Classic Hollywood
by philipvanaalst | created - 28 Dec 2014 | updated - 28 Dec 2014 | PublicCriterion Themes
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1. Underworld (1927)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.
Directors: Josef von Sternberg, Arthur Rosson | Stars: George Bancroft, Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent, Fred Kohler
Votes: 3,475 | Gross: $1.64M
2. The Docks of New York (1928)
Not Rated | 76 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova, Clyde Cook
Votes: 5,029
3. The Last Command (1928)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, History, Romance
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell, Jack Raymond
Votes: 4,515
4. Lonesome (1928)
Passed | 69 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?
Director: Pál Fejös | Stars: Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon, Fay Holderness, Gusztáv Pártos
Votes: 2,600
5. The Love Parade (1929)
Passed | 107 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lupino Lane, Lillian Roth
Votes: 2,617
6. Monte Carlo (1930)
Passed | 90 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A countess flees to Monte Carlo on the day of her wedding, where she is courted by a count posing as a hairdresser.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Jack Buchanan, Claud Allister, Zasu Pitts
Votes: 1,427
7. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Passed | 93 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 4,114
8. One Hour with You (1932)
Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An unhappily married couple try to come between a happy one.
Directors: George Cukor, Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Lili Damita
Votes: 2,913
9. Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 16,146 | Gross: $1.04M
10. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
Votes: 10,898
11. Design for Living (1933)
Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Mystery, Romance
A woman cannot decide between two men who love her, and the trio agree to try living together in a platonic friendly relationship.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton
Votes: 7,753
12. It Happened One Night (1934)
Passed | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,204 | Gross: $4.36M
13. The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, History, Romance
A German noblewoman enters into a loveless marriage with the dim-witted, unstable heir to the Russian throne, then plots to oust him from power.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser
Votes: 7,234
14. My Man Godfrey (1936)
Approved | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A scatterbrained socialite hires a vagrant as a family butler - but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick
Votes: 26,437
15. Modern Times (1936)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford
Votes: 259,319 | Gross: $0.16M
16. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Passed | 91 min | Drama, Romance
An elderly couple are forced to live hundreds of miles apart when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents in.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 9,503
17. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Passed | 100 min | Biography, Drama, History
A fictionalized account of the early life of the American president as a young lawyer facing his greatest court case.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, Arleen Whelan
Votes: 9,174
18. 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: 53,719
19. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Votes: 23,709 | Gross: $3.48M
20. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,645 | Gross: $4.36M
21. The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
Passed | 107 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A nineteenth-century New Hampshire farmer makes a pact with Satan for economic success, then enlists famed orator Daniel Webster to extract him from his contract.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, Jane Darwell, Simone Simon
Votes: 5,599
22. The Lady Eve (1941)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
A trio of classy card sharks targets a socially awkward brewery heir, until one of them falls in love with him.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette
Votes: 23,368
23. I Married a Witch (1942)
Passed | 77 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A beautiful 17th-century witch returns to life to plague politician Wallace Wooley, descendant of her persecutor.
Director: René Clair | Stars: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Robert Benchley, Susan Hayward
Votes: 9,515 | Gross: $0.31M
24. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Romance
A New York inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire with a capricious high-society sister.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee
Votes: 12,867 | Gross: $0.44M
25. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Passed | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Hollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest
Votes: 28,496
26. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Romance, War
During the German occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart
Votes: 42,979
27. Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Passed | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main
Votes: 12,347
28. Ministry of Fear (1944)
Passed | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Stephen Neale has just been released from an asylum during World War II in England when he accidentally stumbles onto a deadly Nazi spy plot and tries to stop it.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke
Votes: 8,922
29. The Uninvited (1944)
Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner
Votes: 12,460
30. Spellbound (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 52,214 | Gross: $7.00M
31. The Killers (1946)
Passed | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker
Votes: 23,619
32. My Darling Clementine (1946)
Passed | 97 min | Drama, Romance, Western
After their cattle are stolen and their brother murdered, the Earp brothers have a score to settle with the Clanton family.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs
Votes: 25,741
33. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Votes: 107,218 | Gross: $10.46M
34. Red River (1948)
Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western
Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson | Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan
Votes: 34,352
35. Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
Approved | 105 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A man dreams of revenge when he suspects his wife is unfaithful.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 5,857
36. The Furies (1950)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Romance, Western
A firebrand heiress clashes with her tyrannical father, a cattle rancher who fancies himself a Napoleon, but their relationship turns ugly only when he finds himself a new woman.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Walter Huston, Judith Anderson
Votes: 3,900
37. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall
Votes: 39,094 | Gross: $3.97M
38. 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: 7,616
39. On the Waterfront (1954)
Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses, including his older brother, as he starts to connect with the grieving sister of one of the syndicate's victims.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Votes: 164,784 | Gross: $9.60M
40. 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: 16,619
41. 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: 13,414
42. Bigger Than Life (1956)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama
A seriously-ill schoolteacher becomes dependent on a "miracle" drug that begins to affect his sanity.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert F. Simon
Votes: 8,143
43. Paths of Glory (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, War
After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
Votes: 212,133
44. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Powerful but unethical Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker coerces unscrupulous press agent Sidney Falco into breaking up his sister's romance with a jazz musician.
Director: Alexander Mackendrick | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner
Votes: 35,677
45. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
The jury in a New York City murder trial is frustrated by a single member whose skeptical caution forces them to more carefully consider the evidence before jumping to a hasty verdict.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler
Votes: 864,274 | Gross: $4.36M
46. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Not Rated | 161 min | Drama, Mystery
An upstate Michigan lawyer defends a soldier who claims he killed an innkeeper due to temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell
Votes: 71,291 | Gross: $11.90M
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