Year by year: 1931
by cafg-0 | created - 8 months ago | updated - 8 months ago | PublicMy 30 favorite films of 1931
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1. City Lights (1931)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
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: 196,027 | Gross: $0.02M
2. M (1931)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke
Votes: 168,431 | Gross: $0.03M
3. Frankenstein (1931)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles
Votes: 79,695
4. La Chienne (1931)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama
Maurice Legrand, a meek cashier married to a nagging wife, has a secret passion: he's a Sunday painter. He falls in love with Lulu, a young woman dominated by Dédé, the pimp who she works for. Dédé pushes Lulu into a relationship with him.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Michel Simon, Janie Marèse, Georges Flamant, Roger Gaillard
Votes: 4,836
5. The Public Enemy (1931)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama
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
6. 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: 4,966
7. 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: 14,524
8. Street Scene (1931)
Passed | 80 min | Drama, Romance
Twenty-four hours elapse on the stoop of a Hell's Kitchen tenement as a microcosm of the American melting pot interconnects during a summer heatwave.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, William Collier Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 2,052
9. The Threepenny Opera (1931)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
The Gangster Macheath secretly marries the daughter of beggar king Peachum. When Peachum finds out, he instructs the police chief Brown to arrest and hang Macheath. If not, all the beggars of Soho will disturb the upcoming coronation.
Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst | Stars: Rudolf Forster, Lotte Lenya, Carola Neher, Reinhold Schünzel
Votes: 2,540
10. Le Million (1931)
Not Rated | 91 min | Comedy, Musical
An impoverished painter and his rival engage in a race across Paris to recover a jacket concealing a winning lottery ticket.
Director: René Clair | Stars: Annabella, René Lefèvre, Jean-Louis Allibert, Paul Ollivier
Votes: 3,840
11. 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: 15,805 | Gross: $2.79M
12. 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: 2,531
13. Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
Passed | 87 min | Drama, Romance
At an all-girls boarding school, Manuela falls in love with a teacher, to terrific consequences.
Directors: Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich | Stars: Dorothea Wieck, Hertha Thiele, Emilia Unda, Hedy Krilla
Votes: 3,737
14. Waterloo Bridge (1931)
81 min | Drama, Romance
A prostitute's self-loathing makes her reluctant to marry an idealistic soldier during World War I.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Mae Clarke, Douglass Montgomery, Doris Lloyd, Frederick Kerr
Votes: 3,165
15. Congress Dances (1931)
85 min | Comedy, History, Musical
Vienna glove-sales-lady Christl falls in love to Czar Alexander. Metternich tries to use this to keep him out of the conferences of the Vienna Congress from 1815.
Director: Erik Charell | Stars: Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Otto Wallburg, Conrad Veidt
Votes: 598
16. 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: 6,382
17. The Miracle Woman (1931)
Passed | 90 min | Drama, Romance
After an unappreciated minister dies, his daughter loses her faith in God, prompting her to open a phony temple with a con man. Can the love of a blind aviator restore her faith and happiness?
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer
Votes: 2,263
18. 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
19. Marius (1931)
Not Rated | 130 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Marius is faced with a choice whether to fulfill his passion by sailing the seas or stay and marry the woman he loves.
Director: Alexander Korda | Stars: Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Charpin, Alida Rouffe
Votes: 2,567
20. 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: 3,449
21. 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
22. 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
23. Night Nurse (1931)
Passed | 72 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A nurse enlists the help of a petty criminal to foil a sinister plot to murder two children.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable
Votes: 4,491
24. 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
25. 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: 1,873
26. Dracula (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
Directors: Tod Browning, Karl Freund | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye
Votes: 58,621
27. 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: 14,276
28. Cimarron (1931)
Passed | 123 min | Drama, Western
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: 6,924
29. 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
30. Private Lives (1931)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Divorced couple unexpectedly meet each other during their honeymoon and rekindle their love.
Director: Sidney Franklin | Stars: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel
Votes: 1,357
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