1940s Science Fiction Movies

In front of television crews and thousands of spectators, Spaceship-1—commanded by Commodore Hardt, inventor of the powerful rocket fuel "Neotan-X"—blasts off on the first flight to the Moon.

A scientist working on cures for rare afflictions, such as a bone softening agent made from molds to allow him to correct the spinal deformity of his nurse, finds the physical causes of lycanthropy in wolf-man Larry Talbot and of vampirism in Count Dracula, but himself becomes afflicted with homicidal madness while exchanging blood with Dracula.

After being resurrected by grave robbers, Larry Talbot searches for Dr. Frankenstein in the hopes of being cured of his lycanthropy. The mad scientist may turn out to be dead, but his monster is just waiting to be found…

Based on Verne's book The Mysterious Island, five POWs escape from a camp in a balloon during the Civil War and crash-land on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. Trying to settle with their lives they find someone is helping them.

Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run amok.

Superman comes to the rescue when a volcano erupts.

Re-edited feature version of serial The Phantom Empire (1935). Singer Gene Autry discovers a race of advanced humans living beneath the earth.

Frankenstein's unscrupulous colleague, Dr. Bohmer, plans to transplant Ygor's brain so he can rule the world using the monster's body, but the plan goes sour when he turns malevolent and goes on a rampage.

The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.

A newspaper publisher and his Korean servant fight crime as vigilantes who pose as a notorious masked gangster and his aide.

The nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu searches for the keys to the tomb of Genghis Khan, in order to fulfill a prophecy that will enable him to conquer the world. His nemesi, Dr. Nayland Smith and his associates fight to keep the evil doctor from getting his hands on the keys. In 1943 the serial was edited together into a feature movie also called Drums of Fu Manchu.

Mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.

A fugitive, dangerous madman reaches an English village where he confronts his former partner who left him for dead in the jungle after their discovery of a diamond mine. When the former partner also claims to have since lost the mine and all its wealth, which he took all for himself, and though the partner is still living in a state of luxury , the madman takes up an offer from a crazed scientist to make him invisible, something the scientist has already done with experimental animals, so that he can take revenge.

Four explorers are summoned to Peru by the brilliant physicist Dr Thorkel. They discover a rich source of radium and a half-mad Thorkel who shrinks them down to one-fifth their normal size when they threaten to stop his unorthodox experimentation.

Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann, escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors, soon reviving the infamous Count Dracula, the frozen Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.

This 15-chapter serial pits Batman and Robin against The Wizard, who uses a device that allows him to control machinery to hold the city hostage.

Dr. John Garth conducting an innovative medical experiment aimed at prolonging life and combating aging. The experiment takes an unexpected turn, placing the doctor in a confrontation with the ethics of his work and the consequences of his research.

After The Daily Planet receives a letter from a mad scientist threatening to wreak destruction with his Electrothanasia Ray, Lois Lane heads out in the hopes of getting more information for a news story.

Dr. Leon Kravaal develops a potential cure for cancer, which involves freezing the patient. But an experiment goes awry when authorities believe Kravaal has killed a patient. Kravaal freezes the officials, along with himself. Years later, they are discovered and revived in hopes that Kravaal can indeed complete his cure. But human greed and weakness compound to disrupt the project.

Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.

Superhero Captain America battles the evil forces of the archvillain called The Scarab, who poisons his enemies and steals a secret device capable of destroying buildings by sound vibrations.

One Million B.C. is a 1940 American fantasy film produced by Hal Roach Studios and released by United Artists. It is also known by the titles Cave Man, Man and His Mate, and Tumak. The film stars Victor Mature as protagonist Tumak, a young cave man who strives to unite the uncivilized Rock Tribe and the peaceful Shell Tribe, Carole Landis as Loana, daughter of the Shell Tribe chief and Tumak's love interest, and Lon Chaney, Jr. as Tumak's stern father and leader of the Rock Tribe.

Paula, the ape woman, has survived the ending of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN and is running around a creepy old sanitarium run by the kindly Dr. Fletcher, reverting to her true gorilla form every once in a while to kill somebody.

Prof. Millard pretends to be dead and helps Jeff King ferret out Vulcan, the evil traitor at the science academy. Donning his Rocket Man costume King goes from one hair raising rescue to the next in order to keep the newly invented Decimator out of the clutches of Vulcan and his minions.

Superman comes to Earth as a child and grows up to be his home's first superhero with his first major challenge being to oppose The Spider Lady.

A mysterious plague, the Purple Death, ravages the earth. Dr. Zarkov, investigating in his spaceship, finds a ship from planet Mongo seeding the atmosphere with dust. Sure enough, Ming the Merciless is up to his old tricks. So it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale, and Zarkov.

On a scientific expedition to Siam young Billy Batson is given the ability to change himself into the super-powered Captain Marvel by the wizard Shazam, who tells him his powers will last only as long as the Golden Scorpion idol is threatened. Finding the idol, the scientists realize it could be the most powerful weapon in the world and remove the lenses that energize it, distributing them among themselves so that no one would be able to use the idol by himself. Back in the US, Billy Batson, as Captain Marvel, wages a battle against an evil, hooded figure, the Scorpion, who hopes to accumulate all five lenses, thereby gaining control of the super-powerful weapon

Superman vs. Japanese spies hijacking a new super-bomber.

While investigating the theft of a valuable jade statue known as "The Missing Lady" -- and the subsequent murder of an art dealer -- imperceptible sleuth Lamont Cranston aka the Shadow finds himself being blamed for the crime. It doesn't help the Shadow's claims of innocence when more bodies begin piling up. Good thing he knows exactly who's guilty among an increasingly smaller group of suspects.

After a young woman is coerced into prostitution and her brother framed for murder by an organized crime syndicate, retribution in the form of an ape visits the mobsters.

University professor George Kingsley is struck by gangsters while crossing the street, leaving him with brain damage and one of the gangsters, Cannon, paralyzed. Kingsley's friend Dr. Sovac attends to both men, and when Cannon offers him a reward for aiding his recovery, Kovac transplants part of Cannon's brain into the dying Kingsley's skull, creating a dual personality.

Superman battles a criminal mastermind and his robot army.

Robert and Françoise Monier make a hot air balloon to fly to the stratosphere. After a visit to Venus, they return home, but have only aged 15 days whereas 25 years have passed on Earth.

When things go wrong at the circus, it's up to Superman to stop the escaped animals.

The Shadow (Kane Richmond) cracks a case of missing jewels, murder and plastics.

A mad scientist named Dr. Satan plots to steal key pieces of technology to enable him to build an army of robots based on his prototype to conquer America. The only one standing in his way is Bob Wayne, who fights Satan as the enigmatic Copperhead. Mysterious Doctor Satan is a 1940 film serial named after its chief villain. Doctor Satan's main opponent is the masked mystery man, "The Copperhead", whose secret identity is Bob Wayne, a man searching for justice and revenge on Satan for the death of his step-father. The serial charts the conflict between the two as Bob Wayne pursues Doctor Satan, while the latter completes his plans for world domination.

A scientist keeps his wife young by killing, stealing the bodies of, and taking the gland fluid from virgin brides.

The Invisible Man's grandson uses his secret formula to spy on Nazi Germany.

Dr. Paul Carruthers is frustrated because he thinks his employers, Mary Heath and Henry Morton, have cheated him out of the company's profits. He decides to get revenge by altering bats to grow twice their normal size and training them to attack when they smell a perfume of his own making. He mixes the perfume into a lotion, which he offers as a gift to Mary and Henry. When they turn up dead, a newspaper reporter decides to investigate.

Once again Paula the ape woman is brought back to life, this time by a mad doctor and his disfigured assistant, who also kidnaps a nurse in order to have a female blood donor.