The 1940s

The 1940s delivered cinema’s most concentrated masterpiece run: Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Bicycle Thieves, and The Third Man all debuted within a single decade shaped by WWII’s $4 trillion global cost. Citizen Kane’s $700,000 budget (largest in RKO history) innovated deep-focus photography, while Casablanca’s $1 million investment yielded $4.2 million in 1943 US box office. Compared to The 1980s’s (the 1980s) blockbuster excess, the 1940s produced 25% more films under $1 million, with 80% of Hollywood output targeting war-weary audiences. Yet the decade’s foreign penetration was low: only 15% of top-grossing films came from non-US markets—a stark contrast to the 2010s’ 30% share.