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The 30 best movies of the 1930s, revisiting the decade that began transforming film.

I love the 1930s decade in film—it's an era that was perfectly imperfect. By the time the year 1930 rolled around, film as an entertainment medium had mostly advanced past the silent film era, and progressed into what was known as "talkies"—aka films where you could actually here the actors speak. While not quite the 1940s from a technical standpoint, the 1930s was the decade that saw the emergence of actors like Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant transforming into huge stars. It also set the foundation for remakes that would end up transforming popular culture decades later ( Scarface for example), and the latter half of the decade gave us classics like The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939). Today we're going to be taking an in-depth dive into the best movies of the 1930s.

If you're a history nerd like me, you'll especially find this list interesting because you'll be able to see the connections and references between these films and more "modern-day" movies if you will. If you are just beginning to dive into the decade film-wise, hopefully we've given you some good suggestions to start you off with that you'll enjoy.

RELATED: The 30 Best Movies of the 1920s for Old Hollywood Fans

1. It Happened One Night (1934)

• Directed by: Frank Capra
• Watch it if you like: Laws of Attraction

Starring Clark Gable as a no-nonsense new reporter and Claudette Colbert as a heiress who typically always gets her way, this Frank Capra directed flick is something of a romantic screwball comedy that is both hilarious and slightly edgy (for the 1930s at least). It's a typical guy ends up for falling for a girl he really has no business falling for type of flick, but there's an element to this film that's quite endearing. After all, it was the first ever movie to win all five the big Academy Awards categories. That's precisely why you should give it a watch.

2. King Kong (1933)

• Directed by: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
• Watch it if you like: The newer versions of King Kong

If you are a lover of King Kong , you might be fascinated to learn that the origins of the film actually date back to 1933. You may be even more fascinated should you choose to give the 1933 version a watch. Sure it lacks the technological advancements of the more modern versions, but that's exactly what makes it so great—you can see the early versions of filmmakers and editors playing around with the concepts that would be introduced decades later. The film stars Robert Armstrong and Ann Darrow as a director and actress who take a trip to the Indian Ocean to shoot a movie. Along the way, Ann gets kidnapped by natives who prepare her as a sacrifice for...you guessed it...Kong.

3. Suicide Squad (1935)

• Directed by: Raymond K. Johnson
• Watch it if you like: Land of the Blind

While we would like to tell you that 1935's Suicide Squad is a precursor to the supervillain/anti-hero film series and comics, there's actually no connection whatsoever. That said, the plot line is one that's still very much interesting as it's about a firefighter (Norman Foster) whose heads gets filled with arrogance after commanding a lot of attention for his stunts. In that way he could possibly compare to Tony Stark aka Iron-Man , but that's a bit of reach. Suicide Squad doesn't need a superhero comparison as it holds its own weight, and we consider it to be a very good film.

4. The Mandarin Mystery (1936)

• Directed by: Ralph Staub
• Watch it if you like: L.A. Confidential

Pro tip: Trying watching an Old Hollywood mystery at night (even better if it's raining). It's a total vibe that will actually relax even though it's a mystery. There's something really great about detective movies from this era—they aren't the most dynamic from a film/technical standpoint, but the storytelling and acting is elite, and I actually think more current filmmakers should be pulling from these early movies as they mastered the concept of simplicity. The Mandarin Mystery is about two murders that somehow end up involving a $50,000 Chinese Mandarin stamp that's represents the motive. Simple and interesting.

5. Big Business Girl (1931)

• Directed by: William A. Seiter
• Watch it if you like: The Devil Wears Prada

1930s New York movies are always a fun watch. Big Business Girl stars Loretta Young as a the lonely wife of jazz band leader who's working for a rather grouchy boss at an ad agency. Determined to make a name for herself, the young woman has to learn the ins and outs of mastering the chaotic world that is New York City. Fun Fact: Big Business Girl is an American pre-Code First National sound comedy film, meaning it paved the way for future comedies.

6. A Night at the Opera (1935)

• Directed by: Sam Wood
• Watch it if you like: The Phantom of the Opera

If you like operas/musicals, then you'll enjoy A Night at the Opera , which features a star cast that includes the names of Groucho Marx, Allan Jones, Kitty Carlisle, Chico and Harpo Marx, and more. A Night at the Opera has an enjoyable storyline that only the 1930s could produce, tunes that will get stuck in your head, and a leap of talent. Again, something to watch if you enjoy great music and musicals.

7. The Girl from Chicago (1932)

• Directed by: Oscar Micheaux
• Watch it if you like: When the Bough Breaks

At some point we'll be doing a deep dive into The Girl from Chicago because it's one of the earliest movies that feature an all-Black cast. It's not the first (that goes to a film called The Homesteader which was also directed by Micheaux), but it's still a pivotal one as it explored the concept of mystery/crime, with a secret service agent taking on the role of investigating the murder of a numbers runner in New York. This was an independent film on a lower than low budget filmed in an era that hadn't progressed yet from technological standpoint (even compared to the late 1930s), so the quality won't be the best you've ever seen, but this movie is a piece of history.

8. Tarzan Escapes (1936)

• Directed by: Richard Thorpe, John Farrow, George B. Seitz, William A. Wellman
• Watch it if you like: Tarzan

It's Tarzan and Jane, but the 1936 version. Tarzan Escapes keeps it close to the story we're familiar with—Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) falls for Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), and wants to live life with him out in the wilderness. Her family absolutely does not approve and wants her home. Not only that, but they also want Tarzan put away into captivity. Once again, another film where it's fascinating to see an "early version" so to speak.

9. Swing Time (1936)

• Directed by: George Stevens
• Watch it if you like: Saturday Night Fever

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made a total of ten films together, and 1936's Swing Time is their sixth. In it, Astaire stars as a dancer and gambler extraordinaire named Lucky Garnett who gets cold feet ahead the wedding to his fiancee (Betty Furness), which leads to the event being called off. Lucky begs for a second chance, which her father grants on the condition that he can randomly come up with $25,000. He heads to New York to do so, but instead ends of meeting a pretty dance teacher (Rogers) that kind of makes him not want to marry his fiancee anymore. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

10. A Shriek in the Night (1933)

• Directed by: Al Ray
• Watch it if you like: M3GAN

The 1930s were the decade where the mystery genre really began being played around with by directors and actors, and A Shriek in the Night is an example of that. Don't let the negative ratings fool you—unless the review was one actually done during the time period it was released (there were certain films that newspaper journalists got assigned to and would cover within their respective columns), I don't think there's a way you can judge a film that was released decades ago in a completely fair manner without expecting more based on modern films you've seen. A Shriek in the Night is about two rival reporters (Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot) who fall for each other while investigating a serial killer. That's not a film concept you see very often, which makes it interesting and worth the watch in my opinion.

11. Hopalong Cassidy (1935)

• Directed by: Howard Bretherton
• Watch it if you like: The Old Way

I must admit that my favorite era of western films is the 1960s/1970s because I think everything lined up perfectly as far as the actors, fashion, and music. I'm also a little bit biased and think that you can't get the full scope of a western without color—only because imagery is such a big part of western movies, and you don't get to see that in its totality with a black and white film. So may not agree with me and that's cool, but I can definitely appreciate how earlier decades like the 1930s laid the groundwork for what would follow. Hopalong Cassidy does just that as it tells the story of a ranch foreman (William Boyd) intent on stirring the pot by trying to star a war between two cattlemen and by helping out a gang.

Stirring the pot may not even be the correct word because that's a lot of damage he was trying to do.

12. The Beast of the City (1932)

• Directed by: Charles Brabin
• Watch it if you like: Pain Hustlers

Jean Harlow, one of the renowned actresses of the 1930s, stars as mob girl named Daisy Stevens, who gets into a relationship with a cop (Wallace Ford) who unbeknownst to her is the "cop brother" of a police investigation (Walter Huston) who is leaving no stone unturned in investigation of mob activities happening in the Chicago area (there's a connection present between all three). Brabin's directorial style was one that really highlighted Harlow's acting skills, which is a reason why this can present a case for being a top five or ten in her catalog.

13. The Prince and the Pauper (1937)

• Directed by: William Keighley
• Watch it if you like: The modern versions of The Prince and the Pauper

You’ve seen the newer versions of The Prince and the Pauper , so you might as well see the 1930s version right. As is the case with some of the other recognizable titles on this list that have had remakes, the storyline stays within the realm of what we know…a poor boy named Tom Canty (Billy Mauch) and The Prince of Wales (Bobby Mauch) switching identities (and the results that come with it), but it’s definitely cool seeing the story told circa 1937. Dare we say—it might have even had an impact on the later films.

14. Holiday (1938)

• Directed by: George Kukor
• Watch it if you like: This Means War

According to critics, Katharine Hepburn was “box office poison” in the late 1920s and early 1930s, so to see her bounce back and turn the tables on them to elevate her star status to the next level had to been a great “in your face” moment for her (and knowing how feisty Hepburn was…she probably did have herself a hearty laugh). The combination of Cary Grant, Hepburn, and Henry Kolker makes this a film worth watching.

15. Twentieth Century (1934)

• Directed by: Howard Hawks
• Watch it if you like: Marriage Story

If the Barrymore name sounds familiar, it’s acting is quite literally in their family lineage. John Barrymore takes the reins here in Twentieth Century , which is about a Broadway actor with crappy luck (Barrymore), running into a former actress flame (Carol Lombard) that he's determined to win back. Getting her back, however, is not going to be as easy as he thought as there are obstacles (in the form of other men) that are standing in his way.

16. The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)

• Directed by: Leslie S. Hiscott
• Watch it if you like: A Haunting in Venice

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes is an Old Hollywood mystery you’re certain to enjoy if you love detective movies. The film stars Arthur Wontner as Holmes, who decides to take one final case before bidding farewell. Along the way, Mr. Holmes gets some twists, turns, and spots some familiar foes in the process of trying to solve the mystery. Can he get the job done? Or will he fail? You’ll have to watch for that.

17. Alice in Wonderland (1933)

• Directed by: Norman Z. McLeod
• Watch it if you like: The newer versions of Alice in Wonderland

Does the title Alice in Wonderland sound familiar? Alice In Wonderland’s origins date back to Lewis Carroll’s novel. Now as far as the movies go, before you can even get to Johnny Depp’s 2010 version (or even the 1950s Disney version), you’ve got to start here with the 1930s. It’s kind of cool seeing how they originally did the first adaptation with actors, then switched to animation, then went back to live action, etc. Talk about playing around with a concept.

18. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

• Directed by: Victor Fleming
• Watch it if you like: The Wiz

“We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!” The Wizard of Oz has an extensive background as well, and from a film perspective, many people don’t know that this 1939 version with Judy Garland is technically a remake. The first time The Wizard of Oz was tried on film was roughly a decade prior as a silent film. That said, if Judy Garland’s version is a “remake,” it’s one of the best remakes ever, and should be required viewing for all film lovers.

19. Monte Carlo Nights (1934)

• Directed by: William Nigh
• Watch it if you like: The Ritual Killer

Honestly, I would like to see Monte Carlo Nights redone as it’s about a man convicted murder who escapes from jail to try to prove his innocence. We’ve seen bits and pieces kind of taken from this in different ways (I.E. the first Mission Impossible, or any other movie where a wrongfully convicted person is trying to clear their name), but not quite like this. Add in the current Monte Carlo scenery and you’ve got yourself not just a thriller, but a visually stunning film. If you’re a director and reading this, make sure to give me a shoutout if you do this!

20. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

• Directed by: David Hand, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Perce Pearce
• Watch it if you like: The modern version of Snow White

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs seems like an obvious choice because you can’t deny its impact and groundwork for future films. If you are shocked that Snow White has a 1930s version, you are certainly not the one. Side note: It might be cool to one day do a side by side comparison of the two to make note of similarities and differences). 

21. Call of the Wild (1935)

• Directed by: William A. Wellman
• Watch it if you like: The more modern versions of Call of the Wild

If you enjoyed Call of the Wild in novel/more modern formats, then you’ll most likely enjoy this film adaptation with Clark Gable, which is actually a visually stunning picture that kind of looks like a winter wonderland. Sure the chances of finding the love of your life in the Alaskan wilderness is quite slim, but that’s what movies are for right? To bring to life the things that would probably never happen in real life.

22. Slightly Honorable (1939)

• Directed by: Tay Garnett
• Watch it if you like: The Fugitive

Slightly Honorable centers around the concept of a politician (Edward Arnold) who frames a lawyer (Pat O’ Brien) for murder. Basically, this guy is just running around rampantly killing people, and he’s putting it all on this lawyer which is wild. When you’ve got multiple false accusations to your name you’ve got to clear it, so this movie takes you through the ins and outs of the lawyer trying to prove his innocence.

23. A Christmas Carol (1938)

• Directed by: Edwin L. Marin
• Watch it if you like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

A little Christmas movie is something that you might find enjoyable if you’re reading this list during the holidays. A Christmas Carol is what paved the way for all of these modern Christmas movies, and is regarded as the original X-Mas classic. You get the story of grouchy Ebenezer Scrooge (Reginald Owen) who’s mean to everybody around him because he hates Christmas. However, certain things happen around Scrooge that begins to make him have a change of heart.

24. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

• Directed by: Busby Berkeley, Mervyn LeRoy
• Watch it if you like: Burlesque

Gold Diggers of 1933 will have you bopping, grooving, and unleashing your spirit fingers in one of the most fun musicals of the decade. The definition of making lemons out of lemonade, the story centers around a bunch of showgirls who lost their jobs due to the Great Depression. So what do they do to obtain more work? They embark on a journey to make a musical centered around the Depression. It’s not without obstacles though…there’s a plan to have the show shutdown, and in order to save it, the girls have to become…gold diggers.

25. Murder in the Museum (1934)

• Directed by: Melville Shyer
• Watch it if you like: Above Suspicion

Murder in the Museum is another fun mystery film from the 1930s to partake in, and the riveting twists and turns will have you thoroughly entertained from start to finish. What’s it about you ask? Well, the film centers around a carnival musician, his boss, and concessionaire all being accused of a murder that happened in their vicinity. They didn’t do it though, so who did? Well, we’re not going to spoil it!

26. Scarface (1932)

• Directed by: Howard Jackson
• Watch it if you like: The 1983 version of Scarface

The 1983 version of Scarface recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, so now seems like a good time to revisit its 1932 predecessor, which was equally as controversial. A film that defines the “early gangster” genre, Paul Muni has the honors of being Tony in the film, and the storyline is a lot different from Pacino’s version. That alone is a good enough reason to watch because you’re practically getting two different movies despite the same name and Al Capone inspiration.

27. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

• Directed by: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
• Watch it if you like: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Errol Flynn’s charming take as the iconic Robin Hood is one that will capture your attention if you love the general story of Robin Hood. As adventurous as what a 1930s adventure film could possibly get, Flynn invites into a wonderful mythical world that’s only enhanced by his captivating performance. The foray into the adventure world is one that can be appreciated considering the limited resources filmmakers had during that era. They made it work to the best of their abilities though.

28. Jezebel (1938)

• Directed by: William Wyler
• Watch it if you like: Be a Wicked Woman

Jezebel is one of Bette Davis’ most regarded roles as she plays a spoiled young woman with such a horrible attitude that her boyfriend is on the cusp of breaking up with fiancée. She eventually pushes him too far in a showing that results in him calling off the engagement, and upon finally returning, the young woman tries to win him back. Only it just might be too late.

29. Bringing Up Baby (1938)

• Watch it if you like: Post Grad

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant reunited again for 1938’s Bringing Up Baby , which isn’t just a screwball comedy, but a pure comedy period. This movie is absolutely hilarious and I believe that everybody needs to see it at least once in their lives because chaos and non-sense that occurs is quite unlike anything that’s been seen since. Other films have tried it (and they’ve been funny in their own way), but it hasn’t matched the exact energy of Bringing Up Baby .

30. Gone With the Wind (1939)

• Watch it if you like: Atonement

If you were wondering when we were going to get to Gone With the Wind, we indeed made you wait until our very last entry. Gone With the Wind is not a film that’s without controversy (even in present day), as it tells the life story of Scarlett O’ Hara (Vivien Leigh), and her life during the Civil War and Reconstruction along with her somewhat messy romantic relationships. To this day, Gone With the Wind is still being heavily analyzed and written about, which is rare for films to achieve decades after their release. That’s why it remains a must-watch.

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15 Best Films Of The 1930s

Just a few short years after the introduction of sound, 1930s cinema would explode with possibilities. Filmmakers creatively experimented with not just musicals, introducing song and dance to the big screen, but screwball comedies, which featured fast-paced, witty dialogue that title cards in silent film never would have been able to keep up with. As Hollywood experienced an early golden age, the world was plunged into an economic depression, which the movies would respond to with both social issue films as well as glittery escapism. Indeed, the films of this decade seem to fall largely into those categories: Movies that were made to shine a light on the problems that their audiences faced and those made to distract them. 

From horror to comedy, romance to war, the 1930s saw Hollywood diversifying and churning out films that catered to fans of different genres. With the studios operating like well-oiled machines (often at the cost of their stars' happiness and well-being), their biggest obstacle was making sure nothing they made would run afoul of the newly implemented Hays Production Code , which dictated what films could and could not show. A decade of contrasts, the turbulent 1930s produced some of the most interesting and creative films of the 20th century.

Fritz Lang's "M" remains one of the darkest cinematic entries of the 1930s, with Peter Lorre playing a child murderer who spends the entire film attempting to evade justice for his crimes. "M" creeps along the seedy underbelly of Berlin (both Lang and Lorre would eventually go on to have successful careers in Hollywood, but in 1931 were still working within Germany), so deeply disturbing that it almost feels like a precursor to the criminal antics of film noir a decade or so later. 

Lang cultivates an atmosphere that is foreboding and distasteful, and it's shocking to realize that he doesn't include violent content at all, relying on the gruesome imaginations of audiences to fill in the blanks. Graham Greene described Peter Lorre's expressive face in the film, saying that his "marbly pupils in the pasty spherical face are like eye-pieces of a microscope through which you can see laid flat on the slide the entangled mind of a man: love and lust, nobility and perversity, hatred of itself and despair jumping out at you from the jelly."

Death Takes a Holiday

Do you remember the Brad Pitt movie "Meet Joe Black," in which he stars as Death himself, who decides to explore the world for a little while in a human body? It's actually a remake of "Death Takes a Holiday," a 1934 film starring Fredric March, who takes a break from escorting souls to their eternal rest to learn a bit about this whole humanity business. He poses as a foreign prince and, having been human for all of five minutes, he promptly falls in love with a beautiful young woman. 

Now that he has someone he cares about and by extension, something to lose, he understands a bit more why he and his veil of death are so feared. "Death Takes a Holiday" was a financial success for Paramount, and its philosophical musings seemed to have struck a chord with audiences — the studio reportedly received thousands of letters from fans who claimed that the film's depiction of death helped them come to terms with their own mortality.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Animation existed well before Walt Disney started putting together storyboards with adorable, cheery animals, but "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" would prove that animated films could serve as more than just brief entertainment to be doled out before the main feature. In the right hands, these movies could be as artistically inspired and (perhaps more importantly, to studios) financially viable as their live-action counterparts. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a classic fairy tale about a beautiful princess who is cast out by her jealous stepmother and finds a home in the woods with a troupe of eccentric miners. 

The animation is delicate and incredibly detailed, giving the film an old-world atmosphere, and each of the dwarfs has such a distinct personality and unique relationship with Snow White that nearly 100 years later, we still know each of their names. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was the first feature-length success for Walt Disney. It earned him an honorary Academy Award (which, charmingly, featured one full-sized Oscar and seven miniatures) and to this day, it holds the record for the highest-grossing animated film (adjusted for inflation and accounting for several re-releases, that is).

City Lights

By the time "City Lights" came out in 1931, Charlie Chaplin had been one of the biggest stars in Hollywood for over a decade, having transitioned from comedy shorts into feature-length films that he directed. "City Lights" is one of his better films and undeniably his most romantic. He takes the character of the Tramp and casts him as an unlikely romantic lead, falling in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) who mistakes him for a millionaire. 

Their relationship is allowed to blossom unhindered until she is given the chance to have an operation that will restore her sight and reveal his deception once and for all. Despite the raggedy outfit and ill-fitting shoes, Chaplin's Tramp usually seems comfortable in his skin, but in "City Lights," he is shaken by the knowledge that he isn't good enough for the woman he loves. It's this emotional note that makes the performance so emotionally affecting.

"Scarface: The Shame of a Nation" stands at a crossroads in film history. It marks the transition between the pre-Code era and the censorship of the Hays Production Code better than any other movie. It stars Paul Muni as a Chicago gangster (loosely based on Al Capone) who climbs the ladder of a criminal bootlegging syndicate until he essentially runs the South Side. But he's ambitious, perhaps too much so, because the temptation to pick a fight with the North Side gangs is too powerful to resist. 

His crimes catch up with him (as they must do, according to the Hays Code ), leading to a standoff with the police that will inevitably end badly for him. Muni's performance as Tony would define the gangster genre, creating an almost animalistic figure whose presence is equal parts magnetic and ominous. The cynical depiction of the American Dream (the film ends on a twinkling billboard proclaiming that "The World Is Yours") in "Scarface" is a reflection of a 1930s cultural landscape that had lost its sense of optimism.

A film that feels somehow incredibly ahead of its time, "Ninotchka" is a clash of juxtapositions — capitalism and communism, utilitarianism and decadence, femininity and masculinity — cheekily bound together in a way that only director Ernst Lubitsch could pull off. Greta Garbo stars as Ninotchka, a stern-faced Soviet who travels to Paris to conduct a study on Western engineering. However, it isn't long before her strong communist ideals are shaken by both the relentless temptations of capitalist opulence and the appeal of a certain charming French count (Melvyn Douglas). 

The film portrays a gently satirical interpretation of Soviet Russia that still manages to capture an atmosphere of paranoia and intrigue in which neighbors turn in neighbors to the secret police. Garbo is at her best here, bringing humor and poignancy to Ninotchka's internal struggle with two incredibly distinct cultures. Despite any offense it may have caused Stalin and his cronies (it was, unsurprisingly, immediately banned in the U.S.S.R. and its satellites ), it was a tremendous critical success and was nominated for four Academy Awards  in 1940.

The Wizard of Oz

It would simply be impossible not to include "The Wizard of Oz." It's not just one of the most important films of the 1930s. It's one of the most important films of all time. With so many iconic moments — the dramatic transition from dull sepia to full Technicolor, Judy Garland's melancholy rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," the harrowing flight of the Wicked Witch of the West's troupe of monkeys — "The Wizard of Oz" has embedded itself into the cultural landscape in a way that few movies have. 

Garland plays Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas who is swept away to the land of Oz in a tornado and must confront the Wicked Witch of the West to find her way back home. The charm of Garland's performance made her a Hollywood star, and she grounds the film in a plaintive, earnest reality whenever it starts to feel overwhelmed by its more fantastical elements. Visually imaginative and brimming with vivid color, "The Wizard of Oz" evokes a sense of magic in its world of make-believe.

In 1938, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant teamed up on two screwball comedies that went on to define the genre. The first was "Bringing Up Baby," which is arguably the more famous of the two, and the second is "Holiday," which is underrated but delightful in its own way. Grant stars as a self-made man who has worked his entire life and is determined to retire while he's still young and can enjoy himself. 

So what's the problem? His fiancee, Julia, to whom he has rather impulsively proposed after meeting her on vacation, expects him to take on a respectable position at her wealthy father's company. After meeting her family, it becomes clear that the woman with whom he has the most chemistry is not Julia but her sister Linda (Hepburn), the black sheep. They are a delight together and have such a joyful camaraderie on screen that it's easy to see why they would become one of the most memorable pairings of the 1930s.

It Happened One Night

"It Happened One Night" is remembered most distinctly for two things, both of which highlight the tightrope of sexuality that films from this period were forced to walk. The first is Claudette Colbert, as Ellie, famously lifting up her skirt to expose her leg in an effort to attract a ride as she and Peter (Clark Gable) hitchhike — a move that was so scandalous that Colbert used a stunt double (until she realized that her legs were sexier than the double's, and she agreed to do the scene). 

The second is the iconic "Wall of Jericho," a sheet hung between Ellie and Peter to divide the room that they share, preserving some modicum of respectability and making it clear to audiences that there was no funny business going on between the characters. This veneer of propriety made their chemistry all the more electric, and Gable's shirtless scenes had such an impact on viewers that it was believed that he  tanked the undershirt industry overnight . "It Happened One Night" was also a massive critical success, winning the big five Academy Awards : best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, and best writing.

When Tod Browning turned in his cut of "Freaks," a disturbing morality tale set against a backdrop of a carnival freak show, MGM didn't know what to make of it. The film stars a cast of real-life carnival show workers and tells the story of a trapeze artist who schemes to marry Hans (Harry Earles), a wealthy little person in the show, but when the community of "freaks" learn of her plans to steal from and humiliate him, they take their revenge on her — with grotesque consequences. 

When the film was released, it horrified audiences, even after Browning allegedly cut an alternate editing that was even more gruesome than what eventually made it into the final version. Art director Merrill Pye said of a test screening, "Halfway through the preview, a lot of people got up and ran out. They didn't walk out. They ran out." Despite this, "Freaks" has since gone on to develop a reputation as one of the most interesting films of the 1930s thanks to a surprisingly empathetic portrayal of its "freak" characters that showcases their strong sense of loyalty to their community and their ability to adapt to their disabilities and lead largely independent lives.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

With the advent of sound and more sophisticated film techniques, 1930s Hollywood was suddenly awash with huge, splashy adventure films. And each of these needed a handsome, outrageously charismatic leading man, preferably one who knew his way around a sword. Enter Errol Flynn, one of the most iconic swashbucklers of the 1930s. Here, he plays the legendary Robin Hood, freshly returned from the Crusades and eager to right the wrongs of the evil Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone — who else?) and King John, who have launched a campaign of heavy taxation. 

With exciting, imaginative fight sequences and a tremendous amount of chemistry between Flynn and his co-star Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marion, this is perhaps the definitive version of the Robin Hood story. It was a significant success upon release, winning three Academy Awards for best art direction, best film editing, and best original score.

The 39 Steps

You've probably had a few bad days in your time, but we're willing to bet that you've never accidentally found yourself embroiled in an espionage plot, forced to flee London to evade both the police and foreign spies who want to kill you for the information you now have. Alas, that's the fate of Richard (Robert Donat) in "The 39 Steps." When a female spy is killed in his apartment, he is tasked with finishing her mission — all while being implicated in her murder. 

Not only is "The 39 Steps" one of Alfred Hitchcock's most effective thrillers (and that's saying something), but it also has a special place in the history of romantic cinema. To the best of our knowledge, it's one of the first on-screen examples of the trope in which an initially hostile couple is handcuffed to each other and forced to work together until they inevitably fall in love. Fast-paced, clever, and packed with twists and turns, "The 39 Steps" is a true gem of the era.

All Quiet on the Western Front

"War is hell," is a sentiment that we've all become acquainted with over the past century or so, but at the time of World War I when battles were supposed to be glorious, it was still something of a novel thing to say. "All Quiet on the Western Front" is based on a German anti-war novel by Erich Maria Remarque released in the 1920s. It follows the experiences of a group of German teenagers as they are sent to the front. Initially, they're full of patriotic zeal but quickly learn of the horrors of the trenches. 

The scope of "All Quiet on the Western Front" is incredibly impressive. It is visually expansive while still managing to remain intimately focused on the lives of the young soldiers. Their growing disillusionment is heartbreaking to watch, especially when the characters return home on leave and have to witness the ignorant saber-rattling of the older generations. It would, perhaps inevitably, go on to be banned in Nazi Germany  for its perceived anti-German message.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Starring Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is one of the most interesting pre-Code horror films of the 1930s. March stars as the titular scientist, obsessed with the idea of splitting man into the two opposite sides of his nature: the good and the evil. One night, he drinks a potion that separates the two aspects of his personality. Dr. Jekyll remains the pure-of-heart, sexually repressed gentleman he's always been, and Mr. Hyde, a bestial, lascivious creature, roams the night in search of pleasures to soothe his id. 

The film serves as a commentary on the duality of man and makes the argument that suppressing the darker impulses of his nature only serves to make them that much more powerful. However, the most impressive component of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" lies in its groundbreaking special effects. There's an incredible sequence in which Jekyll drinks the potion and, with the use of specific lighting and carefully applied makeup, his face morphs on-screen into that of Hyde. March would win an Academy Award for his performance in the film, making it the earliest horror movie to receive awards attention.

Design for Living

Polyamory seems like a thoroughly modern invention, a trend only possible in the socially liberated present when relationships outside the traditional heterosexual, monogamous marriage are embraced. At least, it would seem that way if you hadn't seen "Design for Living," a pre-Code gem that, in its depiction of a romantic threesome, feels very much ahead of its time. Gary Cooper and Fredric March star as George and Tom, a pair of American artists (one a painter, the other a playwright) living in Paris when they meet the beautiful Gilda (Miriam Hopkins) and quickly fall in love with her. 

The only issue? She isn't interested in deciding which of them she likes best. Despite their best efforts to woo her, she seems to be most in love with whichever one happens to be around her at that given time. So rather than risk losing her or their friendship, they finally embrace the idea of one big, happy romance between the three of them. As radical as the film seems, it was toned down from the original play by Noel Coward, which more explicitly explored the romantic attraction between George and Tom.

25 Best Films of the 1930s, According to Leonard Maltin

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The film industry experienced a period of unprecedented growth in the 1930s, despite the economic downturn of the Great Depression. Movies became an inexpensive entertainment option (admission was 25 cents, less than $5 today), and an easy escape for a public weary of the strains of everyday life. The decade also saw the release of films now considered among the greatest movies of all time , and their popularity brought in audiences in droves. According to a 2002 study by The University of Dayton , an astounding 80 million people in the United States went to the movies every week in 1930, approximately 65% of the nation's population.

America's obsession with the movies was spurred by the advent of talking pictures, led by the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927. By 1930, dozens of "talkies" were being released each year, and the quality of those films were raised by some now-legendary filmmakers. Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin has named the 25 best films of the 1930s, including both domestic and foreign films. It's part of his larger list of 100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century , and the 25 masterpieces are listed below, in alphabetical order.

The 39 Steps (1935)

The 39 Steps features a favorite subject for director Alfred Hitchcock: a common man caught up in international espionage. It's a theme Hitchcock would revisit several times, including The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest , and the aptly titled film, The Wrong Man. Arguably the first time Hitchcock perfected the formula was with The 39 Steps .

Here, Robert Donat ( Goodbye, Mr. Chips ) plays a man who goes on the run after a secret agent is murdered in his apartment. Along the way, he gets handcuffed to an innocent witness (Madeleine Carroll), heightening the suspense and comedy. This fast-paced, clever, and witty film hinted at the stylized classics that were to come from Hitchcock.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Errol Flynn was never better as jolly old England's swashbuckling rogue, and The Adventures of Robin Hood is still the definitive cinematic take on the character. Olivia de Havilland is a perfect Maid Marion, a year before her Oscar-nominated role of Melanie in Gone With the Wind . Nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture (it lost to You Can't Take it with You ), the film won three, including Best Original Score.

Related: Best Classic Comedies of the 1930s

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

A surprisingly profound and emotional film , director Lewis Milestone's adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque novel, All Quiet on the Western Front , follows a young German boy (Lew Ayers) who gets caught up in the nation's frenzy for war. He joins the army, but his dreams of being a war hero are shattered with the bloody realities of battle. Ayers' performance is memorable, highlighted with a speech near the end of the film, in which he chastises students at his alma mater who are eager to follow his path into military service. The film won Best Picture and Best Director for Milestone.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Bride of Frankenstein is the rare sequel that surpasses the original , which is really saying something, considering how great of a film Frankenstein is. Bride , however, expands on the first film in all the right ways. The Monster has an actual character arc, the "horror" aspects are explored in different ways, and Elsa Lanchester is introduced as an intriguing new character under James Whale's direction. Over the years, there has been talk of remakes of Bride of Frankenstein with various A-list actress, but a new take would not only feel redundant, it would be offensive.

City Lights (1931)

Although most films had already switched to "talkies" in 1931, Chaplin's City Lights defied the movement, and it's a better film for it. Chaplin's "Little Tramp" saves a drunk millionaire from committing suicide, who then pledges to be his best friend. The problem is, the millionaire doesn't recognize him when he's sober, leading to some hilarious sequences.

It complicates the Tramp's pursuit of a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill), and the story is much more touching without dialogue. The film's final scene is beautifully acted, and will either elicit a smile or a tear, but hopefully both.

Dodsworth (1936)

The 1930s usually handled troubled marriages and divorces as comedic plot devices, but William Wyler's Dodsworth is a rare exception. This dramatic tale about a couple (Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton) navigating the end of their marriage relies less on melodrama and more on frank, insightful dialogue and great acting. Nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Huston), the film only won one, for Best Art Direction.

Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi is absolutely chilling as the Count in Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula , and the legendary actor seems to relish every line he delivers in this classic. Dwight Frye's Renfield is every bit as good in a film that holds up despite the lack of graphic content. There have been plenty of remakes which have introduced nearly countless variations on the vampire theme, with some great actors in the role, but Lugosi's unparalleled performance as Dracula still remains the best to date.

Duck Soup (1933)

Groucho Marx plays the unhinged prime minister of a fictional country in Duck Soup , a riotous mockery of both politics and war. Easily the best of all the Marx Brothers films , the jokes come at machine-gun speed, with puns and physical gags aplenty. The film is best known for its "mirror" gag featuring Harpo, which he famously recreated for a classic episode of I Love Lucy 20 years later.

Frankenstein (1931)

James Whale's horror classic, based on the Mary Shelley novel , stars Colin Clive as the doomed Dr. Frankenstein, obsessed with his quest to regenerate life. Boris Karloff is both terrifying and empathetic as The Monster. As good as Frankenstein is, its sequel is arguably a better film overall, and Mel Brooks' spoof Young Frankenstein has forever ruined some of the film's most dramatic moments.

Gone with the Wind (1939)

The king of cinematic epics, Gone with the Wind is still an impressive viewing experience, with some iconic performances and a grand adaptation of the Margaret Mitchell novel. Vivien Leigh won an Oscar for Best Actress as the feisty Scarlett O'Hara, and the film won Best Picture, Best Director (Victor Fleming), and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. It's a film that demands to be seen in theaters , thanks to the Oscar-winning cinematography.

The Grand Illusion (1937)

An Oscar nominee for Best Picture, The Grand Illusion is a French-language film set during World War I stars Jean Gabin as French Captain de Boeldieuh, who is captured and held in a prison camp by German commandant von Rauffenstein, played by Erich von Stroheim. The two are from the upper class in their two countries, and find more in common with each other than with their own, lower-class countrymen, even as the French plan an escape. It's a fascinating film about our common humanity from director and co-writer Jean Renoir.

It Happened One Night (1934)

If you're only familiar with Clark Gable from Gone with the Wind , sit down and watch It Happened One Night as soon as you can (it's usually available on streaming). Gable plays a very different character than Rhett Butler, and is arguably more magnetic and interesting.

Here, he plays a hard-drinking reporter who discovers that a woman traveling incognito on a bus is actually an heiress (Claudette Colbert) on the run from her father. He follows along, looking for a story, but the two fall in love. This classic screwball comedy from Frank Capra was the first film to win the five major Oscars : Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Riskin).

It's a Gift (1934)

By the mid-1930s, most Americans were hoping for a better life, and comedy legend W.C. Fields tapped into that attitude — and found laughs — in It's a Gift , one of his best films. Fields plays the sarcastic owner of a small, struggling grocery store, and uses his inheritance money to buy an orange farm in California, sight unseen. The family travels cross-country, only to find the farm isn't all it turned out to be.

King Kong (1933)

Nearly a century after its release, King Kong still reigns. The big monkey from Skull Island is still the best monster to ever emerge from Hollywood, thanks in large part to the work of special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien and the film's breakneck pace from director Merian C. Cooper. The angelic Fay Wray deserves a lot of credit for being the beauty to the beast, and even though you see O'Brien's fingerprints in the fur due to the stop-motion animation, Kong still has a soul. It's proof that movies rally are magic.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

One of two Alfred Hitchcock films on Maltin's list, The Lady Vanishes is a highly-entertaining mystery surrounding the disappearance of an old woman while on board a moving train. A musician (Michael Redgrave) and a woman traveling to her wedding (Margaret Lockwood) team up to solve the mystery, with a surprising twist.

Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne play a couple of scene-stealing cricket fans trying to avoid getting involved in the mystery, so they don't miss a match they're traveling to. While so many later Hitchcock films are considered essential viewing , The Lady Vanishes is an often-forgotten film that deserves more recognition.

Fritz Lang's superbly atmospheric thriller M , about a manhunt for a child killer, features a creepy, first-rate performance from Peter Lorre ( The Maltese Falcon , 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ). M is surprisingly dark for its time, and Lang crafts an emotionally complex tale of authorities unable to sole the crime and the German underworld criminals who take the matter into their own hands. There's an unexpected ending to this incredible film from the Metropolis director, and still a powerful viewing experience nearly a century after its release.

Modern Times (1936)

Modern Times is Chaplin's satire of work in the industrial age, framed within a love story with real-life wife Paulette Goddard. Several fantastic set pieces highlight the film, particularly the factory scenes and the department store sequence. It's the filmmaker's final silent film, which he wrote and directed himself, and ranks among Chaplin's finest films ever , although some consider it his best.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Frank Capra was one of the defining directors of Hollywood's golden age, and yet, one of his best pictures is largely forgotten by modern film fans. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town stars Gary Cooper as an average guy who inherits $20 million, and decides to give it away to those in need. Jean Arthur is fantastic as a reporter who uses some deception to figure out Deeds' motives. The film was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but it won only one: Best Director for Capra.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

The Marx Brothers elevate mayhem to an art form in A Night at the Opera , a constantly hilarious comedy that ranks among the best of the comedians' careers. The brothers crash an opera performance, much to the chagrin of the high society attendees. The mockery of the upper class features some classic bits, most notably the hilarious "contract clauses" scene.

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Walt Disney's first animated feature film is still his greatest. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an absolutely beautiful adaptation of the Grimm fairy tale, and a landmark in Hollywood history. The hallmarks of the Disney signature style are all there, with the dwarfs as cartoonish caricatures, animal companions, a truly scary villain , and of course, timeless music. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score, it didn't win, although it was given an honorary award for "significant screen innovation," with one large award and seven small statuettes given to Disney.

Sons of the Desert (1933)

In Sons of the Desert , legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy play two henpecked husbands who scheme to go to their lodge's convention after their wives forbid it. Of course, their plan backfires spectacularly, leading to some great physical gags as they try to cover up their lies.

Related: 10 Biggest Box Office Hits of the 1930s, Ranked

Laurel and Hardy are hardly well-known to young movie fans today, but thanks to streaming, a number of their films are available for discovery. In addition, a colorized version of Sons of the Desert is available to watch on YouTube for free.

Stagecoach (1939)

The film that made John Wayne a movie star, Stagecoach marked the first time that Wayne worked with legenday director John Ford . Wayne plays The Ringo Kid, an outlaw who helps lead a stagecoach through Apache country while they are on the warpath. Noted character actor Thomas Mitchell ( Gone With The Wind , It's a Wonderful Life ) won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, playing a doctor with a drinking problem who finds redemption along the perilous stagecoach journey. It also won Best Original Score out of seven nominations overall, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Swing Time (1936)

The sixth film pairing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers is arguably their best film together. In Swing Time , Fred plays "Lucky" Garnett, a dancer who travels to New York City to make enough money to marry his fiancé (Betty Furness), only to fall in love with his new dancing partner Penny Carroll (Ginger Rogers). The George Stevens ( Giant, Shane ) film is punctuated with some fantastic song and dance numbers, most notably "The Way You Look Tonight," which won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

The film's only blight is a sequence in which Astaire tap dances in blackface. Although the use of blackface in musicals was common at the time, Astaire only did it this once, reportedly in tribute to Bill "Mr. Bojangles" Robinson, a tap dancer he respected. The "tribute" has aged badly, but the context of his motivations is worth noting here.

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

Trouble in Paradise is yet another witty romantic comedy from the kind of golden age rom-coms, director Ernst Lubitsch ( The Shop Around the Corner ). This early film features Herbert Marshall as a thief who partners with a pickpocket (Miriam Hopkins) to rip off the beautiful owner of a perfume company (Kay Francis). Although the two criminals are in love, their plot gets complicated when the thief falls in love with his target.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

A fantasy film without equal, The Wizard of Oz is perfection on every level. Judy Garland's portrayal of Dorothy Gale is iconic even beyond her memorable songs, even if she is technically too old for the role. Margaret Hamilton and Ray Bolger lead the supporting cast, and director Victor Fleming keeps the film's suspension of disbelief intact to such a degree, the flying monkeys are still terrifying under all these years.

`It's amazing to think that the Oscar-winning song "Over The Rainbow" was very nearly cut from the film. The Wizard of Oz also won an Oscar for Best Original Score, and Garland was awarded a special miniature Oscar for her performance.

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The 10 Best Movies of the 1930s, Ranked

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World Wars... The Great Depression... The people of the 1930s needed a solid distraction from cold, hard world around them. Luckily, the "moving picture" had recently been invented and evolved beyond silent short films into Technicolor feature films.

This Golden Age of Hollywood loved a good epic, romance, or family flick, relying on big studios and star contracts to entice audiences. This crucial decade in cinema history became the forerunner for so many of today's popular genres, technologies, and styles.

Here are some of the greatest and most iconic movies from the 1930s that showcase the best of what this decade of cinema had to offer.

10. Frankenstein (1931)

Directed by James Whale

Starring Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff

Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi (1h 10m)

7.8 on IMDb — 94% on RT

Frankenstein is a tale as old as time, and one we've all come to know. Written by Mary Shelley, the Gothic classic tells the story of a mad scientist who creates a creature out of different body parts.

The experiment leaves Victor Frankenstein with a hideous-looking semi-conscious monster that's out for revenge. Filmmakers have retold this story time and again, but one of the very best versions remains the early adaptation by James Whale.

Boris Karloff perfectly embodies The Monster in this iconic pre-Code talkie, where the real horror goes beyond that of beasts and shadows and into the existential. In fact, The Monster proves to be not so bad and instead a tragic hero of childlike sensitivity.

9. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Directed by Frank Capra

Starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains

Comedy, Drama (2h 9m)

8.1 on IMDb — 97% on RT

Jimmy Stewart was Hollywood's sweetheart; the everyman hero that all audiences could relate to and root for.

In Frank Capra's endearing political drama, Stewart plays a leader of the Boy Rangers with a strong moral compass. Jefferson Smith is elected as Senator, but becomes disillusioned by the corruption around him. A brave idealist who refuses to keep quiet, Mr. Smith goes to make change.

Sure, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington might be a little corny, but what's wrong with instilling some hope in audiences every now and again? Especially back during a decade full of war and hardship!

8. King Kong (1933)

Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack

Starring Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot

Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi (1h 40m)

7.9 on IMDb — 97% on RT

Comparing the visual effects of King Kong to modern day films is a kind of mad experience. Back in 1931, the miniature models and matte painting techniques of this fantasy-drama were ground-breaking.

It's incredible to see how far technology has come, but just because the stop-motion animation isn't up to today's standards doesn't mean King Kong isn't a masterpiece.

You probably know the story, but we'll remind you of it anyway: while location scouting for his newest jungle movie, director Carl Denham discovers an enormous ape that kidnaps his lead actress. Once rescued, Carl decides to capture the ape back.

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack really changed the game with this one, directing the first installment of what would become the King Kong franchise.

7. M (1931)

Directed by Fritz Lang

Starring Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut

Crime, Mystery, Thriller (1h 39m)

8.3 on IMDb — 100% on RT

A German thriller from legendary director Fritz Lang, M is Lang's first movie with sound. Peter Lorre stars as Hans Beckert in his breakthrough role: a child serial killer who despises his own homicidal urges.

Set in Berlin, Beckert is chased down by criminals and given an improvised lawyer for his "trial." It's all a bit sketchy, but brilliant to watch. Musical motifs and an avalanche of smooth tracking shots make M a great movie to study—or just sit back and appreciate!

Anti-heroes were a lot less common back in the 1930s, with most movies having a cut-and-dry hero that viewers could aspire to be. M challenged this idea, and also became an early example of the procedural drama.

6. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Directed by David Hand, Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, and Ben Sharpsteen

Starring Adriana Caselotti, Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig

Animation, Adventure, Family (1h 23m)

7.6 on IMDb — 97% on RT

I bet you thought it was "Mirror, mirror," huh?

This one might be a kids' film, but it was also a landmark in the development of Disney and animation as a whole. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature movie from Walt Disney, later leading to a string of animated classics (the next one being Pinocchio in 1940).

Adriana Caselotti is the voice of the orphaned princess, who hides away from the huntsman out for her heart (literally) in a little woodland cottage with seven dwarfs.

Based on the 1812 Brothers Grimm fairy tale, this musical was directed by David Hand and painstakingly drawn by a host of animators for whom we don't have enough room to credit all here.

The cultural significance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs makes it an interesting watch for adults, tapping into the nostalgia of their childhood days spent watching old-school Disney. The hand-drawn cel animation still holds up today, playing out like a postcard come to life.

5. Stagecoach (1939)

Directed by John Ford

Starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine

Adventure, Drama, Western (1h 36m)

7.8 on IMDb — 100% on RT

This list wouldn't be complete without a Western, now would it? Stagecoach is one of renowned director John Ford's best movies, adapted from the short story The Stage to Lordsburg by Ernest Haycox.

John Wayne stars as the outlaw Ringo Kid, whose mere presence threatens the other passengers bound for New Mexico. An alcoholic, a salesman, and a disgraced lady are also on board the Overland stagecoach, riding through the West in anticipation of an Apache attack.

Stagecoach's clear direction, colorful characters, and grand-yet-rugged visuals transformed the reputation of Westerns from B-movies into sophisticated cinema. It might seem the same as any other Western, but that's because it was one of the first!

4. Modern Times (1936)

Directed by Charlie Chaplin

Starring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman

Comedy, Drama, Romance (1h 27m)

8.5 on IMDb — 98% on RT

Charlie Chaplin was beloved for his ability to make audiences both laugh and cry in a single sitting. Back in the 30s, films were either comedy or drama, not both. No, that was too revolutionary an idea!

Chaplin's iconic caricature of The Tramp—a childlike hobo with a heart of gold and cursed bad luck—featured in many of his movies. Modern Times is one of the best of those movies.

Modern Times follows The Tramp's stint working in a factory. The stress and monotony of the assembly line—still pretty new at the time—causes The Tramp to have a nervous breakdown.

Then, he's arrested for being a supposed Communist, accidentally ingests some cocaine, and crashes a paddy wagon. That's all followed by multiple more arrests. It sounds pretty wild for an old silent movie, but audiences ate it up—and so did we!

Chaplin's talented visual gags have aged well over the years, and Modern Times offers a keen observation on the mechanization of human beings.

3. The 39 Steps (1935)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim

Crime, Mystery, Thriller (1h 26m)

7.6 on IMDb — 96% on RT

Alfred Hitchcock is the king of thriller, the pioneer of the slasher genre, and the director of the first British talkie. One of his first masterpieces was The 39 Steps , which established many of his trademarks: crime, murder, blonde women, cameo appearances, and the use of a MacGuffin.

An espionage adventure that Orson Welles publicly praised, The 39 Steps grounds its far-fetched narrative in finely tuned pacing and cinematography, with Hitchcock famously relying on storyboards to intricately plan out every detail.

Robert Donat stars as Richard Hannay, who mistakenly gets embroiled in a spy ring while vacationing in London. The 39 Steps was remade in 1959 by Ralph Thomas, and is even set for another remake—a Netflix adaptation starring Benedict Cumberbatch in 2022.

2. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Directed by Victor Fleming

Starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger

Adventure, Family, Fantasy (1h 42m)

8.1 on IMDb — 98% on RT

Everybody has seen The Wizard of Oz , right? It's hard to believe this family classic was a financial flop at the box office, but that was likely due to its crippling production problems rather than unpopularity.

Judy Garland headlines in her defining role, playing the sweet-natured Dorothy Gale at just sixteen years old. Dorothy sings her way down the yellow brick road in the magical land of Oz, hoping that the Emerald City will provide the answers she needs to get back home.

There are a whole host of rumors circling around this film—some confirmed, some ludicrous—which only adds to its popularity and intrigue. The Wizard of Oz had four directors (Victor Fleming ultimately got the credit) and implemented an early use of Technicolor, which only piled onto the stress of production.

1. Gone With the Wind (1939)

Starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell

Drama, Romance, War (3h 58m)

8.2 on IMDb — 90% on RT

Get ready for a blast to the past with this epic war drama, directed by Victor Fleming. Based on the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind is set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, where Scarlett O'Hara lives an idyllic life on the Tara plantation in Georgia.

But her dreamy lifestyle doesn't last long when the South is ripped apart by battle. This classic period drama traces Scarlett's troubled journey, falling for the cynical-yet-charming Rhett Butler (played by Clark Gable).

Scarlett is a rare example of an anti-heroic protagonist in a sweeping 30s romance movie—and a female one at that! She's spoiled, selfish, and insecure, yet intelligent and surprisingly enduring, defying society's expectation that women should remain delicate.

Keep going with our complete series of articles on all the most popular and iconic movies by every decade:

• The Best Movies of the 1930s
• The Best Movies of the 1940s
• The Best Movies of the 1950s
• The Best Movies of the 1960s
• The Best Movies of the 1970s
• The Best Movies of the 1980s
• The Best Movies of the 1990s

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The 1930s: 10 best hollywood movies of the decade.

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The cinematic experimentation of the earliest decades of film began to bear fruit in the 1930s. Movie companies gained access to better production equipment, and public relations as an industry developed, learning how to best market actors. Movies now shifted from the silent genre to the talkies, and technicolor overtook black and white movies, tempting audiences to rush to the cinema to see what new delights it held for them.

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Furthermore, the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) was not created until 1934, giving adequate time for cinema to push the boundaries of sexuality on screen. Unfortunately for women, as Hollywood proved itself to be a very financially profitable business, men overtook the industry and pushed out female writers , directors, and producers. Wardrobe, makeup, and acting were the only positions left for women to work. For non-whites, Hollywood remained even more unforgiving than in previous years.

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1931)

In a remake of the 1920 silent film, Paramount released Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde in 1931. Whereas the original featured Jekyll turning into a monster, Hyde, the remake added a racial component to it. Played by Frederic March, Jekyll turns into Hyde, a racist hybrid caricature of an ape and a black man.

The movie was Paramount's biggest financial success , owing to the transformation sequence from Jekyll to Hyde never seen before on screen. In one of Hollywood's first special effects, the transformation scene was highly regarded as ground-breaking. The movie, however, signaled Hollywood's allegiance to white supremacy: an allegiance that would continue for decades to come.

King Kong (1933)

Another movie made before the Hays Code, King Kong was a lucid nightmare about white male fear of black male sexuality. The overt sexuality of a powerful African gorilla who falls in love with a white woman reveals the national psyche of the 1930s. Indeed, Malcolm X, in his autobiography , would elucidate on the white obsession with black sexuality in America during the 30s and 40s.

RELATED: Every King Kong Movie In Chronological Order

Like  Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde , it is a work of its time that must be admired not for its message, but for its cinematographic impact on cinema. The movie used stop motion animation to create many iconic scenes, including the scene where King Kong fights the airplanes.

The Blue Angel (1930)

German actress, Marlene Dietrich, and German director, Josef Von Sternberg, created many movies together, beginning with Dietrich's breakout role,  The Blue Angel .  The Blue Angel  was shot in German and English respectively and distributed by Paramount Pictures in the US.

Dietrich plays Lola Lola, the headliner for a local cabaret who seduces a professor to his eventual downfall. Audiences would fall in love with Dietrich immediately. Years later, Dietrich would reprise a similar role in her 1935 movie,  The Devil Is A Woman . Film critic, Barbara Kosta, argued that , as Germany's first sound movie,  The Blue Angel shows "the newly discovered power of sound, and its effect on audiences."

It Happened One Night (1930)

One of the most popular movies from the decade,  It Happened One Night is a romantic comedy starring Claudette Colbert and the ever-popular, Clark Gable. The movie, released just before the MPPDA code came into enforcement, features the famous hitchhiking scene where Colbert lifts up her skirt to get a car to stop and help.

The movie is of major historical importance : it was the first movie to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also set the standard for romantic comedies for the next ninety years, for example, the scene with a bare-chested Clark Gable. Colbert is said to have declared upon completion of the movie: “I’ve just finished the worst picture in the world”.

Little Women (1933)

The advent of sound cinema and technicolor saw movie studios eager to remake movies that they had previously released. One such remake was Little Women   which had already been produced twice in 1917 and 1918. Starring Katherine Hepburn as Jo, in her typecast role as an arrogant, intelligent tomboy that would later make audiences despise her.

In 1930s America, however, Hepburn's Jo was accepted as pure simple goodness, because The Great Depression had changed American values . Audiences, then, wanted movies about simplicity, family values, morality, and contentment .

Stagecoach (1939)

Director John Ford, notorious for his racist portrayals of Native Americans , began a long career directing Westerns with  Stagecoach . Based on a 1937 short story,  The Stage To Lordsburg  by Western writer, Ernest Haycox,  Stagecoach  was also John Wayne's breakout role. Wayne would go on to star in another John Ford movie,  The Searchers , in 1956.

Both movies would be considered great Westerns and timeless Hollywood classics, although both movies are highly problematic, representing white men as ever-right god-like creatures with a natural right to do whatever they want with impunity.  Stagecoach was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director. It began John Ford's enduring influence on the Western movie genre.

Cleopatra (1934)

Another movie starring Claudette Colbert,  Cleopatra was an epic historical drama, directed by the Hollywood director best known for his epic historical filmography, Cecil B. DeMille. The movie was a precursor to the 1963 version, starring Elizabeth Taylor, and a successor to the 1917 version, starring the vamp and femme fatale, Theda Bara.

It was a huge success, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year, along with  It Happened One Night . The father of epics, DeMille would later make  The Ten Commandments in 1956, one of the highest-grossing movies of all time , adjusted for inflation.

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

One of the first children's movies adapted to screen from fiction,  The Wizard Of Oz  was a highly successful movie when it was released in 1939. Prior to that, Disney's   Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs  had made $418 million at the box office. Adjusted for inflation,  Snow White  made $2.1 billion, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Movie studios began to realize that there was a big market for children's movies , and this was proven true with the success of  The Wizard Of Oz , two years after  Snow White's  release.

RELATED: The Wizard Of Oz: 5 Ways The Classic Movie Has Aged Poorly (& 5 Reasons Why It's Timeless)

Well-known for its practical effects, the movie is a historical classic. MGM's most expensive production at the time, the movie quickly became a pop-culture classic , with its legacy continuing today.  Over The Rainbow and  Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead remain cultural classics even today.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Once the Hays code was enforced, romantic comedies swapped sexual tension for screwball gags, giving birth to screwball comedies, such as  Bringing Up Baby , starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The movie was a commercial failure when released, and would become the movie to cement Hepburn's fate as box office poison, in part because of her wealthy background and accent, which were incorporated in the movie.

Audiences going through The Great Depression were not happy seeing a woman from an upper-class background on their screens. A romantic comedy, the movie relies on a lot of surreal humor, physical comedy, and shenanigans to keep the two protagonists falling in love. The public hated the movie , but it soon became a classic over the years.

Gone With The Wind (1939)

One of the most controversial, highest-earning, and most recognized movies in Hollywood history,  Gone With The Wind is considered an all-time American classic. It stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Leslie Howard.

No movie has been able to match  Gone With The Wind's  box office receipts until today, proving its popularity . Despite its popularity, the movie is notorious for excusing white slave ownership , portraying slavery as the greater good, and representing black people as ignorant, uneducated, blindingly loyal natural-slaves, eager to spend their lives serving white people.

NEXT: 10 Movies About Old Hollywood To Watch If You Loved Mank

• The Best 1930s Comedies
• The Best 1930s Dance Films
• The Best 1930s Horror
• The Best 1930s Romance Movies
• The Best 1930s Thrillers
• The Best 1930s Sci-Fi Movies
• The Best 1930s Rom-Coms
• The Best Movies of 1930
• The Best Movies of 1931
• The Best Movies of 1934
• The Best Movies of 1935
• The Best Movies of 1936
• The Best Movies of 1937
• The Best Movies of 1938
• The Best Movies of 1939

The 85+ Best Movies of 1930

List of the best movies of 1930, with movie trailers when available. These top movies of 1930 are listed by popularity, so the movies with the most votes are at the top. This list consists of all different movie genres, but each film was released in 1930. You can filter this list of films that came out in 1930 for various bits of information, such as who directed the movie and what genre it is. Think the best 1930 movie isn't as high as it should be? Vote up your favorite so it will rise to the top.

This list features All Quiet on the Western Front, Woman Hungry and more.

This list answers the questions, "What are the best movies from 1930?" and "What are the most popular movies of 1930?"

Men Without Women

• Released : 1930
• Directed by : John Ford

The Big Trail

• Directed by : Raoul Walsh

The Little Rascals: Collector's Edition III

• Directed by : Nate Watt, James Parrott

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case

• Directed by : Lewis R. Foster, James Parrott

• Directed by : John Cromwell

All Quiet on the Western Front

• Directed by : Lewis Milestone

1930s Movies: A Guide to the Golden Age of Cinema

By: Author Valerie Forgeard

Posted on April 6, 2024

Categories Entertainment

The 1930s were a transformative decade for cinema, marking a significant period in film history that you might find as fascinating as it was challenging. During this era, Hollywood saw a surge in creating films that would later be considered classics.

The backdrop of the Great Depression might have cast a shadow over the United States, but the glimmer of the silver screen offered a much-needed escape for many.

It’s intriguing to think about how, even as economic hardship gripped the nation, your grandparents or great-grandparents might have been sitting in darkened theaters, transported to different worlds by the magic of 1930s movies.

This was a time when Hollywood began to truly hone its craft , navigating the transition from silent films to the talkies that you’re accustomed to today.

The 1930s introduced a new era of stars and iconic films that would leave an indelible mark on cinema. From the unsettling charm of Universal Horror classics to the screwball comedies that lightened hearts, these films shaped the film industry and reflected and influenced the society of the time.

Whether it’s the captivating allure of the incomparable Greta Garbo or the swashbuckling adventures of Errol Flynn, these films continue to be a testament to Hollywood’s golden age .

As you explore the rich tapestry of 1930s cinema, you’ll discover how filmmakers of the time were pioneers, pushing the boundaries of storytelling and technical innovation despite the financial constraints of the Great Depression. They gave the world a treasure trove of genres, from drama to musicals to romance, all while setting the stage for the future of storytelling through film.

This decade in film history is not just a collection of titles; it’s a mosaic of the human spirit’s resilience, a glimpse into the cultural zeitgeist of the times, and a source of inspiration that continues to resonate in today’s cinematic landscape.

Influential Directors of the 1930s

The 1930s were a defining decade in cinema, not only for the captivating stories brought to the screen but also for the trailblazing directors behind them. These filmmakers crafted narratives that have stood the test of time, displaying a remarkable interplay of creativity and technical skill that continues to influence the industry today.

Frank Capra

Frank Capra is a name synonymous with the 1930s era of filmmaking. His work, including the politically charged film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , showcased his ability to combine social commentary with a populist sentiment, making him a household name and a star among directors.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock , referred to as the “Master of Suspense,” made significant strides during this period. His film The Lady Vanishes is a testament to his ability to blend tension with wit, solidifying his distinctive style that captivates audiences even now.

John Ford took the reins of the Western genre with his classic Stagecoach . The movie not only redefined the Westerns of its time but also highlighted Ford’s unparalleled knack for storytelling and his subtle yet significant contributions to character development.

Fritz Lang’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse represents the fusion of intense psychological thrills with groundbreaking visual effects. Lang’s films are rich with innovation, often embedding deep themes of intrigue and morality.

Tod Browning

Tod Browning created works that pushed the boundaries of conventional cinema. His most daring production, Freaks , challenges the audience’s perception of beauty and horror, creating an indelible impact that has left its mark on the genre.

James Whale

James Whale is revered for his contributions to the horror genre, particularly with films like Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein . These films portray Whale’s ability to stir emotions and use visual storytelling to explore complex themes of humanity and identity.

The directors of the 1930s laid the groundwork for future filmmakers, each bringing their unique vision and innovative techniques to silver-screen storytelling. Their works are a testament to the enduring power of cinema.

Iconic Films and Their Impact

The 1930s was a transformative era for cinema, with films that not only achieved monumental success but also left an indelible mark on pop culture. The decade’s iconic films showcased a range of genres, each contributing uniquely to the tapestry of film history.

Drama and Romance

Gone with the Wind set the benchmark for epic storytelling, combining romance with the harrowing backdrop of the Civil War. This film’s unprecedented success underscored the audience’s love for grand romantic dramas and featured memorable performances from Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Meanwhile, It Happened One Night , starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, redefined love stories with its blend of humor and romance, prompting a slew of romantic-comedies for decades to come.

Comedy and Satire

The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup was a masterclass in comedy, lacing political satire with slapstick humor. On the other hand, Bringing Up Baby highlighted the chemistry between Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, showcasing a screwball comedy at its finest, with its fast-paced dialogue and improbable situations.

Adventure and Fantasy

Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling adventure, The Adventures of Robin Hood , brought a historical legend to vibrant life. In fantasy, The Wizard of Oz invited audiences on a technicolor quest, becoming a cultural cornerstone with its memorable music, quotes, and the universal theme of home. King Kong , directed by Merian C. Cooper, was a spectacle of adventure and special effects, forever impacting the standards for movie monsters and visual storytelling.

Horror and Suspense

The genre of horror was marked by films like James Whale’s Frankenstein and Tod Browning’s Dracula , both introducing iconic characters portrayed by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, respectively. These films established the foundation for on-screen horror and suspense, fascinating audiences with tales of the macabre.

The 1930s were also the golden age of musicals, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs being the first full-length animated film, setting a high bar for quality and commercial success. Add to that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing their way into film history with Swing Time , epitomizing the elegance and optimism that musicals brought to audiences during difficult times.

Evolution of Film Industry

The 1930s marked a period of significant transformation in the film industry, with technological innovations like sound and color revolutions shaping cinema.

From Silent to Sound

In the 1930s, you witnessed the transition from the silent era to sound films , or “talkies.” This evolution began with The Jazz Singer in 1927, a film that not only included synchronized dialogue but also made history, prompting a swift move away from silent productions to sound films throughout the industry. The incorporation of sound changed the way stories were told, placing greater emphasis on dialogue and scripts.

The Advent of Technicolor

The introduction of Technicolor brought films to life in vivid color, enhancing the storytelling experience. The “ The Adventures of Robin Hood ” in 1938 is a notable example that showcased the dramatic impact of this technology with its lush green forests and richly colorful costumes, setting new standards for visual storytelling in cinema.

Hollywood’s Golden Age

You’re looking at what’s considered Hollywood’s Golden Age , where the quality and success of films were on the rise. Hollywood became synonymous with high-caliber cinema, characterized by intricate scripts and a focus on storytelling quality. During this period, Hollywood established itself as a beacon of cinematic excellence worldwide.

Rise of the Studio System

The studio system took root in this era, with major studios controlling the production, distribution, and exhibition of films. This system created an assembly line of sorts for movie-making, fostering a prolific output of films and allowing studios to cultivate star power through long-term actor contracts.

Censorship and The Hays Code

Censorship played a significant role in shaping films of that time through “The Hays Code .” Adopted in 1934, this set of industry moral guidelines dictated the content that was permissible for public consumption. The Hays Code influenced everything from the depiction of on-screen relationships to the level of violence and crime portrayed, leading to subtle storytelling techniques to skirt regulations.

Social and Political Themes

In the 1930s, movies not only served as entertainment but also mirrored and subtly influenced social and political sentiments of the time. They explored topics from war to economic struggle, and from rampant corruption to the need for escape.

Depiction of War and Heroism

Dramas like All Quiet on the Western Front provided a stark view of war’s impact on soldiers and their families. This intense anti-war film took you through a journey of disillusionment, showcasing the brutal reality of World War I and transforming its characters from naive youths to weary veterans.

The Great Depression

Your understanding of the Great Depression could be deepened by films that depicted the struggle and resilience of American families during this era. These movies often had underlying themes of social unity and collective perseverance in the face of severe economic hardship.

Corruption and Society

You might find Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, as a prime example of how 1930s cinema critiqued corruption within society, in this case, the U.S. Senate. Its storyline emphasized the power of an idealistic hero combating the corrupted status quo.

Film as Escapism

To provide relief from everyday stresses, genres like fantasy, adventure, musicals, and comedies flourished. These films offered you a chance to escape into worlds of wonder, laughter, and spectacle, giving a temporary respite from the pressing issues of the day.

Notable Actors and Actresses

The 1930s cinema landscape was adorned with a constellation of shining stars. You could witness such talent as Jean Harlow , the original “blonde bombshell,” captivating audiences with her luminous screen presence and undeniable charm.

Charlie Chaplin , a master of silent film, continued to enchant your heart through the decade, even as talkies became the norm. His iconic character The Tramp remains a fixture of cinematic history.

Meanwhile, Humphrey Bogart began his ascent to becoming a leading man known for his tough-guy roles, leaving an indelible mark with performances that would become legendary.

Greta Garbo was your symbol of the enigmatic and exquisite talent of the era. The Swedish-born actress’s allure was matched by an acting prowess that made her one of the most memorable actresses of her time.

James Stewart started to establish himself as the everyman in American cinema, a role he would grow into more fully in the following decade.

You’d also be remiss not to glide onto the dance floor with the dynamic duo of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers . Their on-screen partnership defined the golden age of musicals with elegant and elaborate dance sequences.

Finally, if you have a penchant for the thrilling and the chilling, you would have surely appreciated Boris Karloff , whose portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster terrified and fascinated moviegoers.

These actors and actresses are to be credited for their foundational roles in the cinematic art and legacy that you enjoy to this day.

Influence on Modern Cinema

The 1930s were integral in shaping the films you enjoy today, from pioneering narratives to the inception of visual wizardry. Dive into the ways this Golden Age left an indelible mark on the facets of modern filmmaking.

Narrative and Storytelling

During the 1930s, the foundation for complex storytelling were laid which you see on your screens now. With landmark films like King Kong showcasing epic tales, your favorite modern blockbusters often echo the intricate scriptwriting and narrative techniques birthed in this era.

Visual and Special Effects

The captivating visuals and special effects you witness in contemporary cinema can trace their lineage to the ’30s. Revolutionary films of that time, such as King Kong , introduced techniques that have been refined to create the stunning visual effects used in today’s films. For a blast from the past that still resonates with modern VFX artists, look no further than this groundbreaking classic.

Genre Development

The 1930s saw the flourishing of several genres that remain popular:

• Gangster: The gritty underbelly of the crime world was brought to life, influencing countless modern gangster epics.
• Romance: With sweeping love stories, the era cemented techniques in capturing hearts that are replicated to this day.
• Comedy: A touchstone for humor, these years injected a blend of wit and slapstick that can still be found in comedies.
• Musical: The all-singing, all-dancing spectaculars of the 1930s set the stage for the vibrant musicals that have your toes tapping.
• Horror: Finally, the primal fears addressed by horror films then continue to inspire the spine-tingling stories that send shivers down your spine now.

By understanding these traditions, you can appreciate how your current movie experiences are part of a long, storied history of cinematic innovation.

You’ve journeyed through the captivating era of 1930s Hollywood , a period that truly revolutionized cinema. The legacy left by this Golden Age is evident in the continually referenced and celebrated films like The Wizard of Oz and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. These classics not only set a high standard but also became a nostalgic part of many film enthusiasts’ collections.

As you reflect on the 1930s, take note of the technological advancements—like the use of color and sound—that your favorite modern films owe to this trailblazing decade. Remember, the stars of yesteryears, such as Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, shaped the very essence of what it means to be a Hollywood icon.

Through heartwarming musicals and gripping dramas, the influence of the 1930s resonates even in contemporary cinema. Rest assured that the magic of this Golden Age will continue to enchant audiences, inspiring new generations of filmmakers and actors.

As you enjoy the plethora of modern-day movies, recognize the indelible marks made by the 1930s—a timeless chapter in film history.

100 Essential Films of the 1930s (1930-1939)

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The 10 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies From the 1930s, Ranked

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After establishing himself during the silent era of the 1920s, Alfred Hitchcock successfully transitioned to talkies with the release of the hugely successful Blackmail in 1929. The next ten years would see him gain further traction as one of Britain's most prolific film directors, working alongside leading actors of the time, such as Charles Laughton , Margaret Lockwood and Peter Lorre .

In 1939, Britain's loss became America's gain, when Hitchcock was lured to Hollywood by a seven-year contract with film producer David O. Selznick, who's best known for the epic blockbuster Gone with the Wind . Until then, Hitchcock's time on set was well spent honing his craft, particularly in the crime and mystery genres and these are the most memorable.

10 'Number 17' (1932)

Starring leon m. lion, anne grey and john stuart.

A man going by the name of Forsythe ( John Stuart ) shows up one night at Number 17 , a run-down vacant house. After wandering around inside, he bumps into a lowly squatter called Ben ( Leon M. Lion ) who tells him about the dead body on the upper-floor. When the two of them go to check it out, Nora ( Anne Grey ), the girl next door, who's looking for her missing father, falls through the ceiling. If that's not complicated enough, a gang of thieves turns up looking for jewels that have been stashed in the house.

For a film that's little more than an hour long, Number 17 manages to weave a complex plot of who's who and whodunit. The whole thing is very chaotic, much like the hoard of stray cats that caused trouble on Hitchcock's abandoned house film set . Lion's character is really entertaining, but his comedic touches dampen down the drama a bit too much.

Number 17 (1932)

Watch on Amazon

9 'Jamaica Inn' (1939)

Starring: charles laughton, maureen o'hara and robert newton.

After her mother dies, Mary ( Maureen O'Hara ) comes to stay with her aunt Patience ( Maria Ney ) who runs the infamous Jamaica Inn with her brutish husband Joss ( Leslie Banks ). Joss and his criminal buddies cause ship wrecks by setting up fake beacons along the coast. Then, after killing any survivors, they plunder the cargo. When one of the criminals, Jem ( Robert Newton ), is about to be lynched for skimming from the take, Mary steps in and saves his neck and the two of them seek help from the local squire, Sir Humphrey ( Charles Laughton ). Unfortunately for Mary, neither Jem nor Sir Humphrey are who they appear, so she has no idea who to trust.

"Jamaica Inn is a well conceived adaptation of an entertaining story about greed and corruption and well worth watching."

Jamaica Inn was the first of two Hitchcock movies based on Daphne du Maurier novels, the second being Rebecca , which won an Oscar for Best Picture . Despite their success, Hitchcock wasn't a fan of either film, due to constant feuds with producers. One of the producers on Jamaica Inn was also the lead actor, Laughton, which gave him a considerable amount of influence that didn't sit well with Hitchcock. Regardless of the issues, Jamaica Inn is a well conceived adaptation of an entertaining story about greed and corruption and well worth watching.

Buy on Amazon

8 'Murder!' (1930)

Starring: herbert marshall, norah baring and phyllis konstam.

Diana Baring ( Norah Baring ) is found sitting in a trance beside the dead body of one of the other members of her acting troupe, with a bloody poker lying nearby. With all the evidence pointing to her and having no memory of what actually happened, Diana is naturally tried and convicted of murder. However, one juror, Sir John Menier ( Herbert Marshall ), is convinced there's more to the story and starts his own investigation. Hopefully, he'll get to the truth before Diana's execution.

"Murder! is a wonderful example of Hitchcock's love for the theatrical..."

Murder! is a wonderful example of Hitchcock's love for the theatrical, and was in fact adapted from a stage play called, “Enter Sir John,” by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson . It also includes another Hitchcock innovation, by being the first film to capture a character's inner thoughts. At that time, it wasn't possible to dub a voice-over after the film had been shot, so the thoughts in Sir John's head were created by playing a phonograph of Marshall’s voice during the scene.

7 'East of Shanghai' (1931)

Starring: henry kendall, joan barry and percy marmont.

Londoners Fred and Emily Hill ( Henry Kendall and Joan Barry ) are living a boring middle-class life when they get news of a big inheritance from a rich uncle. Thrilled that all of their dreams are about to be fulfilled, the couple quickly adopt a rich lifestyle and set off on a cruise. While on board, both of them stray towards greener pastures, with Emily being smitten by the advances of dapper bachelor Commander Gordon ( Percy Marmont ) and Fred falling for a mysterious eastern princess ( Betty Amann ). It's not long, however, before the hapless couple learns that all that glitters certainly isn't gold.

East of Shanghai was released in the UK under the title Rich & Strange , which feels a lot more fitting for this moralistic comedy. Like a lot of people, the naive protagonists are certain money is going to solve all of their problems, which it of course doesn't. Their downward spiral is entertaining to watch, but it feels like Hitchcock missed a trick with The Princess character played by Amann who is a rather pathetic villain .

6 'Sabotage' (1936)

Starring: sylvia sidney, oscar homolka and john loder.

When it's discovered that a London blackout was caused by sabotage, suspicion falls on local cinema owner Karl Verloc ( Oscar Homolka ). Detective Ted Spencer ( John Loder ) is sent in undercover as a neighboring greengrocer and, while carrying out surveillance, forms a close bond with Verloc's wife ( Sylvia Sidney ). Mrs. Verloc is staunchly loyal to her husband, until her young, innocent brother Stevie (Demond Tester) falls victim to his despicable actions, and she realizes what a monster he is.

Sabotage was based on the novel 'The Secret Agent' by Joseph Conrad, but Hitchcock manages to put his trademark spin on it, particularly in the opening sequence. Unlike a lot of thrillers where the bomb is disarmed with just seconds to go, Sabotage has a really explosive ending , which audiences at the time were not very receptive to and even Hitchcock felt he had overstepped the mark.

Not available

5 'Secret Agent' (1936)

Starring: john gielgud, madeleine carroll, robert young and peter lorre.

In the midst of World War I, a British Intelligence officer under the alias Ashenden ( John Gielgud ) is partnered with an assassin known as The General ( Peter Lorre ) and sent to Switzerland to track down a German spy. Awaiting their arrival is Elsa Carrington ( Madeleine Carroll ), who poses as Ashenden's wife. Unfortunately, the two men get the wrong target and The General murders an innocent British Tourist. Questioning the morality of the situation, Elsa abandons the mission and leaves in the company of a charming American named Marvin ( Robert Young ). When Marvin is identified as the spy they've been after Elsa's allegiance comes under question.

"With a plot reminiscent of James Bond, Secret Agent is an entertaining blend of espionage, adventure and love with touches of comedy thrown in."

With a plot reminiscent of James Bond , Secret Agent is an entertaining blend of espionage, adventure and love with touches of comedy thrown in. While not one of Peter Lorre's best movies , he is wonderful as the reckless assassin with more charisma than his male counterparts.

4 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934)

Starring: leslie banks, edna best and peter lorre.

While on vacation in Switzerland, Bob and Jill Lawrence ( Lesile Banks and Edna Best ) are asked by a dying friend to take some information back to the British Consulate. The couple's daughter Betty ( Nova Pilbeam ) is then kidnapped, and they all become unwittingly involved in a political assassination plot. With their daughter's life at stake, it's up to the Lawrence's to prevent an international incident.

" The Man Who Knew Too Much was Hitchcock's first international success, but that didn't prevent him from remaking the film in 1956, claiming that the original was the work of an amateur."

The Man Who Knew Too Much was Hitchcock's first international success, but that didn't prevent him from remaking the film in 1956, claiming that the original was the work of an amateur. While Banks and Best are admirable leads, they struggle to compete with the stardom of James Stewart and Doris Day that made The Man Who Knew Too Much one of Hitchcock's best movies of the 50s .

3 'Young & Innocent' (1937)

Starring: nova pilbeam, derrick de marney and percy marmont.

Young Robert Tisdall ( Derrick De Marney ), spots a woman's body washed up on the beach and runs to get help. The body belongs to a famous actress who has been strangled and when it turns out Tisdall not only knew her, but that she left him a small fortune in her will, he looks guilty as sin. Tisdall manages to escape arrest and sets out to prove his innocence and somehow manages to convince the Chief Constable's daughter, Erica ( Nova Pilbeam ), to help in his efforts.

Young and Innocent is only one of two Hitchcock thrillers to reach 100% on the Tomatometer , a well deserved accolade. Pilbeam and De Marney have great on-screen chemistry and the film manages to maintain a lighter air of youth despite the seriousness of the situation.

Young and Innocent

2 'the 39 steps' (1935), starring: robert donat, madeline carroll and lucie mannheim.

Canadian Richard Hannay ( Robert Donat ) is visiting a music hall in London when shots are fired and, in the confusion, a woman called Annabella Smith ( Lucie Mannheim ) attaches herself to him. It turns out Annabella is a counterspy being chased by assassins because she knows about a plot to steal military secrets. Later, Annabella is murdered and, as the prime suspect, Hannay becomes the target of a nationwide manhunt. He's then forced to go on the run to try and prove his innocence.

Loosely based on John Buchan's novel, The 39 Steps is an incredibly entertaining spy thriller. It was also one of the first films to introduce the 'MacGuffin' plot device, a term coined by Hitchcock or his collaborator Angus MacPhail . A MacGuffin is something in a movie that drives the plot or motivates the characters, but isn't really relevant to the story. In The 39 Steps , the MacGuffin is the stolen design plans .

The 39 Steps

1 'the lady vanishes' (1938), starring: margaret lockwood, michael redgrave and paul lucas.

Iris Henderson ( Margaret Lockwood ) is on her way back from vacation when she befriends Miss Froy ( May Whitty ), a kind old governess who's traveling on the same train. They share the same compartment and have tea together, but later the old woman disappears and no one seems to have seen her. Iris is convinced there's some kind of conspiracy going on, but Dr. Hartz ( Paul Lukas ) thinks she might be delusional after receiving a bump on the head. The only ally Iris has is musician Gilbert Redman ( Michael Redgrave ), and it's up to the two of them to solve the mystery.

The Lady Vanishes is Hitchcock at his best, with the suspense gradually building as the heroine's situation becomes more and more desperate. The movie has just the right balance of thrills, romance and light-heartedness and is a testament as to why Hitchcock's career as a director managed to span more than 50 years .

The Lady Vanishes

NEXT: The 10 Best Alfred Hitchcock Film Noir Movies, Ranked

• Alfred Hitchcock

10 Greatest Classic Horror Films of the 1930s, Ranked

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10 Great Horror Movies With High Body Counts

10 horror movie deaths that made no sense, 10 most controversial horror movies.

Although the silent era produced many notable horror films , such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Phantom Carriage , and Nosferatu , the 1930s was a true Golden Age for the horror genre. Most associate 1930s horror cinema with the Universal Monster movies that produced iconic pop culture villains such as Frankenstein's Monster, Count Dracula, and the Invisible Man.

While other Hollywood studios did not necessarily specialize in horror films, they still managed to create their own influential horror movies. Internationally, filmmakers like Carl Theodor Dreyer made their own imprints on 1930s horror cinema. To this day, the horror films of the 1930s remain some of the genre's most famous works.

15 Best Christmas Horror Movies

Christmas horror films bring chills and thrills home for the holidays, often featuring killer Santa and dark Christmas ghosts.

10 The Black Cat (1934)

Universal Pictures' top box office hit of 1934, The Black Cat, is a pre-Code horror film about a newlywed couple and a Hungarian psychiatrist trapped in the house of Austrian architect Hjalmar Poelzig. Directed by famed B movie auteur Edgar G. Ulmer, The Black Cat was the first of eight movies that paired together 1930s horror legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

The Black Cat's lurid content, which includes cults, necrophilia, and human sacrifice, provided one of the final straws in Hollywood's decision to start strictly enforcing the Production Code less than two months after The Black Cat's premiere. Bravo ranked The Black Cat's notorious "skinning scene" one of cinema's scariest movie moments.

9 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

During the silent era, roughly a dozen adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde premiered between 1908 and 1920. In 1931, Rouben Mamoulian directed the story's first sound version, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , which depicts a doctor's transformation into a feral being after taking a potion.

At the 5th Academy Awards, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde earned three Oscar nominations, winning Best Actor for Fredric March. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's highlight is its transformation sequences, in which Dr. Jekyll morphs into Mr. Hyde. The American Film Institute nominated the film for its list of greatest villains and greatest thrills.

There are a few movies that stand out in the horror genre for the high number of gruesome deaths and murders that have resulted in a large body count.

8 The Invisible Man (1933)

Based on H. G. Wells' 1897 novel of the same name, James Whale's The Invisible Man is a science fiction horror film that tells the story of Dr. Jack Griffin, a scientist who unintentionally invented an invisibility drug. In addition to invisibility, the drug alters one's mind, causing increasingly aggressive and dangerous behavior. A pioneer of 1930s horror, Whale also directed Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein .

The Invisible Man features a brilliant performance by Claude Rains and revolutionary special effects from John P. Fulton. Critic Kim Newman called The Invisible Man American cinema's first truly great science fiction film. In 2008, the Library of Congress voted The Invisible Man into the National Film Registry.

7 Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Another adaptation of an H. G. Wells novel, Island of Lost Souls, was one of the most controversial horror films of the 1930s. Island of Lost Souls focuses on Dr. Moreau, a mad scientist who experiments with creating human beings from animals.

Upon its release, Island of Lost Souls received immense backlash for its gruesome imagery and themes about man imitating God. As a result, many countries either outright banned the movie or heavily censored it. For decades, most saw the film in incomplete forms until The Criterion Collection released an official restoration in 2011. Retrospectively, many applaud Island of Lost Souls for its brooding atmosphere and foreboding expressionist cinematography from Karl Struss.

6 Dracula (1931)

The film to start it all, Dracula , was Universal Pictures' first movie in its line of classic monster movies. Starring Bela Lugosi in the first sound adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel of the same name, Dracula centers on the eponymous Count Dracula, a vampire who arrives in London to prey on young socialite women.

Directed by prominent silent and pre-Code filmmaker Tod Browning, Dracula established the Universal Monster movie formula with its towering performances, fear-inducing gothic production design, and expressionist cinematography. The American Film Institute named Dracula 85th on its list of greatest thrills, and its list of the best villains, Count Dracula placed 33rd.

Though death is a given in horror films, these scary movie kills left audiences scratching their heads.

5 King Kong (1933)

A National Film Registry inductee, King Kong is an adventure fantasy horror monster movie about a film crew that discovers a giant pre-historic ape on Skull Island. Eventually, the crew captures the ape and brings him to New York City, where he proceeds to wreak havoc.

King Kong features groundbreaking special effects from Willis H. O'Brien, who combined stop-motion animation, matte paintings, rear projection, and miniatures to achieve the film's unprecedented aesthetic. The movie is a staple on countless lists published by The American Film Institute, including the best movies, scores, thrills, passions, and fantasy films.

4 Frankenstein (1931)

After struggling financially during the early stages of sound film production, Universal Pictures quickly began developing more horror films following the box office success of Dracula . Frankenstein , a horror monster movie based on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , became the studio's follow-up to Dracula .

Frankenstein contains cutting-edge makeup from Jack Pierce and a horrifying performance by Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster . The film's most disturbing moment is when Frankenstein's Monster accidentally drowns a little girl in a lake. Once the Production Code went into full effect, this sequence ended up cut from the original negative. Thought lost for decades, the British National Film Archive rediscovered the scene in the 1980s, and it has since been restored to modern prints of the film.

3 The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The Bride of Frankenstein is one of those extraordinarily rare sequels that improves in quality over the original film. Set immediately after the conclusion of Frankenstein , The Bride of Frankenstein sees Dr. Frankenstein forced into creating a mate for the Monster.

Critics frequently praise The Bride of Frankenstein's implementation of humor within the narrative, astutely balancing horror, pathos, and camp. Additionally, film scholars point to the movie's Christian imagery and queer subtext as prime examples of why The Bride of Frankenstein is widely considered James Whale's masterpiece. Numerous publications such as Time , Empire , and the Boston Herald included the film on their lists of all-time best movies.

Horror films inherently push certain boundaries, but some go well beyond into the realm of controversy.

2 Freaks (1932)

Tod Browning's Freaks is a pre-Code horror film that has been ranked among the most misunderstood movies ever made for decades. Freaks' narrative revolves around a group of circus performers who learn a beautiful trapeze artist desires to marry and murder a fellow performer to claim his inheritance.

Due to Freaks' casting of real-life sideshow performers, the film quickly earned a reputation for being too grotesque. Without Browning's consent, Studio executives cut the movie by nearly 30 minutes, and even with these cuts, countries such as the United Kingdom banned Freaks . Starting in the 1960s, Freaks received a reevaluation that emphasized the film's compassionate representation of the circus performers.

1 Vampyr (1932)

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Vampyr is the greatest horror film of the 1930s. Dreyer's first sound film, Vampyr , follows a drifter obsessed with the supernatural who stumbles upon an inn where a young girl begins slowly turning into a vampire.

Shot by acclaimed cinematographer Rudolph Maté, Vampyr contains astonishing tracking shots and some of the most haunting expressionist imagery ever to grace the silver screen. Stylistically, Vampyr is more experimental compared to most 1930s horror movies, with critic Kim Newman stating Vampyr belongs in a category similar to a surrealist film such as Un Chien Andalou rather than a typical Universal Monster movie.

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Good movies always have integrity, but not-good movies can have integrity, too. "The Crow," about a man who is murdered along with the love of his life and comes back from the dead to avenge her, is an vivid example of this principle. It has a lot of elements that don't work (including a symbolism-laden recurring flashback to a childhood trauma that landed the hero, Eric Draven, in a mental institution) and you sort of just have to accept that the central love story is powerful because the film needs it to be, and because the actors are likable.  Zach Baylin and William Schneider's script takes a while setting up the horrifying central event that drives the rest of the story, and the movie doesn't get to the point where the hero becomes The Crow, a self-painted, faintly Joker-esque angel of death, until the final stretch. And there are a lot of other problems/issues that I'll get to in due course.

But it has a low-key confidence about its identity and methods, including an entire metaphysical system supporting the plot, that's unexpectedly persuasive by the end. This film is not, as reality show contestants like to say, here to make friends, but to be true to itself, and it walks a righteous path in that regard, all the way to its ending, which is true to the spirit of John Keats and Edgar Allan Poe as well as the source material, James O'Barr's graphic novel. The violence is staggeringly brutal even by revenge-thriller standards—flamboyantly, consciously excessive in the manner of an art-house/grindhouse thriller like " Drive " or " Only God Forgives "—as if the movie is going all out to shock an audience that fancies itself un-shockable. 

And the decision to spend so much time showing us big-eyed sad-sack Eric Draven (played by Bill Skarsgård ) prior to his supernatural transformation, and to develop Eric's lover Shelly (musician FKA Twigs), a woman on the fringes of the goth underworld who's running from a dark secret, as a person with her own identity and backstory, pays off fairly deep into the story, even though it can be a little frustrating early on. Post-Shelly's death, the movie takes a turn that, without revealing anything specific, is so rock-solidly capital-R Romantic, in an " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard " kind of way, that in an age where any form of sincerity is reflexively dismissed as "cringe," the movie deserves applause for even going there, and more applause for following the decision to its dramatically inevitable conclusion and giving audiences the ending that feels right, even if it's not the one that'll send viewers home with smiles on their faces.

It's true that there's no universe in which it can be called a great movie, or even an inherently commercial one. Twigs is likable but gives a rather thin performance, and Skarsgård doesn't fare much better, despite their apparently complete investment in the love story. It might've helped if the characters didn't seem stoned even when they aren't doing drugs. Director Rupert Sanders (" Snow White and the Huntsman ," the live-action " Ghost in the Shell ") relies too much on stereotypical "lovers frolicking" montage material that seems to want to be charged with secondary meaning (Eric kisses Shelly through a sheer white curtain that suggests a burial shroud, and after her death, there's a " Titanic "-y image of her sinking into the murk of a harbor despite Eric's outstretched hand). These really could've been more productively swapped out for more, you know, actual scenes where the two behave like, you know,  people . All that plus the extreme violence and the not-upbeat ending probably explain why "The Crow" is being dumped by its studio, Lionsgate, without any press screenings and (seemingly) little advertising or marketing. 

But this still feels like a mistake, because for all its disappointments and missteps—including a lack of imaginative compositions, and some muddy or milky nighttime photography—the movie's got something—a specialness, an aura, or maybe just an obvious purity of intent—that ought to inoculate it against charges that it's just a cash-grab remake. Nobody who's in showbiz solely to make money would commit to a movie like this version of "The Crow," which has a 19th century, wearing-black-and-kneeling-by-the-tombstone definition of True Love. And it has gone to the trouble of developing a detailed cosmology to put character motivations in context and let the movie build to a statement that goes beyond "bad guys kill hero's girl, hero comes back to kill bad guys," which is pretty much what Alex Proyas (" Dark City ") did when he first adapted James O'Barr's source comic thirty years ago. 

The villain in this one, Roeg (presumably named for the great director Nicolas Roeg , and played by go-to bad guy Danny Huston ) is not just a garden variety human criminal, but a vile and powerful creature who, by his own description, has been around a long time, and has the ability to corrupt mortals. Unlike previous screen tellings of the legends of The Crow, this one is thoroughly steeped in the supernatural beyond the trope of resurrecting a dead protagonist. As in horror films about devils, demons, and stolen souls, this one portrays evil as a power source or force that can be carried and weaponized, transforming and despoiling others. This brings the story closer to the fable of Orpheus, who tries to save his wife Eurydice from Hades, although this "Crow" spends most of its metaphysical development scenes in a purgatorial in-between space. 

Proyas' version was probably always going to end up an example of a film in which style was substance (the characterizations were flat/iconic, and the look was modeled on then-contemporary music videos, album covers, and comics art), and it had to embrace that aesthetic much harder after its star  Brandon Lee was killed by a prop gun before he was done filming his scenes. The production team used silhouetted body doubles and then-crude compositing to cobble together something releasable. The result was a death-haunted film in more ways than one. Hopefully enough time has passed to be able to say that the result, though better than it had any right to be, got extra love and affection because audiences knew so much about the trauma that birthed it. (For what it's worth, I gave Proyas's "The Crow" a rave review when it came out, and wore out the soundtrack on cassette.) 

This new version isn't as focused, propulsive, and fleet-footed as the '94 film. It's a mournful wallow with a tinge of Northern European horror films and fables. It's a neo-noir big-bad-city movie, with buckets of rain pouring down. The ripped, buff Skarsgård doesn't have Lee's dancer-like grace and doesn't try to approximate it; if Lee's Eric Draven was a trickster imp, Skarsgård's is more of a brooding clay golem, conjured to destroy the wicked.

And that's OK. It's a different approach, and in the end, it not only works, the film is moving almost in  spite of itself. This "Crow" seems to understand itself most strongly when it's showing us how Eric, retooling himself into a killing machine in the name of redemption and justice, has chosen to become what he beheld, and empty himself of the love that transformed him for the better when Shelly was alive. The onscreen effect is reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe line, “Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute." Every scene, especially in the second half, seems to be taking its creative orders from some secret coded frequency that only the filmmakers can hear, and that no other mainstream movie this year has access to. Even when the film wasn't quite "working" in any conventional sense, there were moments that raised the hair on the back of my neck. 

There's a scene in the movie where Eric and Shelly are walking across a bridge and Shelly not-really-jokingly talks about jumping, and they envision a double-jump ending in their deaths, and Shelly imagines that teenagers would make shrines to them. I think that in time, teenagers will make their own shrines to this movie, in their own ways. It's the kind of movie where, if you saw it when you were 14, you'd see it ten or twenty more times, and be inspired to check out books from the library, maybe memorize some poetry. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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The Crow (2024)

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‘Blink Twice’ Review: Zoë Kravitz Proves She’s a Total Filmmaker in a #MeToo-Meets-‘Midsommar’ Thriller Starring a Sinister Channing Tatum

Naomi Ackie plays a waitress who gets invited to a tech billionaire's private island, where the party never ends. So what's the catch?

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In other words, it’s all part of a super-elite reverie, too good true to be true. Before long, the audience begins to wonder the same thing that Frida does: What’s the catch? What’s the price? What’s really going on?

“Blink Twice” may remind you, at times, of “Midsommar,” Ari Aster’s sun-dappled white-cotton-dress bad-dream fantasia about a vacation taken by an American couple at a Swedish commune that turns out to be a cult. That movie had the dark pull of a forbidden fantasy. But “Blink Twice,” though it takes some very high-flying twists, is rooted in the sexual menace of the real world. The movie pings off the sagas of predators like Jeffrey Epstein, who brought vacationers (and fellow predators) to his getaway island, and Bill Cosby, who used drugs to commit his crimes. For a while in “Blink Twice,” there are clues that something very weird is going on. Frida drips steak juice onto her dress…and a bit later, the stain has vanished. She keeps noticing dirt under her fingernails. And what about the mysterious maid (María Elena Olivares) who keeps popping up like a figment out of “Don’t Look Now”? Her main job seems to be killing the big venomous yellow snakes who populate the island. But why?

Naomi Ackie, so superb as Whitney Houston in “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” makes her mark here as a starstruck climber who knows how to turn on the cool. In short hair, she resembles an R&B star from the early ’60s, but she’s got an arrestingly layered contempo presence. We can see that Frida, who dreams of launching her own nail-design brand, idolizes Slater, to the point of infiltrating the white-walled King-Tech fundraising bash she’s been hired to waitress at. She thinks she’s hit the jackpot when he asks her to the island, even as her big flashing detective doe eyes start to register red flags (first one: that they have to give up their cell phones).

Frida has brought along her roommate and best friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat), and feels protected. The film seems to pivot around the idea that Slater, the mogul Prince Charming, has fallen for her. When we observe the wary interplay between her and Sarah (Adria Arjona, from “Hit Man”), a long-time star contestant on a “Survivor” reality show, we think that the rivalry between them is going to drive the story. But that’s just one of Kravitz’s sleight-of-hand gambits.

The men seem arrogant without being excessively creepy, from Christian Slater’s executive bigwig to Lucas the string-bean tech wizard (Levon Hawke) to Tom the cuddly geek (Haley Joel Osment) to Cody the chef, played by Simon Rex as an unctuous New Age food guru. They are not presented as villains, more like representative everydudes. But that’s kind of the point. As the film slowly reveals what’s going on, they emerge as versions of the Ben Kingsley character in “Death and the Maiden,” acting out the dark sides of ordinary men. Yet if Frida and her fellow island guests are victims, why, day after day, are they so in the dark about what’s going on?

Reviewed at Digital Arts, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 102 MIN.

• Production: An Amazon MGM Studios release of a Free Association, This Is Important, Bold Choices production. Producers: Bruce Cohen, Tiffany Persons, Garret Levitz, Zoë Kravitz, Channing Tatum. Executive producers: Stacy Perskie, Jordan Harkins, Vania Schlogel.
• Crew: Director: Zoë Kravitz. Screenplay: Zoë Kravitz, E.T. Feigenbaum. Camera: Adam Newport-Berra. Editor: Kathryn J. Schubert. Music: Chanda Dancy.
• With: Naomie Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan, Alia Shawkat, Levon Hawke.

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‘The Crow’ Review: Resurrected and It Feels So Bad

Hoping to skate by off moody vibes, this revamp of “The Crow” comic book series seems derived from a flattened, Hot Topic image of the hero.

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By Brandon Yu

In the long and winding road it took to finally get to “The Crow” — with some 15 years of recasts, rewrites, and director switches — the one constant that has remained is that this version would not be a remake of the 1994 film of the same name. It would, the mantra went, instead be a reimagining of the original comic book series by James O’Barr about a man, resurrected from the dead, enacting vengeance on the small-time gangsters who killed him and his fiancée.

It’s a sensible distinction to make for any movie revamp, but here is a particularly important and likely futile disclaimer to evade existing in the shadow not only of a cult classic, but also of a tragic and storied legacy — the accidental on-set death of its star, Brandon Lee — that shrouded and ultimately fueled the original film’s beloved status. “The Crow” of 2024 was never meant to be, couldn’t ever be, a version of that movie, a grittily stylized, rough-edged gothic melodrama whose pain and grief was so deeply absorbed by fans because those very things bled beyond the frame.

That, of course, is fine and all. But ultimately what this version, directed by Rupert Sanders, is spiritually derived from is neither the film nor the comic, but rather the flattened popular image that the film produced — a Hot Topic -style version of alternative consciousness.

“Do you think angsty teens would build shrines to us?” Shelly (FKA twigs) asks Eric (Bill Skarsgard) about their love story, the film’s central romance, whose edgy sensitivity is packaged with as much real feeling as a perfume ad starring Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox. You might think of Shelly’s line as a kind of wink at how Lee’s image became a beacon for brooding cynicism for an entire generation.

But the real punchline is that the film itself is the embodiment of that kind of hollow emo teen worship, throwing vague echoes of “Joker,” “John Wick” and “Constantine” into a laundry machine and hoping faded shades of black eyeliner remain.

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