Best Movies Before 1950

by Amyth47 | created - 09 Sep 2018 | updated - 08 Apr 2020 | Public
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1. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

PG | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Romance

97 Metascore

When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence in 1190s England, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a resistance movement.

Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains

Votes: 54,443 | Gross: $3.98M

2. City Lights (1931)

G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

99 Metascore

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: 195,857 | Gross: $0.02M

3. Casablanca (1942)

PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War

100 Metascore

A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains

Votes: 605,394 | Gross: $1.02M

4. Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Passed | 102 min | Comedy

91 Metascore

While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett

Votes: 66,017

5. Citizen Kane (1941)

PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery

100 Metascore

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: 465,567 | Gross: $1.59M

6. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

PG | 102 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy

92 Metascore

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: 428,169 | Gross: $2.08M

7. Nosferatu (1922)

Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror

Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.

Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder

Votes: 105,298

8. M (1931)

Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke

Votes: 168,274 | Gross: $0.03M

9. Modern Times (1936)

G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

96 Metascore

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: 259,168 | Gross: $0.16M

10. Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Not Rated | 93 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

92 Metascore

A beautiful young woman takes her father's place as the prisoner of a mysterious beast, who wishes to marry her.

Directors: Jean Cocteau, René Clément | Stars: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély, Nane Germon

Votes: 28,052 | Gross: $0.30M

11. Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Not Rated | 89 min | Drama

In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.

Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri

Votes: 174,964 | Gross: $0.33M

12. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

PG | 130 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy

89 Metascore

An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.

Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell

Votes: 498,660

13. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

94 Metascore

A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson

Votes: 236,175

14. Gone with the Wind (1939)

Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War

97 Metascore

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: 333,962 | Gross: $198.68M

15. Rebecca (1940)

Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance

86 Metascore

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: 146,576 | Gross: $4.36M

16. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

97 Metascore

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre

Votes: 166,463 | Gross: $2.11M

17. Notorious (1946)

Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

100 Metascore

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: 107,175 | Gross: $10.46M

18. The Third Man (1949)

Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

97 Metascore

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard

Votes: 181,682 | Gross: $0.45M

19. Double Indemnity (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

95 Metascore

A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr

Votes: 167,280 | Gross: $5.72M

20. Metropolis (1927)

Not Rated | 153 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

98 Metascore

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge

Votes: 185,303 | Gross: $1.24M

21. The Kid (1921)

Passed | 68 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put their relationship in jeopardy.

Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan, Carl Miller

Votes: 134,651 | Gross: $5.45M

22. Rope (1948)

Approved | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

73 Metascore

Two men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Dick Hogan

Votes: 153,469

23. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western

98 Metascore

Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett

Votes: 132,323 | Gross: $5.01M

24. Dead of Night (1945)

Approved | 77 min | Drama, Horror

Guests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig, who senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.

Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer | Stars: Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall

Votes: 14,191

25. The Lost Weekend (1945)

Passed | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir

The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva

Votes: 40,156 | Gross: $9.46M

26. Mildred Pierce (1945)

Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

88 Metascore

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: 28,614

27. Scarlet Street (1945)

Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man in mid-life crisis befriends a young woman, though her fiancé persuades her to con him out of the fortune they mistakenly assume he possesses.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay

Votes: 19,139

28. Force of Evil (1948)

Passed | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

89 Metascore

An unethical lawyer who wants to help his older brother becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.

Director: Abraham Polonsky | Stars: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Beatrice Pearson, Marie Windsor

Votes: 7,659

29. Gilda (1946)

Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.

Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia

Votes: 35,222

30. The Heiress (1949)

Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance

A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man her emotionally abusive father suspects is only a fortune hunter.

Director: William Wyler | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins

Votes: 17,335

31. The Stranger (1946)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

76 Metascore

An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi.

Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale

Votes: 28,689

32. Criss Cross (1949)

Not Rated | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An armored truck driver and his ex-wife conspire with a gang to have his own truck robbed on the route.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally

Votes: 9,592

33. The Big Sleep (1946)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

86 Metascore

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers

Votes: 90,449 | Gross: $6.54M

34. Possessed (1947)

Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a severely catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there.

Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks

Votes: 5,906 | Gross: $1.99M

35. Meet John Doe (1941)

Passed | 122 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A penniless drifter is recruited by an ambitious columnist to impersonate a non-existent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest, and a social movement begins.

Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan

Votes: 14,893

36. Brief Encounter (1945)

Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance

92 Metascore

Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.

Director: David Lean | Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey

Votes: 44,173

37. Raw Deal (1948)

Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has taken the rap for Rick (Raymond Burr), who double-crosses him with a flawed escape plan and other means intended to get rid of him.

Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, John Ireland

Votes: 5,592

38. The Naked City (1948)

Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

74 Metascore

A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.

Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor

Votes: 15,476

39. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Approved | 89 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.

Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey

Votes: 12,535

40. His Girl Friday (1940)

Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart

Votes: 63,093 | Gross: $0.30M

41. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Not Rated | 118 min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller

A Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.

Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson

Votes: 74,930

42. The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith

Votes: 11,247

43. Scarface (1932)

PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama

90 Metascore

An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.

Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins

Votes: 30,270

44. Gaslight (1944)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

78 Metascore

Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. His obsessive interest in the home rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane.

Director: George Cukor | Stars: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, May Whitty

Votes: 33,814

45. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan

Votes: 23,183

46. The Silence of the Sea (1949)

Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Romance, War

In occupied France, an elderly man and his niece are forced to give shelter to a German army lieutenant who seemingly loves their country and culture.

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, Jean-Marie Robain, Ami Aaröe

Votes: 5,640

47. Bitter Rice (1949)

Not Rated | 108 min | Crime, Drama

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

Director: Giuseppe De Santis | Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling, Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone

Votes: 4,867

48. The Big Parade (1925)

Not Rated | 151 min | Drama, Romance, War

A young American soldier witnesses the horrors of the Great War.

Directors: King Vidor, George W. Hill | Stars: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Claire McDowell

Votes: 7,266 | Gross: $11.00M

49. How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Passed | 118 min | Drama, Family

88 Metascore

At the turn of the century in a Welsh mining village, the Morgans, he stern, she gentle, raise coal-mining sons and hope their youngest will find a better life.

Director: John Ford | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp

Votes: 26,455

50. 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: 23,601

51. Little Caesar (1931)

Not Rated | 79 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A small-time criminal moves to a big city to seek bigger fortune.

Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr.

Votes: 14,502

52. Stagecoach (1939)

Passed | 96 min | Adventure, Drama, Western

93 Metascore

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: 53,686

53. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

96 Metascore

Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut

Votes: 38,412 | Gross: $0.20M

54. Safety Last! (1923)

Not Rated | 74 min | Action, Comedy, Thriller

A boy leaves his small country town and heads to the big city to get a job. As soon as he makes it big his sweetheart will join him and marry him. His enthusiasm to get ahead leads to some interesting adventures.

Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young

Votes: 22,881 | Gross: $1.36M

55. The Woman in the Window (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

When a conservative middle aged professor engages in a relationship with a femme fatale, he's plunged into a nightmarish world of blackmail and murder.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon

Votes: 17,743

56. The Red Shoes (1948)

Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, Music, Romance

A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann

Votes: 39,098 | Gross: $10.90M

57. Out of the Past (1947)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming

Votes: 40,859

58. Laura (1944)

Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.

Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

Votes: 51,354 | Gross: $4.36M

59. Dark Passage (1947)

Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

68 Metascore

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try to prove his innocence.

Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead

Votes: 21,938

60. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best

Votes: 20,839

61. 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: 8,905

62. 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: 14,910

63. 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: 13,713

64. A Foreign Affair (1948)

Approved | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

75 Metascore

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the U.S. congresswoman investigating her.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell

Votes: 8,546

65. High Sierra (1940)

Passed | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

After being released from prison, notorious thief Roy Earle is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy

Votes: 19,205

66. 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: 22,869 | Gross: $1.19M

67. Red River (1948)

Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western

96 Metascore

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: 34,322

68. Holiday (1938)

Passed | 95 min | Comedy, Romance

A young man in love with a girl from a rich family finds his unorthodox plan to go on holiday for the early years of his life met with skepticism by everyone except for his fiancée's eccentric sister and long-suffering brother.

Director: George Cukor | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres

Votes: 18,222

69. Great Expectations (1946)

Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery

90 Metascore

A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.

Director: David Lean | Stars: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager, Jean Simmons

Votes: 26,379

70. Oliver Twist (1948)

Not Rated | 105 min | Drama

84 Metascore

In Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.

Director: David Lean | Stars: Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Francis L. Sullivan

Votes: 13,638

71. Grand Hotel (I) (1932)

Not Rated | 112 min | Drama, Romance

79 Metascore

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: 20,859 | Gross: $2.69M

72. Freaks (1932)

Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror

80 Metascore

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: 50,544 | Gross: $0.63M

73. 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: 8,365

74. 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: 13,098

75. The Kid (1921)

Passed | 68 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put their relationship in jeopardy.

Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan, Carl Miller

Votes: 134,651 | Gross: $5.45M

76. A Trip to the Moon (1902)

TV-G | 13 min | Short, Action, Adventure

A group of astronomers go on an expedition to the Moon.

Director: Georges Méliès | Stars: Georges Méliès, Victor André, Bleuette Bernon, Brunnet

Votes: 55,655

77. The Great Train Robbery (1903)

TV-G | 11 min | Short, Action, Adventure

A group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.

Director: Edwin S. Porter | Stars: Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, A.C. Abadie, George Barnes, Justus D. Barnes

Votes: 20,967

78. The Birth of a Nation (1915)

TV-PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War

The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.

Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper

Votes: 26,318 | Gross: $10.00M

79. Intolerance (1916)

Passed | 163 min | Drama, History

99 Metascore

The story of a poor young woman separated by prejudice from her husband and baby is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, F.A. Turner

Votes: 16,708 | Gross: $2.18M

80. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Not Rated | 67 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.

Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover

Votes: 69,966

81. Way Down East (1920)

Passed | 145 min | Drama, Romance

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Mrs. David Landau, Lowell Sherman

Votes: 5,889 | Gross: $4.50M

82. Beyond the Rocks (1922)

Passed | 80 min | Drama, Romance

A young woman marries an older millionaire and then falls in love with a handsome nobleman on her honeymoon.

Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Edythe Chapman, Alec B. Francis

Votes: 2,399 | Gross: $0.27M

83. Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)

Not Rated | 242 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse sets out to make a fortune and run Berlin. Detective Wenk sets out to stop him.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede-Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Alfred Abel

Votes: 9,162

84. Nosferatu (1922)

Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror

Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.

Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder

Votes: 105,298

85. Girl Shy (1924)

Not Rated | 87 min | Comedy, Romance

A shy young man who can't talk to women ventures out to publish a book full of fictional conquests, but finds true love along the way.

Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Richard Daniels, Carlton Griffin

Votes: 3,651 | Gross: $0.63M

86. Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Passed | 45 min | Action, Comedy, Romance

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

Director: Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly

Votes: 56,841 | Gross: $0.98M

87. Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Not Rated | 66 min | Drama, History, Thriller

97 Metascore

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: 61,396 | Gross: $0.05M

88. Seven Chances (1925)

Passed | 56 min | Comedy, Romance

A man learns that he will inherit a fortune if he marries by 7PM that evening.

Director: Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Ruth Dwyer, T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards

Votes: 11,715 | Gross: $1.30M

89. 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: 118,521 | Gross: $5.45M

90. Sunrise (1927)

Passed | 94 min | Drama, Romance

95 Metascore

A sophisticated city woman seduces a farmer and convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city, but he ends up rekindling his romance with his wife when he changes his mind at the last moment.

Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing

Votes: 53,802 | Gross: $0.54M

91. Show People (1928)

Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Romance

A young lady from Georgia goes to Hollywood in the hopes of becoming an actress.

Director: King Vidor | Stars: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson, Paul Ralli

Votes: 4,003 | Gross: $1.10M

92. The Cameraman (1928)

Passed | 76 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

Hopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion-picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.

Directors: Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin, Sidney Bracey

Votes: 13,155

93. The Circus (1928)

Passed | 72 min | Comedy, Family, Romance

90 Metascore

The Tramp finds work and the girl of his dreams at a circus.

Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Merna Kennedy, Al Ernest Garcia, Harry Crocker

Votes: 35,999

94. 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: 9,153

95. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Passed | 114 min | Biography, Drama, History

98 Metascore

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: 60,582 | Gross: $0.02M

96. The Patsy (1928)

Not Rated | 78 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

An awkward teenager hopelessly in love with her older sister's boyfriend tries to make him notice her.

Director: King Vidor | Stars: Marion Davies, Orville Caldwell, Marie Dressler, Lawrence Gray

Votes: 2,772

97. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Passed | 152 min | Drama, War

91 Metascore

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: 67,615 | Gross: $3.27M

98. City Girl (1930)

Passed | 90 min | Drama, Romance

A Chicago waitress falls in love with a Minnesota farmer, and decides to face a life in the country.

Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, David Torrence, Edith Yorke

Votes: 3,724

99. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Passed | 98 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.

Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert

Votes: 15,796 | Gross: $2.79M

100. Five and Ten (1931)

Passed | 89 min | Drama, Romance

After her businessman father moves her family from Kansas City to New York, a woman falls in love with an engaged man.

Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Marion Davies, Leslie Howard, Richard Bennett, Irene Rich

Votes: 1,443



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