We’ve gone through the decades. The ‘40s ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘2000s, and ‘2010s. — all revisited, argued over.
Now, here are the results for what might very well be the last decade polled — unless I go in to tackle the ‘20s, but since participation keeps lowering as we get to older movies, with a little over 100 participants this time around, maybe I should put a pause on it, for now. The silent era will have to wait until at least next year.
The rules were simple: participants were invited to submit an unranked list of five films released between 1930 and 1939 that they considered the best of the decade. A complete list of the participants will be added later today as this piece is updated.
So, the 1930s — we find ourselves on the brink of a fascinating pivot point in film history: the decade that began the era of sound and simultaneously buried silent cinema. What I find most interesting about the ‘30s is that, unlike the ‘40s with “Citizen Kane,” or the ‘50s with “Vertigo,” there was no actual overwhelming consensus pick. The top four were all separated by just a couple of votes.
Lang’s “M” represents the emergence of cinematic modernism in Europe — Lang’s chilling study of a child murderer still plays ferociously today. Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” meanwhile, tackles silent-era anxiety through industrial alienation, which might as well be substituted today with the advent of AI. That film has also aged like fine wine. “The Wizard of Oz,” arriving at the end of the decade, would lay the blueprint for Hollywood spectacle for the next eight decades that followed, and even give David Lynch a blueprint for his twisted mind.
Just behind them is Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game” (41 votes), a critique of class and hypocrisy that, alongside Chaplin’s film, forms my own personal twin peaks of this decade.
The 1930s were a decade of reinvention in Hollywood. Filmmakers were suddenly forced to rethink the grammar of cinema — camera movement stalled, performances became stiffer, and visual experimentation took a back seat as the industry scrambled to master microphones and dialogue recording. Eventually, as sound technology stabilized, directors began pushing form again — experimenting more and more.
What the 1930s represent most to me, in terms of film innovation, are the immaculate screwball comedies, poetic realism emerging in France, German filmmakers breaking through, and silent masters like Chaplin finding ingenious ways to resist or reimagine sound. Meanwhile, Buster Keaton, a genius on the level of Chaplin, would soon disappear, unable to adapt to the modern times.
RESULTS
1. M (Fritz Lang) — 50 votes
2. Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin) — 49
3. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming) — 47
4. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir) —43
5. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin) —29
6. La Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir) — 27
7. King Kong (Cooper/Schoedsack) —25
8. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming) —24
9. Duck Soup (Leo McCarey) — 20
10. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch) — 19
11. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks) — 18
12. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale) — 16
13. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra) — 15
14. It Happened One Night (Frank Capra) — 15
15. Freaks (Tod Browning) — 14
16. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks) — 13
17. Stagecoach (John Ford) — 13
18. L’Atalante (Jean Vigo) — 13
19. All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone) — 13
20. Dodsworth (William Wyler) — 11
21. The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtis/Keighly) — 10
22. L’Age d’Or (Luis Bunuel) — 10
23. Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer) — 10
24. Dracula (Tod Browning) — 8
25. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand) — 7
26. A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir) — 6
27. Morocco (Josef von Sternberg)
28. Scarface (Howard Hawks) — 5
29. The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock) — 5
30. Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCary) — 5