My Favorite Movie from Every Year of the 1930's!

We're kicking off a brand-new series where I'm picking my favorite movie from every year, decade by decade! First: The 1930's. From the Universal Monsters to Charlie Chaplin, here are the movies that mean the most to me from this early time in cinema.

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[betamaxblocker]

Great work! Here is my list. This was a tough one:
1930- All Quiet on the Western Front
1931- The Public Enemy
1932- Island of Lost Souls
1933- Duck Soup
1934- Of Human Bondage
1935- Top Hat
1936- Dodsworth
1937- Lost Horizon
1938- Bringing Up Baby
1939- Goodbye, Mr. Chips

[devinmelancon]

A great countdown! I am enjoying the heck out of this series. My year-by-year favorites:
1930: All Quiet on the Western Front
1931: Frankenstein
1932: Freaks
1933: I'm No Angel
1934: It's a Gift / The Thin Man (tie)
1935: David Copperfield
1936: Camille
1937: Stage Door
1938: The Lady Vanishes
1939: Midnight

[georgestreng]

This list was pretty easy to make:
1930: The Blue Angel
1931: M
1932: Love Me Tonight
1933: Design For Living
1934: It Happened One Night
1935: The Bride Of Frankenstein
1936: Swing Time
1937: Grand Illusion
1938: Pygmalion
1939: Ninotchka

[JustinWilliams]

1930: All Quiet On The Western Front
1931: Frankenstein
1932: Scarface
1933: The Invisible Man
1934: It Happened One Night
1935: The Raven
1936: Modern Times
1937: Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs
1938: A Christmas Carol
1939: Gone With The Wind

[melanie]

Picking a favorite from each year is so much harder than a top ten of the decade! But here are mine:
1930 N/A. All Quiet on the Western Front and Anna Christie are the only ones I've seen, and I can't say either was a favorite.
1931 M (runners up: The Public Enemy, Frankenstein)
1932 I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (runner up: Trouble in Paradise)
1933 The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (ru: Duck Soup)
1934 It Happened One Night
1935 Ruggles of Red Gap (ru: Top Hat, Mutiny on the Bounty)
1936 Dodsworth (ru: My Man Godfrey, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Modern Times, Swing Time, Libeled Lady)
1937 Stage Door (ru: The Awful Truth)
1938 Bringing Up Baby (ru: The Adventures of Robin Hood)
1939 Ninotchka (ru: Stagecoach)

[MTronForever]

1930: The Divorcee
1931: Frankenstein (Maybe my favorite film of all time.)
1932: Tarzan
1933: King Kong
1934: The Merry Widow
1935: A Midsummer Night's Dream (This is the toughest year for me to chose. It's a tossup with Top Hat and Captain Blood)
1936: Three Smart Girls
1937: A Star is Born
1938: Robin Hood
1939: Wuthering Heights (Laurence Olivier's Hollywood debut, and my dark horse Year of Film fav)

It was fun to scroll through the years for this. I'd totally forgotten about Three Smart Girls, and I loved it as a kid.

[kellie-ndyp]

1930 -The Divorcee (could be a placeholder .I need to watch more for that year)
1931- City Lights -(one of my all time favorite movies )
1932 -Grand Hotel
1933 Duck Soup
1934 -The Thin Man (movies start to feel a more modern by 34 .It Happened One Night and The Thin Man show this)
1935 - A Night At The Opera runner up The Bride of Frankenstein )
1936 -My Man Godfrey, runner up After The Thin Man ( no wonder I had a crush on William Powell ! )
1937 -Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
1938 -Bringing Up Baby
1939 - The Wizard of Oz

[Philliben]

I don't even watch movies but sometimes you just want to watch someone who's knowledgeable and enthusiastic for 15 minutes.

[dougreed]

Love your channel mate, very good its great listening to the younger generation speak so passionately and knowledgeably abou these classic films keep up the good work, very enjoyable😊👍

[сиднипрескотт-щл]

my favs:

1930 - blue angel
1931 - frankenstein
1932 - mummy
1933 - queen christina
1934 - haven't seen anything
1935 - bride of frankenstein
1936 - mary of scots
1937 - snowwhite & seven dwarfs
1938 - marie antoinette
1939 - ninotchka

[baconsarny-geddon]

1931 The Public Enemy, 1933 The Story of Temple Drake (amazing, incredibly slept-on movie), and 1936 The Petrified Forest are all faves. Plus the Busby Berkley musicals- epecially Footlight Parade with Jimmy Cagney, and Golddiggers of 33.

So many classic 30s movies- Top Hat, Queen Christina, Adventures of robin Hood, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Swing Time.

I only really started seriously watching 30s movies (beyond well-known stuff like Marx bros or Wizard of Oz) in covid shutdown, but it became one of my favourite eras.

70s and 30s, the book-ends of the Hays Code, are the two best eras in movies

[jonhinson]

Dr Praetorius is one of my favorite villains in a 30's horror movie. He is both camp and dangerous. The scene in Bride of F between the monster and the blind man makes me tear up

[johnreimler]

1930 - The Blue Angel
1931 - City Lights
1932 - Grand Hotel
1933 - Duck Soup
1934 - The Thin Man
1935 - A Night at the Opera
1936 - Modern Times
1937 - Grand Illusion
1938 - Bringing Up Baby
1939 - The Wizard of Oz

[kelleyceccato]

Late to the party here, but thank you for giving The Mummy its due! I personally love it that Karloff's Mummy is a thinking, feeling relic of antiquity rather than a mindless zombie under a priest's control. He makes his own plans. He uses magic. He's awesome, and Karloff is magnificent in the role. Also, thank you for mentioning Zita Johann, quite unique among 1930s horror movie heroines. I love the old Universal films of this decade, but in 90% of them, the female lead is by far the least interesting figure in the film. Thankfully that doesn't happen here.
My choices:
1930: All Quiet on the Western Front
1931: Frankenstein
1932: I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
1933: The Invisible Man
1934: It Happened One Night
1935: Captain Blood and The Bride of Frankenstein (tie)
1936: A Tale of Two Cities
1937: Captains Courageous
1938: The Adventures of Robin Hood
1939: The Wizard of Oz
But hey, your choices are awesome. And two of them are mine!

[MidRizzMusic]

Hi Daniel, I've been watching Cobwebs for about a year and this series inspired me to get back in touch with films of the 30s, 40s and 50s as I was influenced seeing many of them as a kid on TV, as you did. I've gotten caught up in big budget spectacles in recent years and want to get that back to enjoying films in that more intimate, meaningful way. I'm going to watch this list, but just thought I'd mention my current biggest 30s favorites are Wizard of Oz, King Kong, Gone with the Wind, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and The Invisible Man. Thanks for all the hard work... great job!!
💡📽🎬

[ForbiddenFruit]

1930: ? (Sorry, I've got nothing.)
1931: Frankenstein (HMs: Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
1932: Scarface (HMs: Island of Lost Souls, The Mummy, The Mask of Fu Manchu)
1933: King Kong (HMs: The Bitter Tea of General Yen, The Invisible Man)
1934: Babes in Toyland
1935: The Bride of Frankenstein
1936: Dracula’s Daughter
1937: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1938: The Adventures of Robin Hood
1939: The Wizard of Oz (HMs: Gunga Din, The Roaring Twenties)

[driouxbie]

"The Prisoner of Zenda" inspired the excellent 1977 Doctor Who story, "The Androids of Tara" - set on a medieval-seeming planet, where the duplicates are all androids. Terrific swashbuckling fun. So much of 70s Doctor Who was inspired by 30s cinema and Hammer Horror.

[DrEvil]

I'm hoping you eventually do a favourite movie for each year of the 1920s. The silent era is so different. My list would be:-
1920 The Golem
1921 The Phantom Carriage
1922 Robin Hood
1923 Safety Last
1924 The Thief of Bagdad
1925 The Gold Rush
1926 Metropolis
1927 Sunrise
1928 Steamboat Bill Jr
1929 The Broadway Melody

[JacobNeff]

Of the ones of yours I've seen, most are near the top of my list for each of those years. But here's my personal favorites for each year.
30 - The Blue Angel
31 - City Lights
32 - Virtue
33 - King Kong
34 - It Happened One Night
35 - Top Hat
36 - Modern Times
37 - Grand Illusion
38 - The Lady Vanishes
39 - The Wizard of Oz

[jonhinson]

I love the scenes with Margaret Dumont and Groucho (especially on Duck Soup ) where she is taken in by him despite everything he says. The scene in City Lights at the end is classic. Ninotchka is just perfect with my fellow Swede, Greta Garbo