1930s Films

Directed by Victor Sjöström and based on Sidney Howard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play *They Knew What They Wanted*, this pre-Code MGM drama stars Vilma Bánky as Lena, a San Francisco waitress who answers a marriage advertisement from a middle-aged Napa Valley grape-grower named Tony. Tony has sent her a photograph of his handsome younger hired man, Buck, instead of himself. When Lena arrives and discovers the deception, she goes through with the marriage anyway, drawn by the promise of a home and her growing attraction to Buck. Edward G. Robinson, still early in his screen career, plays the lonely Italian farmer with a tenderness far removed from the gangster roles that would soon make him famous. Bánky, the silent-era star opposite Valentino, made one of her last screen appearances here before her Hungarian accent ended her career in talkies. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance

A pre-Code drama from First National, directed by Lloyd Bacon and adapted from the London play *Fame* by Audrey and Waverly Carter. Billie Dove plays Lady Patricia Hanley, a wealthy heiress who defies her family to marry Paul Gherardi, a struggling Italian violinist played by Basil Rathbone. As Paul's career falters and his pride festers, he falls into the orbit of Countess Olga Balakireff, a glamorous noblewoman played by Kay Francis, who seduces him as much for sport as for love. The film is a showcase for its three leads: Dove, the former Ziegfeld beauty; Rathbone, borrowed from MGM and years away from his Sherlock Holmes fame; and Francis, who steals the picture as the cool, predatory countess and would become one of the 1930s' biggest stars. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

D.W. Griffith's first all-talking picture is a biographical portrait of Abraham Lincoln, from his youth as a rail-splitter and storekeeper in New Salem through his romance with Ann Rutledge, his marriage to Mary Todd, his legal career, his election to the presidency, and his leadership during the Civil War, ending with his assassination at Ford's Theatre. Walter Huston plays Lincoln with a plainspoken gravity, and Una Merkel is Ann Rutledge. The film, scripted in part by Stephen Vincent Benét, was Griffith's penultimate film and one of his last major productions. It was not a commercial success on release but has been reassessed as a late work of a foundational director. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Biography · Drama · History

A pre-Code musical comedy directed by Michael Curtiz, originally released as Bright Lights and later retitled Adventures in Africa. Dorothy Mackaill plays Louanne, a Broadway star retiring to marry a wealthy aristocrat, whose past as a carnival performer and hula dancer in sleazy African dives threatens her new social standing. Frank Fay co-stars as her loyal stage partner Wally, and Noah Beery plays a diamond smuggler seeking revenge. The film was originally photographed entirely in Technicolor, but only a black- and-white print survives. It features the screen debut of John Carradine in a small, uncredited role.

Musical · Comedy

Africa is a 1930 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon directed by Walter Lantz for Universal Pictures. Oswald goes on a big-game hunting expedition in Africa, encountering lions, elephants, and other jungle animals in a series of gags. Portions of this short were reused from the film King of Jazz, where they were originally colored in two-strip Technicolor. As a 1930 work, the film entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2026.

Animation · Comedy

A documentary-style expedition film combining genuine footage from Paul L. Hoefler's 14-month, 14,000-mile trek across Africa with staged scenes filmed in Los Angeles, narrated by Lowell Thomas. Directed by Walter Futter, the film was a surprise hit that captured the sounds and sights of African wildlife and tribal cultures. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Documentary · Adventure

Based on Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel, the film follows a group of young German schoolboys who enlist in the army at the urging of their teacher and are ground down by the realities of trench warfare in World War I. Lewis Milestone directed with a documentary plainness that was unusual for its time, and the result is one of the first great anti-war films. Lew Ayres plays Paul Bäumer, the idealistic recruit whose patriotism is hollowed out by what he sees; Louis Wolheim is Katczinsky, the veteran who teaches the new men how to survive. The film won the Academy Awards for Outstanding Production and Best Director, the first picture to take both. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama

The Marx Brothers' second film, adapted from their 1928 Broadway hit. Groucho plays Captain Spaulding, an African explorer returning to society, who arrives at a Long Island estate at the same moment a valuable painting goes missing. What plot there is exists mainly to hang the brothers' routines on: Groucho's verbal avalanches, Chico's piano and patter, Harpo's silent anarchy, and Margaret Dumont's unflappable dignity under fire. Victor Heerman, who had directed them on stage, kept the camera out of the way and let the act play. The film's surrealist streak was admired by critics from Antonin Artaud to François Truffaut. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Comedy · Musical

Greta Garbo's first talking picture, marketed with the slogan "Garbo Talks!" This is the German-language version MGM filmed alongside the English release, directed by Jacques Feyder using the same sets, with Garbo reprising her role opposite a German-speaking cast. Based on Eugene O'Neill's play, it follows a young woman, raised by relatives after her father abandoned her, who comes to live on his coal barge and falls for a sailor she cannot be honest with about her past. Garbo's famous first line, "Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby," revealed a husky voice that only added to her mystique. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

A pre-Code crime film directed by John Ford and staged by Andrew Bennison, based on the novel Louis Beretti by Donald Henderson Clarke. Edmund Lowe stars as a notorious gangster who is sentenced to fight in World War I rather than go to prison, a scheme cooked up by a district attorney looking to use the publicity to get re-elected. After returning from the war, Beretti tries to go straight by opening a nightclub, but his old criminal connections pull him back in. Lee Tracy plays a fast-talking reporter, and Marguerite Churchill plays Beretti's sister. The film features early uncredited appearances by John Wayne and Randolph Bond as soldiers. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · War

The only feature film starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the creators and voices of the enormously popular radio program Amos 'n' Andy. The two play the owners of the Fresh Air Taxi Cab Company who get involved in a mystery at a haunted house while helping a wealthy man find a lost deed. The film captures the radio duo in blackface, a convention of the era that is deeply offensive by modern standards but was standard practice for the show. The film was a major box office hit at the time, riding the wave of Amos 'n' Andy's unprecedented radio popularity. Duke Ellington and his orchestra appear in a musical sequence. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A 1930 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Ted Wilde and starring Charles Murray as Michael Clancy, a plumber who accidentally purchases stocks that quickly rise in value, leading him to crash high society. Aggie Herring plays Mrs. Clancy and Lucien Littlefield plays Andy MacIntosh. The film was also known as Clancy Caught Short and was described as the first comedy about the stock market crash. It was the last film for director Ted Wilde, who died in December 1929 after suffering a paralytic stroke during filming. Edward F. Cline was hired to direct the unfinished scenes. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A 1930 mystery melodrama from RKO, directed by Christy Cabanne and based on the 1912 play by Robert B. Baker and John Emerson. Margaret Holt and her brother Victor investigate the narcotics ring responsible for their father's death, with the help of a crotchety crime author played by Ned Sparks, whose over-the-top performance steals the show. The film is a fascinating artifact of the early sound era, when actors and directors were still learning to adapt to the medium of talkies. Bessie Love and Hugh Trevor round out the cast. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 because the copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

The hard-driving boss of a Montana railroad and his top engineer clash over a woman and the brutal demands of keeping the line open through the mountains. Louis Wolheim, Robert Armstrong, and Jean Arthur star in this early-sound railroad drama, filmed partly on location. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Action

A Pre-Code musical comedy set in a traveling circus in the Old South, directed by Luther Reed for RKO. Bebe Daniels stars as Dixiana, a circus performer caught in a love triangle between a wealthy plantation owner's son and a villainous suitor. The film introduced the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey (Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey) to film audiences, and their rapid-fire banter and physical comedy made them instant favorites, launching a decade-long series of RKO comedies. The film was originally released in Technicolor sequences, though most surviving prints are in black and white. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

Buster Keaton's most successful sound picture, directed by Edward Sedgwick for MGM. Keaton plays Elmer J. Butts, a wealthy young man who accidentally enlists in the army during World War I after trying to follow his girlfriend's brother into the service. Through a series of mix-ups, the hapless millionaire finds himself in the trenches of France, where his ineptitude becomes an asset. The film was Keaton's biggest box office success of the sound era, though by his own account he had minimal creative control—the gags were largely devised by Sedgwick and the MGM story department. Still, Keaton's physical comedy shines through, particularly in a memorable sequence where he disguises himself as a tree. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War

The final film of Alexander Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy," and his last silent film. Earth follows a Ukrainian village through the upheaval of collectivization: the arrival of the first tractor, the resistance of the kulak landowners, and the murder of the young communist Vasyl by a hostile neighbor. Dovzhenko was commissioned to make propaganda for Stalin's farm policy, but what he delivered is a lyrical, almost pantheistic meditation on birth, death, and the soil. The film is built from images, apples in the sun, a farmer's face against the sky, a body laid out in the orchard, that have been quoted by filmmakers for decades. It was banned by Soviet authorities nine days after release. At the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, a poll of critics named it one of the twelve greatest films ever made. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Silent

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, starring Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan. The wealthy Lenox family of Long Island is headed by Bronson (Morgan), who respects tradition — but his children are more irreverent. When son Bertie gets involved with chorus girl Alice O'Neil (Lombard) and daughter Marion (Hopkins) falls for auto mechanic Henry Morgan, the family tries to intervene to prevent their children from marrying beneath themselves. The film was written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1924 play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood. This was Miriam Hopkins' feature film debut.

Comedy · Romance

A Harold Lloyd sound comedy directed by Clyde Bruckman. Lloyd plays Harold Horne, a lowly shoe salesman who stows away on a ship to Hawaii to impress a girl, then must bluff his way through a series of escalating lies about his identity. The film's centerpiece is a thrilling skyscraper-climbing sequence that recalls Lloyd's silent masterpiece Safety Last! (1923), this time with the added complication of sound—Lloyd's screams and gasps amplify the vertiginous terror. Though Lloyd's sound films never achieved the critical reputation of his silent work, Feet First demonstrates that his daredevil physical comedy remained intact in the talkie era. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A pre-Code crime drama from Paramount, directed by John Cromwell. William Powell plays William Foster, a slick criminal defense lawyer who specializes in getting crooks acquitted. He is in love with Irene Manners, played by Kay Francis, a dancer who is also seeing Jack Defoe on the side. When Irene kills a pedestrian while driving Jack's car, Jack takes the blame, and Foster ends up defending him, only to discover that a ring he gave Irene is at the crime scene. The film is a showcase for Powell's effortless sophistication and Francis's cool glamour, a pairing Paramount would reuse the same year in *Ladies of Leisure*. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A Wheeler & Woolsey comedy directed by Paul Sloane for RKO. Bert and Bob are two American soldiers in Paris during World War I who go AWOL to enjoy the city's nightlife. When military police catch up with them, they disguise themselves as officers and end up in increasingly absurd situations, including a run-in with a German spy. Dorothy Lee plays the nurse who falls for Bert, adding romance to the duo's rapid-fire comedy. The film was one of several Wheeler & Woolsey service comedies and helped establish their formula of wisecracks, physical gags, and musical numbers. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War

Howard Hughes produced and directed this World War I aviation epic, spending three years and a fortune on it and reshooting much of it for sound after The Jazz Singer changed the industry. The story follows two brothers, Roy and Monte, who join the Royal Flying Corps and fall for the same woman, with Jean Harlow making her debut as the platinum blonde who comes between them. The film is best remembered for its airborne sequences, staged with real aircraft and real danger; several pilots died during production. The Zeppelin climax, shot in early two-color Technicolor, is a spectacle of its era. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama · Action

Bosko works on a construction site, finding musical inspiration in every girder and rivet, in this early Looney Tunes short. A Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising-directed cartoon, the third in the Looney Tunes series. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Edward H. Griffith, starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Edward Everett Horton. Wealthy Julia Seton (Astor) meets struggling young lawyer Johnny Case at Lake Placid and brings him home to meet her family as her future husband. But Johnny is a free spirit who wants to make enough money to retire early and enjoy life — a plan that horrifies Julia's conservative father. Julia's rebellious sister Linda (Harding) is taken with Johnny's unconventional philosophy and finds herself falling for him. Based on the 1928 play by Philip Barry, this is the first film adaptation of the story later remade in 1938 with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Edward Everett Horton reprises his role as Nick Potter in both versions.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

A Wheeler & Woolsey comedy directed by Edward F. Cline for RKO. Two down-on-their-luck insurance salesmen (Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey) are sent to investigate a suspicious death at a hotel, where they encounter a beautiful woman (Dorothy Lee) and a cast of suspicious characters. The film features the duo's trademark blend of verbal wordplay and physical slapstick, with Woolsey's cigar-chomping wisecracks and Wheeler's boyish energy in full display. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A pre-Code spy drama set at Gibraltar during the First World War, where a pair of German agents posing as a British officer and a family friend plot to seize the key to the harbor's mine field, each unaware of the other's true loyalty. Betty Compson and Ralph Forbes star, with Montagu Love as the governor and Mischa Auer as the Hindu servant who unmasks them. Directed by effects pioneer Roy Pomeroy for RKO from Earl Derr Biggers' 1915 play, the film entered the public domain in the United States when its copyright was not renewed after 28 years.

Drama · War

A 1930 American pre-Code science fiction musical comedy directed by David Butler, notable for its imaginative portrayal of New York City in 1980. The film follows a man from 1930 (El Brendel) who is struck by lightning and revived by scientists 50 years later in a world where airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, and babies come from vending machines. He befriends J-21 (John Garrick), who can't marry the girl of his dreams (Maureen O'Sullivan) until he proves himself on a rocketship expedition to Mars. The film was a lavish production for Fox, budgeted at over $1 million, and was one of the first science fiction musicals. The film entered the public domain via non-renewal of its copyright.

Sci-Fi · Comedy · Musical

A lavish two-color Technicolor revue built around bandleader Paul Whiteman, then billed as the "King of Jazz." Stage veteran John Murray Anderson transferred his flair for spectacle to the screen with a parade of musical numbers, comedy sketches, and dance routines. The film is notable as the feature debut of Bing Crosby, who appears with the Rhythm Boys vocal trio, and for its ambitious staging of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which Whiteman had premiered in 1924. The two-color Technicolor gives the whole thing a pastel dreaminess that is part of its charm. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Musical · Comedy

The second collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, and one of the first sound films made in France. A man and a woman are repeatedly drawn together and torn apart by the hypocrisies of bourgeois society and the Catholic Church, in a series of incidents that range from the absurd to the blasphemous. The film scandalized Paris on its release in 1930; members of the Ligue des Patriotes threw ink at the screen and assaulted audience members, and the film was banned in France for nearly fifty years. Its mixture of deadpan comedy, religious provocation, and dream logic made it a foundational text of surrealist cinema. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Comedy · Drama · Surrealist

La Paloma is a 1930 Screen Song cartoon from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. The Screen Songs series featured animated segments leading up to a "follow the bouncing ball" sing-along sequence where theater audiences were invited to join in. This entry features the popular Spanish song "La Paloma" by Sebastián Iradier. As a 1930 work, the film entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2026.

Animation · Musical

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck. Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves), the artistic son of a wealthy railroad magnate, hires Kay Arnold (Stanwyck), a "party girl" he meets while driving along the waterfront, as his model. As they work together, Kay falls in love with Jerry and begins to reform herself, but faces strong opposition from Jerry's family, who disapprove of her past. The film was based on the 1924 Broadway play Ladies of the Evening by Milton Herbert Gropper. The success of the film made Stanwyck a star and established Capra as a major director at Columbia Pictures.

Drama · Romance

A Pre-Code social comedy directed by Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast for Paramount. Peggy (Nancy Carroll) is a cabaret dancer who marries a wealthy industrialist for security, only to find herself trapped in a loveless marriage. When she reconnects with Paul (Fredric March), a carefree old flame, she must choose between respectability and happiness. The film was a deliberate attempt to capture the spirit of Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated comedies, and d'Arrast—who had worked with Chaplin on A Woman of Paris—brings a similar visual elegance and wry observation of class manners. Though less well-known than the films it emulated, Laughter is a sharp, stylish look at the tension between wealth and freedom in the Jazz Age. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Pre-Code

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard, starring Norma Shearer and Marie Dressler. Dowdy housewife Kitty Brown (Shearer) dotes on her self-centered husband Bob (Rod La Rocque), but divorces him when his mistress shows up at their home. Bob had become bored with her lackluster appearance. Kitty re-invents herself and becomes a Continental favorite, dressing like a fashion model and behaving gaily. Three years later, a wealthy socialite (Dressler) enlists Kitty's help to break up her granddaughter's infatuation with Bob — unaware that Kitty is his ex-wife. Based on the 1929 play by Rachel Crothers, which starred Tallulah Bankhead on Broadway.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play about a carousel barker in Budapest whose doomed romance with a servant girl ends in tragedy and a chance at redemption from beyond the grave. Charles Farrell stars as Liliom, a swaggering but troubled carnival worker, with Rose Hobart as Julie, the woman who loves him despite his flaws. Lee Tracy plays the Sparrow, a heavenly marshal who oversees Liliom's posthumous trial. The film was one of several Borzage-directed romances that blended realism with spiritual fantasy, a hallmark of his career. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Fantasy

Marie Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Min, the hard-boiled proprietress of a waterfront hotel who has raised the foundling Nancy (Dorothy Jordan) as her own. Wallace Beery co-stars as Bill, the boozy fisherman who lives at the inn and is Min's sometime suitor. When Nancy's disreputable birth mother Bella (Marjorie Rambeau) reappears to reclaim the girl, Min must make painful sacrifices to protect the child's future. Directed by George W. Hill for MGM and adapted by Frances Marion from Lorna Moon's novel *Dark Star*, the film was a runaway hit that cemented the late-blooming Dressler as one of Hollywood's most beloved stars. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Comedy · Drama

Josef von Sternberg's first Hollywood film with Marlene Dietrich, made immediately after The Blue Angel launched her to stardom. She plays Amy Jolly, a cabaret singer who arrives in Morocco with no money and fewer illusions, and falls for a Legionnaire played by Gary Cooper. Adolphe Menjou is the wealthy man who offers her everything except the one thing she wants. The film is famous for Dietrich's performance in a man's tailcoat, kissing a woman in the audience, a scene considered scandalous in 1930. Lee Garmes's photography wraps the desert and the nightclub in the same haze of smoke and shadow. Dietrich received the only Academy Award nomination of her career for this role. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Romance · Drama · War

An early Alfred Hitchcock thriller from his British period. An actress is found standing over the body of a murdered colleague with the weapon in her hand, and a jury convicts her. One juror, the distinguished actor Sir John Menier, is troubled by the verdict and sets out to investigate on his own, uncovering the real killer. The film, based on the novel Enter Sir John, shows Hitchcock working out ideas he would refine for decades: the wrongfully accused, the audience's complicity, and suspense generated by the gap between what the viewer and the characters know. Hitchcock makes his customary cameo, walking past the murder victim's house. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Mystery · Thriller · Crime

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama directed by Harry Beaumont, starring Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, and Dorothy Sebastian. Three small-town girls — Gerry (Crawford), Connie (Page), and Franky (Sebastian) — share an apartment in New York City while working at Jardine's Department Store, each seeking a wealthy husband. While Connie and Franky are reckless with their affections, Gerry is determined to remain practical, resisting the advances of the store owner's son Tony Jardine (Montgomery) even as she falls for him. The film was Crawford's first "shopgirl Cinderella" role, marking a transition from her flapper persona of the silent era to the more sophisticated image MGM would develop for her throughout the 1930s.

Drama · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code crime film directed by Tod Browning and starring Edward G. Robinson. The picture is a remake of the 1920 film of the same name starring Lon Chaney, which was also directed by Browning. Robinson plays Cobra Collins, the ruthless boss of a criminal gang who is willing to do anything to prevent a rival gangster from pulling off a bank robbery on his territory. The film was one of Robinson's early sound films, made before his breakout role in Little Caesar (1931). Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. and distributed by Universal Studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A pre-Code drama that marked Joan Crawford's transition from flappers to serious roles. She plays Mary Turner, a shopgirl wrongly convicted of theft who, on release, turns the law against those who jailed her through a series of breach-of-promise "heart balm" scams, until she targets the department store owner who ruined her by marrying his son. Sam Wood directed from Bayard Veiller's play Within the Law, with Robert Armstrong and Kent Douglass (in his film debut) supporting. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Pioneer Days is a 1930 Mickey Mouse cartoon directed by Burt Gillett for Walt Disney Productions, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Mickey and Minnie travel west in a covered wagon as part of a pioneer wagon train. When Minnie is captured by Native Americans, Mickey must rescue her, eventually frightening off the attackers by pretending to be an entire army of soldiers. The short features Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow in supporting roles. As a 1930 work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Western

A 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy directed by Ludwig Berger, starring Maurice Chevalier and Frances Dee (in her film debut). Albert Loriflan (Chevalier), a waiter in a Paris cafe, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money from a wealthy relative. His unscrupulous boss, Philibert, refuses to release him from his long-term contract in the hope that Albert will buy him off with a large payment. But Albert refuses, and continues to work at the cafe even though he is now very rich. Before long he falls in love with Philibert's daughter Yvonne (Dee). Based on the 1911 play The Little Cafe by Tristan Bernard. Paramount also produced a separate French-language version, Le Petit Cafe, starring Chevalier, which broke records for opening-day attendance in Paris.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

Puddle Pranks is a 1930 Flip the Frog cartoon directed by Ub Iwerks for Celebrated Productions, distributed by MGM. Flip the Frog was Iwerks's own character, created after he left Disney to start his own studio. In this short, Flip enjoys a day by a pond, fishing and encountering various aquatic creatures in a series of musical and slapstick gags. The Flip the Frog series ran from 1930 to 1933. As a 1930 work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

A 1930 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by George Fitzmaurice. Ronald Colman stars as A.J. Raffles, a distinguished English gentleman who leads a secret life as the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman." When Raffles falls in love with Gwen (Kay Francis), he decides to retire from crime, but an old friend, Bunny (Bramwell Fletcher), comes to him with a predicament that entails committing one last job. The film is based on the 1906 play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey, adapted from Hornung's 1899 short story collection. Oscar Lagerstrom was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Mystery · Romance

Frank Capra's circus comedy, adapted from the hit Broadway musical. When her father dies, Mary Rainey (Joan Peers) inherits his struggling show, kept afloat by the manic clown Smiley Johnson (vaudevillian Joe Cook, recreating his stage role) until a climactic fire threatens to end it all. Originally shot as a full musical, the numbers were cut before release to dodge the public's backlash against the genre, leaving a fast-paced comedy that was a hit for the young Columbia Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama

A 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Bebe Daniels. Wall Street wizard Larry Day (Fairbanks), new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet Roger (Edward Everett Horton). He follows Vivian Benton (Daniels), an amateur aviatrix, on an ocean liner, where cocktails laced with a "love potion" work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl. The film features songs by Irving Berlin and an early appearance by Bing Crosby. Originally released at 91 minutes; surviving versions are typically cut to about 72 minutes.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

Constance Bennett plays Sylvia Brenner, a dowdy secretary who agrees to a marriage of convenience with her divorce-lawyer boss Gaylord Stanton (Kenneth MacKenna) so he can fend off a demanding client. She sails to Paris to wait out the arrangement and comes back transformed — which is when the fake marriage starts becoming a problem. An early RKO pre-Code romantic comedy that makes good use of Bennett's knack for playing women smarter than the plot around them. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Drama

The very first Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. Bosko, a cheerful, rubber-limbed character, sings the title song in his bathtub before a series of gags involving his car, his girlfriend Honey, and a goat. The short established the formula for the early Looney Tunes: a song-based cartoon built around Bosko, animated in the round, fluid style that Harman and Ising had developed at Disney. The title tune, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," was the first of many popular songs the series would showcase. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Music

A 1930 pre-Code crime drama and the film debut of James Cagney, who reprises his Broadway role from the play Penny Arcade by Marie Baumer. Directed by John G. Adolfi for Warner Bros., the film is set at a Coney Island penny arcade run by Ma Delano (Lucille La Verne). When her son Harry (Cagney) gets involved in a bootlegging operation run by Mitch McKane (Warren Hymer), a fatal shooting on the darkened pier sets off a tense family drama. Joan Blondell also makes her film debut, repeating her stage role as Myrtle. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

The first film to feature the Three Stooges, directed by Benjamin Stoloff for Fox Film Corporation. Ted Healy stars as the obnoxious owner of a dress shop whose employees include the three men who would become the most famous comedy team in history: Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine. The plot involves a fire insurance scam gone wrong, but the real attraction is seeing the Stooges in their original incarnation as Healy's comic foils. The film captures the rough, violent, vaudeville-style humor that defined their act before they broke from Healy and refined their slapstick for the two-reel shorts that made them legends. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Pre-Code

A pre-Code crime drama directed by John Cromwell and produced by David O. Selznick, Street of Chance stars William Powell as a jewel thief who suffers amnesia after being struck on the head during a robbery. He awakens to find himself living a respectable life as a wealthy businessman, with no memory of his criminal past — until his old associates resurface. Jean Arthur plays his wife and Kay Francis his former accomplice. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing. As a work published in 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama

A 1930 pre-Code mystery film directed by Roland West and produced by Joseph M. Schenck for United Artists. Based on the 1920 play The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, the film follows the mysterious criminal known as "The Bat" who terrorizes the occupants of a lonely country mansion. Notable as one of the first widescreen films, West shot the picture in both standard 35mm and an experimental 65mm format requiring two cameramen. The film stars Chester Morris, Una Merkel, and Grayce Hampton, and is widely cited as an inspiration for Bob Kane's Batman. Long thought lost, a nitrate print was discovered at the Mary Pickford Estate in 1987 and restored by UCLA. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1930 pre-Code crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and based on the 1926 novel by S. S. Van Dine. William Powell stars as the aristocratic detective Philo Vance, investigating the murder of a wealthy broker at his Long Island estate. The film co-stars William "Stage" Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Paul Lukas, and Natalie Moorhead. The screenplay was adapted by Bartlett Cormack. The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

One of the first and most influential prison films. Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery), a young man convicted of manslaughter after a drunk-driving accident, is sent to an overcrowded prison and shares a cell with two hardened men: the violent career criminal Butch (Wallace Beery) and the more measured Morgan (Chester Morris), who tries to show the new man how to survive. George Hill directed from Frances Marion's screenplay, which was inspired by a spate of 1929 prison riots. The film's attention to the routines and terrors of prison life set the template for the genre, and its mess-hall riot sequence was widely imitated. Marion won the Academy Award for her screenplay and Douglas Shearer won the first Oscar for Sound. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Hobart Henley, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by George Middleton and A.E. Thomas, the film features dialogue by Preston Sturges in his first Hollywood assignment. Chevalier plays Pierre Mirande, a French tour guide in Venice who romances Barbara Billings (Colbert), a visiting American tourist whose father owns a chewing-gum factory. Her skeptical father brings Pierre to America and gives him a job in the plant to test his character. Chevalier sings "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" and "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" — songs that became signature numbers. He received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his collective work on this film and The Love Parade. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

A wagon-train epic shot on location across seven states, The Big Trail follows a party of settlers from the Mississippi to the Pacific Northwest, led by the young scout Breck Coleman. Raoul Walsh shot the film in Fox's experimental 70mm Grandeur process, and the wide frame gives the landscapes and the wagon-train set pieces a scale the standard 35mm version could not match. The film is John Wayne's first leading role, at 23; he plays the kind of plainspoken, decent hero he would spend the rest of his career refining. Tyrone Power Sr., in his final film, plays the villain. The film's widescreen version was little-seen at the time and the picture flopped, but it survives as a landmark of early sound spectacle. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Western · Adventure

Josef von Sternberg's adaptation of Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat follows a respectable schoolteacher, Immanuel Rath, who is undone by his infatuation with Lola Lola, the cabaret singer at the Blue Angel. Emil Jannings plays the professor's descent from authority to humiliation, and Marlene Dietrich, in her breakthrough role, introduces "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)." Von Sternberg's command of light and shadow gives the cabaret scenes a smoky opulence that defined his style. The film made Dietrich an international star and launched her seven-film collaboration with von Sternberg in Hollywood. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Music

Bosko revels on the farm, dancing with a cow, playing a horse's tail like a violin, and getting tipsy with three pigs in this early Looney Tunes short. A Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising-directed cartoon. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

Mickey Mouse is a convict on a chain gang who escapes with the help of a pair of bloodhounds, marking the first appearance of Pluto. A Burt Gillett-directed Mickey Mouse short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

Howard Hawks' World War I aviation drama follows a Royal Flying Corps squadron on the Western Front, where pilots are sent on near-suicidal dawn patrols and the survivors drink to forget. Richard Barthelmess plays Dick Courtney, an ace who chafes under the cautious command of Major Brand (Neil Hamilton); when Courtney is promoted to command the squadron himself, he learns the burden of sending men to their deaths. Hawks, a former flight instructor, flew in the film himself as a German pilot. The aerial sequences, shot by Ernest Haller, were considered state of the art and were later re-edited into the 1938 remake. The film won the Academy Award for Best Story. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama · Action

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, and Frederick Kerr. Written by Frederick Lonsdale and Benjamin Glazer, the film follows spendthrift Willie Hale (Colman), who returns penniless to his family home in London and smooth-talks his father into letting him stay. At the same time, he turns the charm on Dorothy Hope (Young), whose father is big in linoleum and who was about to become engaged to a Russian aristocrat. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, the film features cinematography by George Barnes and Gregg Toland. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

A landmark pre-Code drama about marriage and infidelity, based on Ursula Parrott's 1929 novel Ex-Wife. Norma Shearer plays Jerry, a Manhattan advertising writer who, after learning of her husband Ted's (Chester Morris) affair, decides to even the score with a one-night stand of her own. When Ted cannot forgive her for what he himself committed, the marriage breaks apart and Jerry embarks on a series of affairs, taking what the film calls "a man's point of view." The film's frank treatment of the sexual double standard was controversial at the time, and Shearer won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

The Golf Specialist is a 1930 pre-Code comedy short directed by Monte Brice and starring W.C. Fields, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. Fields plays J. Effingham Bellweather, a golfer at a Florida resort who becomes entangled with a house detective's flirtatious wife while trying to enjoy a round of golf. The short adapts Fields' vaudeville golf routine, showcasing his trademark physical comedy and mumbling asides. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Sports

Ernst Lubitsch's first sound film and the first Hollywood musical to weave songs into the narrative rather than stopping the story for a number. Maurice Chevalier plays a womanizing military attaché recalled to the kingdom of Sylvania, where the young queen (Jeanette MacDonald, in her film debut) decides to marry him. The comedy turns on the marriage of state: the consort chafes at being a decorative husband, and the queen cannot run a kingdom and a romance at the same time. Lubitsch's touch, the innuendo delivered with a wink, is already fully formed. The film earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

A pre-Code crime drama directed by and starring Lowell Sherman, based on the 1927 play Crime by Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer. Sherman plays Gene Fenmore, a gang boss who takes pity on a young couple robbed by one of his thugs (Hugh Trevor) and brings them under his protection. When the resentful thug is killed in a botched robbery, the police focus their investigation on the innocent couple. Marian Nixon co-stars as Nancy. The film entered the public domain in 1958 when its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

Mickey Mouse takes Minnie on a picnic, but their outing is disrupted by a mischievous Pluto making his first animated appearance. A Burt Gillett-directed Mickey Mouse short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

The fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu returns from apparent death to continue his campaign of vengeance against the Petrie family, ensnaring a young woman in his web of poison and hypnotism. Warner Oland reprises his role in this sequel to The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. The 1930 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Drama

An early sound comedy adapted from Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman's 1927 play The Royal Family, a thinly veiled portrait of the Barrymore acting dynasty. Ina Claire plays Julie Cavendish, the grande dame of a Broadway acting family modeled on Ethel Barrymore, and Fredric March plays her brother Tony, a swashbuckling matinee idol in the John Barrymore mold, fleeing a breach-of-promise suit in Hollywood. The film follows the family as each member must choose between the stage and a private life. George Cukor, who would become one of Hollywood's great directors of actors, co-directed with Cyril Gardner. The film was shot at Paramount's Astoria Studios in New York. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Comedy · Drama

An RKO pre-Code adventure drama adapted from Rex Beach's 1909 novel, directed by George Archainbaud. Joel McCrea plays Boyd Emerson, a young man who heads to Alaska to make his fortune in the salmon fisheries and finds himself squeezed between ruthless cannery interests and two very different women — society girl Mildred Wayland (Jean Arthur) and Cherry Malotte (Evelyn Brent), the worldly saloon keeper who truly loves him. Louis Wolheim is memorable as George Balt, the rough-edged fisherman who becomes Boyd's loyal ally. Shot partly on location in Alaska, it was an early talkie showcase for McCrea on his way to stardom. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Adventure · Romance

Lon Chaney's only talkie and his final film. He plays Professor Echo, a ventriloquist who, with a dwarf named Tweedledee (Harry Earles) and a strongman, leaves the circus and opens a pet shop as a front for a crime spree, using Echo's talent for voices to impersonate wealthy clients' servants and case their homes. The plot turns on Echo's jealous love for his assistant Rosie (Lila Lee) and her affection for the innocent shop worker Hector (Elliott Nugent). Chaney, already ill with throat cancer during production, demonstrates the vocal range that made him famous, voicing Echo, the parrot, and the elderly Mrs. O'Grady. He died a month after the film's release. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama · Thriller

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Frank Tuttle for Paramount, starring Clara Bow and Fredric March. Ruby Nolan (Bow) is a counter girl at a San Diego drugstore with a sailor boyfriend on every ship. When the competing sailors try to set her up with ace gunner "Bull's-Eye" McCoy (March), the inevitable happens — but misunderstandings and pride threaten their romance. The screenplay was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who later co-wrote Citizen Kane (1941). The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

René Clair's first sound film and the first French production of the sound era to find an international audience. The film follows a street singer, Albert, and his rival for the affections of a Romanian woman named Pola, through the tenements and alleys of a working-class Paris neighborhood. Clair used sound sparingly, letting long stretches play silent and bringing in music and noise at moments that heighten the image rather than replace it. The opening crane shot down from the rooftops to the street singer, with the title song swelling on the soundtrack, is one of the great entrances of early sound cinema. The film is a defense of silent-film technique at the moment the medium was turning to talk. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Comedy · Musical · Foreign

Two convicts become friends in prison, then compete for the affections of a woman on the outside, in a comedic tale of reform and romance. Directed by John Ford, starring Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart in their feature film debuts and the only film in which they appeared together. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

One of the last and strangest Felix the Cat shorts, directed by Otto Messmer and produced by Pat Sullivan. Felix stays out late on New Year's Eve and gets spectacularly drunk, stumbling home through a surreal nightmare of pink elephants, dancing skeletons, and menacing apparitions before facing the greatest demon of all: his angry wife. Originally a silent film released around 1928, it was reissued by Copley Pictures in 1930 with added sound effects and music. Animation historian John Canemaker called it one of the best Felix films ever made, a final burst of creative energy from a series that would end a few years later. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy

A sequel to Herbert Brenon's 1926 hit Beau Geste, this pre-Code adventure sends an American (Lester Vail) into the French Foreign Legion to rescue his boyhood friend John Geste (Ralph Forbes, reprising his silent role). Filmed on location in the Sonoran Desert and on the RKO lot, the picture adapts P.C. Wren's novel with a Max Steiner score and early all-dialogue location recording. Loretta Young and Irene Rich round out the cast. The film is marked public domain on its Internet Archive item.

Adventure · Romance · War

A capable private secretary holds a struggling executive's business together, only to see him take the credit and the corner office, in a pre-Code workplace drama about the woman behind the man. Mary Astor and Ricardo Cortez star. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

Bosko endures the mud, shells, and absurdities of the First World War trenches, keeping spirits up with music until the bees and bullets prove too much. An early Looney Tunes short directed by Hugh Harman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Bosko joins a fox hunt that goes hilariously wrong as the fox outwits the hounds, the horses, and the hunters themselves. A Looney Tunes short directed by Hugh Harman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

Bela Lugosi's defining role. He plays Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman who leases a ruined abbey in London and begins preying on the city's residents. The film was based on the stage play rather than Stoker's novel directly, which is why the pacing feels theatrical and the dialogue is sparse. Dwight Frye as Renfield is genuinely unhinged. The film was released during the Great Depression and was a box office hit, saving Universal from bankruptcy and launching the Universal monster franchise. Lugosi's interpretation of the Count, with his hypnotic stare and deliberate accent, set the template for every screen Dracula that followed.

Horror · Drama

Piggy and his girlfriend journey to a caricatured minstrel-show "Hallelujah Land" in this early Merrie Melodies short, the final theatrical appearance of the character Piggy. A Rudolf Ising-directed Harman-Ising production. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A spoiled heiress marries a working-class steel man on a whim and sets out to remake him into a society ornament, driving him toward a breaking point. Dorothy Mackaill and Joel McCrea star in this pre-Code class-and-gender drama. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Comedy

Lady, Play Your Mandolin! is a 1931 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising — the first entry in the Merrie Melodies series and Ising's solo directorial debut. Set in a Mexican cantina, the short features a drunken horseman who arrives at a saloon where a beautiful senorita plays the mandolin. The cartoon was intended to promote Warner Bros.' newly acquired music catalog. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Musical · Comedy

The landmark gangster film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Edward G. Robinson in the role that made him a star. Robinson plays Caesar Enrico Bandello, a small-time hood who rises to become a crime boss in the city's underworld, only to be destroyed by his own ambition and the inevitable betrayal of those around him. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. co-stars as his friend Joe Massara, a dancer torn between loyalty and going straight. Alongside The Public Enemy and Scarface, Little Caesar defined the gangster genre in early sound cinema. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A district attorney, hoping to surprise his wife, disguises himself as a woman, just as his wife secretly returns home and a pair of mistaken-identity impostors descend on the house. Edward Everett Horton stars in this farcical pre-Code comedy. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A young woman marries a philanderer, divorces him, and raises their daughter alone while navigating the compromises of love and independence through the Jazz Age and the Depression. Helen Twelvetrees stars with Joan Blondell in this pre-Code adaptation of Donald Henderson Clarke's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

One More Time is a 1931 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger Productions. The short features a police dog character named Foxy (similar to Mickey Mouse) who sings and dances through a musical adventure. The cartoon was part of the early Merrie Melodies series, which Warner Bros. used to promote its music catalog. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Musical · Comedy

A Buster Keaton sound comedy directed by Edward Sedgwick for MGM. Keaton plays Reginald Irving, a hotel clerk who is recruited to impersonate a playboy in order to help a wealthy man convince his girlfriend's disapproving sister that he has a respectable friend. The scheme requires Irving to romance the sister, leading to a series of comic complications across multiple hotel rooms. The film is a bedroom farce in the classic mode, but Keaton's minimal creative control at MGM is evident—the gags are more dialogue-driven than his silent masterpieces, and his physical comedy is constrained by the studio's formula. Still, Keaton's timing and presence elevate the material above the average MGM comedy of the period. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is a 1931 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger Productions. The short features Foxy, an early Mickey Mouse-like character, who rides a streetcar and encounters various musical passengers. The cartoon is notable as one of the earliest Merrie Melodies entries, part of the series that Warner Bros. used to promote songs from their music catalog. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Musical · Comedy

John Barrymore gives one of his great performances as Svengali, the grotesque, mesmeric music teacher who hypnotizes the artists' model Trilby (Marian Marsh) into becoming a famous singer — and destroys himself loving what he created. Adapted from George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby, the novel that gave English the word "svengali" for a manipulative mentor. Directed by Archie Mayo for Warner Bros., with expressionist sets that turn the hypnosis sequences into genuine nightmare imagery. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · Horror

The Bandmaster is a 1931 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon directed by Walter Lantz and Bill Nolan for Walter Lantz Productions, distributed by Universal Pictures. Oswald leads a marching band through a series of musical gags and surreal sight gags, showcasing the Keaton-like physical comedy that characterized the Lantz-era Oswald cartoons. The short features animation by Clyde Geronimi, Manuel Moreno, Ray Abrams, and Tex Avery. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Musical

A star reporter about to leave the newspaper business for marriage is roped back in by his wily editor for one last story, the execution of an anarchist. Lewis Milestone's fast-talking adaptation of the Hecht and MacArthur play defined the newspaper comedy and later inspired His Girl Friday. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Drama

A Poverty Row pre-Code western from M. H. Hoffman Jr.'s Allied Pictures, directed by Otto Brower. Rodeo champion turned cowboy star Hoot Gibson plays William Penn "Peaceful" Patton, a mild-mannered cowhand raised on pacifism who is mistaken for the notorious outlaw known as the Hard Hombre. Trading on the outlaw's fearsome reputation, Peaceful strong-arms a valley of ranchers into a fair division of grazing land — until his mother arrives and exposes the masquerade, and the real Hard Hombre rides in for revenge. Shot around the Vasquez Rocks, the film also carries a quiet piece of screen history: Florence Lawrence, the very first movie star of the silent era, appears in a minor role. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Western

A destitute young woman on the verge of prostitution is hired by a wealthy man to lure his wayward son away from a gold-digger, only for the scheme to entangle all of them. Betty Compson stars in this pre-Code melodrama. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

The 1931 sound reissue of the 1927 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short, re-released by Walter Lantz Productions after Lantz took over the Oswald series from Walt Disney. The original silent cartoon was fitted with a synchronized music and sound effects track to compete with Disney's sound Mickey Mouse cartoons. Oswald the trolley conductor packs his car with passengers, battles a cow on the tracks, uses a goat to climb a hill, and then loses control on the way down. The reissue was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963 and the copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy

The first Van Beuren Tom and Jerry short, a duo of cab drivers not to be confused with MGM's later cat and mouse. On a dark and stormy night, Tom and Jerry drive two mysterious bearded men to a castle, only for the passengers to vanish without paying. The cabbies follow them inside and find themselves in a haunted castle full of skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls. Directed by John Foster and George Stallings, the short is a clear riff on Disney's The Skeleton Dance, with Jim Tyer's animation lending it a looser, weirder energy. The series was later reissued as Dick and Larry to avoid confusion with the MGM characters. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Horror

A Merrie Melodies short directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. A crowd of animals and humans gathers at a carnival, where gags pile up around a merry-go-round, a sideshow, and a fireworks finale. The title song, like all early Merrie Melodies, is the real point of the cartoon, with the animation built around showcasing the tune. The short is a time capsule of early sound animation, made when Warner Bros. was still finding its footing in the cartoon business. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's World War I novel. Gary Cooper plays an American ambulance driver on the Italian front who falls in love with an English nurse, played by Helen Hayes in her screen debut. The romance unfolds against retreats, bombardments, and a hospital in Switzerland. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · War

Wealthy, universally disliked Silas Wayne gathers his greedy relatives and mistreated servants to read them his will, and is stabbed to death in front of a room full of witnesses who all claim to have seen nothing. Detective Sergeant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) and wisecracking reporter "Nosey" Toodles (June Clyde) sort through a house full of suspects — a shrouded figure stalking the halls, a phony diamond in the safe, and a second body before the night is out. Lucille La Verne steals scenes as the dead man's housekeeper. Released by Monogram in November 1932 and reissued under the title The Wayne Murder Case, it is a brisk pre-Code old-dark-house mystery. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

Battling Bosko is a 1932 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Hugh Harman for Harman-Ising Productions, distributed by Warner Bros. Bosko tries his hand at boxing, with the usual slapstick results. The short is part of the early Looney Tunes series featuring Bosko, the first recurring character of the franchise. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

A young American sailor falls for a Polynesian princess on a South Seas island, ignoring warnings that she is destined to be sacrificed to a volcano god. Dolores del Río and Joel McCrea star in King Vidor's pre-Code romance, filmed on location in Hawaii. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · Drama

Bosko and Honey enjoy a day at the zoo until the animals break loose and chase them through the park in a barrage of gags. An early Looney Tunes short directed by Hugh Harman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

A college freshman goat arrives on campus and becomes the life of the party, leading a musical parade through a surreal academic world. A Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A Merrie Melodies short directed by Rudolf Ising, and the first appearance of Goopy Geer, a tall, lanky piano-playing dog who entertains patrons at a nightclub. The cartoon is built around the Herman Hupfeld title song, with gags involving a gorilla waiter, a drunk horse seeing hallucinations in a mirror, and a chicken swimming in soup before it is served. Goopy Geer appeared in only three shorts before fading into obscurity, but the character remains a charming artifact of the early Merrie Melodies era when each cartoon was built around a song. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Music

A circus parade springs to life with a procession of animals and performers, building to a series of musical sight gags. A Rudolf Ising-directed Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A band of mice throws a jazz party in a writer's office at night, until the family cat crashes the celebration. A Rudolf Ising-directed Merrie Melodies short that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

Making Good is a 1932 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon directed by Walter Lantz and Bill Nolan for Universal Pictures. It is the 57th Oswald cartoon produced by Lantz's studio and the 110th overall. The short features Oswald in a series of gags and adventures. The film had an original copyright notice but was not renewed, placing it in the public domain. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

Douglas Fairbanks's final starring film sends the great swashbuckler out on a high note. Yachting playboy Steve Drexel accepts a bet that he can't survive alone on a deserted South Seas island with nothing but his dog — then proceeds to build a radio, a waterslide, and an elegant treetop penthouse out of salvaged wreckage and sheer ingenuity. When a fleeing dancer (Maria Alba) washes ashore and is dubbed "Saturday," the wager becomes a romance. Made when Fairbanks was nearing fifty, the film still showcases the effortless athletic charm that defined silent-era adventure, now with sound-era wisecracks. Released through United Artists, the company he co-founded, its copyright was not renewed. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Comedy · Romance

Pagan Moon is a 1932 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising for Harman-Ising Productions and Leon Schlesinger. The seventh entry in the Merrie Melodies series, the short features a tropical island setting with musical numbers and animated performances. As a 1932 work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Musical · Comedy

A hard-living prostitute stranded by a quarantine on a South Seas island clashes with a self-righteous missionary determined to reform her, with tragic consequences for both. Joan Crawford and Walter Huston star in Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Somerset Maugham's story. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama

A Buster Keaton sound comedy directed by Edward Sedgwick for MGM, co-starring Jimmy Durante and Thelma Todd. Keaton plays a sheltered professor who inherits a fortune and, believing he has only months to live, joins a traveling musical show to experience life. Durante plays the show's manager, and Todd is the performer who catches the professor's eye. The film pairs Keaton's deadpan physical comedy with Durante's manic energy, an MGM attempt to replicate the comedy-duo formula. While Keaton's creative control was limited under MGM, the film features some fine physical sequences and the contrast between the two comedians' styles is genuinely funny. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A 1932 American mystery film directed by Frank R. Strayer. When a plane makes an emergency landing during a storm, the passengers take refuge in a deserted house—only to discover that one of them is a killer. After a man is murdered and diamonds stolen, everyone becomes a suspect in this "old dark house" whodunit. The film stars Gene Morgan, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, and Vera Reynolds, and was distributed by Mayfair Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

A publisher torn between a free-spirited artist and a manipulative socialite must choose which woman truly understands him. Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, and Myrna Loy star in this pre-Code adaptation of Philip Barry's play, produced by David O. Selznick. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Comedy

A W.C. Fields comedy short directed by Leslie Pearce for Paramount. Fields plays Dr. Painless Peters, a dentist whose methods are anything but painless. The film is a series of escalating comic set pieces as Fields torments his patients, argues with his daughter's suitor, and pursues a golf game with characteristic misanthropy. The dental gags are both horrifying and hilarious, with Fields wielding oversized pliers and extracting teeth from the wrong patients. The film showcases Fields' genius for combining physical comedy with verbal wit, and his persona as the bumbling, irritable professional would become a template for much of his later work. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Short

A Pre-Code comedy directed by Lowell Sherman, produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Three Broadway showgirls—Schatzi (Joan Blondell), Jean (Madge Evans), and Teddy (Ina Claire)—share an apartment and a talent for extracting gifts from wealthy men. When Teddy announces her engagement to a respectable businessman, the other two try to sabotage the wedding, each scheming to land a rich husband of her own. The film's frank depiction of gold-digging and sexual maneuvering is pure Pre-Code Hollywood, and the three leads sparkle with wit and chemistry. The film was later remade as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Pre-Code

Chapter one, "The Wrecker," of the twelve-chapter Mascot serial. Pilot Larry Baker hunts the masked saboteur called the Wrecker, who caused the train crash that killed his father and now threatens the Hurricane Express. John Wayne stars in this early sound cliffhanger. The serial entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Action · Adventure · Crime

Preston Foster plays "Killer" Mears, a condemned man leading a death-row breakout in this adaptation of the Broadway prison play that made stars of its stage leads. The escape attempt goes wrong in stages — a hostage guard, a machine gun turned on the tier — and the film's final act is essentially one long, escalating riot. An early talkie prison drama from Sono Art-World Wide that set the template for every death-row picture that followed. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A Pre-Code "old dark house" horror film directed by Frank R. Strayer. Dr. Ted Clayton (Rex Lease) accompanies his fiancee Ruth (Vera Reynolds) to her father's remote mansion, where they find a household of sinister characters, including the creepy servant Hanns Krug (Mischa Auer). When Ruth's father dies mysteriously, a series of terrifying events unfold in the darkened corridors. The film follows the familiar formula of the era: a group of people trapped in a creepy house at night, with something lurking in the shadows. Made on a minimal budget by Action Pictures, it was later re-released in 1938 by Astor Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Horror

The original screen adaptation of Richard Connell's 1924 short story, directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack for RKO. Famed big game hunter Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) is shipwrecked on a remote island ruled by the urbane Russian Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks), who has grown bored with stalking animals and now hunts the shipwrecked sailors who wash ashore. Zaroff offers Rainsford a deal: survive three days as prey in the jungle, and he goes free. Fay Wray, fresh off King Kong (shot on the same RKO jungle sets), plays a fellow captive. The film's influence on the survival-horror genre is immeasurable, and its central premise has been remade and riffed on endlessly. The film is in the public domain.

Adventure · Horror · Thriller

Ken Maynard rides into Tombstone Canyon looking for the man who murdered his father and finds the valley terrorized by a masked killer called the Phantom, who strikes from a cave hideout with a scream that echoes off the rocks. A prototype of the "weird western" — half horse opera, half old-dark-house mystery — the film leans on Maynard's stunt riding and a genuinely spooky masked villain. Made for Tiffany Pictures near the end of that studio's run. The film is in the public domain.

Western · Mystery

Often cited as the first feature-length zombie film, White Zombie stars Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, a Haitian voodoo master who runs a sugar mill worked by the walking dead. A young couple arrives in Haiti to marry at the estate of a wealthy acquaintance, who turns to Legendre to zombify the bride so he can have her for himself. The film predates the flesh-eating zombie of George Romero by decades; its zombies are enslaved laborers, drawn from the same folklore that fascinated 1930s audiences. Lugosi, fresh off Dracula, carries the picture with his hypnotic stare. Made independently for around fifty thousand dollars, it was a surprise hit and the only real success for the Halperin brothers. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Horror

The first great disaster movie. When unexplained earthquakes unleash a catastrophic storm and tidal wave that obliterates New York City — footage later recycled into serials and films for decades — lawyer Martin Webster (Sidney Blackmer) is separated from his family and left to survive in the ruins. On a devastated coast he meets swimmer Claire Arlington (Peggy Shannon), and the two must contend with looters and lawless survivors in a Hobbesian world. Produced by RKO and directed by Felix E. Feist, its miniature work and destruction sequences were astonishing for 1933. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Sci-Fi · Drama

A pre-Code RKO comedy spun from the era's divorce scandals. Lawyer Chester Hamilton (Sidney Blackmer) keeps his practice afloat by hiring a professional "co-respondent" — the glamorous Phyllis Van Kamp (Verree Teasdale) — to pose as the other woman in divorce cases. When Oswald Groggs (Charles Ruggles), a hapless real-estate clerk down to his last dollars, gets tangled in the scheme, mistaken identities and double-crosses pile up fast. Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and built for pure speed, it is a tidy example of the studio's pre-Code programmers — risqué, cynical, and over in an hour. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Romance

One of the Zane Grey westerns Henry Hathaway directed for Paramount in the early 1930s, back when Randolph Scott was still playing B-leads in buckskin. Scott is Dale, a mountain man who overhears saloonkeeper Beasley's scheme to grab a rancher's land and kidnap his daughter — so Dale kidnaps her first, dragging the enraged but safe heiress (Verna Hillie) into the hills while he untangles the plot. Harry Carey steals scenes as a philosophical crook. Handsomely shot around Big Bear and considerably better made than the poverty-row oaters of the same year. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Western · Action

The earliest sound adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel, made on a shoestring by Poverty Row studio Monogram. Young Dickie Moore plays the workhouse orphan who falls in with Fagin's gang of boy pickpockets, with Irving Pichel as Fagin and William "Stage" Boyd as the brutal Bill Sikes. Stripped to the bare bones of the story by its tight budget, the film nevertheless preserves the novel's core scenes and was the only talking-picture Oliver Twist for more than a decade. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A newspaper man frames a man's final year in flashback: convicted of a murder he insists was a frame-up, he is paroled into the custody of a crusading reporter who intends to prove his innocence, with the dead man's own wife falling for the prisoner along the way. Russell Hopton and Mary Brian star in this Allied Pictures drama, produced by M.H. Hoffman and directed by silent-era veteran E. Mason Hopper. It is a depression-era crime story in which the real antagonist is the machinery of justice itself. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A government agent posing as a singing cowboy arrives in a valley where a land baron is monopolizing the water supply to force out the homesteaders. John Wayne's first Lone Star western and one of his rare singing-cowboy roles. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

An innocent man escapes from prison and heads west to find the real killer, joining up with an outlaw gang to get close to his quarry. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A carnival boxer (John Darrow) falls for a nightclub girl (Merna Kennedy) who is mixed up with a gangster, and tries to fight his way out — literally, in a fixed fight he is paid to throw. Mickey Rooney, thirteen and billed as Mickey McGuire, turns up in a supporting role on the way to stardom, and J. Carrol Naish plays the heavy. A typical poverty-row crime melodrama of 1933, it is worth watching mainly for Rooney and for the seedy carnival atmosphere Albert Herman shoots on real midway locations. Released the same year as King Kong and Forty-Second Street, this is what the other half of Hollywood was making. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A Pullman porter who escapes from prison makes his way to a Caribbean island and, through bluff and bravado, talks and fights his way to becoming its emperor, until his regime begins to crumble. Paul Robeson repeats his stage role in this adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama

Often called the first British horror film of the sound era, The Ghoul stars Boris Karloff as Professor Morlant, a dying Egyptologist who demands to be buried with a sacred jewel he believes will grant him eternal life. When the gem is stolen from his tomb, Morlant rises from the grave to reclaim it, stalking the heirs and hangers-on who have gathered at his gloomy estate. The cast is a remarkable roll of British talent: Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, Dorothy Hyson, and Ralph Richardson in his feature film debut. Produced by Michael Balcon for Gaumont-British and directed by T. Hayes Hunter, the film was considered lost for decades until a print surfaced in the 1980s. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Horror

William Powell's fourth and final outing as S.S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. A Long Island dog-show society gathering ends in a locked-room murder when the universally disliked Archer Coe is found dead — apparently by suicide, except for the bullet in his head and the corpse of his dog found in a closet. Vance unpicks a tangle of rivalries, inheritances, and championship terriers. Directed at speed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros., it's widely considered the best of the Philo Vance pictures and one of the cleverest whodunits of the pre-Code era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Cubby Bear, a mail carrier in a Gold Rush-era frontier town, braves the wilderness to deliver the last mail, racing against time and a villainous raccoon. A Mannie Davis-directed Van Beuren Aesop's Fables short featuring Cubby Bear. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Western

A radio-era whodunit from Monogram. Crooner Norman Wilder (Ralph Forbes) is the most popular voice on the air — but the voice isn't his: he has been secretly lip-syncing to a blacklisted singer, the "phantom" of the broadcast. When Wilder is shot dead mid-performance, detectives and rival singers pile into a case where everyone in the station had a motive and nobody is who they claim to be. Phil Rosen, one of Poverty Row's most prolific directors, keeps the mystery brisk. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Music

A Poverty Row oddity and proto-noir, this pre-Code melodrama opens with twenty-one-year-old Nora Moran (Zita Johann, fresh from *The Mummy*) in the death house — the first woman executed in twenty years — then unwinds her life in a dreamlike spiral of flashbacks, narrated fragments, and memories within memories. Orphaned, assaulted, and passed between a traveling circus and a married governor, Nora goes to the electric chair for a murder she did not commit, making the film a surprisingly bleak argument against capital punishment. Its fractured structure anticipated noir techniques by a decade, and Alberto Vargas's poster art became more famous than the picture itself. Majestic Pictures collapsed soon after and the film's copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama · Noir

A string of murders has witnesses giving identical descriptions of a man seen leaving each scene — Jerome Breen, a wealthy philanthropist who has been deaf and mute since birth and could not possibly have been overheard. Lionel Atwill plays Breen in a Monogram old-dark-house mystery directed by Phil Rosen, with Sheila Terry as the reporter convinced there is more to the suspect than his affliction suggests, and Paul Hurst as the detective working the case. The solution, when it comes, is a genuinely nasty piece of pre-Code plotting. Made the same year Atwill headlined Mystery of the Wax Museum, it shows why he was the era's go-to man for quiet menace. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

When corpses drained of blood begin appearing in a small European village, the townspeople suspect a vampire. The local police chief doubts it, but the village doctor insists the supernatural is real, and suspicion falls on a simple-minded young man who keeps bats as pets. The Vampire Bat is an early sound horror film made to cash in on the success of Dracula and Frankenstein, and it borrows freely from both. It stars Lionel Atwill as the doctor, Fay Wray as his assistant, Melvyn Douglas as the skeptical policeman, and Dwight Frye, fresh off Renfield in Dracula, as the accused simpleton. The film is in the public domain because it was published without a proper copyright notice.

Horror

A district attorney who uncovered a utilities price-fixing racket is murdered before he can present his evidence, and his successor (Pat O'Brien) picks up the case with a fast-talking reporter (Neil Hamilton) while the killers work through everyone connected to the grand jury. Evelyn Brent plays the dead man's mistress, who knows where the evidence is hidden. Made at Majestic Pictures during the pre-Code window, it moves quickly and lets O'Brien do the cocky, irritable thing he did best, with J. Carrol Naish among the heavies. Released in April 1933, weeks before the studios began enforcing the Production Code. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Mystery

A federal marshal working undercover as a drifter arrives in a town being terrorized by a gang led by a respectable citizen who is secretly hoarding gold and driving out the ranchers. John Wayne stars in one of his early Lone Star westerns. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A musical comedy short directed by Leigh Jason, featuring Ethel Waters as a Harlem woman who works tirelessly to feed and clean up after her lazy husband and his numerous relatives who have taken over her apartment. The film includes musical performances by Waters and the Southernaires quartet. As a work published between 1930 and 1963 whose copyright was not renewed, the film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Music

William Cagney — James's younger brother, in his only starring role — plays Bob Mason, a carefree socialite who poses as a detective to impress a girl and promptly gets himself suspected of a real murder. With the police on one side and the actual killer on the other, Bob has to solve the case to clear his own name, helped along by Marion Burns as the girl he is trying to win. A poverty-row quickie from Monogram directed by silent-comedy veteran Vin Moore, it coasts on Cagney's easy charm and a plot that never sits still for its sixty-odd minutes. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery

A Van Beuren Aesop's Fables short directed by Vernon Stallings, featuring Cubby Bear as Robin Hood. Cubby swoops in to rescue a princess from an arranged marriage to a sheriff whose face, she observes, looks like a cellar door. The cartoon spoofs the Robin Hood legend with a Friar performing the wedding, a parrot providing comic commentary, and a musical medley of original tunes about the days of Robin Hood. Released February 23, 1934, the short is one of the later Cubby Bear cartoons as the character's career wound down ahead of Van Beuren's shift to color Rainbow Parade films. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Adventure

Betty Boop and Koko the Clown are overcome by contagious laughter when a mysterious laughing gas fills their apartment, sending everything in the room into hysterics. A Dave Fleischer-directed Fleischer Studios short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A Monogram aviation melodrama built around the era's fascination with record-breaking balloon ascents. Army pilots Tom "Soapy" Cooper (William Cagney, James's brother) and Richard "Woody" Wood (Edward J. Nugent) are inseparable in the air but rivals on the ground, both courting Evelyn Worthington (June Collyer), daughter of their commanding officer. When a high-altitude balloon mission goes wrong, the feud must give way to survival miles above the earth. Typical of Monogram's brisk B-pictures, it pads its stock footage with pre-Code barracks banter and a genuinely tense stratospheric climax. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Drama · Romance

A vaudeville impersonator is hired by a mad scientist to assist in his experiments, then kills him and takes his place, slowly losing his own mind as he poses as the doctor. Dwain Esper's lurid 1934 exploitation film splices in medical footage and cribbed text from a psychiatry textbook. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror

A 1934 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by William Nigh and based on an Edgar Wallace story. Captain Holling (Noah Beery) is relieved of command of his ship after suffering a nervous breakdown. His replacement takes over the liner just as it is about to be used for an experiment in remote control. Professor Grimson has devised a system for controlling the ship from a land-based laboratory, but as Grimson demonstrates the system, a rival group is listening in, hoping to use the device for its own purposes. The film was entered as a feature attraction at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the forerunner of the Venice Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A sensitive, clubfooted medical student abandons his artistic ambitions in Paris to study in London, where he becomes destructively obsessed with a cold, cruel waitress who has no feeling for him. Leslie Howard and a breakout Bette Davis star in this adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

King Vidor self-financed this Depression-era drama as a spiritual sequel to *The Crowd*, again following an ordinary young couple — John and Mary Sims (Tom Keene and Karen Morley) — crushed by unemployment. Given a failing farm, they gather a community of displaced tradesmen and try to run it as a cooperative, pooling skills to bring in one last crop. The climax, in which the whole settlement digs a miles-long irrigation ditch in a single night to save the fields, is one of the great sequences of early American cinema — pure rhythmic montage. Made outside the studio system and released through United Artists, the film's copyright was never renewed. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance

Pastry Town Wedding is a 1934 animated short from the Van Beuren Corporation's Rainbow Parade series, co-directed by Burt Gillett and Ted Eshbaugh and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The first entry in the Rainbow Parade series, it is set in a fantastical world made entirely of pastries where a young couple's wedding is celebrated by pastry chefs. The short was the first Van Beuren cartoon produced in two-strip Cinecolor. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Fantasy

Jackie Cooper plays Bill Peck, the mischief-making boy of George W. Peck's stories, whose pranks and misadventures keep landing him in trouble just as his father (Thomas Meighan) is running for mayor. When Bill's well-meaning meddling threatens to torpedo the campaign, he has to set things right the hard way. Directed by Edward F. Cline — a veteran of the Keaton shorts — for Sol Lesser Productions. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Family

Poor Cinderella is a 1934 animated short from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was the first color cartoon in the Betty Boop series, produced in two-strip Cinecolor. Betty Boop stars as Cinderella in this retelling of the classic fairy tale, with the Fleischers' signature surreal animation style and musical numbers. The short was a departure from Betty's usual urban, adult-oriented comedies. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Fantasy · Musical

A drifter rides into a town where everyone has been massacred and is promptly framed for the killings by the real culprit, a bandit hiding out in a secret lair. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A young easterner heads west to partner with an old family friend on his ranch, and the two strike gold, only to be targeted by a crooked assayer who wants the claim for himself. John Wayne stars with George Hayes in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A drifting cowhand stumbles onto a racket in which a gang cripples rodeo riders to fix the betting, and sets out to bring them down. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western that also features him singing. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The parrots of Parrotville spring into action when a fire breaks out, manning their rickety fire engine with predictably chaotic results. A Burt Gillett-directed Van Beuren Rainbow Parade cartoon. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

The first sound adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, produced on a Poverty Row budget by Larry Darmour. Former flapper star Colleen Moore plays the Puritan Hester Prynne, branded for bearing a child out of wedlock, with Hardie Albright as the minister who hides his guilt and Henry B. Walthall as her vengeful husband. The production reused sets and players from Victor Seastrom's 1926 silent version, and Walthall repeated his Chillingworth role. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A U.S. marshal and his Native American sidekick hunt a mysterious outlaw known only as the Shadow, who has been terrorizing the frontier. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A 1934 Universal science fiction serial directed by Lew Landers, spanning 12 chapters. Stanley Stanfield (Onslow Stevens) invents the Vanishing Ray, a wearable device that renders the user invisible — though his shadow remains visible. He seeks the help of Professor Carl Van Dorn to eliminate this side effect, but his plans to finance the invention by selling inherited bonds bring him into conflict with Wade Barnett (Walter Miller), the corrupt businessman who hounded Stanley's father to his death. When a struggle at the stockbroker's office ends in accidental death, Stanley is accused of murder and must use his invisibility device to clear his name and expose Barnett. The serial features what is believed to be the first appearance of a hand-held ray gun in film, along with robots and a "Destroying Ray." Added as the full 12-chapter serial (Chapter 1: "Accused of Murder").

Sci-Fi · Action · Adventure

A man posing as a ranch hand searches for the outlaw who killed his father and kidnapped his younger brother years before. John Wayne stars in one of the better-regarded Lone Star westerns. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A social-climbing governess in early nineteenth-century England schemes her way through the Napoleonic era, leaving a trail of broken men in her wake. Miriam Hopkins stars in this adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the first feature film shot entirely in three-strip Technicolor. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · History

Making Stars is a 1935 Betty Boop cartoon from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Betty Boop introduces a troupe of child performers who take the stage in a series of musical and comedy numbers. The short features the distinctive Fleischer animation style and Betty's trademark charm. The film is in the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Animation · Comedy · Musical

A professor perfects a working television system and invites investors to a demonstration, only to die on camera when a mysterious ray intercuts the broadcast. Bela Lugosi plays a dual role — the professor's loyal assistant and a sinister European interloper — in a whodunit where the murder weapon is the new technology itself. Shot in 1935, when television was still laboratory speculation, the film treats live broadcast as exotic enough to carry a thriller. June Collyer plays the professor's daughter caught between suspects. Made by poverty-row outfit Cameo Pictures, it entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Thriller · Sci-Fi

The first feature-length sound adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, directed by Henry Edwards for Twickenham Film Studios. Seymour Hicks, who had played Scrooge on stage since 1901 and in a 1913 silent film, reprises the role as the Victorian miser visited on Christmas Eve by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. The production relies on atmosphere and Hicks's seasoned performance rather than elaborate effects, and the spirits are partly conveyed as voices and outlines. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Fantasy

A Depression-era family drama built around music. Aging concert violinist Adolph Greig (Al Shean, of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean) has sacrificed everything for his art; his son (John Darrow) distrusts him and keeps his own boy from the old man, while Paula (Evelyn Brent) — once Adolph's pupil — is torn between the two generations. Directed by Poverty Row workhorse Frank R. Strayer for Invincible Pictures, it is a sentimental studio B-feature redeemed by its musical sequences and Shean's warm performance. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Music

John Wayne plays Sheriff John Higgins, who resigns in disgrace after believing he has killed his own best friend in a shootout, and takes to the desert as a prospecting recluse. When his dead friend's sister Bess (Lucile Browne) arrives to run the ranch and is targeted by the real killer, Higgins is pulled back into the fight to clear his conscience. One of the sixteen Lone Star westerns Wayne made for Monogram in the mid-1930s under director Robert N. Bradbury, all shot fast and cheap around Lone Pine and all built around Wayne's still-forming screen persona — the easy drawl, the moral guilt, the horsemanship that would carry him to Stagecoach four years later. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Western

Felix the Cat seeks shelter in a castle whose boisterous king boasts endlessly of his courage, until the ghosts of those he wronged rise to teach him humility. A Van Beuren Technicolor Felix cartoon directed by Burt Gillett. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

Warner Oland's tenth outing as Charlie Chan sends the detective to a San Francisco mansion where Allen Colby, the heir to the Lowell fortune, has returned after being presumed drowned for seven years — and is murdered at a séance before he can reclaim a cent. Chan sifts through a household of psychics, suspicious relatives, and a butler who knows more than he says, while the killer keeps striking. Henrietta Crosman and Rosina Lawrence co-star, with Jonathan Hale as the police chief. Directed by Gordon Wiles, it is one of the more atmospheric of the Fox Chan pictures, leaning hard into spiritualism and old-dark-house menace. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

On Christmas morning an orphanage full of glum children finds their cheap toys breaking one by one, until a kindly inventor wanders in and conjures wonderful new playthings from his bag of tricks. A Fleischer Color Classics holiday short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

A Johnny Mack Brown western from Supreme Pictures, one of the smallest of the poverty-row studios. Brown plays Billy Donovan, a drifter who rides into a valley looking for the man who murdered his sister and hires on at the Halloran ranch, where a masked night rider the locals call the Phantom has been picking off anyone who gets too close to a stolen fortune. Directed by S. Roy Luby, who cut his teeth editing B-westerns before moving into the director's chair. The phantom-rider gimmick gives it a whiff of the era's "weird western" cycle — more mystery than shootout. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Western

The Three Stooges are called as witnesses at a murder trial and proceed to wreck the courtroom with their chaos, accidentally helping to expose the real killer. One of the four Columbia Stooge shorts that fell into the public domain, and among the best-loved. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A crime film starring James Cagney and directed by John G. Blystone, produced for Grand National Pictures after Cagney's departure from Warner Bros. Cagney plays Johnny Cave, a pugnacious new inspector for the New York Department of Weights and Measures who takes on corrupt merchants and the political machine behind them. Mae Clarke, his co-star from The Public Enemy, plays his love interest. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Dwain Esper's answer to Reefer Madness, billed on release as "Marihuana: The Weed with Roots in Hell." High schooler Burma Roberts (Harley Wood) falls in with a slick dealer whose beach-house parties lead to skinny-dipping, a drowning, a pregnancy, and eventually a kidnapping plot — all blamed on the demon weed. Like Esper's Maniac and Reefer Madness, it was an "adults only" roadshow picture sold on sensation rather than accuracy, and today it plays as a prime artifact of 1930s exploitation cinema. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Crime

Two sisters from a wealthy family are competing in a scavenger hunt and one of the items is a "forgotten man," a homeless person from the Depression. Irene finds Godfrey at a dump by the river and brings him to the party, then hires him as the family butler. Godfrey turns out to be more capable and more decent than anyone in the household, and he quietly puts the family's chaos in order while Irene falls for him. William Powell and Carole Lombard had been married and divorced before the film was made, and their ease with each other shows in the dialogue. The film is one of the defining screwball comedies, with a sharp script that lets the rich look ridiculous without being cruel. It was the first film to be nominated in all four acting categories at the Academy Awards. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

Neptune Nonsense is a 1936 Popeye cartoon from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Popeye's pet goldfish appears lonely, prompting Popeye to venture underwater to find a companion, where he encounters Neptune and various sea creatures. The short features the distinctive Fleischer Studios animation style and surreal underwater transformations. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

The best-known film of the British documentary movement, made by the GPO Film Unit to celebrate the postal special that carried letters overnight from London to Scotland. The first two-thirds are lucid observation — mail bags sorted at speed, trackside apparatus snatching pouches without stopping — and the finale is the famous experiment: W. H. Auden's verse written to match the train's rhythm over Benjamin Britten's score, accelerating as the mail crosses the border. A film about sorting letters that became a small masterpiece. The film is in the public domain.

Documentary · Short

Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy land on an island ruled by the boastful Sindbad and his menagerie of giant beasts, and Popeye must square off against Sindbad and his two-headed giant. The first of the Fleischer Studios' two-reel Popeye color specials, made in Stereoptical 3D. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

A propaganda film depicting the supposed horrors of marijuana, in which a few puffs lead straight to hit-and-run, manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, and madness. Originally financed as an exploitation picture under the title Tell Your Children, it was rediscovered in the 1970s and became a counterculture favorite. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Crime

The Halperin brothers' follow-up to their cult hit White Zombie — loosely, since this one's set in post-WWI Cambodia and has no Lugosi. An expedition hunts for the lost Angkor secret that once let priests raise armies of the dead, and Count Mazovia (Roy D'Arcy, doing his best zombie-hypnotist glare) gets to it first, turning the local population into an undead work force. Dean Jagger, in one of his earliest leads, plays the expedition's psychic officer. Slow even by mid-thirties horror standards, but the premise — zombies as a weapon of war — was decades ahead of its time. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Horror

A Johnny Mack Brown western from Supreme Pictures. Government agent Dan Doran rides into a lawless territory to break up a gang that has been running off homesteaders and rustling stock, but is himself framed for a stagecoach robbery by the real outlaw chief, Lige Branscomb. Posing as an outlaw to infiltrate the gang, Doran has to clear his name from inside the hideout — with the help of Stella (Lois January), who knows more about the operation than she lets on. Directed by S. Roy Luby, a veteran cutter who became one of Poverty Row's most reliable western directors. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Western

Alfred Hitchcock's loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Sylvia Sidney plays Winnie Verloc, wife of a London cinema owner (Oskar Homolka) who is secretly part of a gang of saboteurs, while Scotland Yard detective Ted Spencer (John Loder) watches the family from the shop next door. The film is infamous for its bus sequence, in which a bomb is carried through London by someone who doesn't know what they're carrying — a set piece Hitchcock later said he regretted for violating his own rule of suspense over shock. Released in the US in 1937 as The Woman Alone. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Drama

A 1936 British romantic comedy directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Cary Grant, originally titled The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss and released in the U.S. as The Amazing Adventure. Based on the 1919 novel The Curious Quest by E. Phillips Oppenheim, the film follows a bored, idle millionaire (Grant) who bets his doctor 50,000 pounds that he can survive for a year supporting himself solely on what he earns, without touching his inherited fortune. The film was edited down from 80 minutes (UK) to 62 minutes (US) for its American release. As a non-U.S. film that was not under copyright in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, it was not eligible for GATT restoration and is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance

A Chesterfield old-dark-house mystery directed by Charles Lamont. Two brothers, eccentric misers feared and hated by everyone in their household, have made a habit of threatening to cut off their heirs — so when one of them is murdered at midnight during a thunderstorm, nearly everyone is a suspect. Retired detective Jim Landis (Ray Walker) must sort out which heir pulled the trigger while reporter Elsa Carson (Irene Ware) gets in the way. Hedda Hopper, a year away from becoming Hollywood's most feared gossip columnist, appears as one of the scheming relatives. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Comedy

Felix the Cat rescues a goose that lays golden eggs from a greedy farmer who wants to exploit her, in this Van Beuren Rainbow Parade cartoon. A Burt Gillett-directed short featuring Felix in his brief 1930s color revival. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

A mystery film directed by Ralph Staub for Republic Pictures, loosely based on the Ellery Queen novel The Chinese Orange Mystery. Eddie Quillan plays Ellery Queen, a mystery writer and amateur detective who investigates the theft of a rare Chinese Mandarin stamp from a Manhattan hotel and the murders that follow. Charlotte Henry co-stars as Josephine Temple, the stamp's owner who becomes a suspect. The film also features Franklin Pangborn as the hotel's hysterical manager. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

The first major documentary produced by the U.S. government, made by Pare Lorentz for the Resettlement Administration to explain the Dust Bowl. It traces how homesteaders broke the Great Plains' grass for wheat, how wartime demand and mechanized plowing stripped the land bare, and how drought turned the topsoil into black blizzards that buried farms. Virgil Thomson's score, built from American folk tunes, set a template for documentary music. Congress promptly killed the agency's film program, but the film proved government could make real cinema. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain.

Documentary · Short

A 1936 American murder mystery directed by Robert F. Hill and produced by Sam Katzman. A young couple, Jimmy Kelly (Wallace Ford) and Marjorie Burns (Barbara Pepper), arrive at the Red Rock Tavern seeking to marry, only to find themselves trapped with a group of suspicious guests when a killer begins picking off the occupants one by one. As the body count rises and the phone lines are cut, Jimmy—a detective himself—must unmask the murderer among the stranded travelers. The film co-stars Joan Woodbury and Clara Kimball Young and was released by Puritan Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

A 1936 British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda, directed by William Cameron Menzies, and written by H.G. Wells from his own novel The Shape of Things to Come. A landmark in production design, the film spans a century of future history: beginning on Christmas 1940 in Everytown as world war erupts, it follows decades of conflict, plague, and social collapse until a rationalist state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel. Raymond Massey stars as the visionary John Cabal, with Ralph Richardson as "The Boss," a Mussolini-like warlord who seizes power in the post-apocalyptic ruins. England's first million-dollar picture, the film features groundbreaking special effects and monumental sets. Ralph Richardson modelled his character explicitly on Mussolini, who responded by banning the film in Italy.

Sci-Fi · Drama

Underground gnomes must wake Old Man Winter and coax Spring to arrive, painting the landscape with flowers and greenery in a vibrant Technicolor musical. A Happy Harmonies short and the directorial debut of William Hanna, co-directed with Paul Fennell. One of only three MGM cartoons in the public domain. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

A 1937 American Technicolor drama film produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman, starring Janet Gaynor as an aspiring Hollywood actress and Fredric March as a fading movie star who helps launch her career. The screenplay was written by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. At the 10th Academy Awards, it became the very first color film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it received an honorary award for cinematographer W. Howard Greene. The film was remade in 1954 (with Judy Garland) and 1976 (with Barbra Streisand) and 2018 (with Lady Gaga). The supporting cast features Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, and Owen Moore. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Drama · Romance

Federal agent Alan O'Connor (Conrad Nagel) goes undercover to crack a gang pulling a string of small-town bank robberies, only to discover his sister (Eleanor Hunt) has unknowingly become engaged to the gang's smooth-talking ringleader. Directed by Louis J. Gasnier — the man behind Reefer Madness — for Grand National Pictures, it's a brisk G-man B-picture from the era when J. Edgar Hoover's bureau was Hollywood's favorite source of heroes. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Stockholm, 1918: a French spy running a high-fashion dress shop, played by Vivien Leigh, falls for the German counterintelligence chief assigned to catch her, played by Conrad Veidt. Both know what the other is; neither can quite stop. Victor Saville directs the London Films production as an elegant cat-and-mouse romance where every ballroom scene doubles as tradecraft. Leigh, on the verge of Gone with the Wind, and Veidt, the great German exile who had played Cesare in Caligari, make an improbably magnetic pair, and the neutral Swedish setting lets the film keep its sympathies ambiguous. It is in the public domain in the United States.

War · Romance · Thriller

An all-Black gangster film produced by and co-directed with its star Ralph Cooper, Dark Manhattan reimagines the Hollywood gangster picture through a Black gaze. Cooper plays Curly Thorpe, a ruthless numbers racketeer who rises to power in Harlem by pushing aside mob boss Larry Lee (Clarence Brooks), only to face betrayal and violence as he pursues nightclub singer Flo Gray (Cleo Herndon). Produced by Randol-Cooper Productions for Black audiences, the film emphasizes interpersonal conflict and betrayal over the spectacle of violence that characterized mainstream gangster films of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Chapter one, "The Spider Strikes," of the 15-chapter Republic serial. Plainclothes detective Dick Tracy hunts the masked criminal mastermind known as the Spider, who has kidnapped his brother and threatened the city. Ralph Byrd stars as Chester Gould's square-jawed hero in the first Dick Tracy screen serial. The serial entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Action · Crime · Adventure

Mickey Rooney plays Shockey Carter, a small-town Indiana schoolboy whose quick temper and ragged clothes hide the real problem: a widowed, shell-shocked father (Frank Shields) who's lost the will to work. When the town's new schoolteacher takes an interest in the boy, local busybodies use it as an excuse to run the family out of town. A Monogram drama directed by William Nigh that gave the teenage Rooney one of his better pre-Hardy dramatic roles. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A young parrot insists he wants to be a sailor despite his parents' protests, setting sail in a washtub with predictably stormy results. A Tex Avery-directed Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

A small-town Vermont woman, Hazel Flagg, is mistakenly told she has fatal radium poisoning. A New York newspaper reporter desperate for a human-interest story brings her to the city and turns her into a celebrity, only to discover she was never sick at all. Carole Lombard and Fredric March spar through one of the great screwball comedies of the 1930s, shot in early three-strip Technicolor. The film fell into the public domain when its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Romance

Popeye and Olive Oyl, traveling through the desert, are captured by the bandit Abu Hassan and his forty thieves, and Popeye must break loose and clean out the thieves' cave. The second of the Fleischer Studios' two-reel Popeye color specials. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

James Cagney between Warner Bros. contracts, starring for Grand National in a Hollywood satire he clearly relished. Terry Rooney, a New York band leader and hoofer, is shipped to Hollywood to become a movie star, hates everything about the factory system, and walks out on his own hit picture — while studio publicists try to manufacture a romance that has nothing to do with his real life. Evelyn Daw, William Frawley, and Gene Lockhart co-star, with Victor Schertzinger directing his own score. Cagney gets to tap-dance, roughhouse, and mock the industry that made him, and the film is far sharper than its poverty-row distributor suggests. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

A trumpet player and a singer meet on a ship and fall in love, but his drinking and her rising career pull them apart and back together across the nightclub circuit of Panama and New York. Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray star in Mitchell Leisen's musical remake of The Dance of Life. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

An educational health film produced by Salem, Oregon dentist and filmmaker David Bennett Hill. The film advocates leading a healthy, productive life through good mental and physical habits: proper nutrition, exercise, fresh air, bodily cleanliness, dental care, and spiritual guidance through church attendance. Children are shown playing sports, swimming, and practicing good posture. The film also covers immunization, traffic safety, and the duties of the health department. Distributed through the Bell & Howell Filmosound Library, it is part of the Prelinger Archives at the Internet Archive.

Educational · Documentary

Alfred Hitchcock's wronged-man thriller about Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), a young writer who finds a strangled body on the beach and is promptly accused of the murder. On the run, he picks up an unwilling — then increasingly willing — accomplice in Erica (Nova Pilbeam), the police chief's daughter, and the two hunt for the one man who can prove his innocence. Made at Gaumont-British between The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, it features one of Hitchcock's most celebrated shots: a slow crane across a hotel ballroom that ends on the twitching eyes of the real killer. Released in the US as The Girl Was Young. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Mystery · Romance

A Date to Skate is a 1938 Popeye cartoon from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Popeye takes Olive Oyl on an ice-skating date, showing off his skating prowess until Bluto appears to cause trouble. The short features the distinctive Fleischer Studios animation style and the surreal, elastic transformations that characterized the Popeye series. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

A suave jewel thief hides out in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers, safe from the French police, until a beautiful French tourist tempts him toward the outside world. Charles Boyer's performance inspired Pepe le Pew, and Hedy Lamarr made her American debut. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A boy and his dog romp through a Technicolor musical fantasy extolling the joys of pet ownership, originally produced as a sponsored short for Ipana Toothpaste. Walter Lantz directed this Castle Films home-movie perennial. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

One of Paramount's 1930s B-series about the British adventurer Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, adapted from the novels by H.C. "Sapper" McNeile. Days before his long-delayed wedding, Drummond learns that his friend Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard has been kidnapped and flown to a remote African compound. Drummond, his fiancée Phyllis, and his sidekick Algy follow, uncovering a plot to extract defense secrets from the colonel. John Howard plays Drummond as a breezy, unflappable gentleman hero, and Heather Angel is the fiancée who refuses to be left behind. The picture is a brisk, hour-long programmer of the old dark-house-in-the-bush variety. Released in 1938, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

Evelyn Venable plays the wife of a small-time crook who takes the fall for a payroll robbery and goes on the run, hiding out as a cook on a truck farm where Craig Reynolds's earnest farmer slowly falls for her — while her husband's gang closes in. A Crescent Pictures production released through Monogram, it is a compact poverty-row crime melodrama built on the era's favorite engine: a decent woman on the wrong side of the law through no fault of her own. Director William Nigh keeps it moving at the pace Monogram audiences expected. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama

A protection racket run by mobster "Big Bill" Morgan moves in on a small city's shopkeepers, and the only people standing up to it are a crusading district attorney and a gutsy girl reporter (Anne Nagel). Robert Kent plays the detective who infiltrates the gang. A Monogram B-crime picture directed by Lambert Hillyer, who made hundreds of programmers and westerns for the Poverty Row studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

When a bookstore closes for the night, the characters from its literary classics spring to life in a musical extravaganza featuring caricatures of Hollywood personalities. A Frank Tashlin-directed Merrie Melodies short with Mel Blanc. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Music

Jungle Jitters is a 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng for Leon Schlesinger Productions. A traveling salesman arrives at an African village and tries to sell his wares to the locals, only to encounter their queen who has romantic designs on him. The short is one of the "Censored Eleven" — Warner Bros. cartoons withheld from distribution due to racial stereotyping. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

An aspiring young actress keeps her famous actor father a secret to avoid accusations of nepotism, while he refuses to acknowledge her publicly to protect his own career. Adolphe Menjou and Andrea Leeds star in this backstage drama directed by cinematographer-turned-director Karl Freund. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Drama

Pare Lorentz's companion piece to The Plow That Broke the Plains follows the Mississippi from its headwaters to the Gulf, indicting a century of logging, cotton farming, and flood-plain development that turned the river against the people who lived along it — and ending with the TVA's dams as the New Deal's answer. It was Oscar-nominated and, famously, beat Triumph of the Will at the Venice Film Festival. Virgil Thomson again supplied the score. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

Documentary · Short

A musical Western directed by Sam Newfield and produced by Jed Buell, billed as the world's only musical Western with an all-dwarf cast. Billy Curtis stars as the hero Buck Lawson, who must rescue the town from the villainous Bat Haines while winning the heart of Nancy Preston. The film uses a conventional Western story to showcase gags such as cowboys walking under swinging saloon doors and riding Shetland ponies. It is frequently cited as one of the worst films ever made. The film is in the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Western · Comedy · Music

A crime drama directed by James Whale, better known for his Universal horror classics. Warren William plays District Attorney Jim Stowell, a prosecutor who treats every homicide case as first-degree murder and keeps miniature skull replicas to tally his death sentences. When he himself is beset by the urge to murder, his worldview is challenged in a case that mirrors his own life. The film is a remake of Whale's own The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), both based on the Ladislas Fodor play. It entered the public domain in 1966 when its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A Day at the Zoo is a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Tex Avery for Leon Schlesinger Productions, distributed by Warner Bros. The short features a series of rapid-fire gags set at a zoo, with Egghead as a hapless visitor who provokes the animals. Avery's trademark pacing and absurdist humor are on full display, building to a typically explosive punchline. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

Africa Squawks is a 1939 Terrytoons cartoon directed by Connie Rasinski, featuring the character Major Doolittle. The paunchy, monocled Englishman and his valet Jarvis go big-game hunting in Africa, where they try to trap a lion by dressing the servant in a lion skin — only to be outwitted at every turn. The short was part of a brief Terrytoons series built around the Colonel Blimp-like Major Doolittle. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy

Olive Oyl writes a screenplay in which Popeye plays Aladdin, who uses a magic lamp and his spinach-fueled strength to win the princess from a wicked vizier. The third and last of the Fleischer Studios' two-reel Popeye color specials. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Family · Fantasy

A Hunky and Spunky cartoon from Famous Studios, the successor to Fleischer Studios. The mischievous young donkey Spunky gets into trouble when he won't stop kicking, and his mother Hunky must teach him a lesson. The Hunky and Spunky series was one of several cartoon properties Famous Studios continued after the Fleischers lost control of their studio. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Family

The eighth and final film in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, and the wedding finally almost happens. Hugh Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) are at the altar when a robbery interrupts the ceremony — a gang has hidden its take inside the radio in Drummond's own flat, and the chase to recover it takes the wedding party to a French village under siege. H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, and E.E. Clive return as Nielsen, Algy, and Tenny for the last time, and Elizabeth Patterson joins as Phyllis's perpetually scandalized aunt. Directed by James P. Hogan, it plays the series' blend of drawing-room comedy and knockabout thrills at full speed. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Comedy · Crime

Another entry in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, based on the McNeile novel "Temple Tower." Drummond is finally preparing to marry Phyllis at his ancestral country house when an absent-minded professor arrives with a story about a hidden treasure, and a murderer named Henry Seaton turns up to complicate the wedding plans. The plot winds through secret passages and a string of killings around the estate, with Colonel Nielson and Algy along for the chase. John Howard and Heather Angel continue their easy chemistry, and Leo G. Carroll plays the villain. Released in 1939, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

A naive prospector heads west to seek his fortune in the Gold Rush, finding more calamity than gold in a landscape of gags. A Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton-directed Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Western

Fleischer Studios' second animated feature, an adaptation of Jonathan Swift's tale of a shipwrecked sailor who washes ashore in Lilliput, a kingdom of tiny people at war with their neighbors. Made to compete with Disney's Snow White, it was only the second American animated feature ever released. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Adventure · Family

A talent show at the local theater goes hilariously off the rails as a parade of amateur performers, including an early Elmer Fudd, bumble through their acts. A Tex Avery-directed Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

Alfred Hitchcock's last British film before leaving for Hollywood. Orphaned Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara, in her first major role) arrives at a lonely Cornish coaching inn run by her brutal uncle Joss (Leslie Banks) — headquarters of a gang that wrecks ships on the rocks and murders the survivors. Charles Laughton, who also produced, plays the local squire Sir Humphrey Pengallan with deliberate, scenery-chewing menace. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel, the production was famously contentious — Laughton reshaped scenes around himself — but the wreckers' coast, the inn, and O'Hara's debut charisma carry it. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Crime · Adventure · Drama

A French playboy and an American singer meet aboard an ocean liner and fall in love, though both are engaged to others. They agree to reunite in six months atop the Empire State Building to test their love. Leo McCarey's original was remade by him as An Affair to Remember and later by Warren Beatty. The 1939 version lapsed into the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · Drama

One of Oscar Micheaux's final films and his last fully realized melodrama. Nightclub singer Elsie Bellwood (Edna Mae Harris) refuses to entertain her boss's wealthy patrons and is framed for the murder of her own aunt; her loyal boyfriend Benjamin (Carman Newsome), a law student, gives up his career plans to clear her name. Robert Earl Jones — father of James Earl Jones — plays the detective whose "lying lips" testimony is central to the frame-up. Shot quickly in Harlem, it is Micheaux's familiar mix of courtroom drama, nightclub numbers, and moral instruction for Black audiences. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime

A young lawyer and a woman he met on a business trip marry after a whirlwind courtship and struggle through the first year of marriage, money troubles, a difficult mother-in-law, and a medical crisis with their baby. Carole Lombard and James Stewart star in this bittersweet domestic drama. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Comedy

The third entry in Monogram's Mr. Wong series, with Boris Karloff in the unlikely role of the gentlemanly Chinese detective James Lee Wong. A Chinese princess visiting San Francisco to buy warplanes for her country is murdered in Wong's own home, and the trail winds through Chinatown tongs, shady ship brokers, and a counterfeiting ring. Marjorie Reynolds co-stars as wisecracking reporter Bobbie Logan, with Grant Withers as the eternally exasperated Captain Street. Karloff's quiet, courtly Wong remains one of the odder delights of the Poverty Row detective series. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

Popeye the Sailor Meets Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is a 1939 two-reel Popeye cartoon from Fleischer Studios, distributed by Paramount Pictures. The longest of the Fleischer Popeye specials at approximately 21 minutes, the short features Olive Oyl as a storyteller recounting the tale of Aladdin, with Popeye as the hero and Bluto as the villain. The cartoon was produced in Technicolor and features elaborate set pieces and musical numbers. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Fantasy · Adventure

Prest-O Change-O is a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions. Two curious dogs wander into a magician's house and encounter a series of magical transformations, including a two-headed dog and other surreal creatures. The short is an early example of Jones's developing style, blending Disney-esque charm with the anarchic humor that would later define his work. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Fantasy

Robin Hood Makes Good is a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions. Three young animals play at being Robin Hood and his Merry Men, but when a real fox villain appears, they discover that pretend heroics are very different from the real thing. The short is an early Chuck Jones work, showing his developing storytelling sensibility. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Adventure

A Monogram crime programmer built on a genuinely nasty twist. Warren Hull plays John Randolph, an idealistic newspaper editor crusading against a crime syndicate — not knowing that the gang's secret boss is his own father, long believed dead. When a hit man with a conscience gets involved and a society engagement party turns into a shootout, the crusade becomes very personal. Howard Bretherton, one of poverty row's fastest and most reliable directors, keeps it moving through a tight hour. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

Commissioned by the American Institute of Planners for the 1939 New York World's Fair, The City argues its way from an idealized New England town through coal-country blight and Manhattan congestion to the planned "greenbelt" communities of the New Deal. Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke photographed it, Aaron Copland wrote his first film score, and the result is both advocacy and a superb piece of filmmaking — the "Lunchtime Rush" montage alone is a silent-comedy set piece. Released for civic distribution without a copyright renewal, the film is in the public domain.

Documentary

After Ollie is rejected by the innkeeper's daughter, he and Stan join the French Foreign Legion so he can forget her, only to find themselves marching through the desert and tangled in a local rebellion. The boys' only non-Hal Roach feature. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A wealthy insurance broker receives a death threat from a killer known as the Gorilla and hires three bumbling detectives, the Ritz Brothers, to protect him. On the appointed night, a real escaped gorilla appears at the mansion just as the lights go out, and the detectives scramble through secret panels and hidden catacombs trying to tell the murderer from the ape. Bela Lugosi plays the sinister butler, Peters, in a role originally written for Peter Lorre. Allan Dwan, a veteran director whose career began in the silent era, keeps the slapstick moving at a brisk pace. The film is based on the 1925 stage play by Ralph Spence that was a Broadway hit. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Horror

Shirley Temple stars as Sara Crewe, a wealthy girl left at a strict boarding school when her father goes off to war. Reported dead, he is presumed lost and Sara is reduced to a servant, but she clings to her imagination and kindness. One of Temple's best-remembered features, lavishly produced in Technicolor. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Family · Drama

A racetrack melodrama from Grand National, one of the scrappier studios of the late 1930s. Gordon Jones plays Rinty, a trainer whose string of bad luck ends when he inherits a colt nobody wants — a horse with heart but no pedigree. Marsha Hunt co-stars as the owner who stakes him, and the picture builds to the big race where a lifetime of debts rides on one finish. Directed by Charles Lamont, who spent the decade grinding out programmers for every poverty-row outfit before settling in as Abbott and Costello's house director at Universal. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama

John Garfield plays Johnny Bradfield, a champion boxer who flees after a night of partying ends with a dead reporter and his face in the papers. He ends up hiding out on an Arizona date farm run by a schoolteacher (Claude Rains is the detective on his trail) and mentoring the Dead End Kids in the boxing ring. Busby Berkeley — better known for his kaleidoscopic musical numbers — directs this remake of The Life of Jimmy Dolan with surprising grit. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A Monogram crime picture directed by Howard Bretherton. Russell Gleason plays a railway postal clerk whose mail routes keep turning up phony sweepstakes tickets, and when the service can't crack the counterfeiting ring from the outside he goes in undercover — straight into a gang that doesn't hesitate to kill. Shirley Deane plays the reporter who both helps and nearly exposes him, and J.M. Kerrigan co-stars. Brisk poverty-row melodrama with a postal-inspector hook that was timely in an era when mail-fraud rackets were front-page news. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama