Dave Tompkins :: DVD Library :: IMDb Charts :: Top by Decade :: 1930s


(text-only version)

1.  City Lights (1931)

The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl he has fallen in love with.

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2.  Modern Times (1936)

The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.

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3.  M (1931)

When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

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4.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.

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5.  It Happened One Night (1934)

A spoiled heiress, running away from her family, is helped by a man who's actually a reporter looking for a story. But then he falls for her...

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6.  Gone with the Wind (1939)

American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

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7.  Dodsworth (1936)

A bittersweet tale of the increasing estrangement of a retired automobile tycoon and his wife. Increasingly obsessed with maintaining an appearance of youth...

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8.  Trouble in Paradise (1932)

A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.

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9.  The Thin Man (1934)

Comedy-mystery featuring Nick and Nora Charles: a former detective and his rich, playful wife. They solve a murder case mostly for the fun of it.

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10.  Grand Illusion (1937)

During 1st WW, two French officers are captured. Captain De Boeldieu is an aristocrat while Lieutenant Marechal was a mechanic in civilian life...

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11.  The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home.

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12.  My Man Godfrey (1936)

A scatterbrained socialite hires a vagrant as a family butler...but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye.

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13.  A Night at the Opera (1935)

A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.

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14.  Bringing Up Baby (1938)

David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances...

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15.  Rules of the Game (1939)

Renoir's look at bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II. An assorted cast of characters - the rich and their poor servants - meet up at a French chateau.

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16.  Duck Soup (1933)

Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.

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17.  You Can't Take It with You (1938)

A good-natured but decidedly eccentric family meets a new friend.

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18.  All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

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19.  The Women (1939)

A study of the lives and romantic entanglements of various interconnected women.

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20.  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Longfellow Deeds, a simple-hearted Vermont tuba player, inherits a fortune and has to contend with opportunist city slickers.

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21.  The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.

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22.  The Lady Vanishes (1938)

While traveling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.

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23.  The Awful Truth (1937)

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

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24.  Captains Courageous (1937)

Harvey Cheyne is a spoiled brat used to having his own way. When a prank goes wrong onboard an ocean liner Harvey ends up overboard and nearly drowns...

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25.  Frankenstein (1931)

Horror classic in which an obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses.

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26.  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.

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27.  Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.

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28.  Ninotchka (1939)

A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.

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29.  King Kong (1933)

A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star.

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30.  Freaks (1932)

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.

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31.  Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein (goaded by an even madder scientist) builds his monster a mate.

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32.  L'Atalante (1934)

When Juliette marries Jean, she comes to live on his ship, on board of which are, besides the two of them...

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33.  Stagecoach (1939)

A simple stagecoach trip is complicated by the fact that Geronimo is on the warpath in the area. The...

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34.Fury (1936)
35.Holiday (1938)
36.  The 39 Steps (1935)

A man in London tries to help a counterespionage agent. But when the agent is killed and he stands accused, he must go on the run to both save himself and also stop a spy ring trying to steal top secret information.

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37.  Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on avenging his captors.

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38.  Top Hat (1935)

Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel...

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39.The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
40.  Dinner at Eight (1933)

Social climbing Millicent and Oliver Jordan throw a dinner for a bunch of New York society types, each of whom has much to reveal.

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41.The Blue Angel (1930)
42.Lost Horizon (1937)
43.  The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Three men attempt to make a living in Prohibitionist America after returning home from fighting together in World War I.

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44.  Scarface (1932)

An ambitious and near insanely violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.

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45.  Captain Blood (1935)

An enslaved doctor and his comrades in chains escape and become pirates of the Robin Hood variety.

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46.  The Public Enemy (1931)

A young hoodlum rises up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, even as a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob war.

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47.  The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

Berlin police inspector Lohmann investigates a case, in which all clues lead to a man, who's in a hospital for mental illnesses for since many years - Dr. Mabuse.

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48.Wuthering Heights (1939)
49.42nd Street (1933)
50.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

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

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Count: 43 / 50