The 40 most popular 1930s history movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.
Nobleza gaucha
Nobleza gaucha
1937 · 1h 15m · AR
It narrates the struggle of a rural worker to rescue the daughter of a farmer from the clutches of a wicked foreman.


Immortal Waltz
1939 · 1h 36m · AT
Johann Strauss firmly established himself as the leader of a dance orchestra in Vienna in the 1840s. His sons Johann junior and Josef have clearly inherited their father's talent. Nevertheless, father Johann is strictly opposed to both of them training as composers.


Fridericus
1937 · 1h 38m · DE
In 18th century Europe, King Friedrich II of Prussia leads his army through the seven-years-war with neighboring states, and after numerous near defeats, eventually brings a victorious army back to Berlin.


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.


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.


Mutiny on the Bounty
1935 · 2h 12m · US
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.


Grand Illusion
1937 · 1h 54m · FR
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.


Chapayev
1934 · 1h 33m · SU
An account of the peasant turned mythical military hero Vasily Chapayev, charting his campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.


Jánošík
1936 · 1h 15m
Jánošík has been topic of many Slovak and Polish legends, books and films. According to the legend, he robbed nobles and gave the loot to the poor. The legend were also known in neighboring Silesia, the Margraviate of Moravia and later spread to the Kingdom of Bohemia. The actual robber had little to do with the modern legend, whose content partly reflects the ubiquitous folk myths of a hero taking from the rich and giving to the poor. However, the legend was also shaped in important ways by the activists and writers in the 19th century when Jánošík became the key highwayman character in stories that spread in the north counties of the Kingdom of Hungary (present Slovakia) and among the local Gorals and Polish tourists in the Podhale region north of the Tatras.


Juarez
1939 · 2h 5m · US
The newly-named emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlota arrive in Mexico to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juárez and democracy.


Lucrezia Borgia
1935 · 1h 33m · FR
In 15th-century Rome, Cesare Borgia uses his sister Lucrezia as a political pawn, marrying her off to various noblemen to help unite Italy.


Parnell
1937 · 1h 58m · US
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.


Madame Guillotine
1931 · 1h 14m · UK
During the French Revolution, a revolutionary falls in love with and marries an aristocratic woman.
Tarakanova
Tarakanova
1930 · 1h 54m · FR
Tarakanova is a 1930 French historical drama film directed by Raymond Bernard and starring Édith Jéhanne, Paule Andral and Olaf Fjord. It depicts the life of Princess Tarakanoff, the pretender to the throne of Catherine II in Eighteenth Century Russia.


Drums Along the Mohawk
1939 · 1h 40m · US
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.


Amalia
1936 · 1h 45m · AR
The romance between Amalia Sáenz de Olabarrieta –a widow living in Buenos Aires– and the young Unitarian Eduardo Belgrano. Based on the novel by José Mármol.


Princess Tarakanova
1938 · 1h 35m · FR
Italian version of 'Princess Tarakanova'. A film about the story of princess Élisabeth Tarakanova.


Sous la Terreur
1936 · 1h 17m · FR
During the French Revolution in 1793, a member of the Convention, seduced by the Comtesse de Beaulieu, helps her to discover the truth about the relationship between Agnès de Fitz-James and the count who was guillotined.


Fanny Elssler
1937 · 1h 20m · DE
Prince Klemens von Metternich orders Friedrich Gentz, one of his aides, to keep the Duke of Reichstadt---Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles---son of Napoleon and heir to the French throne, from thinking about French politics. Gentz enlists the help of ballerina Fanny Elsser, all the rage in several European capitals, to keep the Duke distracted.


Cavalcade of the West
1936 · 1h 10m · US
Two brothers are separated when young. One becomes the pony express rider Clint Knox and the other the outlaw Ace Carter.


Forty Years
1938 · 1h 25m · NL
This government commissioned film -- made on the occasion of the forty year anniversary of queen Wilhelmina's reign -- chronicles the lives of two Dutch families from 1898 to 1938 against the backdrop of the social and political events of the times. It shows the emergence of trade unions, the troubled years of the First World War, the development of aviation and Schiphol airport, the Dutch East Indies and the lives of the Dutch royal family.


A Prussian Love Story
1938 · 1h 31m · DE
The film depicts the love affair between William I and Elisa Radziwill.


Young Mr. Lincoln
1939 · 1h 40m · US
In this dramatized account of his early law career in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln is born into a modest log cabin, where he is encouraged by his first love, Ann Rutledge, to pursue law. Following her tragic death, Lincoln establishes a law practice in Springfield, where he meets a young Mary Todd. Lincoln's law skills are put to the test when he takes on the difficult task of defending two brothers who have been accused of murder.


The Emperor's Candlesticks
1937 · 1h 29m · US
Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.


Camille
1936 · 1h 49m · US
Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the gray morning after. In gambling dens and lavish soirees, men of means exert their wills and women turned courtesans exult in pleasure. One such woman is Marguerite Gautier, who begins a sumptuous romance with Armand Duval.


History of Philosophy
1937 · 1h 29m
A student rebellion precedes revolutionary events in Prague.


In Old Chicago
1938 · 1h 51m · US
The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.


Joan of Arc
1935 · 1h 27m · DE
France in the 15th Century: The country is marked by the wars with England and internal power struggles. King Charles sees himself powerless against the state. As emerges from the people suddenly a young woman named Johanna, who claimed that the Archangel Gabriel to be appointed, to save France. First of all doubt the king in their words, but he remembers that the people through this "help of God" is gaining new courage. With the slogan "God and the Virgin!" pulls the revivified victorious army into battle against the English-Burgundian alliance. After Johanna King Charles is crowned at Reims, there breaks the plague over the country in. Now Johanna all the blame on the disaster: God would punish believe in the country for that a heretic; if Johanna were actual a holy, she would deal also with the plague. The waning faith weakens France, England is again on the rise. But Johanna is executed as a witch. Only years later annulled the verdict of the Holy and Johanna explained.


Sisters-in-Arms
1937 · 2h 5m · FR
During the war from '14-'18, two women travel by foot in the North of France and Belgium to aid an organization to provide information to the English


The Chess Player
1938 · 1h 10m · FR
A toymaker in Poland specializes in building lifesize mechanical men. He builds a chess-playing "automaton" to hide a pretty young Polish activist who is being hunted by occupying Russian forces.


The Sign of the Cross
1932 · 2h 6m · US
A Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero.


Nuestra tierra de paz
1939 · 1h 16m · AR
During a conversation between a grandfather and his grandson, the latter tells him the story of the liberator General José de San Martín (1778-1850) from the patriot's childhood, through his stay in Spain, his return to the Río de la Plata, the development of the continental plan and the European exile.


Anna Karenina
1935 · 1h 35m · US
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Nell Gwyn
Nell Gwyn
1934 · 1h 25m · UK
King Charles II first meets Nell Gwyn after seeing her do a turn at Drury Lane. They soon become close, the King preferring her feisty irreverent company to that of the aristocratic French Duchess of Portsmouth. Nell becomes his most loyal subject, while ever-ready to take the Duchess down a peg. But the actress can never hope to be fully accepted by the King's circle despite his constant attentions.


The Last Night
1937 · 1h 32m · SU
On one of the October nights at the ball, gymnasium pupils and officers scoff at the love of Kuzma Zakharkin, the “cook's son”, to Lena, the daughter of the manufacturer. Cannon volley interrupts the fun. In the city begins the Moscow armed uprising of workers. At the center of the fate of two families is the capitalist Leontyev and the worker Zakharkin, whose sons became the organizers and participants of this uprising.


Black Shirt
1933 · 1h 33m · IT
An Italian blacksmith who emigrated is wounded during the war on the French front, losing his memory. Hospitalized in a German hospital, he recovers it three years later and returns home from Tunisia, happy for the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes and the inauguration of the city of Littoria.


Cleopatra
1934 · 1h 40m · US
The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.


The Last of the Mohicans
1936 · 1h 31m · US
The story is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War, and concerns—in part—a Huron massacre (with passive French acquiescence) of between 500 to 1,500 Anglo-American troops, who had honorably surrendered at Fort William Henry, plus some women and servants; the kidnapping of two sisters, daughters of the British commander; and their rescue by the last Mohicans.


Queen Christina
1934 · 1h 39m · US
Popular monarch Queen Christina of Sweden must choose between love and loyalty to her nation when she unexpectedly falls for a Spanish envoy.
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.
Historical films reconstruct the past, whether faithfully or as deliberate myth-making. The genre attracts big budgets and big performances, and it reveals as much about the era that produced the film as the one on screen.