1930s
by eiganerd | created - 05 Jan 2013 | updated - 23 Jan 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Little Women (1933)
Passed | 115 min | Drama, Family, Romance
A chronicle of the lives of sisters growing up in 19th-century New England.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver
Votes: 7,932 | Gross: $4.58M
2. The Women (1939)
Not Rated | 133 min | Comedy, Drama
A study of the lives and romantic entanglements of various interconnected women.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland
Votes: 14,906 | Gross: $2.27M
3. Up the River (1930)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
When paroled trustee Steve and former inmate Judy who try to put their criminal lives behind them are blackmailed, two career criminals come to their rescue.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Claire Luce, Warren Hymer, Humphrey Bogart
Votes: 1,376
4. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Passed | 152 min | Drama, War
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Votes: 67,694 | Gross: $3.27M
5. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Passed | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
A wealthy composer rescues unemployed Broadway performers with a new play, but insists on remaining anonymous.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler
Votes: 9,147 | Gross: $4.80M
6. 42nd Street (1933)
Passed | 89 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
When the leading lady of a Broadway musical breaks her ankle, she is replaced by a young unknown actress, who becomes the star of the show.
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler
Votes: 13,039 | Gross: $2.30M
7. King Kong (1933)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Horror
A film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City.
Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher
Votes: 90,975 | Gross: $10.00M
8. Footlight Parade (1933)
Passed | 104 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Chester Kent struggles against time, romance, and a rival's spy to produce spectacular live "prologues" for movie houses.
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell
Votes: 6,095 | Gross: $3.49M
9. Three Little Pigs (1933)
Passed | 9 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
The Three Little Pigs each build a house of different material. The Big Bad Wolf comes along and blows away the straw and stick homes, but is unable to destroy the house of bricks.
Director: Burt Gillett | Stars: Billy Bletcher, Pinto Colvig, Dorothy Compton, Mary Moder
Votes: 6,715 | Gross: $0.25M
10. I'm No Angel (1933)
Passed | 87 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
Circus performer Tira seeks a better life pursuing the company of wealthy New York men with improbable comic complications along the way.
Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff, Edward Arnold
Votes: 3,980 | Gross: $6.21M
11. Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Passed | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Jack Conway, George Cukor | Stars: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo
Votes: 4,807
12. Imitation of Life (1934)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A struggling widow and her daughter take in a Black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter; the two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, Ned Sparks
Votes: 5,649
13. Judge Priest (1934)
Passed | 80 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Judge Priest, a proud Confederate veteran, uses common sense and considerable humanity to dispense justice in a small town in the Post-Bellum Kentucky.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall
Votes: 2,520
14. Our Daily Bread (1934)
Passed | 80 min | Drama, Romance
A group of down-on-their-luck workers combine their abilities to make a Gallafentian-style commune... and bread!
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Karen Morley, Tom Keene, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards
Votes: 2,195
15. Show Boat (1936)
Approved | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson
Votes: 3,694
16. Swing Time (1936)
Passed | 103 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Roguish gambler/dancer "Lucky" Garnett is challenged by his fiance's father to come up with $25,000 to prove he's worthy of her hand. But after he falls in love with a dance instructor, Lucky'll do anything to keep from earning the bucks.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick
Votes: 14,585
17. Captain Blood (1935)
Passed | 119 min | Action, Adventure, History
After treating a Monmouth rebel against King James II in 1680s England, a young Irish doctor is exiled as a slave to Jamaica where he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the most feared pirate of the Caribbean.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone
Votes: 16,098 | Gross: $2.96M
18. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
PG | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence in 1190s England, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a resistance movement.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains
Votes: 54,506 | Gross: $3.98M
19. Juarez (1939)
Approved | 125 min | Biography, Drama, History
Louis Napoleon III (Claude Rains) takes advantage of the American Civil War to circumvent the Monroe Doctrine and expand his power by helping Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg (Brian Aherne) to add Mexico to his empire.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains
Votes: 2,555
20. Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, War
FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-war espionage activities of the German-American Bund.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, George Sanders, Francis Lederer, Paul Lukas
Votes: 2,136
21. Dark Victory (1939)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, Romance
A young socialite is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and must decide whether or not she'll meet her final days with dignity.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald
Votes: 12,404
22. Love Affair (1939)
Approved | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A French playboy and an American former nightclub singer fall in love aboard a ship.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman
Votes: 6,425
23. The Old Maid (1939)
Approved | 95 min | Drama
The arrival of an ex-lover on a young woman's wedding day sets in motion a chain of events which will alter her and her cousin's lives forever.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp
Votes: 4,062
24. 'G' Men (1935)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
James Cagney helped jump-start the gangster genre as The Public Enemy. Outcries against movies that glorified underworld criminals put Cagney on the side of the law in 'G' Men.
Director: William Keighley | Stars: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ann Dvorak, Robert Armstrong
Votes: 4,363
25. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan
Votes: 23,205
26. Little Caesar (1931)
Not Rated | 79 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A small-time criminal moves to a big city to seek bigger fortune.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr.
Votes: 14,533
27. The Secret 6 (1931)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama
After rising bootlegger Slaughterhouse Scorpio eliminates his gangland competition, two reporters and a cabal of six businessmen work to expose him.
Director: George W. Hill | Stars: Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Johnny Mack Brown, Jean Harlow
Votes: 1,050
28. The Petrified Forest (1936)
Passed | 82 min | Drama, Thriller
A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert.
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Genevieve Tobin
Votes: 14,934
29. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Passed | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis
Votes: 14,438 | Gross: $1.42M
30. Dead End (1937)
Approved | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The lives of a young man, a young woman, an notorious gangster, and a group of street kids converge one day in a volatile New York City slum.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie
Votes: 8,587
31. City Streets (1931)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Man joins a gang to free his girlfriend from prison.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gary Cooper, Sylvia Sidney, Paul Lukas, William 'Stage' Boyd
Votes: 1,872
32. Corsair (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Adventure, Crime, Romance
A stockbroker plans to liven up his boring life by taking up piracy on the high seas.
Director: Roland West | Stars: Chester Morris, Thelma Todd, Fred Kohler, Ned Sparks
Votes: 298
33. Scandal for Sale (1932)
75 min | Drama
A man is promised $25,000 if he can bring the circulation of a newspaper up to one million.
Director: Russell Mack | Stars: Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart, Pat O'Brien, Berton Churchill
Votes: 65
34. The Front Page (1931)
Approved | 101 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A crusading newspaper editor tricks his retiring star reporter into covering one last case.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton
Votes: 3,452
35. Scandal Sheet (1931)
77 min | Crime, Drama
Scandal Sheet is a 1931 American crime film directed by John Cromwell and written by Oliver H.P. Garrett, Vincent Lawrence and Max Marcin. The film stars George Bancroft, Kay Francis, Clive... See full summary »
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: George Bancroft, Kay Francis, Clive Brook, Regis Toomey
Votes: 128
36. Platinum Blonde (1931)
Passed | 89 min | Comedy, Romance
A young woman from a very rich family impulsively marries a reporter, but each assumes the other is the one whose lifestyle must change.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Jean Harlow, Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Halliwell Hobbes
Votes: 3,455
37. Lawyer Man (1932)
Passed | 72 min | Drama, Romance
Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully beats high-profile legal eagle Granville Bentley in a murder case. Bentley asks Adam to become a partner in his law firm.... See full summary »
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: William Powell, Joan Blondell, David Landau, Helen Vinson
Votes: 1,115
38. The Mouthpiece (1932)
Unrated | 86 min | Drama
Prosecutor becomes a defense attorney after an innocent man is sent to an electric chair.
Directors: James Flood, Elliott Nugent | Stars: Warren William, Sidney Fox, Aline MacMahon, John Wray
Votes: 584
39. State's Attorney (1932)
Passed | 79 min | Drama
Attorney Tom Cardigan is the discontented "mouthpiece" for Vanny Powers' mob. When Tom takes sweet June Perry as his mistress, she tries in vain to redeem him. But Powers decides Tom would ... See full summary »
Director: George Archainbaud | Stars: John Barrymore, Helen Twelvetrees, Jill Esmond, William 'Stage' Boyd
Votes: 402
40. The Dark Horse (1932)
Passed | 75 min | Comedy, Romance
Jailbird is hired to lead a dimwitted candidate's campaign for governor.
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Warren William, Bette Davis, Guy Kibbee, Vivienne Osborne
Votes: 1,372
41. The Washington Masquerade (1932)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Romance
US senator (Lionel Barrymore) falls in love with a young woman (Karen Morley), without realizing she's using him to back the lobbyist she works for.
Director: Charles Brabin | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley, Diane Sinclair, Nils Asther
Votes: 175
42. Animal Crackers (1930)
G | 97 min | Comedy, Family, Musical
Mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Spaulding.
Director: Victor Heerman | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, The Marx Brothers
Votes: 15,270 | Gross: $0.91M
43. The Cocoanuts (1929)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
During the Florida land boom, The Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land, thwart a jewel robbery, and generally act like themselves.
Directors: Robert Florey, Joseph Santley | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
Votes: 8,196 | Gross: $3.92M
44. Monkey Business (1931)
Not Rated | 77 min | Comedy, Family, Musical
On a transatlantic crossing, The Marx Brothers get up to their usual antics and manage to annoy just about everyone on board the ship.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, The Marx Brothers, Chico Marx
Votes: 14,279
45. Horse Feathers (1932)
Passed | 68 min | Comedy, Family, Musical
Quincy Adams Wagstaff, Huxley University's new president, accidentally hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against their rival, Darwin University.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, The Marx Brothers
Votes: 13,399
46. The Thin Man (1934)
TV-PG | 91 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Former detective Nick Charles and his wealthy wife Nora investigate a murder case, mostly for the fun of it.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton
Votes: 32,546
47. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Not Rated | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A unassuming greeting card poet from a small town in Vermont heads to New York City upon inheriting a massive fortune and is immediately hounded by those who wish to take advantage of him.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander
Votes: 23,220
48. Sons of the Desert (1933)
Passed | 68 min | Comedy, Family
When Stan and Ollie trick their wives into thinking that they are taking a medicinal cruise while they're actually going to a convention, the wives find out the truth the hard way.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Mae Busch
Votes: 9,587
49. Million Dollar Legs (1932)
Passed | 64 min | Comedy, Sport
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
Director: Edward F. Cline | Stars: Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, Andy Clyde, Lyda Roberti
Votes: 1,460
50. Blonde Venus (1932)
Passed | 93 min | Drama
A cabaret singer takes up with a millionaire to pay for her gravely-ill husband's operation.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Herbert Marshall, Dickie Moore
Votes: 5,622
51. Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Passed | 86 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron
Votes: 1,398
52. Becky Sharp (1935)
Unrated | 84 min | Drama, Romance, War
Against the backdrop of Napoleon's Waterloo campaign, an ambitious woman from a family of entertainers begins a destructive climb up the social ladder.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Frances Dee, Cedric Hardwicke, Billie Burke
Votes: 1,292
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