Old Hollywood Melodramas
by funnygurl | created - 02 Sep 2012 | updated - 11 Oct 2012 | PublicWeepies, soapers, tear jerkers... Whatever you want to call them, these films always have lots of heightend emotion and are always fun! List is still in progress. Suggestions are always welcome.
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1. Imitation of Life (1934)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A struggling widow and her daughter take in a Black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter; the two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, Ned Sparks
Votes: 5,650
2. Imitation of Life (1959)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
An aspiring white actress takes in an African American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner
Votes: 18,225 | Gross: $13.99M
Both the original and the remake are worth watching.
3. Stella Dallas (1937)
Approved | 106 min | Drama, Romance
A working-class woman is willing to do whatever it takes to give her daughter a socially promising future.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 6,278 | Gross: $2.00M
4. The Old Maid (1939)
Approved | 95 min | Drama
The arrival of an ex-lover on a young woman's wedding day sets in motion a chain of events which will alter her and her cousin's lives forever.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp
Votes: 4,062
5. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Votes: 14,784
6. Old Acquaintance (1943)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Romance
Old friends Kit Marlowe and Millie Drake adopt contrasting lifestyles: Kit is a single, critically acclaimed author while married Millie writes popular pulp novels.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young, John Loder
Votes: 3,859
7. Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance, War
Myra and Roy meet and fall in love on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid. Their love will be one of the war's unspoken casualties.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson, Virginia Field
Votes: 10,928
8. Random Harvest (1942)
Passed | 126 min | Drama, Romance
An amnesiac World War I veteran falls in love with a music hall star, only to suffer an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-war life.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters
Votes: 8,406 | Gross: $10.14M
9. Mildred Pierce (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Votes: 28,677
10. Magnificent Obsession (1954)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama, Romance
A rich playboy whose recklessness inadvertently causes the death of a prominent doctor tries to make amends to his widow, and falls for her in the process.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger
Votes: 7,623
11. All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Passed | 89 min | Drama, Romance
An upper-class widow falls in love with a much younger, down-to-earth nurseryman, much to the disapproval of her children and criticism of her country club peers.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel
Votes: 16,637
12. Written on the Wind (1956)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama
Alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley marries the woman secretly loved by his poor but hard-working best friend, who in turn is pursued by Kyle's nymphomaniac sister.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone
Votes: 13,428
13. The Best of Everything (1959)
Approved | 121 min | Drama, Romance
An expose of the lives and loves of Madison Avenue working girls and their higher ups.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer
Votes: 2,354
14. Peyton Place (1957)
Approved | 157 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A peaceful New England town hides secrets and scandals.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Lana Turner, Lee Philips, Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 6,615 | Gross: $25.60M
15. A Summer Place (1959)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Romance
A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 3,853
16. All About Eve (1950)
Passed | 138 min | Drama
A seemingly timid but secretly ruthless ingénue insinuates herself into the lives of an aging Broadway star and her circle of theater friends.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm
Votes: 138,799 | Gross: $0.01M
17. Penny Serenade (1941)
Not Rated | 119 min | Drama, Romance
A couple's big dreams give way to a life full of unexpected sadness and unexpected joy.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Beulah Bondi, Edgar Buchanan
Votes: 8,069
18. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance
An unscrupulous movie producer uses an actress, a director and a writer to achieve success.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell
Votes: 16,464
19. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Passed | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A letter is addressed to three wives from their "best friend" Addie Ross, announcing that she is running away with one of their husbands - but she does not say which one.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas
Votes: 10,804
20. The Women (1939)
Not Rated | 133 min | Comedy, Drama
A study of the lives and romantic entanglements of various interconnected women.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland
Votes: 14,906 | Gross: $2.27M
Avoid the remake of this one.
21. Love Affair (1939)
Approved | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A French playboy and an American former nightclub singer fall in love aboard a ship.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman
Votes: 6,426
22. An Affair to Remember (1957)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance
A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - but will it happen?
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson
Votes: 33,081
Remake of "Love Affair".
23. Love Affair (1994)
PG-13 | 108 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two people meet on a flight to Sydney. Although both are engaged to others, they fall in love during their evacuation after a forced landing, and agree to meet in New York City three months later if the attraction lasts.
Director: Glenn Gordon Caron | Stars: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Katharine Hepburn, Garry Shandling
Votes: 5,112 | Gross: $18.25M
Remake of "Love Affair" (1939) and "An Affair to Remember" (1957)
24. A Star Is Born (1937)
Passed | 111 min | Drama, Romance
A young woman comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, and achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic leading man whose best days are behind him.
Directors: William A. Wellman, Jack Conway, Victor Fleming | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson
Votes: 10,892 | Gross: $4.36M
25. A Star Is Born (1954)
Passed | 154 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A film star helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career on a downward spiral.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford
Votes: 19,684 | Gross: $14.93M
Remake of the 1937 film
26. A Star Is Born (1976)
R | 139 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A has-been rock star falls in love with a young, up-and-coming songstress.
Director: Frank Pierson | Stars: Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson, Gary Busey, Oliver Clark
Votes: 13,182 | Gross: $80.00M
Remake of the 1937 and 1954 films.
27. Now, Voyager (1942)
Passed | 117 min | Drama, Romance
A frumpy spinster blossoms under therapy and becomes an elegant, independent woman.
Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper
Votes: 19,021
28. The Letter (1940)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort
Votes: 14,604
29. Camille (1936)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Romance
A Parisian courtesan must choose between the young man who loves her and the callous baron who wants her, even as her own health begins to fail.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan
Votes: 8,747 | Gross: $1.15M
30. All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Approved | 141 min | Drama, Romance
A duchess' irrational behavior toward her children's governess triggers tragic events that will change her family's lives forever.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 5,388
31. Love Story (1970)
PG | 100 min | Drama, Romance
A boy and a girl from different backgrounds fall in love regardless of their upbringing - and then tragedy strikes.
Director: Arthur Hiller | Stars: Ali MacGraw, Ryan O'Neal, John Marley, Ray Milland
Votes: 37,454 | Gross: $106.40M
32. Three on a Match (1932)
Passed | 63 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Warren William
Votes: 4,395
33. Diamond Head (1962)
Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Romance
In 1950s Hawaii, a bigoted and ruthless land baron, with political ambitions, bans his sister from marrying a native even though he himself has secretly impregnated a native woman.
Director: Guy Green | Stars: Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux, George Chakiris, France Nuyen
Votes: 1,014
34. Madame X (1966)
Approved | 100 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
When her lover is killed, the wife of a wealthy man is convinced to fake her own death, which leads her into greater depths of depravity until fate reunites her with her long-lost son, who is unaware of her real identity.
Director: David Lowell Rich | Stars: Lana Turner, John Forsythe, Ricardo Montalban, Burgess Meredith
Votes: 2,580
35. From the Terrace (1960)
Passed | 149 min | Drama, Romance
An ambitious young executive chooses a loveless marriage and an unfulfilling personal life in exchange for a successful Wall Street career.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Ina Balin
Votes: 3,193 | Gross: $11.34M
36. Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
Approved | 102 min | Drama, Romance
Three American women working in Rome, Italy share a spacious apartment and the desire to find love and marriage. Each one experiences a few bumps in her journey to romance.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Clifton Webb, Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, Louis Jourdan
Votes: 3,765
37. Peyton Place (1957)
Approved | 157 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A peaceful New England town hides secrets and scandals.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Lana Turner, Lee Philips, Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 6,615 | Gross: $25.60M
38. Return to Peyton Place (1961)
Approved | 123 min | Drama
The residents of Peyton Place are not happy when its most famous resident, Alison Mackenzie, writes a "shocking" novel detailing the sinful secrets of the town.
Director: José Ferrer | Stars: Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler, Eleanor Parker, Mary Astor
Votes: 1,005
39. Where Love Has Gone (1964)
Not Rated | 114 min | Drama
A divorced couple's teen-age daughter stands trial for stabbing her mother's latest lover.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Bette Davis, Susan Hayward, Mike Connors, Joey Heatherton
Votes: 1,710
40. In This Our Life (1942)
Approved | 97 min | Drama
The day before her wedding, a pampered young woman absconds with her sister's husband. Her sister begins seeing the woman's former fiancé.
Directors: John Huston, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan
Votes: 5,261
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