My Top 40 Movies from the 1930's
My all-time favourite movies from from the decade that started with a whisper and ended with a bang.
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40 titles
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsClark GableClaudette ColbertWalter ConnollyA rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
- DirectorSam WoodSidney FranklinStarsRobert DonatGreer GarsonTerry KilburnAn aged teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school recalls his career and his personal life over the decades.
- DirectorHoward HawksStarsKatharine HepburnCary GrantCharles RugglesWhile trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
- DirectorSidney FranklinVictor FlemingGustav MachatýStarsPaul MuniLuise RainerWalter ConnollyAlthough married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.
- DirectorGregory La CavaStarsWilliam PowellCarole LombardAlice BradyA scatterbrained socialite hires a vagrant as a family butler - but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye.
- DirectorHarold YoungStarsLeslie HowardMerle OberonRaymond MasseyA noblewoman discovers her husband is The Scarlet Pimpernel, a vigilante who rescues aristocrats from the blade of the guillotine.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsWalter HustonRuth ChattertonPaul LukasA retired auto manufacturer and his wife take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.
- DirectorWilliam A. SeiterStarsStan LaurelOliver HardyCharley ChaseWhen 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.
- DirectorWilliam Cameron MenziesStarsRaymond MasseyEdward ChapmanRalph RichardsonThe story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsBette DavisHenry FondaGeorge BrentIn 1850s Louisiana, a free-spirited Southern belle loses her fiancé due to her stubborn vanity and pride, and vows to win him back.
- DirectorErnst LubitschStarsGreta GarboMelvyn DouglasIna ClaireA stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
- DirectorMerian C. CooperErnest B. SchoedsackStarsFay WrayRobert ArmstrongBruce CabotA 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.
- DirectorAnthony AsquithLeslie HowardStarsLeslie HowardWendy HillerWilfrid LawsonA phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.
- DirectorSidney FranklinStarsNorma ShearerFredric MarchCharles LaughtonElizabeth Barrett's tyrannical father has forbidden any of his family to marry. Nevertheless, Elizabeth falls in love with the poet Robert Browning.
- DirectorGeorge CukorStarsKatharine HepburnJoan BennettPaul LukasA chronicle of the lives of sisters growing up in 19th-century New England.
- DirectorJohn CromwellW.S. Van DykeStarsRonald ColmanMadeleine CarrollC. Aubrey SmithAn Englishman on a Ruritarian holiday must impersonate the king when the rightful monarch, a distant cousin, is drugged and kidnapped.
- DirectorArchie MayoStarsLeslie HowardHumphrey BogartBette DavisA waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert.
- DirectorVictor FlemingGeorge CukorSam WoodStarsClark GableVivien LeighThomas MitchellA sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
- DirectorRaymond BernardStarsHarry BaurCharles VanelPaul AzaïsThe lives of numerous people over the course of 20 years in 19th century France, weaved together by the story of an ex-convict named Jean Valjean on the run from an obsessive police inspector, who pursues him for only a minor offense.
- DirectorJack ConwayRobert Z. LeonardStarsRonald ColmanElizabeth AllanEdna May OliverA pair of lookalikes, one a former French aristocrat and the other an alcoholic English lawyer, fall in love with the same woman amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution.
- DirectorSam WoodEdmund GouldingStarsGroucho MarxChico MarxHarpo MarxA sly business manager and the wacky friends of two opera singers in Italy help them achieve success in America while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
- DirectorZoltan KordaStarsJohn ClementsRalph RichardsonC. Aubrey SmithA British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he shadows his friends to save their lives.
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsLew AyresLouis WolheimJohn WrayA German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
- DirectorWilliam DieterleStarsCharles LaughtonMaureen O'HaraCedric HardwickeIn 15th-century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
- DirectorEdmund GouldingStarsBette DavisGeorge BrentHumphrey BogartA young socialite is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and must decide whether or not she'll meet her final days with dignity.
- DirectorW.S. Van DykeStarsWilliam PowellMyrna LoyMaureen O'SullivanFormer detective Nick Charles and his wealthy wife Nora investigate a murder case, mostly for the fun of it.
- DirectorHenry HathawayStarsGary CooperFranchot ToneRichard CromwellThree British soldiers on the Northwest Frontier of India struggle against the enemy - and themselves.
- DirectorMichael CurtizStarsErrol FlynnOlivia de HavillandPatric KnowlesA major countermands orders and attacks to avenge a previous massacre of men, women, and children.
- DirectorGeorge StevensStarsCary GrantJoan FontaineVictor McLaglenIn 19th century India, three British soldiers and a native waterbearer must stop a secret mass revival of the murderous Thuggee cult before it can rampage across the land.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsMerle OberonLaurence OlivierDavid NivenA servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneClaire TrevorAndy DevineA group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsColin CliveMae ClarkeBoris KarloffDr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsRobert DonatMadeleine CarrollLucie MannheimA man in London tries to help a counter-espionage agent, but when the agent is killed and the man stands accused, he must go on the run to save himself and stop a spy ring that is trying to steal top-secret information.
- DirectorMichael CurtizStarsErrol FlynnOlivia de HavillandLionel AtwillAfter 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.
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsGary CooperJean ArthurGeorge BancroftA 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.
- DirectorMichael CurtizStarsJames CagneyPat O'BrienHumphrey BogartA priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.
- DirectorMervyn LeRoyStarsPaul MuniGlenda FarrellHelen VinsonWrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsMargaret LockwoodMichael RedgravePaul LukasWhile travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.
- DirectorNorman TaurogStarsSpencer TracyMickey RooneyHenry HullWhen a death row prisoner tells him he wouldn't have led a life of crime if only he had had one friend as a child, Father Edward Flanagan decides to start a home for young boys.