1934's Best Movies: 90 Years Later

In keeping with previous polls, I've gone with the contenders in the top 2,000 films, but they now offer the entire starting spreadsheet. Here are the titles that carry through through the top 5,000 films ever.

2278	2266	Dames	Enright, Ray	1934	USA	90
2378	2325	Song of Ceylon	Wright, Basil	1934	UK	38
2520	2555	Twentieth Century	Hawks, Howard	1934	USA	91
2683	2647	Merry Widow, The	Lubitsch, Ernst	1934	USA	99
2741	2660	Sea Horse, The	Painlevé, Jean	1934	France	15
2826	2739	Angèle	Pagnol, Marcel	1934	France	145
2889	2832	Tarzan and His Mate	Gibbons, Cedric	1934	USA	93
3000	2928	Chapayev	Vasilyev, Georgi & Sergei Vasilyev	1934	USSR	101
3030	3018	Gay Divorcee, The	Sandrich, Mark	1934	USA	107
3094	2932	Three Songs About Lenin	Vertov, Dziga	1934	USSR	61
3146	2973	Imitation of Life	Stahl, John M.	1934	USA	111
3608	3490	Cleopatra	DeMille, Cecil B.	1934	USA	100
3767	3720	Our Daily Bread	Vidor, King	1934	USA	74
3796	3912	Story of Floating Weeds, A	Ozu, Yasujiro	1934	Japan	86
3903	3788	Grand jeu, Le	Feyder, Jacques	1934	France	120
3909	3792	Maskerade	Forst, Willi	1934	Germany	87
4662	4099	Judge Priest	Ford, John	1934	USA	80

A lot of the documentary style of Man of Aran looks pretty primitive today, but some of the ocean scenes have a raw power that I don't associate with much 30s cinema.
Still, I would have voted for A Story of Floating Weeds, which I'm assuming is the only silent film here (and I would imagine one of the last to make this list, until the 60s avant garde starts appearing).

I've only seen 2 of these - It Happened One Night and L'atalante

it happened one night ahead of the thin man for me from what ive seen

It's gonna be Scarlet Empress for me, but this is a really well-rounded collection imo

WC Fields takes this

Vigo's film is one of my absolute favorites, Just beautiful.

Vigo is the only I've seen.

Sternberg is a gap

the scarlet empress is such deranged delirious fun. a lot of affection for the thin man series (third one is best imo) but doesn't really hold water here.

would vote for judge priest if i could tho, all three will rogers ford films are phenomenal

I'll go for The Black Cat, perhaps the most feverish Universal horror and certainly the most underrated. Ulmer's European roots in clear evidence with all this talk of decadence and the spectre of WWI. Amazing set design. Nasty and sad and of course it has a jarringly upbeat ending.

The Thin Man and It Happened One Night also good choices.

Have seen all the Hollywood entries here plus L'Atalante and I'll go for The Scarlet Empress.

It Happened One Night was groundbreaking, but Twentieth Century in the supplementary list is a bit funnier imo iirc fwiw.

I'd go for Twentieth Century if it were an option too

Barrymore is hysterical in it: "I close the iron door on you!'

ting-a-ling-a-ling!

I watched The Thin Man three weeks for the third time and was -- well, disappointed? It moved slower than I remembered.

you start to feel the drag once it gets into the dective stuff and loy is sidelined

exactly

_i love you again_ is an underrated van dyke/loy/powell vehicle with a ridiculous premise i’ll go to bat for

an alternative 1934 rec is maria forteza’s poetic short mallorca, which was rediscovered a few years ago and touted as the first spanish film directed by a woman. can be watched here: https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=851089728749755&vanity=XBarbeta

Double Wedding is my fave Powell/Loy outside of the thinmamverse.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I was part of The Scarlet Empress hive, but a little sad I didn't throw a vote the way of The Goddess - Ruan Lingyu is astonishing, and conjures fond memories of reading Mu Shiying short stories / visiting the Shanghai Film Museum.