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


Gone with the Wind
1939 · 3h 58m · US
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.


Modern Times
1936 · 1h 27m · US
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...


The Adventures of Robin Hood
1938 · 1h 42m · US
Robin Hood fights nobly for justice against the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne while striving to win the hand of the beautiful Maid Marian.


The Csardas Princess
1934 · 1h 35m · DE
Sylva Varescu is an operetta singer performing Kálmán's Die Czardasfürstin through Europe with great success. Before going to Vienna she meets handsome Prinz Weylerstein and they fall in love. Offered a contract for America, she doubts until she finds out that he is already engaged to a countess.


City Lights
1931 · 1h 27m · US
A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.


Dishonored
1931 · 1h 31m · US
The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.


Three Girls Around Schubert
1936 · 1h 33m · DE
Composer Franz Schubert becomes involved with a family with three daughters, falling in love with the two blonds, first one, then the other; but will he notice the quiet brunet third daughter, who has fallen madly in love with him?


Westward Passage
1932 · 1h 13m · US
A struggling writer divorces his wife to pursue his career without interference, but they meet in Europe years later after she has remarried.


Wuthering Heights
1939 · 1h 44m · US
Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.


The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1939 · 1h 57m · US
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.


Mata Hari
1931 · 1h 29m · US
A semi-fictionalized account of the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was accused of spying for Germany during World War I.


Sob Sister
1931 · 1h 7m · US
Jane Ray, a very clever reporter of crimes of passion, or "sob sister," for a New York tabloid, begins to feel depressed by the sordidness of her latest assignment, the investigation of a young woman's murder by her husband. Despite her growing distaste for her profession, Jane gets her story and, with typical ingenuity, frustrates her competitors' attempts to follow her lead.


Start Cheering
1938 · 1h 18m · US
After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.


Susan Lenox
1931 · 1h 16m · US
A young woman runs away from an abusive home and pre-arranged marriage only to be frustrated in her attempts to find happiness with a handsome engineer.


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.


Morena clara
1936 · 1h 45m · ES
Trini and her brother Regalito are two gypsy brothers stealing hams. At trial, the severe prosecutor Enrique accused them of the misdemeanor, although they do not understand the nature of their crime and the justice of non-gypsies. Trini ends up serving in the house of the prosecutor, who, discovering her good heart, eventually falls in love with her.


Ninotchka
1939 · 1h 50m · US
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.


It Happened One Night
1934 · 1h 45m · US
A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.


Shopworn
1932 · 1h 6m · US
A waitress falls for a wealthy young man but has to fight his mother to find happiness.


Ridin' Thru
1934 · 55m · US
Dad Brooks is in financial trouble and needs to sell a lot of horses. But they are being rustled and needing help, he sends for Tom. Tom looks for the rustlers but eventually realizes that someone is using a wild horse to do the rustling. He finds the secret entrance used by the rustlers to hide the horses but soon finds himself a prisoner.


Libeled Lady
1936 · 1h 38m · US
When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.


Mr. Skitch
1933 · 1h 10m · US
After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comedy, released in 1933.
Unknown Woman
Unknown Woman
1935 · 1h 6m · US
A young attorney, Larry Condon, is on a retainer by a nightclub-owning gangster, to carry and deliver what he thinks are legal papers but he is innocently carrying around millions of dollars in stolen bonds. He meets Helen Griffith when she is arrested in a raid on a gambling house and befriends her. She talks him into taking her to the nightclub of the man he is working for and, while there and unobserved by anyone by Larry, he sees her going through the files and desk of the owner. Who is this mystery woman he just got released from jail, and what is she up to?


Last Stop
1935 · 1h 30m · DE
Endstation offers the American viewer tantalizing glimpses of busy, bustling mid-1930s Vienna. Otherwise, this minor yarn of an amorous streetcar conductor is strictly formula material. The film benefits from the star power of Paul Horbiger, resplendently garbed in an elaborate conductor's uniform. Also worth noting is the performance of Maria Andergest as the woebegone hatmaker whose fate is inextricably linked with hero Horbiger. Incidentally though the direction is credited with one E. W. Emo, Paul Horbiger actually called most of the shots on Endstation.


City Girl
1930 · 1h 28m · US
A waitress from Chicago falls in love with a man from rural Minnesota and marries him, with the intent of living a better life - but life on the farm has its own challenges.


Masquerade in Vienna
1934 · 1h 30m · AT
A risque drawing is published and threatens to compromise the model, a doctor's wife. Artist Heideneck protects her and invents a name. But the name exists, and this respectable lady is drawn into the artist's shady affairs.


The Flood
1931 · 1h 5m · US
The story centers on a sordid love triangle involving a woman and two men. Their personal tensions and romantic complications reach a breaking point just as the local infrastructure fails. The climax of the film occurs when a massive dam bursts, unleashing a catastrophic flood. This disaster serves as the ultimate resolution for the characters' interpersonal struggles, forcing a conclusion to their conflicting relationships through the life-and-death stakes of the inundation.


Beauty Parlor
1932 · 1h 4m · US
Film follows the romantic exploits of two depression-era manicurists, one of whom is being woo'd by a true gentleman of means, the other of whom lets herself become a pawn of operators of a call-girl ring.


Slander House
1938 · 1h 5m · US
Owner of salon catering to fat society dames must deal with a dull fiance, a romantic stranger, the jealous blond who loves him, and the lecherous husband of a client.


Honeysuckle
1938 · 1h 33m · AR
A film star enjoys a romance with the daughter of a puppeteer, but his criminal past threatens to ruin it.


Virtuous Husband
1931 · 1h 15m · US
When a rich young man marries, he lets the books and letters left him by his dead mother guide his life.
General Housecleaning
General Housecleaning
1935 · 1h 24m · DE
The head of a squad of maids captures the heart of a wealthy young bachelor.


Lily Christine
1932 · 1h 22m · UK
Lily is threatened with divorce by her husband after spending an innocent night with friend Rupert Harvey.


Bringing Up Baby
1938 · 1h 42m · US
David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances, he meets Susan Vance, and the duo have a series of misadventures which include a leopard called Baby.


Pygmalion
1935 · 1h 31m · DE
When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.


Bachelor Bait
1934 · 1h 14m · US
After being fired from his job at the Marriage License Bureau, a clerk turns to matchmaking.


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.


Vivacious Lady
1938 · 1h 30m · US
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.


Owd Bob
1938 · 1h 18m · UK
Adam McAdam is an old, dour sheepherder whose life is devoted to his faithful dog, the whiskey bottle and his daughter, Jeannie. And a conflict that arises when the other sheep-men of the district try every means within their power to have his dog, accused of being a sheep-killer, destroyed.


British Agent
1934 · 1h 20m · US
In the days leading up to the Russian Revolution, Stephen Locke, a minor British diplomat in St Petersburg, falls in love with a Russian spy.
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.
Romance is the genre most shaped by its era's ideas about intimacy, which makes watching across decades a genuine education. It spans the screwball comedies, the sweeping melodramas, and the modern indie two-hander.