It was not until he starred in the Academy Award-winning Best Picture "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) that his popularity returned. He then starred opposite Greer Garson in "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Mrs. Miniver" (1942) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) and its sequel, "The Miniver Story" (1950). He was also nominated for "Madame Curie" (1943), again opposite Garson. His partnership with her continued throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s with "Mrs. Parkington" (1944), "Julia Misbehaves" (1948), "That Forsyte Woman" (1949), and finally "Scandal at Scourie" (1953). He also starred as Chip Collyer in the comedy "Week-End at the Waldorf" (1945) and later as Colonel Michael S. 'Hooky' Nicobar, who was given the difficult task of repatriating Russians in post-World War II Vienna in the drama film "The Red Danube" (1949).