1939 - Oscar Nominations (11th Academy Awards)
by constantinosisaias | created - 10 Mar 2023 | updated - 10 Mar 2023 | PublicNominated Movies from the 11th Academy Awards (February 23, 1939)
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1. Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
Approved | 106 min | Drama, Music, Musical
This send-up of ragtime song and dance begins in 1915 San Francisco when society boy Roger Grant decides to pursue popular rather than serious music.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman
Votes: 2,321
2. Algiers (1938)
Passed | 96 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A wanted jewel thief ensconced in the Casbah meets a beautiful woman who makes him long for an escape.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Sigrid Gurie, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 3,247
3. 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: 23,211
4. Army Girl (1938)
Approved | 80 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
A fight to keep cavalry horses from being replaced by tanks culminates in a great race between machine and beast.
Director: George Nicholls Jr. | Stars: Madge Evans, Preston Foster, Neil Hamilton, Ruth Donnelly
Votes: 113
5. Block-Heads (1938)
Approved | 57 min | Comedy, Family, War
Stan, who has remained faithfully at his World War I post for twenty years, finally comes home where his best friend, Ollie, takes him in, thus allowing him to discover the many conveniences of the modern world.
Director: John G. Blystone | Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis, Minna Gombell
Votes: 4,515
6. Blockade (1938)
Passed | 85 min | Drama, Romance, War
A simple peasant is forced to take up arms to defend his farm during the Spanish Civil War. Along the way he falls in love with Russian whose father is involved in espionage.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Madeleine Carroll, Henry Fonda, Leo Carrillo, John Halliday
Votes: 639
7. 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: 6,357
8. Brave Little Tailor (1938)
Approved | 9 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
Inspired by the Grimm's fairy tale, this classic 1938 Mickey cartoon finds our hero (voiced by Walt Disney) battling a hilariously huge "problem.
Directors: Burt Gillett, Bill Roberts | Stars: Walt Disney, Marcellite Garner, Eddie Holden, Billy Sheets
Votes: 3,341
9. Breaking the Ice (1938)
Approved | 81 min | Drama
Tommy Martin lives with mother Martha in a conservative religious community but dreams of a singing career. He leaves to join a traveling show where he befriends skating sensation Irene and performs lively tunes to make a living.
Director: Edward F. Cline | Stars: Bobby Breen, Charles Ruggles, Dolores Costello, Irene Dare
Votes: 162
10. Carefree (1938)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be nudging into marriage with someone else.
Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear
Votes: 4,315
11. The Declaration of Independence (1938)
Approved | 17 min | Short, Drama, History
This historical featurette focuses on Caesar Rodney of Delaware, who cast the deciding vote so that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776.
Director: Crane Wilbur | Stars: John Litel, Ted Osborne, Rosella Towne, Richard Bond
Votes: 306
12. Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
Approved | 8 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
Ferdinand is a quiet, gentle bull who only wants to stop and smell the flowers. After he is stung by a bee, the townspeople believe he is ferocious and take him to the bullfight.
Director: Dick Rickard | Stars: Don Wilson, Walt Disney, Milt Kahl
Votes: 3,630
13. Four Daughters (1938)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A musician is blessed with four musical prodigies, all girls, and cursed when a troubled young composer enters the lives of his Four Daughters.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Claude Rains, John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh
Votes: 2,225
14. Girls' School (1938)
Passed | 72 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A student monitor at a girls' school faces the scorn of her fellow pupils when she reports one of the popular girls for staying out late.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Anne Shirley, Nan Grey, Ralph Bellamy, Dorothy Moore
Votes: 231
15. Going Places (1938)
Approved | 84 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A sports store clerk poses as a famous jockey as an advertising stunt, but gets more than he bargained for.
Director: Ray Enright | Stars: Dick Powell, Anita Louise, Allen Jenkins, Ronald Reagan
Votes: 430
16. Good Scouts (1938)
Approved | 8 min | Animation, Short, Adventure
Donald Duck is Scoutmaster of his nephews on a camping trip at Yellowstone National Park, but his lack of leadership skills results in the Scouts having to help the Scoutmaster out of one predicament after another.
Director: Jack King | Star: Clarence Nash
Votes: 1,098
17. The Grand Illusion (1937)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, War
During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim
Votes: 38,869 | Gross: $0.17M
18. 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: 18,253
19. Hunky and Spunky (1938)
Not Rated | 9 min | Animation, Short, Western
A short film about a mother and her son, she teaches him life skills later on the son gets niked by a man so the young donkey can be his work slave and his mother saves him.
Directors: Dave Fleischer, Myron Waldman | Star: Jack Mercer
Votes: 319
20. If I Were King (1938)
Passed | 101 min | Adventure, History
Vagabond poet François Villon rises to high office in 1463 Paris.
Director: Frank Lloyd | Stars: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew
Votes: 1,019
21. Jezebel (1938)
Approved | 104 min | Drama, Romance
In 1850s Louisiana, a free-spirited Southern belle loses her fiancé due to her stubborn vanity and pride, and vows to win him back.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay
Votes: 15,056
22. Kentucky (1938)
Passed | 96 min | Drama, Romance, Sport
Romeo and Juliet story set amidst horse racing in Kentucky. The family feud of lovers Jack and Sally goes back to the Civil War and is kept alive by her Uncle Peter.
Director: David Butler | Stars: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglass Dumbrille
Votes: 681
23. Mad About Music (1938)
Approved | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
A young woman at a girl's school in Switzerland makes up stories about, and writes herself letters, from an imaginary explorer-adventurer father, and is eventually put in a position where ... See full summary »
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick, Arthur Treacher
Votes: 666
24. Mannequin (1937)
Passed | 95 min | Drama
Rags-to-riches Hennessey meets newlyweds Jessie and Eddie from his old neighborhood. Eddie plots to have Jessie divorce him, marry Hennessey, divorce Hennessey, then bring Hennessey's money... See full summary »
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Alan Curtis, Ralph Morgan
Votes: 1,484
25. Marie Antoinette (1938)
Passed | 149 min | Biography, Drama, History
The tragic life of Marie Antoinette, who became queen of France in her late teens.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier | Stars: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley
Votes: 3,286
26. Merrily We Live (1938)
Passed | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
Dizzy society matron Emily Kilbourne has a habit of hiring ex-cons and hobos as servants. Her latest find is a handsome "tramp" who shows up at her doorstep and soon ends up in a ... See full summary »
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Alan Mowbray, Billie Burke
Votes: 2,268
27. Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938)
Approved | 8 min | Comedy, Family, Animation
Various Mother Goose rhymes are portrayed by Hollywood stars for example, Old King Cole's fiddlers three are the Marx Brothers, and Humpty Dumpty is W.C. Fields, who falls while tormenting ... See full summary »
Director: Wilfred Jackson | Stars: Al Bernie, Thelma Boardman, Beatrice Hagen, Ann Lee
Votes: 638
28. Of Human Hearts (1938)
Passed | 103 min | Drama, Western
Ethan Wilkins is a poor and honest man who ministers to the human soul, while his son Jason yearns to be a doctor, helping people in the earthly realm.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Walter Huston, James Stewart, Gene Reynolds, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 1,358
29. Pacific Liner (1939)
Approved | 76 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The S. S. Arcturus sails from Shanghai to San Francisco, and Dr. Jim Craig takes the post of ship's physician in order to be near Ann Grayson, the ship's nurse. Chief Engineer 'Crusher" ... See full summary »
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Alan Hale
Votes: 332
30. Pygmalion (1938)
89 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.
Directors: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard | Stars: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr
Votes: 9,663 | Gross: $3.05M
31. Storm Over Bengal (1938)
Passed | 65 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
In British India a local rajah, a British ally, is dying and his subordinates plan to drive out the British once he's gone. A newly married British officer is dispatched to ensure that doesn't happen.
Director: Sidney Salkow | Stars: Patric Knowles, Richard Cromwell, Rochelle Hudson, Douglass Dumbrille
Votes: 113
32. Suez (1938)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Romance
Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.
Director: Allan Dwan | Stars: Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Annabella, J. Edward Bromberg
Votes: 913
33. Sweethearts (1938)
Passed | 114 min | Comedy, Musical, Mystery
The team behind a successful Broadway production tries to stop the married stars from transitioning to Hollywood.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger
Votes: 705
34. Swingtime in the Movies (1938)
Approved | 20 min | Musical, Short, Comedy
In this musical short, a director named Nitvitch, unhappy with the lead actress in his Western, makes an unexpected discovery in the studio cafe where some big stars are being served by a bevy of beautiful singing, dancing waitresses.
Director: Crane Wilbur | Stars: Fritz Feld, Kathryn Kane, John Carroll, Charley Foy
Votes: 387
35. Test Pilot (1938)
Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance
Jim is a test pilot. His wife Ann and best friend Gunner try their best to keep him sober. But the life of a test pilot is anything but safe.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 2,745
36. That Certain Age (1938)
95 min | Comedy, Musical
A teenage girl clashes with her newspaper publisher father's star reporter while he stays in their country guest house, but soon finds herself falling in love with him.
Director: Edward Ludwig | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Melvyn Douglas, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich
Votes: 408
37. That Mothers Might Live (1938)
Approved | 10 min | Short, Biography, Drama
The story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a pioneer in medical hygiene who paid the price from colleagues who refused to believe him.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: John Nesbitt, Shepperd Strudwick, Rudolph Anders, King Baggot
Votes: 264
38. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
PG | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
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: 54,512 | Gross: $3.98M
39. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938)
Passed | 91 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Tommy Kelly, Jackie Moran, Ann Gillis, May Robson
Votes: 2,238
40. The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938)
Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.
Directors: Mitchell Leisen, James P. Hogan | Stars: W.C. Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Ross
Votes: 1,088
41. The Buccaneer (1938)
Approved | 126 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
Semi-fictional account of pirate Jean Lafitte's involvement in the War of 1812.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Fredric March, Franciska Gaal, Akim Tamiroff, Margot Grahame
Votes: 781
42. 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: 2,374
43. The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
Approved | 91 min | Western
A lonely socialite masquerades as a maid and meets an unpretentious, plain-spoken cowboy who is unaware of her true identity.
Directors: H.C. Potter, Stuart Heisler, William Wyler | Stars: Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Patsy Kelly, Walter Brennan
Votes: 1,820
44. The Goldwyn Follies (1938)
Passed | 122 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Movie producer chooses a simple girl to be "Miss Humanity" and to critically evalute his movies from the point of view of the ordinary person. Hit song: "Love Walked In.
Directors: George Marshall, H.C. Potter | Stars: Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, The Ritz Brothers, Vera Zorina
Votes: 523
45. The Great Heart (1938)
Approved | 11 min | Short, Biography
Carey Wilson tells the true story of the heroic sacrifice of Father Damien who suffered a living death in order to bring hope and God's comfort to the lepers confined on Molokai Island.
Director: David Miller | Stars: Carey Wilson, Tom Neal
Votes: 180
46. The Great Waltz (1938)
Passed | 104 min | Biography, Drama, Music
In 1845 Vienna, Johann Strauss II (Fernand Gravey) - 'Jonahi' to his friends - would rather write and perform waltzes than anything else, this at a time when a waltz is not considered ... See full summary »
Directors: Julien Duvivier, Victor Fleming, Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravey, Miliza Korjus, Hugh Herbert
Votes: 1,306
47. The Lady Objects (1938)
Approved | 66 min | Drama, Music, Romance
Ann Adams and William Hayward get married and she has a secretary's job in a law office, while finishing her schooling, and she soon makes junior partner and is just a brilliant lawyer. ... See full summary »
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Lanny Ross, Gloria Stuart, Joan Marsh, Roy Benson
Votes: 156
48. The Young in Heart (1938)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Drama
Thrown out of the Riviera, a family of grifters meets a lonely, vulnerable rich old woman and insinuate themselves into her life while they sponge off her.
Directors: Richard Wallace, Lewis Milestone, Gilbert Pratt, Richard Thorpe | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Roland Young, Billie Burke
Votes: 1,618
49. There Goes My Heart (1938)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Romance
A young heiress runs away from her overprotective grandfather. Penniless on the streets of New York, she manages to find employment, but a reporter knows her true identity.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Fredric March, Virginia Bruce, Patsy Kelly, Alan Mowbray
Votes: 678
50. They're Always Caught (1938)
Approved | 22 min | Short, Crime
Shows the role the crime laboratory plays in the solving of cases, and how even the smallest detail can become a major clue.
Director: Harold S. Bucquet | Stars: Stanley Ridges, John Eldredge, Louis Jean Heydt, Charles Waldron
Votes: 235
51. Three Comrades (1938)
Passed | 98 min | Drama, Romance
The close friendship of three German soldiers is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman, who is dying of tuberculosis.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young
Votes: 2,078
53. Tropic Holiday (1938)
Approved | 78 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
A Hollywood screenwriter looking for inspiration for his next film goes to Mexico, where he runs into a beautiful Mexican girl who sets her sights on him.
Director: Theodore Reed | Stars: Bob Burns, Dorothy Lamour, Ray Milland, Martha Raye
Votes: 111
54. Under Western Stars (1938)
Passed | 65 min | Adventure, Western
Roy is elected to Congress to bring the misery of the "dustbowl" of the 1930s to the attention of Washington politicians.
Director: Joseph Kane | Stars: Roy Rogers, Smiley Burnette, Carol Hughes, Maple City Four
Votes: 425
55. Vivacious Lady (1938)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Romance
A professor marries a nightclub singer, much to the consternation of his family and friends back home.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Ginger Rogers, James Stewart, James Ellison, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 4,186
56. White Banners (1938)
Approved | 92 min | Drama
A homeless woman named Hannah drifts into the lives of the kindly Ward family, in a small Indiana town in 1919. Hannah makes herself useful as a cook and housekeeper and stays with the ... See full summary »
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Claude Rains, Fay Bainter, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville
Votes: 469
57. You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Passed | 126 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The son of a snobbish Wall Street banker becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family not realizing that his father is trying to force her family from their home for a real estate development.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold
Votes: 27,914 | Gross: $4.66M
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