The 40 most popular 1930s french movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


The Dream
1931 · 1h 13m · FR
In the snow as bells toll, a hooded figure makes its way through the streets to a church.


Night attack
1931
A woman enters a police station at night to ask the commissioner to help her get rid of her dead lover's body to protect her honor.


Culprit
1937 · 1h 47m · FR
A man from a wealthy family falls in love with a florist, but the lover has to go to war and to leave his darling crying... and giving birth to a child.


Grock
1931 · 1h 38m · DE
Grock must return to the scene once more. Half-movie, half-documentary, this film memorably records Grock's showmanship.


The King
1936 · 1h 30m · FR
King John IV of Cerdania, who knows monarchs are a vanishing race but who plays his royalty role in state council or boudoir to the hilt, is in Paris to sign a treaty, and becomes enmeshed in intrigue with an actress, Therese Mannix and involved in a bit of cuckoldry with YouYou Bourdier, the ex-seamstress wife of a French senator, who is un-awed by money, power or the King's kisses. For his part, her husband, Senator Bourdier, is glad to use his wealth, wife and collectivist ideals for social position, in spite of his democratic posing.


Passionately
1932 · 1h 20m · FR
A jealous American, Mr Stevenson, travels to France with his very pretty young wife Kitty. He tries all sorts of subterfuges so that the charming young woman does not attract the attention of men. But she did not escape the gaze of a certain Robert Perceval.


Fedora
1934 · 1h 15m · FR
Fedora swears to avenge the death of her fiancé, Prince Yarischkine, killed by Ipanoff who fled to Paris. She finds Ipanoff whom she falls in love with and he confesses to having killed her fiancé because Yarischkine was his wife's lover. But learning that her brother was executed because of Fedora, Ipanoff leaves her. Fedora commits suicide.


Blood Red Rose
1939 · 1h 35m
No overview available
Mistigri
Mistigri
1931 · 1h 20m
Nell Marignan, going by the nickname of Mistigri, a naive small town girl, falls for a tenor on tour. Unfortunately, the man is nothing but a vain, witless and talentless hop. But, blinded by love, Mistigri sacrifices all to follow the buffoon she mistakes for her Romeo. Now sharing his life, she shines nevertheless under the illusion of happiness.


La Pouponnière
1933 · 1h 29m · FR
Christianne Delannoy is the daughter of Mr. Brown, who subsidizes a nursery in memory of his affair with Mrs. Delannoy. She loves Doctor Moreau, but her mother forces her to marry a rich young man.


Paris-Camargue
1935 · 1h 20m
In the Camargue, the rich owner Jules Fabregoul squanders all his fortune to please his mistress, a Parisian actress with luxury tastes. But he is not the only one to be in trouble. His niece is having sentimental problems: she thinks she is being cheated on by her fiance Gérard, a music-hall artist. She takes refuge with Jules's sister, Aunt Fabregoul, the director of a home for repentant young girls. But Gérard did not make a mistake and the reconciliation takes place during the recording of a radio program.


Oaths
1931 · FR
In the eighteenth century, during a revolution in Karelia, an aristocrat, Armas de Murnau, fought alongside the revolutionaries. Captured, sentenced to death, he will try everything to see the woman he loves.


Stupéfiants
1932 · 1h 17m · DE
When an up-and-coming singer's career is jeopardized by morphine addiction, her brother takes on the ruthless dope pushers who are intent on keeping her hooked.


Ariane
1931 · 1h 23m · DE
Ariane was Hungarian director Paul Czinner's first talking picture. Starring in the title role is Czinner's charming wife, Elizabeth Bergner, likewise making her talkie debut. Young, naive Ariane sets herself for an emotional fall when she falls in love with Konstantin (Rudolf Forster), a much older and very married businessman. For his part, Konstantin regards the girl as just another harmless fling -- until he realizes a shade too late that he's really in love with her after all. Filmed in German, Ariane was simultaneously lensed in an English-language version, The Loves of Ariane.


Napoléon Bonaparte
1935 · 2h 20m
A re-edited version of Napoléon (1927), with added sound effects, post-dubbed dialogue, and new scenes with new cast members.


Golgotha
1935 · 1h 35m · DZ
The final days of Jesus from the time he enters the city of Jerusalem. Viewed as a threat, it is decided that he must be captured, tried, and executed as a criminal, a plan aided and abetted by disciple Judas Iscariot.


Dora Nelson
1935 · 1h 35m · FR
Dora Nelson, a famous actress, leaves both her husband Philippe de Moreuil and the role she was playing in a movie directed by Nivert, to follow her lover Santini in Italy. But she soon realizes that Santini deceives her with a girl named Elsa. In vexation she decides to return to her husband and to her career. Unfortunately for her, Suzanne Verdier, a little working girl, has in the meantime replaced her not only in the film she had left unfinished but in her husband's heart as well. Dora eventually understands she must step aside.


I Sing
1938 · 1h 28m
Charles's uncle is the headmaster of a chic girls school .He is short of the readies and he has lots and lots of debts.
Mannequins
Mannequins
1933 · 1h 20m
A traumatic nightmare for a glove salesman who falls asleep on his counter at night and the wax models begin to come to life...


La flambée
1934 · 1h 22m
A commander who had devised helpful defenses for his country kills a spy who'd tried to entrap him.The officer's young wife who had been thinking of leaving him for a minister, rallies to his side.


Toboggan
1934 · 1h 33m · FR
Toboggan, the 1934 Henri Decoin French boxing sports romantic love triangle melodrama (about a washed up boxer who makes a comeback for a sexy dancer, but she is two-timing him, and she brings her boyfriend into the arena during the climactic boxing match) starring Georges Carpentier (real life heavyweight boxing champion), Arlette Marchal, Paul Amiot, John Anderson, and Raymond Cordy. Note that because Carpentier was a real life boxer, he naturally was able to do his own boxing scenes, and the producer of the movie interwove footage of Carpentier from his actual matches into the film.


Heart of Paris
1937 · 1h 26m · FR
Camille Morestan serves as a jury member at a court in Paris. The attractive Natalie Roguin is accused of murder. Morestan doesn't want to believe she really killed her lover. He succeeds in convincing the other jury members she was innocent. After her acquittal he takes her into his house. While he tries to keep her identity a secret for his family her presence leads to a number of unfortunate incidents.


Conflit
1938 · 1h 34m · FR
Claire Buisson becomes enamored with Gerard and soon afterwords she becomes pregnant. Gerard advises her to abort the child but, at the last moment, Claire decides to keep her child and leaves for her sister's place in the province.


The Mayor's Dilemma
1939 · 1h 45m · FR
At the beginning of World War I in a village in the country of La Marne, two families are against the marriage of their children. The war changes the positions.


Adieu Vienne
1939
No overview available


Martha
1936 · 1h 46m
At the English court, at the beginning of the 18th century, Lady Henriett fell in love with a farmer, Lionel, who, following a mistake, believes her to be his servant. By learning his quality, Lionel refuses to receive the one he already considered his fiancée. The queen herself will appease this lover's quarrel and, moreover, will free the peasants of his kingdom.


Second Bureau
1935 · 1h 45m · FR
Captain Benoît manages to take possession of the plans of a new German airplane. The German counter-espionage assigns one of their agents, beautiful Erna Fiedler, to seduce Benoît and to eliminate him. But the two spies fall in love.


Kiki
1932 · 1h 20m · DE
Kiki who has a walk-on part in a show, is in love with her director, who doesn't notice her at all. She settles into his home and causes him to break up with his lover, the star of the show; and finally manages to make him love her.


Les rigolos
1933 · 40m
No overview available


L'Arlésienne
1930 · 1h 25m · FR
Frédéri, a young man from a good family, is in love with a woman he met in the arena of Arles. He wishes to marry this woman.


Le Rosaire
1934 · 1h 35m · FR
A beautiful and serious woman renounces the love that inspires her Gerard, a man younger than her. Later, Gerard having become blind, she takes the place of the nurse, then confesses her identity to the cripple who opens his arms to her.


Adventure in Paris
1936 · 1h 35m · FR
Michel Levasseur is a joyous reveler who does not care about the next day. So much so that one day a bailiff bursts into his Paris apartment and seizes his furniture on behalf of Raymond Sauvaget, his landlord, a rich food industrialist. But far from resenting Sauvaget's act of hostility, Michel ... becomes his friend. Now Raymond, although prosperous, does not know how to handle women. That is why he asks Michel, a regular Casanova, to give him lessons in seduction.


Lights of Paris
1938 · 1h 35m · FR
A celebrated singer in Paris meets a young woman and courts her by pretending to be a driving instructor.


The Chiselers
1931 · 1h 2m · US
Having been kicked out by their wives on a wintry night they attempt to smuggle their little dog into an apartment house where dogs are not allowed.
The Executed
The Executed
1932
No overview available


Crossroads
1938 · 1h 9m · FR
A wealthy industrialist, Roger de Vetheuil, married, feels assured of aging in peace. Then appears a blackmailer who accuses him of being a usurper, actually called Jean Pelletier, a mobster well known to police. Vetheuil, judging himself slandered, refuses to listen to his tormentor and goes to the police. The man speaks. The scandal is public soon ...


Ciboulette
1933 · 1h 25m · FR
Duparquet is the controller of Les Halles, and plays matchmaker between the young farm-girl Ciboulette and Antonin, a young spoiled aristocrat.


The stranger
1931 · 1h 28m · FR
In a luxury hotel, a gathering of foreign high society people attend a wedding lunch. By the end of the feast a dramatic turn of events occurs : on the time of leaving the groom realizes that his newly married wife has... disappeared ! One morning, some time later, he meets her again at the Bois de Boulogne. She tells him everything about her strange attitude: she needed to be married to be able to have access to her husband's money. With this money, she managed to avenge her mother.


The Postmaster's Daughter
1938 · 1h 37m · FR
A small town postal official allows a military officer to sweep his lovely daughter away to St. Petersburg, assuming the man will do the right thing and marry her.Instead, a future of scandal and tragedy awaits her.


The Rules of the Game
1939 · 1h 50m · FR
The Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife host a weekend gala where a variety of complicated romantic and social entanglements between guests and servants lead to tragedy, all against the backdrop of a looming war.
The 1930s were the studio system at full power, with sound now fully integrated and the Production Code arriving mid-decade to sharply narrow what films could depict. It's the decade of the Universal monster cycle, screwball comedy, and the first Technicolor spectacles.
French cinema invented much of what we consider film language, then reinvented it again with the Nouvelle Vague of the late 1950s. It remains Europe's most prolific film industry, with a strong tradition of state support for auteur work.