Best Movies of 1931

by terrence-gale | created - 26 Feb 2014 | updated - 09 Mar 2015 | Public

Here are the best movies of 1931.

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1. City Lights (1931)

G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

99 Metascore

With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.

Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers

Votes: 196,008 | Gross: $0.02M

2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Passed | 98 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.

Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert

Votes: 15,804 | Gross: $2.79M

3. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

Passed | 93 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance

An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charles Ruggles

Votes: 4,116

4. The Public Enemy (1931)

Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama

80 Metascore

An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime.

Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell

Votes: 23,015 | Gross: $1.01M

5. À Nous la Liberté (1931)

Not Rated | 83 min | Comedy, Musical

Seeking better life, two convicts escape from prison.

Director: René Clair | Stars: Raymond Cordy, Henri Marchand, Rolla France, Paul Ollivier

Votes: 4,967

6. Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

TV-PG | 86 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin.

Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Anne Chevalier, Matahi, Hitu, Bill Bambridge

Votes: 6,383

7. Five Star Final (1931)

Not Rated | 89 min | Crime, Drama

The City Editor of a sleazy tabloid goes against his own journalistic ethics to resurrect a twenty year old murder case... with tragic results.

Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner, Anthony Bushell

Votes: 2,530

8. The Champ (I) (1931)

Passed | 86 min | Drama, Family, Sport

An alcoholic ex-boxer struggles to provide a good living for his son.

Director: King Vidor | Stars: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates

Votes: 3,620

9. East Lynne (1931)

Passed | 102 min | Drama, Romance

The refined Lady Isabel Carlisle, after leaving her family and enduring nearly a decade of hardships, learns that her son has fallen ill. Despite being nearly blinded as the result of an explosion, she returns home to see her son again.

Director: Frank Lloyd | Stars: Ann Harding, Clive Brook, Conrad Nagel, Cecilia Loftus

Votes: 336

10. The Front Page (1931)

Approved | 101 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

76 Metascore

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: 3,449

11. The Criminal Code (1930)

Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

After a failed attempt at running for governor, D.A. Mark Brady is appointed warden of the state prison where many of the criminals he prosecuted are incarcerated.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff

Votes: 1,379

12. Svengali (1931)

Approved | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Romance

Through hypnotism and telepathic mind control, a sinister music maestro controls the singing voice, but not the heart, of the woman he loves.

Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, Donald Crisp, Bramwell Fletcher

Votes: 2,502

13. Transatlantic (1931)

Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Drama

A contained cast of characters traveling aboard a transatlantic ocean liner are pushed to dangerous limits though monetary issues that threaten the lives of the people aboard.

Director: William K. Howard | Stars: Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, John Halliday, Greta Nissen

Votes: 275

14. Smart Money (1931)

Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama

A Greek barber has uncommon skills in playing poker and soon rises in the seedy world of illegal gambling, but pretty blondes remain his Achilles' heel.

Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Evalyn Knapp, Ralf Harolde

Votes: 2,235

15. The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)

Passed | 75 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

Out of jail for a crime she did not commit, Madelon turns to prostitution and thievery to send her illegitimate son to medical school.

Director: Edgar Selwyn | Stars: Helen Hayes, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton, Robert Young

Votes: 1,130

16. The Guardsman (1931)

Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Drama

A jealous stage actor disguises himself as a Russian guardsman in order to test his actress wife's loyalty.

Director: Sidney Franklin | Stars: Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young, Zasu Pitts

Votes: 597

17. Bad Girl (1931)

Passed | 90 min | Drama, Romance

A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.

Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Minna Gombell, Frank Darien

Votes: 1,605

18. A Free Soul (1931)

Passed | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

An alcoholic lawyer who successfully defended a notorious gambler on a murder charge objects when his free-spirited daughter becomes romantically involved with him.

Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable

Votes: 2,933

19. Trader Horn (1931)

Passed | 122 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Two white traders in the darkest Africa of the 1870s find a missionary's daughter, who was captured as a child by a savage tribe and now worshiped as a goddess.

Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Harry Carey, Edwina Booth, Duncan Renaldo, Mutia Omoolu

Votes: 1,120

20. Skippy (1931)

Passed | 85 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

Skippy, the mischievous son of a wealthy doctor, meets Sooky in poverty-ridden Shantytown, and together they try to save Sooky's pet from a cruel dogcatcher.

Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Jackie Cooper, Robert Coogan, Mitzi Green, Jackie Searl

Votes: 1,000

21. The Star Witness (1931)

Passed | 68 min | Crime, Drama

Members of a family witness two murders, but the gang uses threats, violence and kidnapping to try to keep the members from testifying.

Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Walter Huston, Frances Starr, Grant Mitchell, Sally Blane

Votes: 752

22. Arrowsmith (1931)

Approved | 108 min | Drama

A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.

Director: John Ford | Stars: Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett, A.E. Anson

Votes: 1,991

23. Cimarron (1931)

Passed | 123 min | Drama, Western

70 Metascore

A newspaper editor settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the nineteenth century.

Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, Nance O'Neil

Votes: 6,923



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