Oscar Best Story Winners and Nominees
by ossie85 | created - 18 Mar 2021 | updated - 18 Mar 2021 | PublicBest Story award that stopped in 1956
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1. Underworld (1927)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.
Directors: Josef von Sternberg, Arthur Rosson | Stars: George Bancroft, Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent, Fred Kohler
Votes: 3,330 | Gross: $1.64M
2. The Last Command (1928)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, History, Romance
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell, Jack Raymond
Votes: 4,326
3. The Dawn Patrol (1930)
Passed | 108 min | Action, Drama, War
World War I ace Dick Courtney derides the leadership of his superior officer, but Courtney is soon promoted to squadron commander and learns harsh lessons about sending subordinates to their deaths.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Neil Hamilton, Frank McHugh
Votes: 1,988
4. The Doorway to Hell (1930)
Passed | 78 min | Crime, Drama
Despite his efforts to go straight, a young gangster keeps falling back into crime.
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: Lew Ayres, James Cagney, Dorothy Mathews, Leon Janney
Votes: 1,281
5. Laughter (1930)
85 min | Comedy, Romance
A 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.
Director: Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast | Stars: Nancy Carroll, Fredric March, Frank Morgan, Glenn Anders
Votes: 390
6. The Public Enemy (1931)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama
An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell
Votes: 22,423 | Gross: $1.01M
7. Smart Money (1931)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama
A Greek barber has uncommon skills in playing poker and soon rises in the seedy world of illegal gambling, but pretty blondes remain his Achilles' heel.
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Evalyn Knapp, Ralf Harolde
Votes: 2,155
8. The Champ (I) (1931)
Passed | 86 min | Drama, Family, Sport
An alcoholic ex-boxer struggles to provide a good living for his son.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 3,486
9. Lady and Gent (1932)
84 min | Drama, Sport
Fresh young boxer Buzz Kinney is just out of college. He's able to knock out Stag Bailey when the veteran becomes overconfident. Later, Buzz is a worn-out wreck with a broken nose and cauliflower ear.
Director: Stephen Roberts | Stars: George Bancroft, Wynne Gibson, Charles Starrett, James Gleason
Votes: 221
10. The Star Witness (1931)
Passed | 68 min | Crime, Drama
Members of a family witness two murders, but the gang uses threats, violence and kidnapping to try to keep the members from testifying.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Walter Huston, Frances Starr, Grant Mitchell, Sally Blane
Votes: 701
11. What Price Hollywood? (1932)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Music, Romance
The career of a waitress takes off when she meets an amiable drunken Hollywood director.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff
Votes: 2,533
12. One Way Passage (1932)
Passed | 67 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: William Powell, Kay Francis, Frank McHugh, Aline MacMahon
Votes: 4,188
13. The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
An ex-sailor turned boxer finds romance and gets a shot at the heavyweight title.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Howard Hawks | Stars: Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey
Votes: 1,033
14. Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Passed | 121 min | Biography, Drama, History
A prince plots to kill the mad monk Rasputin for the good of the czar, the czarina and Russia.
Directors: Richard Boleslawski, Charles Brabin | Stars: John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Morgan
Votes: 1,144
15. Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Passed | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Jack Conway, George Cukor | Stars: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo
Votes: 4,681
16. Hide-Out (1934)
Passed | 81 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Farmers take in an injured racketeer and try to reform him.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Robert Montgomery, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edward Arnold, Elizabeth Patterson
Votes: 863
17. The Richest Girl in the World (1934)
Passed | 76 min | Comedy, Romance
An heiress switches places with her secretary in order to find a man who will love her for who she is and not for her money.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Henry Stephenson
Votes: 993
18. The Scoundrel (1935)
Passed | 76 min | Drama, Fantasy
A ruthless, cynical, hated publisher is killed in a plane crash, doomed to be a "restless" spirit for being unloved. A heavenly power gives him a month on Earth to find one person to shed a tear for him before his fate is sealed.
Directors: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur | Stars: Noël Coward, Julie Haydon, Stanley Ridges, Martha Sleeper
Votes: 417
19. Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)
Passed | 101 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
Bob Gordon is staging a new Broadway Show. He gets an offer of money by Lillian, if she can dance in his show. Gordon's old class mate Irene, tries to get the leading role in this show, but Lillian insists in getting this part herself.
Directors: Roy Del Ruth, W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Jack Benny, Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor, Una Merkel
Votes: 1,949
20. The Gay Deception (1935)
Approved | 77 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Mirabel wins a $5, 000 lottery which will enable her to live like a queen in New York. There she meets Sandro, a bellboy who is really a prince, so she does get to be a queen after all.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Francis Lederer, Frances Dee, Benita Hume, Alan Mowbray
Votes: 427
21. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
Passed | 86 min | Biography, Drama, History
The biography of the pioneering French microbiologist who helped revolutionize agriculture and medicine.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Paul Muni, Josephine Hutchinson, Anita Louise, Donald Woods
Votes: 3,017
22. Fury (1936)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a wrongly-accused prisoner barely survives a lynch-mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot
Votes: 13,347
23. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Passed | 176 min | Drama, Musical
The ups and downs of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., famed producer of extravagant stage revues, are portrayed.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer, Frank Morgan
Votes: 8,728
24. San Francisco (1936)
Passed | 115 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and a Nob Hill impresario are rivals for the affections of a beautiful singer, both personally and professionally, in 1906 San Francisco.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt
Votes: 5,942
25. Three Smart Girls (1936)
Approved | 84 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Three sisters scheme to reunite their divorced parents before their wealthy father marries a conniving gold digger.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Binnie Barnes, Charles Winninger, Alice Brady, Ray Milland
Votes: 1,480 | Gross: $3.00M
26. A Star Is Born (1937)
Passed | 111 min | Drama, Romance
A young woman comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, and achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic leading man whose best days are behind him.
Directors: William A. Wellman, Jack Conway, Victor Fleming | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson
Votes: 10,488 | Gross: $4.36M
27. Black Legion (1937)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he's seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
Directors: Archie Mayo, Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore
Votes: 3,797
28. In Old Chicago (1938)
Passed | 95 min | Action, Drama, Musical
The O'Leary brothers--honest Jack and roguish Dion--become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Alice Brady
Votes: 2,561
29. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
Passed | 116 min | Biography, Drama
The biopic of the famous French muckraking writer and his involvement in fighting the injustice of the Dreyfus Affair.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden
Votes: 8,730
30. One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)
Passed | 84 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
The daughter of a struggling musician forms a symphony orchestra made up of his unemployed friends and through persistence, charm and a few misunderstandings, is able to get Leopold ... See full summary »
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Adolphe Menjou, Alice Brady, Leopold Stokowski
Votes: 1,167 | Gross: $2.27M
31. Boys Town (1938)
Passed | 96 min | Biography, Drama, Family
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 start a home for young boys.
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton
Votes: 6,131
32. Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
Approved | 106 min | Drama, Music, Musical
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.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman
Votes: 2,250
33. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan
Votes: 22,660
34. Blockade (1938)
Passed | 85 min | Drama, Romance, War
A simple peasant is forced to take up arms to defend his farm during the Spanish Civil War. Along the way he falls in love with Russian whose father is involved in espionage.v
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Madeleine Carroll, Henry Fonda, Leo Carrillo, John Halliday
Votes: 609
35. Mad About Music (1938)
Approved | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
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... See full summary »
Director: Norman Taurog | Stars: Deanna Durbin, Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick, Arthur Treacher
Votes: 635
36. Test Pilot (1938)
Passed | 119 min | Drama, Romance
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.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 2,605
37. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 118,943 | Gross: $9.60M
38. Bachelor Mother (1939)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Romance
An unemployed woman discovers an abandoned baby on the steps of an orphanage, and accepts an offer to take responsibility for the child in return for a job.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson
Votes: 4,375
39. Love Affair (1939)
Approved | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A French playboy and an American former nightclub singer fall in love aboard a ship.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman
Votes: 6,113
40. Ninotchka (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 22,141 | Gross: $1.19M
41. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Passed | 100 min | Biography, Drama, History
A fictionalized account of the early life of the American president as a young lawyer facing his greatest court case.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, Arleen Whelan
Votes: 8,942
42. Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Boxer Joe Pendleton dies 50 years too soon due to a heavenly mistake, and is given a new life as a millionaire playboy.
Director: Alexander Hall | Stars: Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains, Evelyn Keyes, Rita Johnson
Votes: 7,026
43. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 13,611
44. The Lady Eve (1941)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance