XxXApathy420XxX's Favourite Films of the 1930s
by arthuryanthar | created - 01 May 2019 | updated - 01 May 2019 | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. 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: 9,513
2. The Only Son (1936)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama
A widow sends her only son away to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him, finding him a poor school teacher with a wife and son.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chôko Iida, Shin'ichi Himori, Masao Hayama, Yoshiko Tsubouchi
Votes: 4,041
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: 168,491 | Gross: $0.03M
4. A Day in the Country (1946)
Not Rated | 40 min | Short, Comedy, Drama
The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Sylvia Bataille, Jane Marken, Georges D'Arnoux, André Gabriello
Votes: 7,102
5. 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: 17,475
6. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Not Rated | 122 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A criminal mastermind uses hypnosis to rule the rackets after death.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke, Thomy Bourdelle, Gustav Diessl
Votes: 13,599
7. Borderline (1930)
Not Rated | 63 min | Drama
A negro woman having an adulterous affair with a white man causes his wife to go mad and re-enforces the towns-folk's prejudice against Negroes.
Director: Kenneth MacPherson | Stars: Paul Robeson, Eslanda Robeson, Hilda Doolittle, Gavin Arthur
Votes: 576
8. The Face of Britain (1935)
18 min | Documentary, Short
Director: Paul Rotha | Star: A.J. Cummings
Votes: 54
9. Les Misérables (1934)
Not Rated | 281 min | Drama
The 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.
Director: Raymond Bernard | Stars: Harry Baur, Charles Vanel, Paul Azaïs, Max Dearly
Votes: 1,970
10. 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: 4,117
11. The Kidnapping (1934)
83 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Hans has killed the dog of Firmin, a shepherd. Wild with rage, Firmin kidnaps Elsi, Hans' fiancée and locks her up at his home. Hans, a peddler, vows to find the missing girl. This is what ... See full summary »
Director: Dimitri Kirsanoff | Stars: Dita Parlo, Geymond Vital, Jeanne Marie-Laurent, Auguste Bovério
Votes: 277
12. Salt for Svanetia (1930)
TV-14 | 55 min | Documentary
Story of distant mountainous region in Georgia that depicts folklore, lifestyle and daily routines of Svani people, focuses on the scarcity of salt in Svaneti region. Rich with documentary ... See full summary »
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Votes: 897
13. Resurrectio (1931)
65 min | Drama
A famous composer, distraught after his lover leaves him, contemplates suicide. He meets a young woman who restores his will to live.
Director: Alessandro Blasetti | Stars: Lia Franca, Daniele Crespi, Florica Alexandresco, Olga Capri
Votes: 91
14. Comradeship (1931)
Not Rated | 93 min | Drama
Plea against war and for friendship between peoples, through the story of French miners rescued by German colleagues after a firedamp explosion.
Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst | Stars: Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Ernst Busch, Elisabeth Wendt
Votes: 1,747
15. Woman's World (1932)
64 min | Drama
Directors: Efim Dzigan, B. Shreyber | Stars: Raisa Yesipova, Lyubov Mozalevskaya, Tamara Sukova, Vera Bendina
Votes: 68
16. Baby Face (1933)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Romance
A young woman, sexually exploited all her life, decides to turn the tables and exploit the hapless men at a big city bank by gleefully seducing her way to the top.
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier
Votes: 8,167
17. Ray of Sunshine (1933)
87 min | Drama
Vienna, at the height of the Great Depression. Like so many others, Hans has no work, no money, nowhere to live. Having lost his livelihood as a taxi driver, he decides that the only ... See full summary »
Director: Pál Fejös | Stars: Annabella, Gustav Fröhlich, Paul Otto, Hans Marr
Votes: 189
18. Oramunde (1933)
13 min | Short
A title card tells us this is a study on the theme of Mélisande. A female figure, her face hidden by a long veil, dances, twirls, and runs on the shore. She leaps on rocks along the edge of... See full summary »
Director: Emlen Etting | Stars: Caresse Crosby, Mary Binney Montgomery
Votes: 137
19. City Girl (1930)
Passed | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A Chicago waitress falls in love with a Minnesota farmer, and decides to face a life in the country.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, David Torrence, Edith Yorke
Votes: 3,728
20. Earth (1939)
142 min | Drama
The setting is that of a farming family in Ibaraki from where also the originating writers hailed. The film depicts the events of a year during the Meiji era and occurrences and actualities... See full summary »
Director: Tomu Uchida | Stars: Isamu Kosugi, Akiko Kazami, Donguriboya, Kaichi Yamamoto
Votes: 102
21. 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
22. The Blue Light (1932)
85 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
When the moon is full, young men die attempting to reach the mysterious blue light in the mountains.
Directors: Leni Riefenstahl, Béla Balázs | Stars: Leni Riefenstahl, Mathias Wieman, Beni Führer, Max Holzboer
Votes: 1,390
23. 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: 50,615 | Gross: $0.63M
24. The Blood of a Poet (1932)
Not Rated | 55 min | Fantasy
Told in four episodes - an unnamed artist is transported through a mirror into another dimension, where he travels through various bizarre scenarios.
Director: Jean Cocteau | Stars: Enrique Rivero, Elizabeth Lee Miller, Pauline Carton, Odette Talazac
Votes: 7,368
25. Shipyard (1935)
24 min | Documentary, Short
The building and launch of an ocean liner.
Director: Paul Rotha
Votes: 95
26. Shen nu (1934)
TV-PG | 85 min | Drama
Street walker by night, devoted mother by day, a woman fights to get her young son an education amid criminal and social injustice in China.
Director: Yonggang Wu | Stars: Lingyu Ruan, Tian Jian, Zhizhi Zhang, Keng Li
Votes: 2,475
27. Daïnah la métisse (1932)
51 min | Drama
Shades of Othello loom in this engrossing exploration of class, race, and murder set on an ocean liner. Young Dainah encounters an engineer on board who mistakes pleasantries for flirtation... See full summary »
Director: Jean Grémillon | Stars: Charles Vanel, Habib Benglia, Gaston Dubosc, Lucien Guérard
Votes: 275
28. 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: 14,809 | Gross: $0.03M
29. Enthusiasm (1930)
Not Rated | 67 min | Documentary
How the miners of the Don coal basin (one of the industrial regions of Ukraine) were striving to fulfill in four years their part of the Five Year Plan.
Director: Dziga Vertov
Votes: 1,050
30. Ladies' Paradise (1930)
85 min | Drama, Romance
Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crunches all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.
Director: Julien Duvivier | Stars: Dita Parlo, Ginette Maddie, Andrée Brabant, Mireille Barsac
Votes: 576
31. The Invisible Man (1933)
TV-PG | 71 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers
Votes: 39,944
32. Port of Shadows (1938)
Not Rated | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a foggy, French port city.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur
Votes: 9,963 | Gross: $0.03M
33. Four Seasons of Children (1939)
141 min | Drama
The brothers of Children In The Wind deal with declining family fortunes: they must work when the father becomes sick, and eventually live with their grandfather, which means making new friends and struggling with a different environment.
Director: Hiroshi Shimizu | Stars: Teruo Furuya, Masao Hayama, Shin'ichi Himori, Zentarô Iijima
Votes: 145
34. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
Votes: 10,908
36. 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: 16,193 | Gross: $1.04M
37. 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: 79,725
38. 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: 2,543
39. 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: 6,403
40. Design for Living (1933)
Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Mystery, Romance
A woman cannot decide between two men who love her, and the trio agree to try living together in a platonic friendly relationship.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton
Votes: 7,763
41. Other Men's Women (1930)
Passed | 71 min | Drama, Romance
Events take an unhappy turn for two Bill and Jack, two locomotive engineers, after Bill is attracted to his best friend's wife.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney
Votes: 1,392
42. Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (1938)
Not Rated | 90 min | Documentary, Sport
The document of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin, orchestrated as Nazi propaganda.
Director: Leni Riefenstahl | Stars: Sheigo Arai, Jack Beresford, Ralf Berzsenyi, Ferenc Csík
Votes: 4,325
43. Toni (1935)
84 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In the 1920s, the Provence is a magnet for immigrants seeking work in the quarries or in agriculture. Many mingle with locals and settle down permanently - like Toni, an Italian who has ... See full summary »
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalván, Jenny Hélia, Édouard Delmont
Votes: 2,090
44. People on Sunday (1930)
Not Rated | 73 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two men and two women enjoy a pleasant Sunday at the beach amid the unending toil of the working week.
Directors: Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Rochus Gliese, Curt Siodmak, Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen, Christl Ehlers
Votes: 3,548
45. Atarashiki tsuchi (1937)
120 min | Drama, Romance
Teruo is an adopted son of an old samurai family that returns to Japan after living in Germany and is expected to marry Mitsuko. But he's struggling to readjust to Japan and intends to marry an Aryan woman.
Directors: Arnold Fanck, Mansaku Itami | Stars: Sessue Hayakawa, Isamu Kosugi, Setsuko Hara, Yuriko Hanabusa
Votes: 146
46. Mor-Vran (1930)
26 min | Documentary, Short
Jean Epstein's short documentary filmed on the Breton island of Sein.
Director: Jean Epstein
Votes: 192
47. North Sea (1938)
Approved | 24 min | Drama, Documentary, Short
A dramatic reconstruction of the fishing trawler 'John Gillman' in trouble in a storm.
Director: Harry Watt | Star: Bill Blewitt
Votes: 159
48. Forget Love for Now (1937)
73 min | Drama
The lives of unhappy children and women, particularly mothers, burdened by societal restrictions, prejudices and straitened economic circumstances.
Director: Hiroshi Shimizu | Stars: Michiko Kuwano, Shûji Sano, Jun Yokoyama, Fumiko Okamura
Votes: 92
49. Mr. Thank You (1936)
76 min | Comedy, Drama
A friendly bus driver and his passengers over the duration of one journey through the mountains to the nearest train station.
Director: Hiroshi Shimizu | Stars: Ken Uehara, Ryuji Ishiyama, Einosuke Naka, Michiko Kuwano
Votes: 1,274
50. Mad Love (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
In Paris, a demented surgeon's obsession with a British actress leads him to secretly replace her concert-pianist husband's mangled hands with those of a guillotined murderer with a gift for knife-throwing.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy
Votes: 5,878 | Gross: $0.37M
51. Masquerade in Vienna (1934)
90 min | Comedy, Romance
Vienna 1905: A risque drawing is published and threatens to compromise the model, a doctor's wife. Artist Heideneck protects her and invents a name. But the name exists, and this respectable lady is drawn into the artist's shady affairs.
Director: Willi Forst | Stars: Paula Wessely, Anton Walbrook, Olga Tschechowa, Hans Moser
Votes: 393
52. One Hour with You (1932)
Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An unhappily married couple try to come between a happy one.
Directors: George Cukor, Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Lili Damita
Votes: 2,915
53. 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: 5,239
54. Je t'attendrai (1939)
85 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WW1, a train is stopped by a bombing; a young soldier takes advantage of the opportunity to go to his native village to see his parents.
Director: Léonide Moguy | Stars: Jean-Pierre Aumont, Corinne Luchaire, Berthe Bovy, René Bergeron
Votes: 123
55. Anma to onna (1938)
66 min | Drama
Two blind masseurs travel to a mountain retreat. One of them falls for a visiting lady from Tokyo and investigates a series of thefts.
Director: Hiroshi Shimizu | Stars: Mieko Takamine, Shin Tokudaiji, Shin'ichi Himori, Jun Yokoyama
Votes: 814
56. Gli uomini, che mascalzoni... (1932)
64 min | Comedy, Romance
Bruno, a young Milanese driver, falls in love with Mariuccia, dependent on a perfumery. Wanting to impress her, he shows up for their first date, in his employer's car.
Director: Mario Camerini | Stars: Lia Franca, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zoppetti, Aldo Moschino
Votes: 466
57. King of Jazz (1930)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Musical
American Pre-Code color film starring Paul Whiteman and his Jazz orchestra.
Directors: John Murray Anderson, Walter Lantz | Stars: Paul Whiteman, John Boles, Laura La Plante, Jeanette Loff
Votes: 1,615
58. Stolen Death (1938)
101 min | Romance, Thriller
A thriller set in turn-of-the-century Helsinki, Stolen Death uses elements of German expressionism to tell the story of Finnish resistance fighters smuggling arms to overthrow the Tsarist ... See full summary »
Director: Nyrki Tapiovaara | Stars: Tuulikki Paananen, Ilmari Mänty, Santeri Karilo, Annie Mörk
Votes: 299
59. La dolorosa (1934)
85 min | Drama
After a society lady abandons him for a cad, a sensitive young painter becomes a monk.But when his former beloved is later destitute with an illegitimate child, will he now be able to help her?
Director: Jean Grémillon | Stars: Rosita Díaz Gimeno, Mary Amparo Bosch, Pilar García, Eva López
Votes: 59
60. Night Mail (1936)
Approved | 25 min | Short, Documentary
Shows the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland overnight.
Directors: Harry Watt, Basil Wright | Stars: Arthur Clark, John Grierson, Stuart Legg, Robert Rae
Votes: 1,457
61. Prix de beauté (Miss Europe) (1930)
93 min | Drama, Romance
Lucienne, typist and gorgeous bathing beauty, decides to enter the 'Miss Europe' pageant sponsored by the French newspaper she works for. She finds her jealous lover Andre violently ... See full summary »
Director: Augusto Genina | Stars: Louise Brooks, Georges Charlia, Augusto Bandini, André Nicolle
Votes: 667
62. Il caso Valdemar (1936)
12 min | Short, Horror
A doctor performs an experiment on a dying man by placing him under hypnosis on his deathbed.
Directors: Gianni Hoepli, Ubaldo Magnaghi | Stars: Lav Kamenarovic, Gino Eprisi, Carlo Bissi, Vincenzo Gatti
Votes: 179
63. Ze soboty na nedeli (1931)
69 min | Drama
Mána is a young secretary. One evening she and her roommate accompany two wealthy older gentlemen to dinner. After one of them offers money to her she realizes his intentions and flees from... See full summary »
Director: Gustav Machatý | Stars: Ladislav H. Struna, Magda Maderova, Jirina Sejbalová, Karel Jicínský
Votes: 199
Tell Your Friends