Films of 1939
by christopherpip | created - 07 Jul 2013 | updated - 22 Mar 2022 | PublicThese are the films I have seen from the year 1939.
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1. Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)
Passed | 85 min | Comedy, Family, Romance
Young Andy develops a crush on his drama teacher. Meanwhile, Judge Hardy has his own problems after he gets conned into forming a phony aluminum corporation.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden
Votes: 705
2. Babes in Arms (1939)
Unrated | 94 min | Comedy, Musical
A group of vaudevillians struggling to compete with talkies hits the road hoping for a comeback. Frustrated to be left behind, all of their kids put on a show themselves to raise money for the families and to prove they've got talent, too.
Director: Busby Berkeley | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee
Votes: 2,849
3. Bachelor Mother (1939)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Romance
An unemployed woman discovers an abandoned baby on the steps of an orphanage, and accepts an offer to take responsibility for the child in return for a job.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson
Votes: 4,608
4. Barricade (1939)
Approved | 71 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
In China in the 1930s a singer (Faye) and journalist (Baxter) meet on a train attacked by bandits.
Director: Gregory Ratoff | Stars: Alice Faye, Warner Baxter, Charles Winninger, Arthur Treacher
Votes: 156
5. Beau Geste (1939)
Passed | 112 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Three adopted English brothers join the French Foreign Legion in North Africa after one of them steals their adoptive family's famous heirloom sapphire.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy
Votes: 6,520
6. Bridal Suite (1939)
Passed | 70 min | Comedy, Romance
An American playboy dumps his greedy fiancee and ends up marrying a woman from the Alps.
Director: Wilhelm Thiele | Stars: Annabella, Robert Young, Walter Connolly, Reginald Owen
Votes: 251
7. Broadway Serenade (1939)
Passed | 114 min | Drama
Mary Hale, a singer, and Jimmy Seymour, a pianist/composer, are a showbiz couple working in The Big Apple in small nightclubs hoping to hit it big. One night, Broadway producer Larry Bryant... See full summary »
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Lew Ayres, Ian Hunter, Frank Morgan
Votes: 286
8. The City (I) (1939)
43 min | Documentary, Short
A prescient documentary about city planning, which presents idyllic suburbs and nuclear families as a solution to the chaos, poverty and social decay of industrialized inner cities.
Directors: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke | Star: Morris Carnovsky
Votes: 369
9. Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
After discovering his star dancer is expecting and can't perform, film producer H.W. Workman and his publicist concoct a scheme to stage a college dance contest to find a new star.
Director: S. Sylvan Simon | Stars: Lana Turner, Richard Carlson, Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, Artie Shaw
Votes: 534
10. Dark Victory (1939)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, Romance
A young socialite is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and must decide whether or not she'll meet her final days with dignity.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald
Votes: 12,400
11. Destry Rides Again (1939)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Western
Deputy sheriff Destry tames the town of Bottle Neck, including saloon singer Frenchy.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart, Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger
Votes: 12,547 | Gross: $0.35M
12. Dodge City (1939)
Approved | 104 min | Western
A Texas cattle agent witnesses first hand, the brutal lawlessness of Dodge City and takes the job of sheriff to clean the town up.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot
Votes: 5,764
13. Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, Romance, War
Newlyweds Gil and Lana Martin try to establish a farm in the Mohawk Valley but are menaced by Indians and Tories as the Revolutionary War begins.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Eddie Collins
Votes: 6,791 | Gross: $1.00M
14. Everything Happens at Night (1939)
Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Drama
Two competing reporters fall in love with the daughter of a Nobel Prize winner living in hiding.
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Sonja Henie, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, Maurice Moscovitch
Votes: 254
15. Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)
Approved | 83 min | Comedy, Romance
Feeling unwanted by his wife and children, a wealthy industrialist hires an unemployed young woman to pose as his mistress.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Walter Connolly, Verree Teasdale, James Ellison
Votes: 1,783
16. Five Came Back (1939)
Passed | 75 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A plane has engine trouble while flying over a jungle inhabited by cannibals.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine
Votes: 2,358
17. The Four Feathers (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A British Army officer resigns, burning his last-day summons to war in the Sudan. Accusing him of cowardice, his girlfriend and three friends give him white feathers. To gain redemption, he shadows his friends to save their lives.
Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez
Votes: 6,588
18. Gone with the Wind (1939)
Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War
A sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 334,201 | Gross: $198.68M
19. Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
Unrated | 114 min | Drama, Romance
An aged teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school recalls his career and his personal life over the decades.
Directors: Sam Wood, Sidney Franklin | Stars: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills
Votes: 11,589
20. The Great Man Votes (1939)
Passed | 72 min | Drama
In 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from book-to-bottle. He works, slightly, as a night-watchman and his children, who know him for what ... See full summary »
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: John Barrymore, Peter Holden, Virginia Weidler, Katharine Alexander
Votes: 646
21. Gunga Din (1939)
Approved | 117 min | Adventure, Comedy, War
In 19th century India, three British soldiers and a native waterbearer must stop a secret mass revival of the murderous Thuggee cult before it can rampage across the land.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Votes: 12,796
22. The Hardys Ride High (1939)
Passed | 81 min | Comedy, Family
Judge Hardy and family travel to Detroit to claim an inheritance where they experience life as millionaires and learn the cost of riding high.
Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden
Votes: 470
23. Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)
Passed | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, History
Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.
Directors: Irving Cummings, Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair | Stars: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Curtis
Votes: 455
24. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Passed | 116 min | Drama, Romance
In 15th-century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 12,278 | Gross: $3.27M
25. The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939)
Passed | 82 min | Drama, Music, Romance
An ice skater jeopardizes her marriage after she becomes a movie star.
Director: Reinhold Schünzel | Stars: Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Lew Ayres, Lewis Stone
Votes: 1,055
26. Idiot's Delight (1939)
Approved | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A group of disparate travelers are caught and thrown together in a posh Alpine hotel when the borders are closed at the beginning of World War II.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn
Votes: 1,713
27. It's a Wonderful World (1939)
Not Rated | 86 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
When a tycoon (Ernest Truex) is accused of murder, the private eye (James Stewart) tracking him finds himself roped in as an accessory and attempts to evade police, kidnapping a poetess (Claudette Colbert) along the way.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Claudette Colbert, James Stewart, Guy Kibbee, Nat Pendleton
Votes: 3,419
28. Jamaica Inn (1939)
Passed | 98 min | Adventure, Crime
In Cornwall, 1819, a young woman discovers she's living near a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecks for profit.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Maureen O'Hara, Robert Newton, Charles Laughton, Horace Hodges
Votes: 11,190
29. Jesse James (1939)
GP | 106 min | Western
After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.
Directors: Henry King, Irving Cummings | Stars: Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, Randolph Scott
Votes: 4,947
30. Le Jour Se Leve (1939)
Not Rated | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry
Votes: 8,270 | Gross: $0.03M
31. Juarez (1939)
Approved | 125 min | Biography, Drama, History
Louis Napoleon III (Claude Rains) takes advantage of the American Civil War to circumvent the Monroe Doctrine and expand his power by helping Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg (Brian Aherne) to add Mexico to his empire.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains
Votes: 2,555
32. Judge Hardy and Son (1939)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Family
Judge Hardy, trying to find a relative of an aged couple to prevent them from losing their home, enlists the aid of his son Andy.
Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Fay Holden, Cecilia Parker
Votes: 507 | Gross: $0.25M
33. 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: 6,421
34. Made for Each Other (1939)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
While on a business trip, an ambitious young lawyer meets and immediately falls in love with a stranger. They wed the following day, and tragedy soon strikes.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Carole Lombard, James Stewart, Charles Coburn, Lucile Watson
Votes: 4,103
35. Maisie (1939)
Approved | 75 min | Comedy, Drama
A showgirl stranded in a Wyoming town ends up being hired as a maid at a ranch.
Director: Edwin L. Marin | Stars: Robert Young, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey, Ian Hunter
Votes: 690
36. Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)
Approved | 65 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Disguised as an Austrian archaeologist, Moto helps unearth the priceless crown of the legendary Queen of Sheba and sans disguise defends it from a variety of thugs and criminals.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Field
Votes: 741
37. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 121,365 | Gross: $9.60M
38. Ninotchka (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 22,886 | Gross: $1.19M
39. Of Mice and Men (1939)
Passed | 106 min | Adventure, Drama
A mentally disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Charles Bickford
Votes: 6,851
40. 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: 4,058
41. On Borrowed Time (1939)
Passed | 99 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
A cantankerous old man takes in his beloved, orphaned grandson, whom he must protect at all costs with the help of an agent of Death and a magical apple tree.
Director: Harold S. Bucquet | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Cedric Hardwicke, Beulah Bondi, Una Merkel
Votes: 2,251
42. On Your Toes (1939)
Approved | 94 min | Music, Comedy
A young hoofer quits vaudeville to become a composer and hooks up with a Russian ballet troupe.
Director: Ray Enright | Stars: Vera Zorina, Eddie Albert, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh
Votes: 225
43. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Passed | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
At a remote South American trading port, the manager of an air-freight company is forced to risk his pilots' lives in order to win an important contract as a traveling American showgirl stops in town.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Richard Barthelmess
Votes: 15,655
44. Raffles (1939)
Approved | 72 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime
Man about town and First Class cricketer A.J. Raffles keeps himself solvent with daring robberies. Meeting Gwen from his schooldays and falling in love all over again, he spends the weekend... See full summary »
Directors: Sam Wood, William Wyler | Stars: David Niven, Olivia de Havilland, May Whitty, Dudley Digges
Votes: 1,218 | Gross: $0.09M
45. The Rules of the Game (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély
Votes: 31,313
46. The Secret of Dr. Kildare (1939)
Approved | 84 min | Drama, Romance
Dr. Gillespie's cancer has gotten worse, and to force him to take a rest instead of pursuing a sulfa-drug/pneumonia study, Kildare refuses to assist Gillespie, and instead accepts a case of... See full summary »
Director: Harold S. Bucquet | Stars: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Lionel Atwill, Helen Gilbert
Votes: 509
47. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Approved | 99 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Returning to the ancestral castle long after the death of the monster, the son of Dr. Frankenstein meets a mad shepherd who is hiding the comatose creature. To clear the family name, he revives the creature and tries to rehabilitate him.
Director: Rowland V. Lee | Stars: Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 11,690
48. Stagecoach (1939)
Passed | 96 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine
Votes: 53,743
49. Stanley and Livingstone (1939)
Approved | 101 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Tasked by his editor, American reporter Henry M. Stanley travels to a dangerous and uncharted region of East Africa to find the missing Scottish pioneer missionary Dr. David Livingstone.
Directors: Henry King, Otto Brower | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Nancy Kelly, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan
Votes: 1,544
50. The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
Approved | 98 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
Director: Irving Cummings | Stars: Don Ameche, Loretta Young, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn
Votes: 1,195
51. The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
Approved | 93 min | Biography, Drama, Musical
The story of the dancing team who taught the world to two-step.
Director: H.C. Potter | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, Walter Brennan
Votes: 2,791 | Gross: $1.12M
52. Tail Spin (1939)
Approved | 84 min | Drama, Romance
Flyer enters a cross-country aerial derby, becomes rival to a wealthy society flyer, competes in parachute jumps and has love affairs.
Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Alice Faye, Constance Bennett, Nancy Kelly, Joan Davis
Votes: 241
53. Torchy Blane in Chinatown (1939)
Passed | 58 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
Torchy Blane has to solve a blackmail case.
Director: William Beaudine | Stars: Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Tom Kennedy, Henry O'Neill
Votes: 456
54. Torchy Blane.. Playing with Dynamite (1939)
Approved | 59 min | Action, Comedy, Mystery
Torchy Blane and Steve McBride try to nab a gangster by tracking his moll.
Director: Noel M. Smith | Stars: Jane Wyman, Allen Jenkins, Tom Kennedy, Sheila Bromley
Votes: 425
a/k/a 'Torchy Plays with Dynamite'
55. Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939)
Approved | 60 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Torchy conducts a one woman campaign against a corrupt mayor and crime boss, and when the reform candidate is murdered, she takes up the banner.
Director: Ray McCarey | Stars: Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Tom Kennedy, John Miljan
Votes: 429
56. Union Pacific (1939)
Passed | 135 min | Drama, Western
In 1862, Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads compete westward across the wilderness toward California.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston
Votes: 3,381
57. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
PG | 102 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
Directors: Victor Fleming, King Vidor | Stars: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Votes: 428,525 | Gross: $2.08M
58. 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: 14,900 | Gross: $2.27M
59. Wuthering Heights (1939)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Romance
A servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson
Votes: 19,765 | Gross: $0.76M
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