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100 great Pre-Code films

The best of Pre-Code Hollywood. Or at least the most Pre-Code of Pre-Code Hollywood.

All are sound films from 1929-34. but I've given priority to movies that are salacious or radical or otherwise baited the censor. (So Murder at the Vanities is here, even if it's not as good as Little Women (1933), because the latter just came out in the Pre-Code era, it's not a Pre-Code film.)

I've tried to include a mixture of studios, stars, directors and genres, rather than just bunging in all of Barbara Stanwyck's Pre-Code vehicles, or all Warner's backstage musicals.

UPDATED 22/12/20: I've added 20 more movies to the original 80.

Block or Report
  • Blessed Event

    1

  • I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

    2

  • Heat Lightning

    3

  • Trouble in Paradise

    4

  • One Sunday Afternoon

    5

  • Gold Diggers of 1933

    6

  • The Miracle Woman

    7

  • One Way Passage

    8

  • Love Me Tonight

    9

  • Wild Boys of the Road

    10

  • Smart Woman

    11

  • The Big House

    12

  • High Pressure

    13

  • Hallelujah, I'm a Bum

    14

  • A Bill of Divorcement

    15

  • Jewel Robbery

    16

  • Union Depot

    17

  • Skyscraper Souls

    18

  • Employees' Entrance

    19

  • Penthouse

    20

  • Scarface

    21

  • Heroes for Sale

    22

  • Downstairs

    23

  • Make Me a Star

    24

  • Little Caesar

    25

  • The Mayor of Hell

    26

  • Of Human Bondage

    27

  • Safe in Hell

    28

  • Looking for Trouble

    29

  • The Half-Naked Truth

    30

  • The Public Enemy

    31

  • I've Got Your Number

    32

  • The Smiling Lieutenant

    33

  • The Power and the Glory

    34

  • Hoopla

    35

  • Grand Hotel

    36

  • Platinum Blonde

    37

  • When Ladies Meet

    38

  • Girls About Town

    39

  • Arsène Lupin

    40

  • Man Wanted

    41

  • She Loves Me Not

    42

  • The Strange Love of Molly Louvain

    43

  • Design for Living

    44

  • Two Seconds

    45

  • One Hour with You

    46

  • The Mouthpiece

    47

  • The Saturday Night Kid

    48

  • Her Man

    49

  • Hell's Highway

    50

  • Hard to Handle

    51

  • Private Lives

    52

  • Midnight Mary

    53

  • Female

    54

  • The Cat and the Fiddle

    55

  • Jimmy the Gent

    56

  • Merrily We Go to Hell

    57

  • Baby Face

    58

  • Blonde Venus

    59

  • The Hatchet Man

    60

  • The Old Dark House

    61

  • Freaks

    62

  • Love Is a Racket

    63

  • Havana Widows

    64

  • Footlight Parade

    65

  • American Madness

    66

  • Sing and Like it

    67

  • The Animal Kingdom

    68

  • Ladies They Talk About

    69

  • The Song of Songs

    70

  • Night Nurse

    71

  • Ten Cents a Dance

    72

  • Hot Saturday

    73

  • Faithless

    74

  • The Bitter Tea of General Yen

    75

  • False Faces

    76

  • Tonight or Never

    77

  • Frisco Jenny

    78

  • Beauty and the Boss

    79

  • Kiss and Make-Up

    80

  • Roman Scandals

    81

  • Red Dust

    82

  • Monte Carlo

    83

  • Girl Missing

    84

  • Mystery of the Wax Museum

    85

  • Private Detective 62

    86

  • Guilty Hands

    87

  • Hi, Nellie!

    88

  • She Done Him Wrong

    89

  • The Cheat

    90

  • Three on a Match

    91

  • The Mask of Fu Manchu

    92

  • Tarzan and His Mate

    93

  • Rain

    94

  • Anna Christie

    95

  • College Humor

    96

  • The Wild Party

    97

  • Four Frightened People

    98

  • Call Her Savage

    99

  • Murder at the Vanities

    100