Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 100th Anniversary 1930s Movies
by urbanemovies | created - 1 week ago | updated - 1 week ago | PublicIn 2024, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding on April 17, 1924. MGM was formed by combining three existing studios: Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one major studio. Louis B. Mayer was tapped to lead the newly formed MGM, with 24-year-old wunderkind Irving Thalberg appointed as its head of production. MGM quickly established itself as one of Hollywood's most prestigious studios, known for the quality of their film offerings, their commercial success and for having "more stars than there are in heaven."
Which of these select Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced by and/or presented by films released between 1930 and 1939 is MGM's greatest accomplishment during this period?
Discuss the topic here.
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1. 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: 428,683 | Gross: $2.08M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
2. 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: 334,310 | Gross: $198.68M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) co-production
3. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,611 | Gross: $0.63M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
4. A Night at the Opera (1935)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
A sly business manager and the wacky friends of two opera singers in Italy help them achieve success in America while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
Directors: Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle
Votes: 34,762 | Gross: $2.54M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
5. The Thin Man (1934)
TV-PG | 91 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Former detective Nick Charles and his wealthy wife Nora investigate a murder case, mostly for the fun of it.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton
Votes: 32,542
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
6. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Passed | 132 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
First mate Fletcher Christian leads a revolt against his sadistic commander, Captain Bligh, in this classic seafaring adventure, based on the real-life 1789 mutiny.
Director: Frank Lloyd | Stars: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin
Votes: 24,856
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
7. 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: 22,892 | Gross: $1.19M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
8. Grand Hotel (I) (1932)
Not Rated | 112 min | Drama, Romance
A group of very different individuals staying at a luxurious hotel in Berlin deal with each of their respective dramas.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery
Votes: 20,876 | Gross: $2.69M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
9. 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: 14,905 | Gross: $2.27M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
10. A Day at the Races (1937)
Passed | 111 min | Comedy, Family, Musical
A veterinarian posing as a doctor teams with a singer and his friends as they struggle to save an upstate New York sanitarium with the help of a misfit racehorse.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones
Votes: 14,584
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
11. Fury (1936)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a wrongly-accused prisoner barely survives a lynch-mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot
Votes: 13,726
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
12. 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: 11,591
MGM-British Studios production
13. Captains Courageous (1937)
G | 117 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
A spoiled brat who falls overboard from a steamship in the 1920s gets picked up by a New England fishing boat, where he's made to earn his keep by joining the crew in their work.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore, Melvyn Douglas
Votes: 10,922
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
14. Dinner at Eight (1933)
Passed | 111 min | Drama
Affluent Millicent and Oliver Jordan throw a dinner for a handful of wealthy and/or well-born acquaintances, each of whom has much to reveal.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow
Votes: 9,018 | Gross: $4.58M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
15. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Passed | 176 min | Drama, Musical
The ups and downs of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., famed producer of extravagant stage revues, are portrayed.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer, Frank Morgan
Votes: 8,994
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
16. Libeled Lady (1936)
Passed | 98 min | Comedy, Romance
When a socialite sues a big paper for libel, the editor responsible calls in the help of his ignored fiancée and a former employee to frame her and make the false story seem true.
Director: Jack Conway | Stars: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy
Votes: 8,916
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
17. A Christmas Carol (1938)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
An elderly miser learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve.
Director: Edwin L. Marin | Stars: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn
Votes: 8,750
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
18. 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: 8,746 | Gross: $1.15M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
19. Queen Christina (1933)
Approved | 99 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Queen Christina of Sweden is a popular monarch who is loyal to her country. However, when she falls in love with a Spanish envoy, she must choose between the throne and the man she loves.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone
Votes: 8,614 | Gross: $0.77M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
20. Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Passed | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
A trader and his daughter set off in search of the fabled graveyard of the elephants in deepest Africa, only to encounter a wild man raised by apes.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith, Maureen O'Sullivan
Votes: 8,217
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
21. Boys Town (1938)
Passed | 96 min | Biography, Drama, Family
When a death row prisoner tells him he wouldn't have led a life of crime if only he had had one friend as a child, Father Edward Flanagan decides to start a home for young boys.
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton
Votes: 6,355
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
22. A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Not Rated | 128 min | Drama, History, Romance
A pair of lookalikes, one a former French aristocrat and the other an alcoholic English lawyer, fall in love with the same woman amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution.
Directors: Jack Conway, Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen
Votes: 6,299
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
23. San Francisco (1936)
Passed | 115 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and a Nob Hill impresario are rivals for the affections of a beautiful singer, both personally and professionally, in 1906 San Francisco.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt
Votes: 6,104
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
24. Mad Love (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
In Paris, a demented surgeon's obsession with a British actress leads him to secretly replace her concert-pianist husband's mangled hands with those of a guillotined murderer with a gift for knife-throwing.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy
Votes: 5,877 | Gross: $0.37M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
25. Anna Karenina (1935)
Passed | 95 min | Drama, Romance
The married Anna Karenina falls in love with Count Vronsky despite her husband's refusal to grant a divorce, and both must contend with the social repercussions.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O'Sullivan
Votes: 5,793 | Gross: $0.87M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
26. The Good Earth (1937)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, Romance
Although married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.
Directors: Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood | Stars: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch
Votes: 5,412
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
27. David Copperfield (1935)
Passed | 130 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
A gentle orphan discovers life and love in an indifferent adult world.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lawton, Edna May Oliver, Elizabeth Allan
Votes: 4,764
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
28. Mata Hari (1931)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A semi-fictionalized account of the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was accused of spying for Germany during World War I.
Director: George Fitzmaurice | Stars: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone
Votes: 3,954 | Gross: $0.93M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
29. The Divorcee (1930)
Passed | 84 min | Romance, Drama
When a woman discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her, she decides to respond to his infidelities in kind.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel
Votes: 3,656
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
30. The Champ (I) (1931)
Passed | 86 min | Drama, Family, Sport
An alcoholic ex-boxer struggles to provide a good living for his son.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 3,621
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
31. Treasure Island (1934)
Passed | 110 min | Adventure, Family
Young Jim Hawkins is torn between his loyalty to his benefactors and his affection for lovable rogue Long John Silver in their struggle to recover a buried pirate treasure.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger
Votes: 3,165 | Gross: $2.54M
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
32. Bombshell (1933)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, Franchot Tone
Votes: 3,147
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
33. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
Passed | 109 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Elizabeth Barrett's tyrannical father has forbidden any of his family to marry. Nevertheless, Elizabeth falls in love with the poet Robert Browning.
Director: Sidney Franklin | Stars: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan
Votes: 2,128
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
34. Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Romance
Andy has problems raising the last payment for a used car and juggling three pretty girls with an upcoming country club dance scheduled.
Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Lewis Stone, Cecilia Parker
Votes: 2,056
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) production
35. The Citadel (1938)
Passed | 110 min | Drama
An enthusiastic young doctor happily embarks on his career, but it isn't long before he finds out what being a doctor really entails.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison
Votes: 2,373
Another 1930s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Production Not Listed
MGM-British Studios production's The Citadel (as pictured example)
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