The 5 Most Iconic Films of the 30’s

In case you didn’t know, the 30s were a very special decade for film. Some of the biggest classics of the industry were released during those 10 years and here, we’re going to take a look at the 5 most iconic films of the 30’s. We left a lot of them out so, watch out for volume II of this article.

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So, here we go:

Number 1: Gone With the Wind, Victor Fleming (1939)

It tells the story between a woman that loves to manipulate other (played by Vivien Leigh) and rude man (played by Clark Gable), and their turbulent and rough romance during the periods of the American Civil War and the times of reconstruction.

The movie won 8 Academy Awards, dominating that year with wins for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture, among others. Besides winning 8, the movie was also nominated for 5 others.

Worldwide Lifetime Gross for the film was more then $400 million.

Number 2: Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming (1939)

The tale of Dorothy Gale (played by Julie Garland) and the story of how she was swept away by a tornado in her farm in Kansas and lands on the magical land of Oz. Once in Oz, she goes on a quest with her new friends to find the Wizard (played by Frank Morgan, who had 4 more parts in the film), who is the only one who can take her back home.

The film was nominated for a total of 6 Academy Awards, and won 2 of those, for Best Music Original Song (for the song “Over the Rainbow”, music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg) and Best Music Original Score (the victor was Herbert Stothart).

Total Worldwide Lifetime Gross Sale for the movie was close to $25 million.

Number 3: Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin (1936)

It was the last “silent” film made by Chaplin and it was a picture against the modern era of industrialization and the machine. This movie created a lot of silent buzz by having a lot of sound effects that made people talk. In the movie there are scenes of a factory worker (played by Charlie Chaplin) struggling to keep up with the machines, tightening bolts. then, he was selected for an experiment where hes was to be fed by a machine, all to give the workers more time to work. The film continues with Charlie having a lot of unfortunate events.

This film wasn’t nominated for any Academy Awards but, out of the 5 awards it was nominated for, it won 4.

Despite the notoriety that the film holds today, its’ success back then was questionable since it didn’t won many awards and because Total Lifetime Gross Sales are valued at $163.577. We still love it!!

Number 4: King Kong, Merian C. Cooper (1933)

In this epic, a film crew goes to a tropical island, on an exotic location to shoot a film scene. There, they find themselves facing a colossal ape. The monster then swings for the female blond star (who was chosen to bring contrast to the film, between her and the ape) in the crew. After that, the ape is captured and brought back to New York to be exposed to the public, but then, things take a turn for the worse…

When it was released, the movie didn’t win any awards but, lifetime total, it was up for 10 and won 3.

Back then, box office result was around $2.8 million which would be worth more than $50 million today.

Despite all that, the movies’ success is undeniable since it was responsible for 5 different franchises since its release.

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Number 5: Frankenstein, James Whale (1931)

The plot is pretty simple. A mad scientist gathers a bunch of corpses, takes a bunch of body parts from each of them, and creates a living being from them. Pretty straight forward.

Just a side note: Frankenstein is the name of the scientist and not of the “monster”.

When it was released, the movie was only nominated for an award in the Venice Film Festival (1932) but, since then, it was up for 7 and won 4.

The movie grossed a total of $12 million and gave birth to 10 other movies about Frankenstein.

So, there you have it.

We realize that several iconic films that happened between 1930 and 1939 were kind of left out, but we had to chose 5.

Maybe we’ll have a “The 5 Most Iconic Films of the 30’s” part II, who knows?

In the mean time, best regards from us!

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