Top Ranked Films of the 30s (all polls)
by LawrenceJoseSinclair | created - 01 Jul 2011 | updated - 01 Jul 2011 | PublicI took all the film polls I could find, and threw them all into a spreadsheet, and ranked the results. I posted the Top Ranked 1000 Films first, then an alphabetical list of all 2260 titles that made polls. I'm now posting sub-lists like this one. The complete and original lists can be found at [link]http://worldsbestfilms.blogspot.com[/link] .. "Your results may vary"
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1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
PG | 102 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
Directors: Victor Fleming, King Vidor | Stars: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Votes: 428,793 | Gross: $2.08M
2. Modern Times (1936)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford
Votes: 259,574 | Gross: $0.16M
3. 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: 168,525 | Gross: $0.03M
4. 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: 196,106 | Gross: $0.02M
5. Duck Soup (1933)
Not Rated | 69 min | Comedy, Musical
Rufus T. Firefly is named the dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of his wealthy backer Mrs. Teasdale, contending with two inept spies who can't seem to keep straight which side they're on.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
Votes: 62,752
Groucho and Margaret Dumont have the best repartee of any comedies; this features the famous mirror scene with Harpo dressed as Groucho.
6. The Rules of the Game (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély
Votes: 31,340
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: 91,002 | Gross: $10.00M
8. L'Atalante (1934)
Not Rated | 89 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Newly married couple Juliette and a ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'atalante along with the captain's first mate Le père Jules and a cabin boy.
Director: Jean Vigo | Stars: Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre
Votes: 17,476
9. Gone with the Wind (1939)
Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War
A 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.
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 334,408 | Gross: $198.68M
This massive, nearly four-hour epic was only 11 months from beginning of filming until its opening premiere, all within 1939; several crew members who worked on it day and night never recovered.
10. It Happened One Night (1934)
Passed | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
A 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.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,311 | Gross: $4.36M
Capra said he never shot any scene twice, and the entire film was shot within two weeks
11. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Not Rated | 75 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson
Votes: 53,276 | Gross: $4.36M
12. Der blaue Engel (1930)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Music, Romance
An elderly professor's ordered life spins dangerously out of control when he falls for a nightclub singer.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Rosa Valetti
Votes: 16,303 | Gross: $0.08M
This von Sternberg film made a international star out of Marlene Dietrich. She fled Germany before WW2, Hitler invited her back, and she said "only if I can bring my Jewish husband"
13. The Grand Illusion (1937)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, War
During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim
Votes: 38,870 | Gross: $0.17M
Jean Renoir (son of the famous painter) made this anti-war film that many consider the finest film ever made.
14. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 121,420 | Gross: $9.60M
The U.S. Congress tried to buy this film for twice its cost from Columbia in order to destroy it, but Capra talked them into releasing it rather than let it be censored in a democracy with freedom of speech.
15. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy
While 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.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Votes: 66,113
Hepburn's character brings out my homicidal tendendies; I think in the modern world she wouldn't have survived to reach adulthood!
16. 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: 54,515 | Gross: $3.98M
Early mouth-watering technicolor is mindless adventure fun. Rumor is that star Errol Flynn was a gun-runner (or more) in the South Pacific before coming to Hollywood
17. L'Age d'Or (1930)
Not Rated | 63 min | Comedy, Drama
A surrealist tale of a man and a woman who are passionately in love with each other, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Caridad de Laberdesque, Max Ernst
Votes: 14,812 | Gross: $0.03M
18. 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: 67,706 | Gross: $3.27M
Faithful adaptation of the famous anti-war novel won a best picture Oscar
19. Stagecoach (1939)
Passed | 96 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A 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.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine
Votes: 53,790
The best of the early John Ford westerns made John Wayne a much bigger star
20. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Approved | 83 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
Exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen | Stars: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, Roy Atwell
Votes: 215,538 | Gross: $184.93M
Historically famous as the first full-length animated feature, this is a musical romantic comedy for children based on a fairy tale with adult dwarfs thrown into the mix.
21. Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 16,202 | Gross: $1.04M
For me, Ernst Lubistch's best comedy, a pre-code story of con-artists that gets pretty risque for that time.
22. Vampyr (1932)
Not Rated | 75 min | Fantasy, Horror
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz
Votes: 20,525
23. I Was Born, But... (1932)
Not Rated | 90 min | Comedy, Drama
Two young brothers throw a tantrum when they discover that their father isn't the most important man in his workplace.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Tatsuo Saitô, Tomio Aoki, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Hideo Sugawara
Votes: 6,214
24. The 39 Steps (1935)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A 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.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle
Votes: 61,567
This early British film of Hitchcock's is a tight and well-crafted spy story and is one of his best.
25. Earth (1930)
Unrated | 75 min | Drama
In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.
Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko | Stars: Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva, Yelena Maksimova
Votes: 6,404
Of the many films with this title, this is the Russian one directed by Alexander Dovzhenko about poor farmers
26. Pépé le Moko (1937)
Not Rated | 94 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A wanted gangster is both king and prisoner of the Casbah. He is protected from arrest by his friends, but is torn by his desire for freedom outside. A visiting Parisian beauty may just tempt his fate.
Director: Julien Duvivier | Stars: Jean Gabin, Gabriel Gabrio, Saturnin Fabre, Fernand Charpin
Votes: 8,076 | Gross: $0.15M
27. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,626 | Gross: $0.63M
This is a one of a kind film that you don't see every day
28. Top Hat (1935)
Not Rated | 101 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An American dancer comes to Britain and falls for a model whom he initially annoyed, but she mistakes him for his goofy producer.
Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes
Votes: 20,714 | Gross: $3.88M
All the Astaire-Rogers musicals are worth seeing, my favorites are Swing Time, this, and the first one, The Gay Divorcee.
29. A Night at the Opera (1935)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
A 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.
Directors: Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle
Votes: 34,768 | Gross: $2.54M
Along with Duck Soup, as good as the Marx Brothers get. When Chico starts playing the piano, Groucho looks at the camera and says "Some of you may want to go out into the lobby until this blows over"
30. 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: 3,843
31. 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: 79,738
32. Ninotchka (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A 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.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 22,903 | Gross: $1.19M
Before he started directing, Billy Wilder wrote screenplays like this comedy about Russian officials.
33. Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Not Rated | 112 min | Action, Biography, Drama
The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov
Votes: 12,263
Another of Sergei Eisenstein's masterpieces, this features the famous battle on the frozen lake as the Russians battle the Tutonic invaders.
34. 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: 13,041 | Gross: $2.30M
One of a number of classic Busby Berkeley musicals, along with Dames and Goldiggers of 33.
35. The Awful Truth (1937)
Passed | 90 min | Comedy, Romance
A married couple file an amicable divorce, but find it harder to let go of each other than they initially thought.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy
Votes: 21,384
36. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 30,325
I prefer this original to the over-the-top remake with the scenery-chewing Al Pacino - the subtitle is "Scurge of the Nation"
37. 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: 4,968
This French comedy about industrialization had it's plot 'stolen' by Charles Chaplin for Modern Times and the producer sued Chaplin to the chagrin of director René Clair, an admirer of Chaplin's work, who was glad they lost.
38. Le Jour Se Leve (1939)
Not Rated | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry
Votes: 8,275 | Gross: $0.03M
39. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Passed | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
At a remote South American trading port, the manager of an air-freight company is forced to risk his pilots' lives in order to win an important contract as a traveling American showgirl stops in town.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Richard Barthelmess
Votes: 15,664
Good story about fliers over the Andes in South America if you can get past some cheesy special effects of model airplanes landing on obviously small sets. This was the year that both Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz lost the special effects Oscar to the more deserving The Rains Came, so much better work was being done in this area.
40. 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: 14,588
This musical from George Stevens is probably the best of the Astaire-Rogers musicals for the dancing and ingenuity in the choreography; this is as good as they got together.
41. 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: 6,387
Another classic from the German expressionist F.W. Murnau, who made some of the best silent films of the 20's (Sunrise, The Last Laugh, Nosferatu)
42. Triumph of the Will (1935)
Not Rated | 110 min | Documentary, History
The infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.
Director: Leni Riefenstahl | Stars: Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Max Amann, Martin Bormann
Votes: 18,329
If you can get past the fact that it's Nazi propaganda, one of the best documentaries ever made with techniques from actress-turned-director Leni Reifenstahl that are still copied today. She later apologized for this film, but it was so popular in the west that it caused Time Magazine to name Hitler "man of the year" in 1935!
43. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)
Not Rated | 148 min | Drama, Romance
The adopted son of a legendary actor, and an aspiring star himself, turns to his infant brother's wet nurse for support and affection - only for her to give up everything for her beloved's glory.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Shôtarô Hanayagi, Kôkichi Takada, Ryôtarô Kawanami, Kinnosuke Takamatsu
Votes: 4,398
44. The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)
Not Rated | 77 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
The boss of a publishing company is a womanizer and a jerk, but what would happen if he suddenly disappeared?
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: René Lefèvre, Florelle, Jules Berry, Marcel Lévesque
Votes: 3,709 | Gross: $0.04M
45. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Not Rated | 96 min | Mystery, Thriller
While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, May Whitty
Votes: 57,183
Another of Hitchcock's early British masterpieces of suspense and mystery, as a train's passenger vanishes from it while it's moving.
46. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Passed | 91 min | Drama, Romance
An elderly couple are forced to live hundreds of miles apart when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents in.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 9,518
47. The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, History, Romance
A German noblewoman enters into a loveless marriage with the dim-witted, unstable heir to the Russian throne, then plots to oust him from power.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser
Votes: 7,240
Director Josef von Sternberg designed everything in this film, including the outrageous costumes and sets; the story of an Austrian beauty (Marlene Dietrich) who married a dim-witted czar and rises to the throne herself.
48. Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)
Not Rated | 85 min | Comedy
A bookseller saves a tramp from drowning and shelters him, but the tramp's odd behavior starts to wear everyone down.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Michel Simon, Marcelle Hainia, Sévérine Lerczinska, Jean Gehret
Votes: 6,209
This is the original Renoir film that was remade here as the comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which is actually funnier but not as poignant.
49. Man of Aran (1934)
Not Rated | 76 min | Documentary, Drama
In this blend of documentary and fictional narrative from pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty, the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands are captured with attention to naturalistic beauty and historical detail.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Colman 'Tiger' King, Maggie Dirrane, Michael Dirrane, Pat Mullin
Votes: 2,324
An early 'documentary' (parts are staged) about a British island where the inhabitants don't even have soil, yet somehow they manage to survive.
50. It's a Gift (1934)
Passed | 68 min | Comedy
A henpecked New Jersey grocer makes plans to move to California to grow oranges, despite the resistance of his overbearing wife.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: W.C. Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Julian Madison
Votes: 5,761
One of the best W.C. Fields comedies, this is the one in which he kicks a crawling baby.
51. Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (1938)
Not Rated | 111 min | Documentary, Sport
The document of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin.
Director: Leni Riefenstahl | Stars: David Albritton, Arvo Askola, Jack Beresford, Erwin Blask
Votes: 5,240
I went one extra position on this list to include the other amazing documentary from Leni Reifenstahl, this one documenting the 1936 Berlin Olympics; on the polls it's listed as one film, and should be ranked much higher.
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