Best Picture Nominees: 1920s-1930s

For the years in which I’ve seen every film nominated for Best Picture, they’re ranked from best to worst in their listing. Otherwise, films are listed in alphabetical order. Titles in bold are ones I’ve seen, and the ones in italics are personal favorites. Additionally, titles marked with an asterisk are the films that won Best Picture in their given year.

1st Academy Awards (1927-1928):

The first year of the Academy Awards saw two different Best Picture categories: Outstanding Picture and Unique and Artistic Picture. The former category would go on to be recognized as the Best Picture category we know today, but I still want to include the nominees from the latter category as they’re just as worthy of mention.

Outstanding Picture:

  1. Wings*
  2. 7th Heaven
  3. The Racket

Unique and Artistic Picture:

  1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans*
  2. The Crowd
  3. Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

2nd Academy Awards (1928-1929):

  1. Alibi
  2. The Broadway Melody*
  3. In Old Arizona
  4. The Hollywood Revue of 1929The Patriot

3rd Academy Awards (1929-1930):

  1. All Quiet on the Western Front*
  2. The Divorcee
  3. The Big House
  4. The Love Parade
  5. Disraeli

4th Academy Awards (1930-1931):

  1. The Front Page
  2. Skippy
  3. Trader Horn
  4. Cimarron*East Lynne

5th Academy Awards (1931-1932):

  1. Grand Hotel*
  2. Shanghai Express
  3. Five Star Final
  4. The Smiling Lieutenant
  5. One Hour with You
  6. The Champ
  7. Bad Girl
  8. Arrowsmith

6th Academy Awards (1932-1933):

  1. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
  2. 42nd Street
  3. Lady for a Day
  4. Smilin’ Through
  5. State Fair
  6. A Farewell to Arms
  7. Little Women
  8. The Private Life of Henry VIII.
  9. She Done Him Wrong
  10. Cavalcade*

7th Academy Awards (1934):

  1. It Happened One Night*
  2. The Thin Man
  3. The Gay Divorcee
  4. Imitation of Life
  5. The Barretts of Wimpole Street
  6. Cleopatra
  7. Viva Villa!
  8. Flirtation Walk
  9. Here Comes the Navy
  10. One Night of Love
  11. The House of RothschildThe White Parade

8th Academy Awards (1935):

  1. Top Hat
  2. Mutiny on the Bounty*
  3. Ruggles of Red Gap
  4. Captain Blood
  5. Alice Adams
  6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  7. The Informer
  8. Les Misérables
  9. David Copperfield
  10. Broadway Melody of 1936
  11. Naughty Marietta
  12. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

9th Academy Awards (1936):

  1. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
  2. Dodsworth
  3. Libeled Lady
  4. San Francisco
  5. A Tale of Two Cities
  6. Romeo and Juliet
  7. The Story of Louis Pasteur
  8. Three Smart Girls
  9. The Great Ziegfeld*
  10. Anthony Adverse

10th Academy Awards (1937):

  1. Stage Door
  2. A Star Is Born
  3. The Awful Truth
  4. Dead End
  5. Lost Horizon
  6. The Life of Emile Zola*
  7. Captains Courageous
  8. One Hundred Men and a Girl
  9. In Old Chicago
  10. The Good Earth