My Top 25 1930's Horror and Sci-Fi Films
by mydoginky | created - 31 Mar 2017 | updated - 31 Mar 2017 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Dracula (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
Directors: Tod Browning, Karl Freund | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye
Votes: 58,593
2. Frankenstein (1931)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles
Votes: 79,666
3. 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: 15,803 | Gross: $2.79M
4. King Kong (1933)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Horror
A film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City.
Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher
Votes: 90,929 | Gross: $10.00M
5. 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: 10,900
6. Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Passed | 60 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is murdered, a professor of the occult blames vampires, but not all is what it seems.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 5,574
7. 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: 168,370 | Gross: $0.03M
8. The Vampire Bat (1933)
Passed | 65 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
When corpses drained of blood begin to show up in a European village, vampirism is suspected to be responsible.
Director: Frank R. Strayer | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne
Votes: 3,049
9. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Not Rated | 75 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson
Votes: 53,223 | Gross: $4.36M
10. 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: 11,685
11. 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: 5,870 | Gross: $0.37M
12. The Raven (1935)
Approved | 61 min | Crime, Horror
A brilliant surgeon with a morbid obsession for instruments of torture grows dangerously obsessed with a young socialite whose life he's saved.
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware
Votes: 6,649
13. The Black Cat (1934)
Not Rated | 65 min | Crime, Horror, Romance
American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshipping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Votes: 12,982 | Gross: $0.51M
14. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
Passed | 61 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A mad scientist seeks to mingle human blood with that of an ape, and resorts to kidnapping women for his experiments.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Ames, Bert Roach
Votes: 5,256
15. Vampyr (1932)
Not Rated | 75 min | Fantasy, Horror
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz
Votes: 20,506
16. The Human Monster (1939)
Approved | 73 min | Drama, Horror
Insurance agent-physician collects on policies of men murdered by a disfigured resident of the home for the blind where he acts as doctor-on-call.
Director: Walter Summers | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Hugh Williams, Greta Gynt, Edmon Ryan
Votes: 1,528
17. Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Passed | 77 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The disappearance of people and corpses leads a reporter to a wax museum and a sinister sculptor.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh
Votes: 6,828
18. Doctor X (1932)
Unrated | 76 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
A wisecracking New York reporter intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster
Votes: 4,264 | Gross: $0.88M
19. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
PG-13 | 63 min | Action, Adventure, Horror
A psychotic big game hunter deliberately strands a luxury yacht on a remote island, where he begins to hunt its passengers for sport.
Directors: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong
Votes: 14,005 | Gross: $0.97M
20. The Mummy (1932)
Approved | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror
A resurrected Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes to be his long-lost princess.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron
Votes: 30,105
21. Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Unrated | 71 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When Countess Marya Zaleska appears in London, mysterious events occur that lead Dr. Von Helsing to believe that the Countess must be a vampire.
Director: Lambert Hillyer | Stars: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill, Edward Van Sloan
Votes: 8,000
22. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Not Rated | 122 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A criminal mastermind uses hypnosis to rule the rackets after death.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke, Thomy Bourdelle, Gustav Diessl
Votes: 13,587
23. 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: 50,576 | Gross: $0.63M
24. The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Unrated | 64 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
When Dr. Savaard's experiment in cryonics is interrupted by the short-sighted authorities, his volunteer dies, and he is condemned to death. He vows vengeance if he can survive his own hanging.
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor
Votes: 1,964
25. The Old Dark House (1932)
Passed | 72 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Seeking shelter from a storm, five travelers are in for a bizarre and terrifying night when they stumble upon the Femm family estate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
Votes: 13,099 | Gross: $0.03M
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