Streams of Unconsciousness: My Top 30 Films From 1925-1949 (Last of a Series)

01 May 2025

My Top 30 Films From 1925-1949 (Last of a Series)

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday

Regular readers of this blog (I'm looking at you Geronimo O'Hara of Narragansett, Rhode Island) will recall that three months ago I published a list of my top thirty films from the first quarter of this century. I followed that two months ago with my top thirty from the preceding twenty-five year period (1975-1999) and last month with my favorites from 1950-1974 This month I offer my top picks from 1925 through 1949. You're welcome. You will note several directors combine to dominate this list. There are four movies from Alfred Hitchcock, three from Preston Sturges and two each from John Ford, Howard Hawks, Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra. So those six provide half the films here. Cary Grant, Joseph Cotton and Humphrey Bogart are each in three films, as is the despicable John Wayne. Ward Bond appears in a supporting role in three films and if I'd expanded the list to fifty he would have been in four or five more. But John Qualen tops that being in four pictures on this list. Among women Barbara Stanwyck and Ingrid Bergman are both in two films.

1.His Girl Friday (1940) Hawks

2. Duck Soup (1933) McCarey

3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Capra

4. Casablanca (1942) Curtiz

5. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Ford

6. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Huston

7. Foreign Correspondent (1940) Hitchcock

8. Sullivan’s Travels (1941) P. Sturges

9. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Hitchcock

10. Rome: Open City (1945) Rossellini

11. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) Capra

12. The Third Man (1949) Reed

13. Holiday (1938) Cukor

14. City Lights (1931) Chaplin

15. The Big Sleep (1946) Hawks

16. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Milestone

17. My Man Godfrey (1936) LaCava

18. Red River (1948) Hawks

19. Stagecoach (1939) Ford

20. The 39 Steps (1935) Hitchcock

21. The Gold Rush (1925) Chaplin

22. Citizen Kane (1941) Welles

23. Double Indemnity (1944) Wilder

24. The Lady Eve (1941) P. Sturges

25. Notorious (1946) Hitchcock

26. Bicycle Thieves (1949) De Sica

27. Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) P. Sturges

28. The Long Voyage Home (1940) Ford

29. The Big Parade (1927) Vidor

30. A Canterbury Tale (1944) Powell and Pressburger

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