncle and Aunt Bolt in Indiana after his Aunt Henrietta Bolt dies. Though he’s not happy about the arrangement at first, his love of horses and his affection for a young filly that he plans to race make life bearable. He also finds romance with tomboyish ‘Char’ Bruce who shares his love for horses.

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43 Tie ) None But the Lonely Heart

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Win)
Best Film Editing
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Through flashbacks, the story of a Nazi war criminal is exposed.

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41 Tie ) The Merry Monahans

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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.

41 Tie ) With the Marines at Tarawa

Nominated For:

Best Documentary, Short Subjects (Win)

Documentary short film depicting the harrowing battle between the U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control of the Pacific island of Tarawa.

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40 ) Wilson

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color (Win)
Best Cinematography, Color (Win)
Best Director
Best Effects, Special Effects
Best Film Editing (Win)
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Picture
Best Sound, Recording (Win)
Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Win)

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.

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39 ) The Story of Dr. Wassell

Nominated For:

Best Effects, Special Effects

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.

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38 ) The Fighting Lady

Nominated For:

Best Documentary, Features (Win)

Oscar winner William Wyler directed this 1944 “newsdrama,” narrated by Lieut. Robert Taylor, USNR (Bataan), and photographed in zones of combat by the U.S. Navy. The film follows one of the many new aircraft carriers built since Pearl Harbor, known as THE FIGHTING LADY in honor of all American carriers, as it goes into action against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean in 1943. See the ship and its pilots undergo their baptism of fire, attacking the Japanese base on Marcus Island.

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37 ) Wing and a Prayer

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

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.

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36 ) Address Unknown

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

US art dealer returns to his native Germany for a visit and is attracted by Nazi propaganda.

35 ) The Princess and the Pirate

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Princess Margaret is travelling incognito to elope with her true love instead of marrying the man her father has betrothed her to. On the high seas, her ship is attacked by pirates who know her identity and plan to kidnap her and hold her for a king’s ransom.

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34 ) Bombalera

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Two-reel

1945 film nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Short Subject, Two Reel

33 ) Summer Storm

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Linda Darnell plays a beautiful Russian peasant in this moody Sirk melodrama, based on Chekhov’s “The Shooting Party.” Trying to pull herself out of serf-ish poverty, she works her charms on an engaged aristocrat (George Sanders) with tragic results.

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32 ) Christmas Holiday

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

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.

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30 Tie ) The Fighting Seabees

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

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.

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30 Tie ) Up in Arms

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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

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29 ) The Adventures of Mark Twain

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Best Effects, Special Effects
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

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

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28 ) Swooner Crooner

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

Porky Pig’s egg faces production problems when a crooning rooster distracts the hens from their jobs.

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27 ) How to Play Football

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons

It’s Taxidermy Tech vs. Anthropology A&M for this introduction to college football.

25 Tie ) The White Cliffs of Dover

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

An American woman with a British husband fights to keep her family together through two world wars.

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25 Tie ) Two Girls and a Sailor

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous sister Jean, unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.

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24 ) Hollywood Canteen

Nominated For:

Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture
Best Sound, Recording

Dozens of Warner Brothers stars come together in this 1940s musical/comedy

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23 ) Mrs. Parkington

Nominated For:

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Supporting Role

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.

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22 ) None Shall Escape

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Story

Through flashbacks, the story of a Nazi war criminal is exposed.

21 ) A Guy Named Joe

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Story

Pete Sandidge (Tracy), a daredevil bomber pilot, dies when he crashes his plane into a German aircraft carrier, leaving his devoted girlfriend, Dorinda (Irene Dunne), who is also a pilot, heartbroken. In heaven, Pete receives a new assignment: he is to become the guardian angel for Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a young Army flyer. Invisibly, Pete guides Ted through flight school and into combat, but the ectoplasmic mentor’s tolerance is tested when Ted falls for Dorinda. Ultimately, however, Pete not only comes to terms with their relationship but also acts as Dorinda’s copilot when she undertakes a dangerous bombing raid, so that Ted won’t have to. Remade by Steven Speilberg in 1989 as ALWAYS

20 ) His Butler’s Sister

Nominated For:

Best Sound, Recording

Aspiring singer Ann Carter (Deanna Durbin) visits her stepbrother (Pat O’Brien) in New York, hoping to make it on Broadway.

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18 Tie ) It Happened Tomorrow

Nominated For:

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Sound, Recording

A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day’s paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act.

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18 Tie ) No Time for Love

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White

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.

17 ) Cover Girl

Nominated For:

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color
Best Cinematography, Color
Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture (Win)
Best Sound, Recording

Rusty Parker, a red-headed leggy dancer at Danny McGuire’s Night Club in Brooklyn, wants to be a successful Broadway star. She enters a contest to be a ‘Cover Girl’ as a stepping-stone in her career. She reminds the publisher, John Coudair, of his lost love, showgirl Maribelle Hicks. He was engaged to Maribelle, although his wealthy society mother made fun of her. Maribelle left John at the altar when she saw the piano at her wedding. It reminded her of the piano-player she truly loved. Rusty is Maribelle’s granddaughter and there are musical sequences with Maribelle dancing to songs from the beginning of the 20th century.

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16 ) Going My Way

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Win)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Win)
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Director (Win)
Best Film Editing
Best Music, Original Song (Win)
Best Picture (Win)
Best Writing, Original Story (Win)
Best Writing, Screenplay (Win)

Youthful Father Chuck O’Malley (Bing Crosby) led a colourful 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 (Barry Fitzgerald).

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15 ) Mouse Trouble

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, Cartoons (Win)

Tom’s new book on “how to catch a mouse” doesn’t prove too helpful against Jerry; actually, Jerry seems to make better use of it than Tom.

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14 ) Jammin’ the Blues

Nominated For:

Best Short Subject, One-reel

Highly stylized chronicle of a jam session featuring Lester Young.

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13 ) The Seventh Cross

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

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.

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12 ) The Sullivans

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Story

11 ) Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Effects, Special Effects (Win)

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.

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10 ) Since You Went Away

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Effects, Special Effects
Best Film Editing
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Win)
Best Picture

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.

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9 ) The Uninvited

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

A brother and sister move into an old seaside house they find abandoned for many years on the English coast. Their original enchantment with the house diminishes as they hear stories of the previous owners and meet their daughter (now a young woman) who now lives as a neighbor with her grandfather. Also heard are unexplained sounds during the night. It becomes obvious that the house is haunted.

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8 ) Mr. Skeffington

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Best Actress in a Leading Role

A popular and beautiful woman is forced into a loveless marriage with an older man to save her brother from an embezzlement charge.

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7 ) Lifeboat

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Director
Best Writing, Original Story

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.

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6 ) The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

A small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can’t remember.

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4 Tie ) Gaslight

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Leading Role (Win)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (Win)
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Picture
Best Writing, Screenplay

In the late 19th century, Paula Alquist is studying music in Italy, but ends up abandoning her classes because she’s fallen in love with the gallant Gregory Anton. The couple marries and moves to England to live in a home inherited by Paula from her aunt, herself a famous singer, who was mysteriously murdered in the house ten years before. Though Paula is certain that she sees the house’s gaslights dim every evening and that there are strange noises coming from the attic, Gregory convinces Paula that she’s imagining things. Meanwhile, a Scotland Yard inspector, Brian Cameron, becomes sympathetic to Paula’s plight.

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4 Tie ) Hail the Conquering Hero

Nominated For:

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge.

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3 ) Meet Me in St. Louis

Nominated For:

Best Cinematography, Color
Best Music, Original Song
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture
Best Writing, Screenplay

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.

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2 ) Double Indemnity

Nominated For:

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Best Director
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Picture
Best Sound, Recording
Best Writing, Screenplay

A rich woman [Barbara Stanwyck] and a calculating insurance agent [Fred MacMurray] plot to kill her unsuspecting husband after he signs a double indemnity policy. Against a backdrop of distinctly Californian settings, the partners in crime plan the perfect murder to collect the insurance, which pays double if the death is accidental. Directed by Billy Wilder from a screenplay he wrote with Raymond Chandler, and from the novel by James M. Cain.

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1 ) Laura

Nominated For:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Win)
Best Director
Best Writing, Screenplay

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

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The Best 17th Academy Award Rankings

1945 Academy Award Rankings

Film	RT Critic	RT User	IMDB	Letterboxd	Overal Rank
Laura	1	2	3	2	1
Double Indemnity	7	1	2	1	2
Meet Me in St. Louis	1	5	11	3	3
Gaslight	14	3	4	3	4
Hail the Conquering Hero	8	5	8	3	4
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek	12	9	4	3	6
Lifeboat	11	5	8	7	7
Mr. Skeffington	18	10	8	9	8
The Uninvited	9	12	16	9	9
Since You Went Away	16	10	12	9	10
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo	1	15	14	20	11
The Sullivans	20	4	12	20	12
The Seventh Cross	1	22	16	20	13
Jammin’ the Blues	20	46	4	7	14
Mouse Trouble	20	46	4	9	15
Going My Way	16	13	21	30	16
Cover Girl	9	20	34	20	17
It Happened Tomorrow	20	24	25	15	18
No Time for Love	20	15	29	20	18
His Butler’s Sister	20	26	25	15	20
A Guy Named Joe	20	18	29	20	21
None Shall Escape	20	24	29	15	22
Mrs. Parkington	20	14	25	30	23
Hollywood Canteen	20	21	19	30	24
The White Cliffs of Dover	20	27	25	20	25
Two Girls and a Sailor	20	8	44	20	25
How to Play Football	20	46	19	9	27
Swooner Crooner	20	46	14	15	28
The Adventures of Mark Twain	20	28	21	30	29
Up in Arms	20	17	46	20	30
The Fighting Seabees	1	19	46	37	30
Christmas Holiday	1	32	44	30	32
Summer Storm	20	46	34	9	33
Bombalera	20	46	1	46	34
The Princess and the Pirate	20	46	29	20	35
Address Unknown	20	46	40	15	36
Wing and a Prayer	15	32	34	46	37
The Fighting Lady	20	46	16	46	38
The Story of Dr. Wassell	20	29	34	46	39
Wilson	12	35	40	44	40
The Merry Monahans	20	46	21	46	41
With the Marines at Tarawa	20	46	21	46	41
None But the Lonely Heart	20	30	46	42	43
Home in Indiana	20	32	40	46	43
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street	20	46	29	46	45
Lady in the Dark	20	41	55	30	46
I Won’t Play	20	46	34	46	46
Resisting Enemy Interrogation	20	46	34	46	46
Casanova Brown	20	38	55	37	49
Days of Glory	18	31	64	37	49
Movie Pests	20	46	40	46	51
Step Lively	20	42	64	30	52
Up in Mabel’s Room	20	46	46	46	53
Kismet	20	36	69	37	54
Fish Fry	20	46	50	46	54
Hymn of the Nations	20	46	50	46	54
The Desert Song	20	46	50	46	54
Song of the Open Road	20	46	53	46	58
Who’s Who in Animal Land	20	46	53	46	58
The Hairy Ape	20	44	55	46	58
Higher and Higher	20	37	73	37	61
Brazil	20	46	55	46	61
Music in Manhattan	20	46	55	46	61
Secret Command	20	46	55	46	61
Sensations of 1945	20	46	55	46	61
The Woman of the Town	20	46	55	46	61
Three Russian Girls	20	46	55	46	61
Dragon Seed	20	40	64	44	68
Minstrel Man	20	22	80	46	68
Janie	20	38	69	46	70
Dog, Cat, and Canary	20	46	64	46	71
Main Street Today	20	46	64	46	71
Follow the Boys	20	46	69	46	73
Lady, Let’s Dance	20	46	69	46	73
50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures	20	46	73	46	75
Knickerbocker Holiday	20	46	73	46	75
My Boy Johnny	20	46	73	46	75
Sweet and Low-Down	20	46	73	46	75
The Climax	20	42	81	43	79
Irish Eyes Are Smiling	20	46	78	46	80
The Bridge of San Luis Rey	20	46	78	46	80
Jack London	20	44	82	46	82
New Americans	20	46	82	46	83
Voice in the Wind	20	46	82	46	83
Blue-Grass Gentlemen	20	46	85	46	85