25 greatest films of 1938

by stuff_1004 | created - 18 Mar 2013 | updated - 18 Mar 2013 | Public

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1. Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Passed | 102 min | Comedy

91 Metascore

While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett

Votes: 66,123

2. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

PG | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Romance

97 Metascore

When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence in 1190s England, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a resistance movement.

Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains

Votes: 54,522 | Gross: $3.98M

3. You Can't Take It with You (1938)

Passed | 126 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

The son of a snobbish Wall Street banker becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family not realizing that his father is trying to force her family from their home for a real estate development.

Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold

Votes: 27,917 | Gross: $4.66M

4. Alexander Nevsky (1938)

Not Rated | 112 min | Action, Biography, Drama

The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.

Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov

Votes: 12,264

5. Jezebel (1938)

Approved | 104 min | Drama, Romance

In 1850s Louisiana, a free-spirited Southern belle loses her fiancé due to her stubborn vanity and pride, and vows to win him back.

Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay

Votes: 15,059

6. Pygmalion (1938)

89 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.

Directors: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard | Stars: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr

Votes: 9,667 | Gross: $3.05M

7. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Not Rated | 96 min | Mystery, Thriller

98 Metascore

While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, May Whitty

Votes: 57,193

8. Port of Shadows (1938)

Not Rated | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

A military deserter finds love and trouble (and a small dog) in a foggy, French port city.

Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur

Votes: 9,966 | Gross: $0.03M

9. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan

Votes: 23,213

10. Holiday (1938)

Passed | 95 min | Comedy, Romance

A young man in love with a girl from a rich family finds his unorthodox plan to go on holiday for the early years of his life met with skepticism by everyone except for his fiancée's eccentric sister and long-suffering brother.

Director: George Cukor | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres

Votes: 18,257

11. The Baker's Wife (1938)

Not Rated | 133 min | Comedy, Drama

A small village rejoices at the arrival of a new baker. But when his young wife runs off with another man, he is unable to keep baking and the village is thrown into disarray.

Director: Marcel Pagnol | Stars: Raimu, Ginette Leclerc, Fernand Charpin, Robert Vattier

Votes: 2,397

12. La Bête Humaine (1938)

Not Rated | 100 min | Crime, Drama

In this classic adaptation of Emile Zola's novel, a tortured train engineer falls in love with a troubled married woman who has helped her husband commit a murder.

Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Gabin, Julien Carette, Simone Simon, Fernand Ledoux

Votes: 8,425

13. La Marseillaise (1938)

Not Rated | 130 min | Drama, History, Music

A news-reel like movie about early part of the French Revolution, shown from the eyes of individual people, citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course the king Louis XVI, ... See full summary »

Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Pierre Renoir, Lise Delamare, Louis Jouvet, Léon Larive

Votes: 1,393

14. Four Daughters (1938)

Approved | 90 min | Drama, Music, Romance

A musician is blessed with four musical prodigies, all girls, and cursed when a troubled young composer enters the lives of his Four Daughters.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Claude Rains, John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh

Votes: 2,227

15. Block-Heads (1938)

Approved | 57 min | Comedy, Family, War

Stan, who has remained faithfully at his World War I post for twenty years, finally comes home where his best friend, Ollie, takes him in, thus allowing him to discover the many conveniences of the modern world.

Director: John G. Blystone | Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis, Minna Gombell

Votes: 4,516

16. A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

Approved | 85 min | Comedy, Crime

Former bootlegger Remy Marco has a slight problem with forclosing bankers, a prospective son-in-law, and four hard-to-explain corpses.

Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly

Votes: 2,568

17. Boys Town (1938)

Passed | 96 min | Biography, Drama, Family

When a death row prisoner tells him he wouldn't have led a life of crime if only he had had one friend as a child, Father Edward Flanagan decides to start a home for young boys.

Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton

Votes: 6,360

18. Carefree (1938)

Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance

A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be nudging into marriage with someone else.

Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear

Votes: 4,316

19. Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)

Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Romance

Andy has problems raising the last payment for a used car and juggling three pretty girls with an upcoming country club dance scheduled.

Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Lewis Stone, Cecilia Parker

Votes: 2,056

20. The Young in Heart (1938)

Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Drama

Thrown out of the Riviera, a family of grifters meets a lonely, vulnerable rich old woman and insinuate themselves into her life while they sponge off her.

Directors: Richard Wallace, Lewis Milestone, Gilbert Pratt, Richard Thorpe | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Roland Young, Billie Burke

Votes: 1,618

21. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938)

Passed | 91 min | Adventure, Drama, Family

Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.

Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Tommy Kelly, Jackie Moran, Ann Gillis, May Robson

Votes: 2,239

22. Marie Antoinette (1938)

Passed | 149 min | Biography, Drama, History

The tragic life of Marie Antoinette, who became queen of France in her late teens.

Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier | Stars: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley

Votes: 3,286

23. The Dawn Patrol (1938)

Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, War

British flying aces in World War I contend with the harsh realities of war.

Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp

Votes: 3,421

24. Test Pilot (1938)

Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance

Jim is a test pilot. His wife Ann and best friend Gunner try their best to keep him sober. But the life of a test pilot is anything but safe.

Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore

Votes: 2,745

25. The Drum (1938)

Not Rated | 104 min | Adventure, War

During the British Raj, Captain Carruthers works under cover to track smuggled shipments of arms on the restless Northwest Frontier of India. He fears a full-scale rebellion is brewing. To ... See full summary »

Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: Sabu, Raymond Massey, Roger Livesey, Valerie Hobson

Votes: 940



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