The ten best movies of 1945
10. Dead of Night
The Grand-Daddy of the horror anthology genre. Some of the stories are weak but anything with a ventriloquist's dummy is always going to be creepy.
9. Pursuit to Algiers
Universal released three of their Basil Rathbone starring Sherlock Holmes movies this year. Only Jeremy Brett gave a better portrayal of the master sleuth.
8. The Woman in Green
Here Holmes faces his adversary Moriarty when female corpses with severed fingers start appearing around London.
7. The House of Fear
6. The Spiral Staircase
Hollywood was knocking atmospheric thrillers out at an incredible rate in the mid-forties. This is one of the best with Dorothy McGuire as a mute being menaced during a thunderstorm.
5. Spellbound
Ingrid Bergman is a psychiatrist protecting her patient Gregory Peck who may be a murderer in one of Hitchcock's more overlooked films. Features surreal sequences by Salvador Dali.
4. Scarlet Street
The great Edward G Robinson gives his finest performance as the victim of a scam run by the young woman he falls for. The first of four Film Noir classics to appear on this list.
3. Mildred Pierce
Another career best performance, this time by Joan Crawford as the struggling single mother betrayed by those around her. Noir was the first genre not aimed solely at women that provided such great roles for actresses.
2. Leave Her to Heaven
This noir has the distinction of being shot in vivid technicolor but they don't come much darker in tone. Gene Tierney is fantastic as one the greatest villains of the era.
1. Detour
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Edgar G Ulmer's low-budget masterpiece made little impact at the time but is now rightly regarded as a classic. If you want an introduction to Film Noir this has it all.
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