1938 Movies
Take a nostalgic look back at the top movies of 1938, celebrating the films, directors and actors that defined the year and left a lasting legacy in the world of entertainment.
Rasputin
Directed by: Louis Nero
Starring: Daniele Savoca, Franco Nero
Country: Italy
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Directed by: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains
Country: United States of America
Outline: When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.
You Can't Take It with You
Directed by: Frank Capra
Starring: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold
Country: United States of America
Outline: A man from a family of rich snobs becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family.
Marie Antoinette
Directed by: W.S. Van Dyke, Julien Duvivier
Starring: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley
Country: United States of America
Outline: The tragic life of Marie Antoinette, who became queen of France in her late teens.
Boys Town
Directed by: Norman Taurog
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton
Country: United States of America
Outline: When a death row prisoner tells him he wouldn't have led a life of crime if only he had had one friend as a child, Father Edward Flanagan decides to do something about. An advocate of child...
Alexander's Ragtime Band
Directed by: Henry King
Starring: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman
Country: United States of America
Outline: This send-up of ragtime song and dance begins in 1915 San Francisco when society boy Roger Grant decides to pursue popular rather than serious music.
Test Pilot
Directed by: Victor Fleming
Starring: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore
Country: United States of America
Outline: Jim is a test pilot. His wife Ann and best friend Gunner try their best to keep him sober. But the life of a test pilot is anything but safe.
Love Finds Andy Hardy
Directed by: George B. Seitz
Starring: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Lewis Stone, Cecilia Parker
Country: United States of America
Outline: Andy's girlfriend Polly is planning to spend Christmas at her grandmother's, which puts a kink in his plans to take her to the country club Christmas party. He agrees (for a fee) to pretend...
Bringing Up Baby
Directed by: Howard Hawks
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Country: United States of America
Outline: While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Angels with Dirty Faces
Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Starring: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan
Country: United States of America
Outline: A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.
The Lady Vanishes
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, May Whitty
Country: United States of America
Outline: While traveling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.
Holiday
Directed by: George Cukor
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres
Country: United States of America
Outline: A young man in love with a girl from a rich family finds his unorthodox plan to go on holiday for the early years of his life met with skepticism by everyone except for his fiancée's eccentric sister and long-suffering brother.
Block-Heads
Directed by: John G. Blystone
Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis, Minna Gombell
Country: United States of America
Outline: Stan, who has remained faithfully at his World War I post for twenty years, is rescued by his best friend, Ollie, thus allowing him to discover the many conveniences of the modern world.
Alexander Nevsky
Directed by: Sergei M. Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev
Starring: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov
Country: United States of America
Outline: The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Jezebel
Directed by: William Wyler
Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay
Country: United States of America
Outline: In 1850s Louisiana, a free-spirited Southern belle loses her fiancé due to her stubborn vanity and pride, and vows to win him back.
The Dawn Patrol
Directed by: Edmund Goulding
Starring: Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp
Country: United States of America
Outline: British flying aces in World War I contend with the harsh realities of war.
Romance of the Limberlost
Directed by: William Nigh
Starring: Jean Parker, Eric Linden, Marjorie Main, Edward Pawley
Outline: One little correction -- the Limberlost is in Indiana, rather than in the south.
A Christmas Carol
Directed by: Edwin L. Marin
Starring: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn
Country: United States of America
Outline: On Christmas Eve, an old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former partner, Jacob Marley. The deceased partner was in his lifetime as mean and miserly as Scrooge ...
Merrily We Live
Directed by: Norman Z. McLeod
Starring: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Alan Mowbray, Billie Burke
Outline: Dizzy society matron Emily Kilbourne has a habit of hiring ex-cons and hobos as servants. Her latest find is a handsome "tramp" who shows up at her doorstep and soon ends up in a ...
Mad About Music
Directed by: Norman Taurog
Starring: Deanna Durbin, Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick, Arthur Treacher
Outline: A young woman at a girl's school in Switzerland makes up stories about and writes herself letters from an imaginary explorer-adventurer father; and is eventually put in a position where she...
Three Comrades
Directed by: Frank Borzage
Starring: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young
Outline: A love story centered around the lives of three young German soldiers in the years following World War I. Their close friendship is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman who ...
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton, David Niven
Country: United States of America
Outline: After learning her multi-millionaire fiancé has already been married and divorced seven times, the daughter of a penniless marquis decides to tame him.
Dick Tracy Returns
Directed by: John English, William Witney
Starring: Ralph Byrd, Lynne Roberts, Charles Middleton, Jerry Tucker
Outline: Dick Tracy battles spies and saboteurs in his efforts to bring to justice the Stark gang, a criminal family led by the vicious Pa Stark.
A Slight Case of Murder
Directed by: Lloyd Bacon
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly
Outline: Former bootlegger Remy Marco has a slight problem with forclosing bankers, a prospective son-in-law, and four hard-to-explain corpses.
What happened in 1938?
Discover what the world looked like in 1938: