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: Chaplin's last 'silent' film, filled with sound effects, was made when everyone else was making talkies. Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, (The use of sound in films ?) and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital - When he gets out, he is mistaken for a communist while waving a red flag, sent to jail, foils a jailbreak, and is let out again. We follow Charlie through many more escapades before the film is out.
Plot Keywords: comedy, silent film, capitalism, unemployment, social satire, great depression, working class ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: An auto-company president (Ruth Chatterton) finds her right-hand man (George Brent) by process of elimination.
Plot Keywords: drama, female, classic, black and white, american film, early cinema, social issues ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ellie Andrews has just tied the knot with society aviator King Westley when she is whisked away to her father's yacht and out of King's clutches. Ellie jumps ship and eventually winds up on a bus headed back to her husband. Reluctantly she must accept the help of out-of- work reporter Peter Warne. Actually, Warne doesn't give her any choice: either she sticks with him until he gets her back to her husband, or he'll blow the whistle on Ellie to her father. Either way, Peter gets what (he thinks!) he wants .... a really juicy newspaper story.
Plot Keywords: romance, comedy, classic, road movie, journalist, opposites attract, oscar winner ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Sullivan is a successful, spoiled, and naive director of fluff films, with a heart-o-gold, who decides he wants to make a film about the troubles of the downtrodden poor. Much to the chagrin of his producers, he sets off in tramp's clothing with a single dime in his pocket to experience poverty first-hand, and gets some reality shock.
Plot Keywords: comedy, satire, hollywood, director, social issues, great depression, poverty ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the depths of the Depression, a party game brings dizzy socialite Irene Bullock to the city dump where she meets Godfrey, a derelict, and ends by hiring him as family butler. He finds the Bullocks to be the epitome of idle rich, and nutty as the proverbial fruitcake. Soon, the dramatizing Irene is in love with her 'protege'...who feels strongly that a romance between servant and employer is out of place, regardless of that servant's mysterious past...
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, classic, 1930s, usa, black and white, romantic comedy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: During the Great Depression, a common-man hero, James J. Braddock--a.k.a. the Cinderella Man--was to become one of the most surprising sports legends in history. By the early 1930s, the impoverished ex-prizefighter was seemingly as broken-down, beaten-up and out-of-luck as much of the rest of the American populace who had hit rock bottom. His career appeared to be finished, he was unable to pay the bills, the only thing that mattered to him--his family--was in danger, and he was even forced to go on Public Relief. But deep inside, Jim Braddock never relinquished his determination. Driven by love, honor and an incredible dose of grit, he willed an impossible dream to come true. In a last-chance bid to help his family, Braddock returned to the ring. No one thought he had a shot. However Braddock, fueled by something beyond mere competition, kept winning. Suddenly, the ordinary working man became the mythic athlete. Carrying the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised on his shoulders, ...
Plot Keywords: biography, sports, boxing, inspirational, drama, historical, american ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Gloria is a young woman of the Depression. She has aged beyond her years and feels her life is hopeless, having been cheated and betrayed many times in her past. While recovering from a suicide attempt, she gets the idea from a movie magazine to head for Hollywood to make it as an actress. Robert is a desperate Hollywood citizen trying to become a director, never doubting he'll make it. Robert and Gloria meet and decide to enter a dance marathon, one of the crazes of the 1930's. The grueling dancing takes its toll on Gloria's already weakened spirit, and she tells Robert that she'd be better off dead, that her life is hopeless - all the while acting cruelly and bitterly, alienating those around her, trying to convince him to shoot her and put her out of her misery. After all, they shoot horses, don't they?—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: drama, historical, psychological, dark, despair, competition, great depression ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: George Milton and Lennie Small are migrant workers in the 1930s Depression. Lennie is mentally disabled and George looks after him. While working as hands on a Western ranch, they dream of owning their own ranch and the opportunity may be available. Their current ranch is owned by a sadistic man who has a flirtatious wife.—dstern1
Plot Keywords: classic, drama, american, black and white, adaptation, literary, great depression ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Monsieur Verdoux is a bluebeard, he marries women and kills them after the marriage to get the money he needs for his family. But with two ladies he has bad luck.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, crime, serial killer, social satire, murder, dark humor, antihero ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life - including playing the tuba in the town band. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow picks up his tuba and moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone from the greedy opera committee to the sensationist daily newspaper. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. Babe is a hot-shot reporter who figures the best way to get close to Deeds is to pose as a damsel in distress. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, drama, classic, american film, black and white, small town life ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The stenographer Alice Sycamore is in love with her boss Tony Kirby, who is the vice-president of the powerful company owned by his greedy father Anthony P. Kirby. Kirby Sr. is dealing a monopoly in the trade of weapons, and needs to buy one last house in a twelve block area owned by Alice's grandparent Martin Vanderhof. However, Martin is the patriarch of an anarchic and eccentric family where the members do not care for money but for having fun and making friends. When Tony proposes Alice, she states that it would be mandatory to introduce her simple and lunatic family to the snobbish Kirbys, and Tony decides to visit Alice with his parents one day before the scheduled. There is an inevitable clash of classes and lifestyles, the Kirbys spurn the Sycamores and Alice breaks with Tony, changing the lives of the Kirby family.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, family, classic, drama, american, black and white ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Private eye Guy Johnson (James Stewart) is charged with tracking every move of boozing tycoon Willie Heyward (Ernest Truex) -- and ensuring that the mogul comes to no harm. But Guy runs into trouble when, after a bender, Heyward is accused of murder and Guy gets roped in as an accessory. Desperate to prove his innocence, Guy makes a daring escape from a prison train and, while on the run, kidnaps poet Edwina Corday (Claudette Colbert), who gradually warms to his cause.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, musical, classic, black and white, 1930s, hollywood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Chorus girls Polly, Carol and Trixie are ecstatic when they learn that Broadway producer Barney Hopkins is putting on a new show. He promises all of the girls parts in the new show and even hires their neighbor Brad Roberts, an unknown composer, to write some of the music. There's only one problem: he doesn't have the money to bankroll it all. That problem is solved when Brad turns out to be quite rich but he insists that he not perform. When opening night comes, the juvenile lead can't go on forcing Brad to take the stage. He's recognized of course and his upper crust family wants him to quit. When he refuses, they tell him to end his relationship with Polly or face having his income cut off. When Brad's snobbish brother Lawrence mistakes Carol for Polly, the girls decide to have a bit of fun and teach him a lesson.—garykmcd
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, drama, romance, show business, dance, song and dance ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississipi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett's home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters--among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."
Plot Keywords: adventure, comedy, crime, musical, drama, period piece, road movie ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In a hot summer afternoon in New York, Emma Jones gossips with other neighbors of her residential building about the affair of Mrs. Anna Maurrant and the milkman Steve Sankey. When the rude Mr. Frank Maurrant arrives, they change the subject. Meanwhile, their teenage daughter Rose Maurrant is sexually harassed by her boss Mr. Bert Easter; however, she likes her Jewish neighbor Sam that has a crush on her. On the next morning, Frank tells that is traveling to Stanford on business. Mrs. Maurrant meets the gentle Sankey in her apartment, but out of the blue Frank comes back home in an announced tragedy.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: drama, romance, social issues, new york, family conflict, realism, adaptation ...
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