Directed by George Cukor • 1932 • United States
Starring Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman

Often touted as the inspiration for A STAR IS BORN, this iconic showbiz drama produced by David O. Selznick was nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay. After alcoholic director Max Carey (Lo...

Directed by Dorothy Arzner • 1931 • United States
Starring Judith Wood, Dorothy Hall, Charles “Buddy” Rogers

Dorothy Arzner offers a snappily entertaining, socially perceptive look at female solidarity in this Depression-era tale of young women striving to succeed in their careers and in love. N...

Directed by Wanda Tuchock and George Nicholls Jr. • 1934 • United States
Starring Ginger Rogers, Frances Dee, Billie Burke

Wanda Tuchock—one of the very few women to be credited as a director in 1930s Hollywood—cowrote and codirected this briskly entertaining girls-gone-wild drama. When Virginia...

Directed by Leo McCarey • 1937 • United States
Starring Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, by Leo McCarey, is one of the great unsung Hollywood masterpieces, an enormously moving Depression-era depiction of the frustrations of family, aging, and the generation gap. Be...

Directed by Jack Conway • 1932 • United States
Starring Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone

The legendary Jean Harlow delivers a star-making performance in this racy pre-Code boundary pusher. She stars as Lil Andrews, a gold-digging secretary who will do whatever it takes to get ahead in so...

Directed by John M. Stahl • 1932 • United States
Starring Irene Dunne, John Boles, George Meeker

The first of three film adaptations Universal made of Fannie Hurst’s tear-jerking novel chronicles the fate-battered relationship of Ray (Irene Dunne) and Walter (John Boles), two star-crossed lovers...

Directed by Gregory La Cava • 1933 • United States
Starring Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, John Halliday

This delightful pre-Code romance from MY MAN GODFREY director Gregory La Cava stars Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton as Lorry and Minnie, a pair of wisecracking shady ladies who leave priso...

Directed by Edmund Goulding • 1932 • United States
Starring Marion Davies, Robert Montgomery, Billie Dove

Two girls, friends from the New York slums, take very different paths in their quest for fame and fortune in BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES. Practical working girl Blondie (former Ziegfeld girl Mari...

Directed by George Cukor • 1933 • United States
Starring Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore

A sparkling ensemble cast—led by Jean Harlow, Lionel and John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, and Wallace Beery—lights up this quippy pre-Code tale of drawing room intrigue based o...

Directed by King Vidor • 1929 • United States
Starring Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine

HALLELUJAH is a cinematic milestone: the first feature from a major studio to star an entirely Black cast, and the first talkie made by titan director King Vidor. Infused with spirituals...

Directed by Sam Wood • 1933 • United States
Starring Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Stuart Erwin

Jean Harlow and Clark Gable cemented their status as MGM’s most bankable star pairing with this sizzling pre-Code tale of love outside the law. A cynical blonde who is not above swindling her dates, Ruby ...

Directed by William A. Wellman • 1933 • United States
Starring Loretta Young, Franchot Tone, Ricardo Cortez

Loretta Young gets one of her finest showcases in this incident-packed pre-Code tale of a woman’s descent into crime. She stars as the streetwise Mary Martin, who, while on trial for murde...

Directed by George Cukor • 1932 • United States
Starring Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Lukas

Fresh from her success in WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (also directed by George Cukor), Constance Bennett, one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1930s, suffered nobly for this moving maternal me...

Directed by Clarence Brown • 1934 • United States
Starring Joan Crawford, Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone

One of the quintessential working-girl vehicles Joan Crawford starred in throughout the 1930s, SADIE MCKEE follows the fortunes of the eponymous heroine, who trades in her maid’s uniform for bla...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy • 1933 • United States
Starring Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Robert Young

Though not as well remembered today as her more glamorous MGM colleagues like Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, salt-of-the-earth, sixty-five-year-old Marie Dressler was the number-one box office st...

Directed by Fritz Lang • 1938 • United States
Starring Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Harry Carey

One of the most delightfully offbeat Hollywood films of the 1930s, this unclassifiable and often overlooked gem from director Fritz Lang blends crime, comedy, romance, and songs by Kurt Weill into a B...