Borges and cinema
by Pablo_Stafforini | created - 15 Jul 2018 | updated - 31 Dec 2022 | PublicA list of films reviewed or mentioned by Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), as listed in Edgardo Cozarinsky's Borges y el cine (Madrid, 1981).
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1. Der Mörder Dimitri Karamasoff (1931)
93 min | Drama
Suspicion surrounds a lieutenant for killing his father.
Directors: Erich Engel, Fyodor Otsep | Stars: Fritz Kortner, Anna Sten, Fritz Rasp, Bernhard Minetti
Votes: 230
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: 5,034
3. City Lights (1931)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
Votes: 196,162 | Gross: $0.02M
4. The Gold Rush (1925)
Passed | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A prospector goes to the Klondike during the 1890s gold rush in hopes of making his fortune, and is smitten with a girl he sees in a dance hall.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman
Votes: 118,719 | Gross: $5.45M
5. The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)
Passed | 87 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Queen Helen of Troy, in response to her husband Menelaus' lack of interest in her, elopes with Paris to Sparta. Menelaus, egged on by his henchman, starts a war with Paris, finally ... See full summary »
Director: Alexander Korda | Stars: María Corda, Lewis Stone, Ricardo Cortez, George Fawcett
Votes: 94 | Gross: $0.48M
6. For the Defense (1930)
Passed | 65 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
William Powell plays William Foster, a slick attorney who stays within the law, but specializes in representing crooks and shady characters. He's adept at keeping them out of jail, winning ... See full summary »
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson
Votes: 677
7. Street of Chance (1930)
Passed | 75 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A big-time, but honest gambler has to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps, and taking up gambling.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: William Powell, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis, Regis Toomey
Votes: 418
8. The Crowd (1928)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Romance
The life of a man and woman together in a large, impersonal metropolis through their hopes, struggles, and downfalls.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Eleanor Boardman, James Murray, Bert Roach, Estelle Clark
Votes: 9,176
9. The Broadway Melody (1929)
Passed | 100 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A pair of sisters from the vaudeville circuit try to make it big time on Broadway, but matters of the heart complicate the attempt.
Director: Harry Beaumont | Stars: Bessie Love, Anita Page, Charles King, Eddie Kane
Votes: 8,020 | Gross: $6.12M
10. Morocco (1930)
Passed | 92 min | Drama, Romance
A cabaret singer and a Legionnaire fall in love, but their relationship is complicated by the results of his womanizing and the appearance of a rich man who wants her for himself.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou, Ullrich Haupt
Votes: 7,483
11. 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: 3,479 | Gross: $1.64M
12. The Dragnet (1928)
80 min | Crime, Drama
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, William Powell, Fred Kohler
Votes: 23
13. Street Scene (1931)
Passed | 80 min | Drama, Romance
Twenty-four hours elapse on the stoop of a Hell's Kitchen tenement as a microcosm of the American melting pot interconnects during a summer heatwave.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, William Collier Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 2,053
14. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Not Rated | 66 min | Drama, History, Thriller
In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.
Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov
Votes: 61,475 | Gross: $0.05M
15. October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1927)
95 min | Drama, History
A large-scale view on the events of 1917 in Russia, when the monarchy was overthrown.
Directors: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Boris Livanov, Nikolay Popov, Vasili Nikandrov, Layaschenko
Votes: 8,454
16. Hallelujah (1929)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Musical
A sharecropper decides to become a preacher after falling for a vamp from the city.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine, Harry Gray
Votes: 2,000
17. Billy the Kid (1930)
Passed | 98 min | Drama, Western
In this version of the Billy the Kid legend, Billy, after shooting down land baron William Donovan's henchmen for killing Billy's boss, is hunted down and captured by his friend, Sheriff ... See full summary »
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery, Kay Johnson, Karl Dane
Votes: 462
18. The Informer (1935)
Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama
In 1922, an Irish rebel informs on his friend, then feels doom closing in.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame
Votes: 7,181 | Gross: $2.07M
19. Happiness (1965)
Not Rated | 80 min | Drama, Romance
François, a young carpenter, lives a happy, uncomplicated life with his wife Thérèse and their two small children. One day he meets Emilie, a clerk in the local post office.
Director: Agnès Varda | Stars: Jean-Claude Drouot, Marie-France Boyer, Marcelle Faure-Bertin, Manon Lanclos
Votes: 9,544
20. Payment Deferred (1932)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama
A man poisons his nephew out of desperation for money.
Director: Lothar Mendes | Stars: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, Ray Milland, Dorothy Peterson
Votes: 777
21. Crime and Punishment (1935)
Not Rated | 88 min | Crime, Drama
Man is haunted by a murder he's committed.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Edward Arnold, Peter Lorre, Marian Marsh, Tala Birell
Votes: 2,235
22. 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: 7,241
23. The Devil Is a Woman (1935)
Approved | 79 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A young man is warned by a captain about a temptress; nonetheless, he finds himself falling in love with her.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Edward Everett Horton, Alison Skipworth
Votes: 3,958
24. The 39 Steps (1935)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A man in London tries to help a counter-espionage agent, but when the agent is killed and the man stands accused, he must go on the run to save himself and stop a spy ring that is trying to steal top-secret information.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle
Votes: 61,580
25. The Petrified Forest (1936)
Passed | 82 min | Drama, Thriller
A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert.
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Genevieve Tobin
Votes: 14,942
26. The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
The tenants of an old boarding house are terrorized by an evil slumlord. One day a strange man arrives at the house and begins to help them with their problems.
Director: Berthold Viertel | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Rene Ray, Frank Cellier, Anna Lee
Votes: 339
27. Things to Come (1936)
Not Rated | 100 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, War
The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.
Director: William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson, Margaretta Scott
Votes: 9,076
28. The House of Rothschild (1934)
Passed | 88 min | Biography, Drama, History
The wealthy Rothschild family undergoes prejudice from the anti-Semitic society they live within.
Directors: Alfred L. Werker, Sidney Lanfield | Stars: George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young, Robert Young
Votes: 1,325
29. The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)
Passed | 97 min | Biography, Drama
King Henry VIII marries five more times after his divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon.
Director: Alexander Korda | Stars: Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Franklin Dyall, Miles Mander
Votes: 4,873
30. 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: 8,624 | Gross: $0.77M
31. 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: 4,768
32. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
Passed | 86 min | Biography, Drama, History
The biography of the pioneering French microbiologist who helped revolutionize agriculture and medicine.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Paul Muni, Josephine Hutchinson, Anita Louise, Donald Woods
Votes: 3,156
33. Little Women (1933)
Passed | 115 min | Drama, Family, Romance
A chronicle of the lives of sisters growing up in 19th-century New England.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver
Votes: 7,935 | Gross: $4.58M
34. The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934)
Not Rated | 95 min | Biography, Drama, History
Straightforward biography of the Russian Empress, up to her assumption of the throne.
Directors: Paul Czinner, Alexander Korda | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Elisabeth Bergner, Flora Robson, Gerald du Maurier
Votes: 740
35. Man of Aran (1934)
Not Rated | 76 min | Documentary, Drama
In this blend of documentary and fictional narrative from pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty, the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands are captured with attention to naturalistic beauty and historical detail.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Colman 'Tiger' King, Maggie Dirrane, Michael Dirrane, Pat Mullin
Votes: 2,325
36. The Power and the Glory (1933)
Passed | 76 min | Drama
The tragic life story of a power-hungry industrialist is recounted in the aftermath of his death.
Director: William K. Howard | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson
Votes: 734
37. Sabotage (1936)
Not Rated | 76 min | Crime, Thriller
A Scotland Yard undercover detective is on the trail of a saboteur who is part of a plot to set off a bomb in London. But when the detective's cover is blown, the plot begins to unravel.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder
Votes: 18,755
38. Los muchachos de antes no usaban gomina (1937)
90 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
A man lets his mistress down (Mireya) and marries a high society woman. He will not be happy. Over the years, he will meet Mireya, who is now old and ill and is mistreated by his own son.
Director: Manuel Romero | Stars: Florencio Parravicini, Mecha Ortiz, Santiago Arrieta, Irma Córdoba
Votes: 74
39. The General Died at Dawn (1936)
Approved | 98 min | Action, Drama, War
Amid the anarchy of China, an American mercenary tangles with a ruthless warlord.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Akim Tamiroff, Dudley Digges
Votes: 1,350
40. La fuga (1937)
92 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Daniel, a smuggler is chased by a policeman. In his escape are helped by the messages that his lover transmits to him in code by means of the tangos that sings in a radio program. To hide ... See full summary »
Director: Luis Saslavsky | Stars: Santiago Arrieta, Tita Merello, Francisco Petrone, Niní Gambier
Votes: 40
41. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Passed | 114 min | Biography, Drama, History
In 1431, Jeanne d'Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz
Votes: 60,713 | Gross: $0.02M
42. The Pilgrim (1923)
TV-G | 47 min | Comedy, Western
Disguised as a priest, an escaped convict makes his way to Texas. He ends up in a small rural town where the townsfolk mistake him for their new church minister.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Syd Chaplin, Mai Wells
Votes: 5,686 | Gross: $0.28M
43. The Green Pastures (1936)
Approved | 93 min | Drama
God, heaven, and several Old Testament stories, including the Creation and Noah's Ark, are described supposedly using the perspective of rural, black Americans.
Directors: Marc Connelly, William Keighley | Stars: Rex Ingram, Oscar Polk, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Frank H. Wilson
Votes: 919
44. The Road Back (1937)
Passed | 100 min | Drama, Romance, War
After World War I, a group of former German soldiers try to adjust to civilian life.
Director: James Whale | Stars: John 'Dusty' King, Richard Cromwell, Slim Summerville, Andy Devine
Votes: 297
45. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Passed | 152 min | Drama, War
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Votes: 67,717 | Gross: $3.27M
46. Prisioneros de la tierra (1939)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
By 1915, a contractor traveling to Posadas looking for new staff. Among the music and drinks in a bar and shipped to the mill. He is accompanied by a drunken doctor and his daughter. In the mill, injustices and cruelties are accentuated.
Director: Mario Soffici | Stars: Francisco Petrone, Ángel Magaña, Roberto Fugazot, Homero Cárpena
Votes: 287
47. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 466,192 | Gross: $1.59M
48. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Passed | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp
Votes: 9,874 | Gross: $3.92M
49. 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: 19,026
50. The Little Foxes (1941)
Approved | 116 min | Drama, Romance
The ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan lives in, and poisons, their part of the Deep South at the turn of the twentieth century.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson
Votes: 13,124
51. 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: 14,609
52. Of Human Bondage (1934)
Passed | 83 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A young man finds himself attracted to a cold, unfeeling waitress who might ultimately destroy them both.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson
Votes: 8,391
53. Nightmare (1942)
Approved | 81 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
An ex-gambler helps a beautiful widow, and becomes involved with a murder, secret agents, and saboteurs.
Director: Tim Whelan | Stars: Diana Barrymore, Brian Donlevy, Henry Daniell, Eustace Wyatt
Votes: 195
54. Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Not Rated | 112 min | Action, Biography, Drama
The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov
Votes: 12,264
55. The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Mystery writer Cornelius Leyden becomes intrigued after the murdered body of a vicious career criminal washes up in the Bosphorus.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson
Votes: 3,963
56. Diary of a Nazi (1942)
67 min | Drama, War
Directors: Vladimir Braun, Mark Donskoy, Igor Savchenko | Stars: Jadwiga Andrzejewska, Mark Bernes, Samuil Ditlovich, Wladyslaw Krasnowiecki
Votes: 33
57. The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
Passed | 140 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
When the U.S. forces withdraw from Java, ahead of the Japanese invasion, U.S. Navy doctor Corydon M. Wassell coordinates the remaining wounded servicemen and leads them to safety towards the last Allied evacuation points.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Gary Cooper, Laraine Day, Signe Hasso, Dennis O'Keefe
Votes: 1,102
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