Modern Times (1936), Female (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Sullivan's Travels (1941), My Man Godfrey (1936), Cinderella Man (2005), They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Of Mice and Men (1939) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Great Depression movies.
Storyline: Lilly (Baby Face) sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building. Bank sub-manager Jimmy McCoy finds her a job in the bank only to be cast aside as she hooks up with the bank's president. When he complains of not seeing her she says: "I'm working so hard I have to go to bed early every night."—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: pre-code hollywood, drama, romance, feminism, prostitution, ambition, sexual liberation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Morgans, a loving and strong family of Black sharecroppers in Louisiana in 1933, face a serious family crisis when the husband and father, Nathan Lee Morgan, is convicted of a petty crime and sent to a prison camp. After some weeks or months, the wife and mother, Rebecca Morgan, sends the oldest son, who is about 11 years old, to visit his father at the camp. The journey becomes something of an odyssey for the boy. During the journey, he stays a little while with a dedicated Black schoolteacher.—Ed Cannon <ecannon@mail.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: drama, family, race, american south, great depression, african american, poverty ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A down-on-his-luck farmer makes a deal with the devil for seven years of prosperity. When Mr. Scratch comes to collect, orator and hero of the common man Daniel Webster comes to the rescue.—Little Pine Weasel <kristinat@cerritos.edu>
Plot Keywords: allegory, classic film, moral dilemma, supernatural, film noir, stage adaptation, new england ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it off the roof, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.—Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, classic, 1930s, american film, romantic comedy, wealth ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Millicent Jordan is pre-occupied with the plans she is making for a high-class dinner party. Her husband Oliver is in failing health, and he is also worried because someone is trying to buy up the stock in his shipping business - even his old friend Carlotta wants to sell her stock. Hoping to get help from businessman Dan Packard, he persuades Millicent, against her wishes, to invite Packard and his wife to the dinner. As Oliver's problems get worse, Millicent is increasingly quick-tempered because the plans for the party are not going smoothly. As the time for the dinner approaches, it appears that the hosts and the guests will all have plenty on their minds.—Snow Leopard
Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, classic, dark comedy, ensemble cast, 1930s, golden age hollywood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ken Burns' portrait of Louisiana governor/U.S. senator Huey Long.
Plot Keywords: documentary, history, politics, biography, usa, louisiana, social reform ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: At the bottom of the depression, Tom's mother has been out of work for months when Ed's father loses his job. Not to burden their parents, the two high school sophomores decide to hop the freights and look for work. Wherever they go, there are many other kids just like them, so Tom, Ed and now Sally stick together. They camp in places like 'Sewer City' as long as they can until the local authorities run them off. They travel all over the mid west and when they get to New York, Ed thinks that they may finally find work.—Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>
Plot Keywords: great depression, social realism, poverty, homelessness, economic hardship, friendship, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Two traveling companions, George and Lennie, wander the country during the Depression, dreaming of a better life for themselves. Then, just as heaven is within their grasp, it is inevitably yanked away. The film follows Steinbeck's novel closely, exploring questions of strength, weakness, usefulness, reality and utopia, bringing Steinbeck's California vividly to life.
Plot Keywords: american, drama, classic, novel adaptation, great depression, friendship, dreams ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Edna Spalding finds herself alone and broke on a small farm in the midst of the Great Depression when her husband the Sheriff is killed in an accident. A wandering black man, Moses, helps her to plant cotton to try and keep her farm and her kids together. She also takes on a blind boarder, Mr. Will, who lost his sight in the first World War. She must endure storms and harsh labor to try and make her mortgage payment on time.—Susan Southall <stobchatay@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: drama, family, historical, american south, great depression, race relations, widow ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's the 1930s, the Depression era, and the Board of Directors of Thomas Dickson's bank want Dickson to merge with New York Trust and resign. He refuses. One night, Dickson's bank is robbed of $100,000. The suspect is Matt Brown, an ex-convict whom Dickson hired and appointed Chief Teller. Brown, who's very loyal to Dickson, refuses to say where he was that night. He actually has two witnesses for his alibi, Mrs. Dickson and fellow worker Cyril Cluett, but Brown is protecting Dickson from finding out that Mrs. Dickson was with Cluett having a romantic evening. Cluett, who has a $50,000 gambling debt, is actually responsible for the robbery, but lets Brown take the rap. Will Brown's loyalty to Mr. Dickson pay off, or send him back to prison?—Kelly
Plot Keywords: trust, capitalism, social unrest, morality, corruption, heroism, great depression ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A boy whose mother is forced into a sanitarium and father gets a job as a traveling salesman. The boy fends for himself in a seedy SRO hotel.—Mark Allyn <allyn@netcom.com>
Plot Keywords: drama, coming of age, american, great depression, family, poverty, childhood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Apple Annie is an indigent woman who has always written to her daughter in Spain that she is a member of New York's high society. With her daughter suddenly en route to America with her new fiancé and his father, a member of Spain's aristocracy, Annie must continue her pretense of wealth or the count will not give his blessing. She gets unexpected help from Dave the Dude, a well-known figure in underground circles who considers Annie his good luck charm, and who obtains for her a luxury apartment to entertain the visitors - but this uncharacteristic act of kindness from a man with a disreputable reputation arouses suspicions, leading to complications which further cause things to not always go quite as planned.—Paul Donahue
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, classic, 1930s, american film, adaptation, disguise ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Berlin's plushest, most expensive hotel is the setting where in the words of Dr. Otternschlag "People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.". The doctor is usually drunk so he missed the fact that Baron von Geigern is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya's pearls. He ends up stealing her heart instead. Powerful German businessman Preysing brow beats Kringelein, one of his company's lowly bookkeepers but it is the terminally ill Kringelein who holds all the cards in the end. Meanwhile, the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing's mistress, Flaemmchen, but she doesn't end up with either one of them in the end...
Plot Keywords: drama, classic, black and white, hollywood, all-star cast, 1930s, mgm ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: "American Pop" is the animated story of a very talented and troubled family starting with 19th century Russia and moving through several generations of musicians. The film covers American popular music from the pre-jazz age through rhythm and blues, 1950s rock 'n' roll, drug-laden psychedelia, and punk rock, finally ending with the onset of New Wave in the early 1980s.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: animation, musical, usa, coming of age, jazz, rock, disco ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This film is an excellent biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, and discovered the suffering and strength of America's working class.—L.H. Wong <as9401k56@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg>
Plot Keywords: biography, music, drama, usa, great depression, oscar nominated, history ...
Movie Details Click Here !