The Broadway Melody

The first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and MGM's first all-talking musical. Two sisters from the vaudeville act the Mahoney Sisters, Hank and Queenie, arrive in New York chasing a spot in a Broadway revue. Hank's sweetheart, the songwriter Eddie Kearns, promises them a break, but the plot turns on the oldest showbiz story there is: the man falls for the wrong sister. Bessie Love's performance as the self-sacrificing Hank earned an Oscar nomination. The film is creaky by modern standards, but its success proved that audiences would sit through a feature of synchronized song and dialogue, and it set off the Hollywood musical gold rush that defined the early sound era. Published in 1929, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.