Top Ten Films

1971 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerDiary of a Mad HousewifeA housewife with an abusive husband has an affair with a writer.AmazonFive Easy PiecesA dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.AmazonI Never Sang for My FatherA man who wants to move on with his life by moving to California and marry his girlfriend, finds it difficult as he still lives in the towering shadow of his aging father.AmazonKesA young, English working-class boy spends his free time caring for and training his pet falcon.AmazonLove StoryA boy and a girl from different backgrounds fall in love regardless of their upbringing - and then tragedy strikes.AmazonPattonThe World War II ...

1972 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films Winner1776A musical retelling of the American Revolution's political struggle in the Continental Congress to declare independence.AmazonCabaretA female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin romances two men while the Nazi Party rises to power around them.AmazonDeath in VeniceWhile recovering in Venice, sickly Composer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio.AmazonDeliveranceIntent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.AmazonFrenzyA serial murderer is strangling women with a necktie. The London police have a suspect, but he is the wron...

1973 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerBang the Drum SlowlyThe story of the friendship between a star pitcher, wise to the world, and a half-wit catcher, as they cope with the catcher's terminal illness through a baseball season.AmazonO Lucky Man!An apprentice coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures that seem designed to challenge his naive idealism.AmazonPaper MoonDuring the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership.AmazonSerpicoAn honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.AmazonThe Day of the DolphinA marine biologist teaches his dolphins to communicate in...

1939 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerConfessions of a Nazi SpyFBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.AmazonCrisisA documentary about the conquest of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis just prior to World War 2.AmazonGoodbye, Mr. ChipsAn aged teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school recalls his career and his personal life over the decades.AmazonMr. Smith Goes to WashingtonA naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.AmazonNinotchkaA stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.AmazonStagecoachA group of people traveling ...

1929 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerApplauseA burlesque star seeks to keep her convent-raised daughter away from her low-down life and abusive lover/stage manager.AmazonBroadwayA naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.AmazonBulldog DrummondA bored WWI veteran helps out a young woman, whose uncle is being held hostage by embezzlers.AmazonDisraeliPrime Minister of Great Britain Benjamin Disraeli outwits the subterfuge of the Russians and chicanery at home in order to secure the purchase of the Suez Canal.AmazonHallelujahA sharecropper decides to become a preacher after falling for a vamp from the city.AmazonParis BoundPre-Code early-talkie film version of Philip Barry's Broadway hit chronicles the first five years of...

1930 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerAll Quiet on the Western FrontA young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.AmazonHolidayHoliday is a 1930 American Pre-Code romantic comedy film which tells the story of a young man who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family.AmazonLaughterA former chorus girl weds a millionaire after the composer she loves leaves. Meanwhile, she strings along an artist in love with her. When the composer returns, she struggles with her needs for security vs love. High jinks and drama ensue.AmazonMen Without WomenNavy divers clear the torpedo tube of a sunken submarine.AmazonMoroccoA cabaret singer and a Legionnaire fall in love, but their relationship is ...

1931 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerCimarronA newspaper editor settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the nineteenth century.AmazonCity LightsWith the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.AmazonCity StreetsMan joins a gang to free his girlfriend from prison.AmazonDishonoredThe Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.AmazonQuick MillionsTruck driver Bugs Raymond organizes the trucking associations and takes protection money. Now rich, he decides to marry socialite Dorothy Stone. She rejects him for another, so he makes plans to kidnap her on her wedding day.AmazonRangoThe frame story is nar...

1932 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerA Bill of DivorcementA man, Hilary Fairfield returns home after fifteen years in a mental asylum. However, he finds things are not the way they were when he left.AmazonA Farewell to ArmsAn American ambulance driver and an English nurse fall in love in Italy during World War I.AmazonAs You Desire MeBudapest bar entertainer Zara is a discontented alcoholic who is pursued by many men but lives with novelist Carl Salter. A strange man (Tony) shows up on Salter's estate claiming that Zara...AmazonI Am a Fugitive from a Chain GangWrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.AmazonMadame RacketeerInternational con artist Martha Hicks a.k.a. Countess von Claudwig ...

1933 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerBerkeley SquareA young American man comes to believe that he can will himself back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meet his ancestors, who lived in the house he has just inherited.AmazonCavalcadeThe triumphs and tragedies of two English families, the upper-crust Marryots and the working-class Bridges, from 1899 to 1933 are portrayed.AmazonLittle WomenA chronicle of the lives of a group of sisters growing up in nineteenth-century America.AmazonMama Loves PapaWidow Martha and widower Brandon plan to marry; their teenaged children do their slapstick best to interfere. One of "The Boy Friends" series.AmazonShe Done Him WrongIn the Gay Nineties, a seductive nightclub singer contends with several suitors, including a jealou...

1934 National Board of Review - Top Ten Films WinnerCrime Without PassionProminent lawyer shoots unfaithful girlfriend during quarrel, has to establish alibi.AmazonEskimoThe happy life of an Eskimo is disastrously changed when he mingles with an unscrupulous white trader.AmazonIt Happened One NightA spoiled heiress running away from her family is helped by a man who is actually a reporter in need of a story.AmazonLot in SodomLot in Sodom is a sensual depiction of the Sodom and Gomorrah story filled with sinewy and semi-clad bodies, delirious bacchanales devoted to physical pleasure, and a searing, cataclysmic ...AmazonNo Greater GloryAdapted from The Paul Street Boys, an autobiographical novel by Ferenc Molnar, GLORY is an unusually sensitive evocation of the pain of youth and the senseles...