4v291o

it’s kind of the greatest American story ever written, and this is probably Baz Luhrmann’s best film

it’s peak

Kevin Costner got a little horny in the 90s

one of those movies you watch from the 50’s where you’re just like “Ah dang what the hell?” because of how insanely sexist it is. like in shock because these “romantic” scenarios are just straight up sexual assault. this is a horror movie from Dorothy Malone’s perspective. but on the other hand we do have Shirley MacLaine, one of the greatest to ever do it

my toxic trait is that i enjoy a little war genre movie if it has sufficient action and explosion, but this was SO boring and tedious, and very blatantly low-budget. totally lacking in any kind of depth or nuance, just 95 minutes of soldier boy dick riding, with a cast full of actors vying to show how masculine they are

- shot on film, warm and cool tones in the same frame, tracking shots in and out of buildings
- a theatrical musical number with magical realism
- a late career appearance from legendary musician Buddy Guy

That’s SINNERMA baby!!!

i saw this movie in theaters when it came out because my high school history teacher was obsessed with the French revolution so she made it a class field trip to go see and let’s just say it was not was she was expecting but it was an absolute all-timer cinema moment for me. KIRSTEN DUNST

ANTHONY MANN never misses

watched for film club

movies used to have a hit song from the motion picture

this movie became a real comedy when they did the evil gay brother reveal. like Bill was waiting twenty years for a curse to return but he kept himself busy getting a BA in Theatre

watched for film club. good Catholic fun

boxing & disco

it’s camp

beautiful men hitting each other

BAD BUNNY GAY KISS??

IT’S PEAK

a bit conventional but it knows what lane its in. Tommy, my boy

showed this to my nephew for the first time and he was TRANSFIXED ❤️🎞️

watched for film club

there was never another one like him before, and there will never be another one like him again. RIP David Lynch

Joan Blondell was so Babygirl

the sets are incredible. the script is boneheaded. Demi Moore gives her scratchiest vocal performance yet. lots of people say the word ‘penis’

Alexa, play Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell

NICOLE KIDMAN SAID GOONER RIGHTS

horny cinema is BACK. everybody say THANK YOU ROBERT EGGERS. Lily-Rose Depp just earned the hell out of her nepo baby stripes. she put on that hoop skirt and hit G-forces that would make an astronaut shit themself. Bill Skarsgård hangs undead dong

Best movie i’ve seen all year. absolutely incredible stuff from Luca Guadagnino, who very boldly adapts this William S. Burroughs story and captures the malaise and stream-of-consciousness (and homosexuality) that defines much of beat literature. Daniel Craig delivers such an incredibly moving performance in this film, i will be livid if he doesn’t get the nomination for Best Actor

watched at New Beverly cinema

this is the craziest and worst movie ever made, i can’t believe it exists

Bill Paxton

no shots of Paul Mascal’s balls?? i want what this poster promised me

as long as Denzel Washington had fun, that’s all that manners

this movie is an unreclaimed camp CLASSIC. it’s a family drama, a slapstick comedy, and an erotic thriller rolled into one and at NO point does it strike a cohesive balance, and it’s honestly better for it. the 90’s were a crazy decade in film because studio were taking big swings on anything that could conceivably put butts in seats, and in this case, it was Demi Moore. in fact, her then record-breaking salary of $12.5 million from Striptease made Moore the highest paid actress in Hollywood. let’s be real, this plot could have been any old drivel, and people were gonna see it anyway as long as it meant Demi Moore going topless, but instead we get this bizarre Fellini ensemble of zany characters. not least of which is Burt Reynolds who is in fine form playing the greasy (literally) Congressman Dilbeck.

Sean Baker wanted some of the Safdie brothers’ nachos

too much dialogue, fell asleep in the theater

great movie with the worst dress reveal in cinema history

this is what Chappell Roan’s management be doing

the moment Demi said “get your dick back in here” i knew i was gonna love this movie

Anne Bancroft fucking TORE

Watched on Thursday November 7, 2024.

DIVA DOWN

Watched on Sunday November 3, 2024.

if it were like 10% less French it would be an absolute banger

i like that it had a little dembow rhythm. they could be playing this at the club

the most contractually obligated movie to exist. definitely feels like it was just trying to wrap up a franchise instead of developing a story of its own. but i like that they randomly brought back Peggy Lu as Mrs. Chen in perhaps the most egregious musical moment of the year. Venom just wants to dance! Tom Hardy was so checked out he almost forgot to speak American for half the time, but it’s okay because he’s beautiful

Watched on Friday October 25, 2024.

VH1’s I Love the 2000’s cooked here

Jonas Bloquet… i know it’s big

Watched on Saturday October 19, 2024.

this was so crazy, i can’t believe Venom came out at the club 🏳️‍🌈 i love u Venom 😭

Alucarda was acting crazy, tellin a girl you’re in love with her 5 minutes into the first link. real af

hollywood was crazy in 2009

"Just watching him walk was almost a physical pleasure."

- Shelley Winters

Burt Lancaster was a late-bloomer by Hollywood standards. He didn't appear in movies until he was 33 years old, but his first film, The Killers, made him an instant star, and it's not hard to understand why. A former acrobat, Lancaster had the chiseled physique of a Greek statue, with two rows of perfect teeth, and deep, soulful blue eyes. With that profile, he would have been easy to typecast, but Lancaster was an intensely driven man and very soon began a secondary career as a producer for many of his own films, thereby calling the shots on his own image. Unlike many other male actors, Lancaster projected an external vulnerability with an introspective ferocity, and not the other way around. Here is my personal ranking of Burt Lancaster's best film performances.

1. Elmer Gantry

   Director: Richard Brooks
   Co-starring: Jean Simmons
   Production/Distribution: United Artists

   Lancaster gives his best performance as a con-man turned evangelist, ratcheting his glib charisma to its furthest reach (for the Lord), in this ironic tale of redemption.

2. Sweet Smell of Success

   Director: Alexander Mackendrick
   Co-starring: Tony Curtis
   Production/Distribution: Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions, Norma Productions, Curtleigh Productions, United Artists

   Lancaster's turn as media kingpin J.J. Hunsecker was his first critical turn towards playing unsympathetic characters, as well as his first critical success as an independant producer.

3. From Here to Eternity

   Director: Fred Zinneman
   Co-starring: Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra
   Production/Distribution: Columbia Pictures

   Burt Lancaster made cinema history while kissing Deborah Kerr on the beach, with one famous loves scene in this poignant war drama.

4. Criss Cross

   Director: Robert Siodmak
   Co-starring: Yvonne de Carlo, Dan Duryea
   Production/Distribution: Universal Pictures

   In the 1940's, Burt Lancaster was a mainstay of the melodramas which later became knowns as film noirs, and this film about a tangled web of double-crossings is his best.

5. Separate Tables

   Director: Delbert Mann
   Co-starring: Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Wendy Hiller
   Production/Distribution: Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions, United Artists

   Although his role is arguably ing, Lancaster fills it with all of his best on-screen qualities simultaneously; volatile, romantic, anguished and charismatic all at once.

6. Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

   Director: Norman Foster
   Co-starring: Joan Fontaine
   Production/Distribution: Norma Productions, Harold Hecht Productions, Universal-International Pictures

   Just two years after making his film debut, Burt Lancaster produced his first film. While it was a modest financial success, it was critically praised, proving Lancaster's prowess on both sides of the camera.

7. Come Back, Little Sheba

   Director: Daniel Mann
   Co-starring: Shirley Booth
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Burt Lancaster gave perhaps his most vulnerable performance as Doc Delaney, a recovering alcoholic who rekindles his love for his neglected wife, played by Shirley Booth.

8. Brute Force

   Director: Jules Dassin
   Co-starring: Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford
   Production/Distribution: Mark Hellinger Productions, Universal Pictures, Distributors Corporation of America

   Burt Lancaster stars in one the most hard-boiled film noirs of the 1940's, director Jules Dassin's brutal dissection of America's inhumane penal system.

"The quitessence of the female, a really magnificent bitch."

- Tennessee Williams

Miriam Hopkins is best ed today for her "difficult" on-set behavior, which was no doubt corroborated by her legendary feud with Bette Davis, but was she really that difficult? Or was she just a woman in 20th century? A bit of digging and speculation could very well lead you to the latter conclusion. Hopkins was a walking set of contradictions: she was highly intellectual but incredibly superstitious; she was often insecure but also assertive, yet it was these very contradictions that made her such a versatile actress. Hopkins could play drama just as easily as comedy; be sexy just as well as cold-hearted. However she felt off-screen, Hopkins always projected the "love me or leave me" attitude of a liberated woman. Here is my personal ranking of Miriam Hopkins' best film performances.

• The Story of Temple Drake

  Director: Stephen Roberts
  Co-starring: Jack LaRue
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Miriam Hopkins gives her finest performance in the titular role of Temple Drake, which went largely unseen by the public for over 80 years due to censorship from the Production Code, which objected to the film's frank discussion of sexual assault.

• Trouble in Paradise

  Director: Ernst Lubitsch
  Co-starring: Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Miriam Hopkins was director Ernst Lubitsch's favorite actress and here she lends her neurotic charms to the role of Lily, a pickpocket whose lover, a master thief, falls for their mark, a wealthy business woman.

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  Director: Rouben Mamoulian
  Co-starring: Fredric March
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Hopkins proved herself as an icon of pre-Code horror as bar maid Ivy Pearson, seducing Dr. Jekyll (and showing quite a bit of skin while doing it) and being terrorized by Mr. Hyde.

• Design for Living

  Director: Ernst Lubitsch
  Co-starring: Fredric March, Gary Cooper
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Miriam Hopkins continued to heat up the screen in the pre-Code era in Noël Coward's comedy of sexual manners as Gilda, a modern woman who leads a bohemian life, having not one but two lovers!

• Barbary Coast

  Director: Howard Hawks
  Co-starring: Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea
  Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, United Artists

  As Mary 'Swan' Rutledge, Hopkins goes west during the Gold Rush to an untamed San Francisco and an uncertain future, but determined to make good.

• Old Acquaintance

  Director: Vincent Sherman
  Co-starring: Bette Davis
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  Miriam Hopkins went toe to toe with her archnemesis Bette Davis, twice. The second time was this 1943 woman's picture, in which she and Davis play best friends and rival novelists. Davis may have defeated her by gaining the larger role, but Hopkins stole the show right out from under her.

• Wise Girl

  Director: Leigh Jason
  Co-starring: Ray Milland
  Production/Distribution: RKO Radio Pictures

  Miriam Hopkins showed off her genius as a comedian in this extra-wacky screwball comedy which fires off zingers and one-liners like a machine gun.

• The Old Maid

  Director: Edmund Goulding
  Co-starring: Bette Davis, George Brent
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins may have clashed off-camera during this production, but Hopkins gave one of her most subdued performances as Delia Lovell, who adopts the illegitimate child of her cousin, Charlotte.

"There are hundreds of thousands of women who wish they were Emma Bovary, who have been saved from her fate not by virtue, but simply by lack of determination."

- Gustave Flaubert, Emma Bovary, 1949

In 1936, there were hundreds of thousands of women who wished they were Scarlett O'Hara, the antebellum heroine of Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind. More specifically, there were thousands of actresses vying for her part in the coming film adaptation. It was perhaps the most coveted role of all time, but romantic, Victorian heroines had been popular for quite some time. By the end of the 1920's, it was estimate that 80% of film audiences were women, and towards the late 1930's, a new genre format called the woman's picture began to take hold, featuring female leads and centered around contemporary women's issues, i.e. romance, marriage, motherhood, domesticity, etc., but the arrival of Scarlett O'Hara merged the woman's picture with the costume drama to become an immensely popular format. This is a list of woman's pictures or costumes dramas with female leads that feature a heroine from the Victorian era.

• Camille

  Director: George Cukor
  Starring: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  Based on a play by Alexandre Dumas fils, this Greta Garbo vehicle is an example of the long-standing popularity of tragic heroines from 19th century literature and a precursor to their popularity on screen.

• Jezebel

  Director: William Wyler
  Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  The earliest of the Scarlett O'Hara clones actually came out before Gone with the Wind, when Bette Davis successfully complained her way into her own Southern Belle movie.

• Wuthering Heights

  Director: William Wyler
  Starring: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier
  Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, United Artists

  Emily Brontë's seminal romantic novel was adapted into this classic weepie starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, who actually despised each other in between love scenes.

• The Old Maid

  Director: Edmund Goulding
  Starring: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, arch enemies on and off-screen, put aside their differences to raise a shared daughter, while also vying for the title of mother.

• Gone with the Wind

  Director: Victor Fleming
  Starring: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh
  Production/Distribution: Selznick International Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  The mack daddy of costume dramas. It remains the highest grossing film of all time, when adjusted for inflation.

• Pride and Prejudice

  Director: Robert Z. Leonard
  Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  Technically this is a Regency era story, based on Jane Austen's famous novel, but MGM decided to update the story to a Victorian era setting, which audiences could identify more easily.

• Lady with Red Hair

  Director: Curtis Bernhardt
  Starring: Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  Miriam Hopkins stars as stage actress Mrs. Leslie Carter, who became a sensation in the late 19th century after divorcing her husband and going into theater.

• Gaslight

  Director: George Cukor
  Starring: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  The origin of the popular term gaslighting comes this film in which an odious Charles Boyer manipulates Ingrid Bergman into believing she is insane.

• So Goes My Love

  Director: Frank Ryan
  Starring: Myrna Loy, Don Ameche
  Production/Distribution: Skirball-Manning Productions, Universal Pictures

  A quaint, feel-good Americana story featuring Myrna Loy and Don Ameche. Fun fact: their house in this movie later became the house of the Munsters on TV in the 1960's.

• Green Dolphin Street

  Director: Victor Saville
  Starring: Lana Turner, Van Helfin, Donna Reed
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  Lana Turner sails the high seas for romance and adventure in New Zealand in this epic period drama, which won an Academy Award for its visual effects, creating an earthquake and tsunami on-screen.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyze this woman’s acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera."

- Bette Davis

Greta Garbo was perhaps the most photogenic woman in history. It was said that she had no bad angles, but beyond her physical beauty, what captivated audiences was something indescribable that seemed to emanate from within her. Born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in the poorest neighborhood of Stockholm, she had been determined to become an actress since a very young age, eventually studying at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy of Sweden and acting in silent European films before coming to Hollywood in 1925, when she was put under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the only studio she would ever work for. Rechristened as Garbo, she became a phenomenon with her erotic and cerebral performances. She remained a top box office draw throughout the 1930's, but in 1941, she abdicated from the silver screen, never to return again. In relinquishing her stardom, she paradoxically magnified her fame, and became the most enigmatic movie star of all-time. Here is my personal ranking of Greta Garbo's best film performances.

1. Queen Christina

   Director: Rouben Mamoulian
   Co-starring: John Gilbert

   In Garbo's first film after a nearly two-year hiatus and a new contract to MGM, she played the 17th Century Swedish monarch Queen Christina, who, like Garbo, abdicated her thrown to live life on her own .

2. Ninotchka

   Director: Ernst Lubitsch
   Co-starring: Melvyn Douglas

   "Garbo laughs!" headlines proclaimed when she starred in her first comedy film. Garbo plays the titular Ninotchka, a stuffy Soviet emissary who is seduced by life in Paris, in Lubitsh's charming political satire.

3. Camille

   Director: George Cukor
   Co-starring: Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore

   One of the great weepies of Hollywood's Golden Age, Garbo stars as the doomed courtesan in 19th century Paris who falls in love with a naïve young man.

4. Flesh and the Devil

   Director: Clarence Brown
   Co-starring: John Gilbert

   As the Countess Felicitas von Rhaden, Garbo steams up the screen with frequent co-star and sometimes lover John Gilbert, who plays Leo von Harden, while also sabotaging his life. This is Garbo at her most femme fatale.

5. Anna Karenina

   Director: Clarence Brown
   Co-starring: Fredric March

   Garbo stars as Leo Tolstoy's classic literary heroine, Anna Karenina in this 1935 adaptation. Garbo's ability to translate tragedy to the screen is used to great effect in this story.

6. Grand Hotel

   Director: Edmund Goulding
   Co-starring: John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford

   Garbo utters her most famous line in this ensemble melodrama: "I want to be alone!" The line would go on to become her often parodied catchphrase, which she was more than a little complicit in lampooning.

7. The Painted Veil

   Director: Richard Boleslawski
   Co-starring: Herbert Marshall, George Brent

   Garbo continues her tragic, adulterous adventures, but this time in China, where she helps her cuckolded husband in his fight against a cholera epidemic.

8. Anna Christie

   Director: Clarence Brown
   Co-starring: Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, Marie Dressler

   "Garbo talks!" headlines proclaimed when Garbo starred in her first talking picture. Audiences swooned when she revealed her husky, Swedish accent with the line, "Gif me a whiskey, and doan be stingy, baby!"

"'s greatest gift to the United States since the Statue of Liberty."

- Gregory Peck

Claudette Colbert was born in the suburbs of Paris and raised in the tenements of New York, in a fifth-floor walk-up. Walking up those stairs everyday until the age of 18 is what she claimed made her legs beautiful, and "Legs" Colbert is what Walter Winchell nicknamed her when she became the toast of Broadway a few years later. When the talkies took over, Hollywood needed stage trained actors with golden voices, and Colbert was one of the first to be recruited by Paramount. Her legs made her famous yet again in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, when she lifted her skirt to hail a car, and thus inducted a new genre to the silver screen: the romantic comedy. Claudette Colbert radiated sophistication, spunk, and sex-appeal all at once, while also lending humor and emotional depth to her roles. Here is my personal ranking of Claudette Colbert's best film performances.

1. It Happened One Night

   Director: Frank Capra
   Co-starring: Clark Gable
   Production/Distribution: Columbia Pictures

   Claudette Colbert won the Oscar for Best Actress, and the first for a purely comedic performance, as Ellie Andrews, the madcap runaway heiress in this touchstone screwball comedy.

2. Cleopatra

   Director: Cecil B. DeMille
   Co-starring: Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   As the titular Queen of Egypt, Colbert carries this film on her back with ease. Although it's not much for historical fiction, DeMille creates a moving feast for the eyes and jewel centerpiece is Claudette Colbert.

3. Since You Went Away

   Director: John Cromwell
   Co-starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
   Production/Distribution: Selznick Internation Pictures, Vanguard Films, United Artists

   Claudette Colbert shows her range as an actress, stepping away from her typically glamorous image to portray Mrs. Anne Hilton, a housewife who finds herself as a practically single mother when her husband leaves to fight in WWII.

4. Midnight

   Director: Mitchell Leisen
   Co-starring: Don Ameche, John Barrymore
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   In this hilarious take on Cinderella, Claudette Colbert plays a showgirl who meets her "fairy godmother," a millionaire who sets her up with a lavish hotel suite and a new wardrobe on the condition that she break up his wife's extra-marital affair, all while she pursued (literally) by a taxi driver.

5. Thunder on the Hill

   Director: Douglas Sirk
   Co-starring: Ann Blyth
   Production/Distribution: Universal Pictures

   Colbert sheds her sophisticated image entirely to play Sister Mary Bonaventure, an apostate nun who regains her faith when she becomes determined to save a mysterious convict before her execution, which has only been delayed because of a flood.

6. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

   Director: Ernst Lubitsch
   Co-starring: Gary Cooper
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Colbert stars in another battle of the sexes, this time as a the eighth wife of wealthy business man who intends to break her husband of his habit of divorce by any means necessary. Spoiler alert: she wins.

7. The Sign of the Cross

   Director: Cecil B. DeMille
   Co-starring: Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton

   Her legs may have made her famous, but her breasts changed film history. Claudette Colbert appeared topless in a famous scene in which Roman Empress Poppea baths in asses' milk. The scene helped lead to the creation of the Catholic Legion of Decency, which in turn championed the creation of the Motion Picture Production Code.

8. The Palm Beach Story

   Director: Preston Sturges
   Co-starring: Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallée
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Double Colbert, double the fun. When and her husband get romantically mixed up with a millionaire and his sister, Gerry Jeffers (Colbert) offers them the next best thing: her twin sister and her husband's twin brother.

"There was a great deal of Fred and his persona in each of the characters he played, and I think that's why he was so attractive to people on the screen, and why he was able to play with so many of the top leading ladies over a period of decades."

- Jack Lemmon

Fred MacMurray came to Hollywood from Small Town America. He became a star practically overnight, after appearing in The Gilded Lily in 1935, opposite Claudette Colbert, which was only his second featured role. Despite his instant success, Fred MacMurray always retained a down-home, personable charm that resonated with audiences in the first half of the 20th century. MacMurray went on to star opposite the biggest female stars of the era, including Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and the list just goes on. He was the ideal leading man for the top leading ladies; he knew how to play the scene with them without trying to outshine them, which was unlike many of the other leading men of the era. Even after decades of stardom, MacMurray always remained the quintessential "guy next door." Here is my personal ranking of Fred MacMurray's best film performances.

1. There's Always Tomorrow

   Director: Douglas Sirk
   Co-starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett
   Production/Distribution: Universal Pictures

   Fred MacMurray has his finest hour in this Douglas Sirk melodrama as Clifford Groves, a toy manufacturer who has his routine, suburban life disturbed when an old flame comes to town.

2. Murder, He Says

   Director: George Marshall
   Co-starring: Helen Walker, Marjorie Main
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Although he occasionally performed dramatic roles, Fred MacMurray was most closely associated with comedy, and this black comedy about a poll worker who meets a family of psychopaths is his finest comic performance, showcasing his incredible knack for timing and line delivery.

3. the Night

   Director: Mitchell Leisen
   Co-starring: Barbara Stanwyck
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   This Christmas romantic-comedy-drama film was one of nine pictures Fred MacMurray made with director Mitchell Leisen, and their best collaboration. He plays an assistant district attorney who bails out a jewel thief from jail for Christmas, and decides to take her home to Indiana for the holidays, where complications arise when they fall in love.

4. Double Indemnity

   Director: Billy Wilder
   Co-starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Fred MacMurray's most famous role was Walter Neff, the insurance salesman who hatches a murderous plot for Barbara Stanwyck's femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson. It was an inspired bit of off-casting for MacMurray, who was primarily known as a comedian.

5. Hands Across the Table

   Director: Mitchell Leisen
   Co-starring: Carole Lombard
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   This film marked the first four pictures he made with Carole Lombard, whom he privately confided to friends and family as his favorite leading lady of his career. It's a classic screwball comedy with all the fixings: a working class girl and a broke playboy both set out to marry for money, but choose love instead.

6. Pushover

   Director: Richard Quine
   Co-starring: Kim Novak
   Production/Distribution: Columbia Pictures

   Fred MacMurray falls for another femme fatale. He plays Paul Sheridan, a cop assigned to case the girlfriend of bank robber, played by Kim Novak, until he is seduced by her and her criminal world.

7. Borderline

   Director: William A. Seiter
   Co-starring: Claire Trevor
   Production/Distribution: Milton H. Bren and William A. Seiter Productions, Borderline Pictures, Universal Pictures

   Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor stars as two undercover narcotics agents in Mexico who are unaware they are working for the same agency while trying to bust a smuggling operation, combining drama, comedy, and romance - all suited to MacMurray's talents.

8. The Caine Mutiny

   Director: Edward Dmytryck
   Co-starring: Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, José Ferrer
   Production/Distribution: Stanley Kramer Productions, Columbia Pictures

   One of very few ing roles he took on during his lengthy career as a leading man, Fred MacMurray plays Lieutenant Tom Keeler, part of a crew aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer who begins to suspect their commander is paranoid and delusional. He begins as an instigator for the mutiny but succumbs to cowardice.

"The greatest joy of working with Miss Shearer comes from her complete lack of vanity. Far from bridling at minor criticisms as many actresses do, she will criticize herself with a penetrating, almost unfeminine, impersonal judgment. When she sees the unedited versions of the previous days footage she seems to cease to be an actress and to look at her own work on the screen with the shrewd and critical mind of a producer."

- George Cukor

Norma Shearer was called the "First Lady of MGM" after she married Irving Thalberg, the vice president in charge of production at the studio. Together, they were one of Hollywood's foremost power couples, but first, he was her boss, and Norma Shearer worked hard to impress him. In 1929, Shearer had her eye on the lead role in The Divorcee, but Thalberg didn't think she had the requisite sex appeal, so Shearer arranged a boudoir photoshoot with George Hurrell. When Irving Thalberg saw the results, he relented and gave her the part, and thus began Norma Shearer's brief career run as a screen siren, the first woman to make it chic and sophisticated to be single and not a virgin, before turning to nobler roles in the latter part of her career. Here is my personal ranking of Norma Shearer's best film performances.

1. Smilin' Through

   Director: Sidney Franklin
   Co-starring: Fredric March, Leslie Howard
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Norma Shearer has a double role as a playgirl and a ghost in this fantasy-drama, effectively capturing her range in its entirely, from spunky to noble. Her screen chemistry with Fredric March is electrifying, as well.

2. Marie Antoinette

   Director: W.S. Van Dyke
   Co-starring: Tyrone Power, John Barrymore
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   The Queen of the Lot plays the Queen of . Norma Shearer creates the life of Marie Antoinette, from her youth as a naïve dauphine, to an extravagant queen, and finally, a disgraced woman.

3. The Women

   Director: George Cukor
   Co-starring: Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   It's a campy, cat fight between conniving shopgirl Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer as a wealthy society wife driven to divorce by her cheating husband, and to distraction by her gossiping friends. One of the greatest "women's pictures" ever made.

4. The Barretts of Wimpole Street

   Director: Sidney Franklin
   Co-starring: Fredric March, Charles Laughton
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   One of the wackiest, yet riveting, period dramas of the pre-Code era. Norma Shearer plays Elizabeth Barrett, the famed 19th century poet, when she meets fellow poet Robert Browning, and defies her tyrannical father by falling in love and eloping with him.

5. Riptide

   Director: Edmund Goulding
   Co-starring: Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   A comedy-drama of errs and the struggle to stay married. Norma Shearer is another playgirl with a past, whose marriage is on the rocks when an extra-marital flirtation makes it to the front page.

6. Romeo and Juliet

   Director: George Cukor
   Co-starring: Leslie Howard, John Barrymore
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   Norma Shearer takes on Shakespeare in one of the most famous roles in history: Juliet. Shearer manages to bring a modern sentimentality to the part, crafting it for the medium of film, while delivering the often challenging Shakespearean dialogue effortlessly.

7. Idiot's Delight

   Director: Clarence Brown
   Co-starring: Clark Gable
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Norma Shearer delivers her best comedy performance as a phony Russian mistress, in this farcical, existentialist comedy-drama about the absurdity of war.

8. A Free Soul

   Director: Clarence Brown
   Co-starring: Lionel Barrymore, Leslie Howard, Clark Gable
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   Norma Shearer plays a free-spirited daughter of an alcoholic attorney, caught between her straight-laced fiancé and a seductive gangster. Tragedy ensues when her fiancé kills the gangster to prevent him from marrying her.

"Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity."

- Gil Carter, The Ox-Bow Incident, 1942

One of the most enduring tropes of the Western genre revolves around this familiar trope: in a small town or tight-knit community, where the gap between law and chaos is tenuous, an intrepid outsider arrives and tips the scale in one way or the other. The stranger is sometimes a gunslinger, or the new sheriff; a fugitive or a vigilante, or even a waitress. This is a list of classic Hollywood Westerns which depict such interlopers, be they heroic, comical, or tragic.

• The Westerner

  Director: William Wyler
  Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan
  Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, United Artists

  This Western stars Gary Cooper as Cole Harden, a drifter who stumbles into Vinegaroon, Texas where the infamous, self-proclaimed Judge Roy Bean, played by Walter Brennan, presides. Tensions come to a head as Harden begins to challenge Bean's unlawful authority.

• The Ox-Bow Incident

  Director: William A. Wellman
  Starring: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  This somber melodrama set in Old Nevada concerns Donald Martin (played by Dana Andrews) and his crew who are mistakenly accused by the local townsfolk of cattle rustling, leading to tragic consequences.

• The Harvey Girls

  Director: George Sidney
  Starring: Judy Garland, John Hodiak
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  Judy Garland stars as Susan Bradley in this Technicolor musical comedy, a woman brought West by a false promise of marriage, who then decides to stay on (and shake things up) as a "Harvey girl" in one of Fred Harvey's famous chain restaurants.

• My Darling Clementine

  Director: John Ford
  Starring: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  John Ford tells one of the Wild West's tallest tales: the gunfight at O.K. Corral. Henry Fonda stars as Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday.

• Yellow Sky

  Director: William A. Wellman
  Starring: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  In this loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Stretch Dawson (played by Gregory Peck) and his gang are stranded in a ghost town who's only inhabitants are an old man and his grandaughter, called Mike (played by Anne Baxter). Stretch's allegiance begins to shift when he starts to fall for Mike.

• Rawhide

  Director: Henry Hathaway
  Starring: Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  A remake of a 1930's gangster flick, this movie stars Tyrone Power as Tom Owens, a road house proprietor who must cooperate with the iron-willed Vinnie Holt, played by Susan Hayward, if he wants to survive a gang of murderous highway bandits.

• Rancho Notorious

  Director: Fritz Lang
  Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer
  Production/Distribution: Fidelity Pictures Co., RKO Radio Pictures

  A ranch hand named Vern Haskell, played by Arthur Kennedy, sets out on a mission of revenge when his fiancé is murdered. He then uncovers a secret ranch which harbors criminals, run by the beautiful Altar Keane, played by the inimitable Marlene Dietrich.

• Shane

  Director: George Stevens
  Starring: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Perhaps the most enigmatic "stranger in town" Western ever made, this film stars Alan Ladd in the title role as Shane. Ladd, a veteran action hero, brought his trademark grit to this Western which pioneered a bloodier take on the genre.

• Strange Lady in Town

  Director: Mervyn LeRoy
  Starring: Greer Garson, Dana Andrews
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  It's in the title: Greer Garson stars as Dr. Julia Garth, the first female physician in Old Santa Fe. Of course, she faces opposition due to prejudice, but she eventually wins the hearts of the townsfolk, and particularly the heart of her rival, Dr. Rourke O'Brien, played by Dana Andrews.

• The Man from Laramie

  Director: Anthony Mann
  Starring: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp
  Production/Distribution: William Goetz Productions, Columbia Pictures

  Another loose adaptation of William Shakespeare, in this case King Lear. James Stewart plays the lead role of Will Lockhart, who involves himself in the affairs of a cattle baron, his wayward son, and his ranch foreman, with an agenda of his own: revenge.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For this list, I'm pulling from my top twelve most watched directors and looking at selections from their filmography that either fall outside their general canon of work or are otherwise overlooked and underappreciated.

• The Spirit of St. Louis

  Director: Billy Wilder
  Starring: James Stewart
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  Director Billy Wilder was mainly known for his scathingly cynical film noirs and comedies, but this biography of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh is unusually straight-forward and earnest compared to his other works.

• Bhowani Junction

  Director: George Cukor
  Starring: Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  George Cukor is best ed for directing "women's pictures" of the 1930's and '40's, so this drama about Anglo-Indians caught between identities amid India's independence from Britain is unusually complex for him, although it does also serve as an exotic glamour vehicle for Ava Gardner.

• Carrie

  Director: William Wyler
  Starring: Laurence Olivier, Jennifer Jones
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Although this adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" fits right in with William Wyler's socially-minded dramas, it remains relatively neglected within his legacy.

• No Man of Her Own

  Director: Mitchell Leisen
  Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  Mitchell Leisen was primarily a director of screwball comedies, but in 1950, he turned out this very solid film noir starring Barbara Stanwyck as a woman who assumes another identity after a trainwreck.

• The Bad Seed

  Director: Mervyn LeRoy
  Starring: Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack
  Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

  As a producer, Mervyn LeRoy was responsible for bringing the greatest children's movie to the big screen, The Wizard of Oz, but as a director, he was also responsible for creating another genre of "children's" movie: the demon child.

• Barbary Coast

  Director: Howard Hawks
  Starring: Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea
  Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, United Artists

  Howard Hawks was known for directing male-driven action dramas and female-driven screwball comedies, but this is one of his few Westerns lead by a woman, Miriam Hopkins.

• Stage Fright

  Director: Alfred Hitchcock
  Starring: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich
  Production/Distribution: Transatlantic Pictures, Warner Bros.

  Director Alfred Hitchcock rarely strayed outside of his normal genres of suspense, thrillers and mysteries, and if he did, it was usually to very little success. Although this film fits right into Hitchcock's wheelhouse, it's also rather light-hearted and one of only three he made in his native England after moving to America in 1939.

• The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

  Director: Ernst Lubitsch
  Starring: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  Director Ernst Lubitsch was famous for his "Lubitsch touch" in creating light-hearted and playful situations, but this 1927 silent production is atypically melancholy and bittersweet.

• Intruder in the Dust

  Director: Clarence Brown
  Starring: Juano Hernandez, David Brian
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  Clarence Brown was one of the most versatile directors of the studio era, although he is best ed for directing Greta Garbo in seven films. This crime drama about a black man falsely accused of murdering a white man in the Deep South was unusually frank for its time in its depiction of racism.

• Thunder on the Hill

  Director: Douglas Sirk
  Starring: Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth
  Production/Distribution: Universal Pictures

  Before Douglas Sirk made a name for himself by directing lush, Technicolor melodramas in the 1950's, he was a layman's director and a very good one at that. This film noir starring Claudette Colbert as an apostate nun is where his signature style begins to take form.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"Lucy had a quality which was rare; you could count the women who have had it on the fingers of one hand. While doing the wild antics of a clown, disheveled, rain-soaked, disregarding how she looked even with mud all over her, could make you laugh, and yet at the same time make you want to go to bed with her."

- Desi Arnaz

Most actors have a few hidden gems in their filmography, but Lucille Ball's entire filmography is a hidden gem compared to her groundbreaking legacy, the I Love Lucy show. Before she ever appeared on televison, Lucille Ball made over 60 films, but she did not find success as movie star. She mostly played ing roles or leads in B pictures, which earned her the nickname "the Queen of B's." Her dogged determination to stay afloat in Hollywood would later become her inspiration for Lucy Ricardo's obsession with breaking into show business. The quality of the films she made was not always of a high standard, but her talent always was. Here is my personal ranking of Lucille Ball's best film performances.

1. The Fuller Brush Girl

   Director: Lloyd Bacon
   Co-starring: Eddie Albert
   Production/Distribution: Columbia Pictures

   The Fuller Brush Girl is the film which most closely resembles what became Lucille Ball's legacy. As the daffy heroine Sally Elliot, Ball powered her way through a series of slapstick routines with timing and energy that proved she was one of the comedy greats. Veteran comedy director Lloyd Bacon was the first to tap into Ball's full potential as a physical comedian.

2. The Big Street

   Director: Irving Reis
   Co-starring: Henry Fonda
   Production/Distribution: RKO Radio Pictures

   The Big Street was Lucille Ball's personal favorite among her filmography. She gives her finest dramatic performance as Gloria Lyons, a cold-hearted show girl who becomes paralyzed from the waist down and must contend with such a sudden reversal of fortune.

3. Dance, Girl, Dance

   Director: Dorothy Arzner
   Co-starring: Maureen O'Hara
   Production/Distribution: RKO Radio Pictures

   Lucille Ball is a scene-stealer in this proto-feminist film by Dorothy Arzner. She stars as Bubbles, a burlesque dancer, opposite Maureen O'Hara as Judy O'Brien, a serious ballet dancer who becomes a stooge for Bubbles' show, ultimately leading to an epic cat fight on stage.

4. Two Smart People

   Director: Jules Dassin
   Co-starring: John Hodiak, Lloyd Nolan
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Easily the finest of all the films Ball made at MGM, although she herself described it as "a real dog." The production was an unhappy period in her life, as she knew her contract with MGM would soon be terminated and she was unsure of what her future would be. Nevertheless, Lucille Ball turned out another great dramatic performance as Ricki Woodner, a con artist who falls in love with another con artist on his way to prison.

5. The Dark Corner

   Director: Henry Hathaway
   Co-starring: Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens
   Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

   The Dark Corner was the only true film noir Lucille Ball starred in. It was made the same year as Two-Smart People, and it was a similarly unhappy production for Ball. Just the same, she turned out yet another a great performance as Kathleen Stewart, the sharp-witted secretary to a troubled private investigator.

6. Miss Grant Takes Richmond

   Director: Lloyd Bacon
   Co-starring: William Holden
   Production/Distribution: Columbia Pictures

   Part of Lucille Ball's career turn to slapstick comedy, Miss Grant Takes Richmond is about a well-meaning but oblivious secretary named Ellen Grant who is hired by a real estate office that is just a front for a gambling operation. Hilarity ensues when she begins to take her job a little too seriously. She also kisses Bill Holden!

7. Lured

   Director: Douglas Sirk
   Co-starring: George Sanders, Charles Coburn
   Production/Distribution: Hunt Stromberg Productions, United Artists

   Lucille Ball shows off her sleuthing skills in the murder-mystery comedy Lured as Sandra Carpenter, a taxi dancer who is recruited by Scotland Yard to track down a serial killer, or rather, to be the bait in their trap.

8. The Long, Long Trailer

   Director: Vincente Minnelli
   Co-starring: Desi Arnaz
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

   Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz co-starred in this roadtrip comedy at the zenith of their television careers. Studio executives were unsure if people would pay money to see Ball and Arnaz in theaters when they could see them every week on television for free. Arnaz made a bet with them that they could out-gross MGM's current highest grossing comedy of the time, Father of the Bride. Arnaz won the bet.

"When one thinks of his extraordinary good looks, he had every right to be a bit spoiled, but not Bob. He was unassuming, good-natured, and had a wonderful sense of humor... I felt he was a much better actor than he was given credit for."

- Deborah Kerr

Robert Taylor was one of Hollywood's most popular leading men in his day, not least for his well-defined face which earned him the reputation as "the man with the perfect profile." Recruited by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the mid-1930s, Taylor held the longest contract in film history, which reflected his dependability both as a professional and as a box office draw. Although most of his early roles were simply vehicles for his good looks, he eventually grew into more complex roles in dramas, film noirs, Westerns, and historical epics. Off-screen, Robert Taylor was known to his peers as a quiet, easy-going man, who was not vain or conceited as someone of his looks and fame was be expected to be. Here is my personal ranking of Robert Taylor's best film performances.

1. Waterloo Bridge

   Director: Mervyn LeRoy
   Co-starring: Vivien Leigh
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loews Inc.

   Robert Taylor cites this 1940 romantic drama as his favorite among his filmography. It was his first mature role, and a logical extension of his early romantic leading man typecast. Taylor plays Roy Cronin, a British military officer who falls in love with Myra Lester, a dancer who becomes a "fallen woman" after she believes him to be killed in action, only for him to return.

2. Johnny Eager

   Director: Mervyn LeRoy
   Co-starring: Lana Turner, Van Heflin
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Johnny Eager was one of Taylor's first roles as a heavy, playing a hardened gangster posing as a taxi driver. As the titular Johnny Eager, Robert Taylor is ruthless but still romantic, heating up screen with Lana Turner as Lisbeth Bard. Their chemistry is off the charts.

3. Devil's Doorway

   Director: Anthony Mann
   Co-starring: Louis Calhern, Paula Raymond
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Although not acceptable by today's standards, Robert Taylor plays a Shoshone Indian named Lance Poole. Devil's Doorway is unique among Westerns because it champions the cause of the Indian and sympathizes with him, and Taylor gives a forceful performance which conveys the injustice his character must face.

4. Party Girl

   Director: Nicholas Ray
   Co-starring: Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Later in his career, Taylor returned to the gangster genre as a mob lawyer named Tommy Farrell, loosely based on the real-life lawyer Dixie Davis. Director Nicholas Ray favorably compared him to Method actors for his dedication to creating his character's physical disabilities.

5. The Last Hunt

   Director: Richard Brooks
   Co-starring: Stewart Granger
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   In the controversial film, The Last Hunt, Robert Taylor plays his greatest villian as Charlie Gilson, a sadistic buffalo hunter. Although he had played unsympathetic characters before, none had been so remorseless or sociopathic.

6. Magnificent Obsession

   Director: John M. Stahl
   Co-starring: Irene Dunne
   Production/Distribution: Universal Pictures

   Although he was an MGM contract player, Robert Taylor rose to stardom in Universal's production of Magnificent Obsession. It is by far his best performance of his early career, because the film required more of him than to simply hit the mark and look pretty. Taylor plays a spoiled, reckless playboy who begins to atone for his ways after inadvertantly causing the death of a brilliant, selfless surgeon.

7. High Wall

   Director: Curtis Bernhardt
   Co-starring: Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   Taylor leads this taut thriller as Steve Kenet, a man sent to a psychiatric hospital after he is suspected of killing his wife, although he has no recollection of doing so. With the help of Dr. Ann Lorrison, played by Audrey Totter, he races against time to prove his innocence.

8. Westward the Women

   Director: William A. Wellman
   Co-starring: Denise Darcel, Hope Emerson
   Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

   As rugged wagon-master Buck Wyatt, Robert Taylor leads a caravan of mail-order brides along the treacherous California Trail, assisting the women as they persevere through stampedes, droughts, Indian attacks, rough terrain and unwanted advances from other men.

"She is one of the finest actresses in show business. A lot of young actors and actresses could have profited then and now from a few "seminars" with "Missy" on their professional attitudes - their regard for the business of being an actor - on their on-stage and off-stage deportment, as it were, because I doubt that there ever has been, or ever will be, a greater "pro" than Barbara."

- Robert Taylor

Barbara Stanwyck was one of the titans of the silver screen. A self-described "tough old broad from Brooklyn," Stanwyck was famous for her steely reserve, natural strength, and explosive delivery on-screen. Behind the camera, she was also one of the most beloved actresses by directors, actors, and crew because of her consummate professionalism and generosity. Here is my personal ranking of Barbara Stanwyck's best film performances.

1. Double Indemnity

   Director: Billy Wilder
   Co-starring: Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   Possibly Stanwyck's most famous role was Phyllis Dietrichson, a cold-blooded murderess. Prior to Double Indemnity, Stanwyck had played bad girls but never an outright killer. When Stanwyck expressed her anxiety to director Billy Wilder, he retorted, "Are you an actress or a mouse?" That did it for Stanwyck, and she threw herself into the role.

2. Stella Dallas

   Director: King Vidor
   Co-starring: John Boles, Anne Shirley, Alan Hale
   Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, United Artists

   Most of Stanwyck's movies from the 1930's follow a certain formula wherein she plays a tough girl from the wrong side of the tracks who ultimately proves her nobility and worthiness, but Stella Dallas is likely the best of all of them. As the titular Stella Dallas, Stanwyck plays a single, working-class mother who strives and sacrifices to make a better life for her daughter.

3. The Lady Eve

   Director: Preston Sturges
   Co-starring: Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn
   Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

   The Lady Eve is the most hilarious iteration of Stanwyck's famous man-eater persona. As Jean Harrington/Lady Eve Sidwich (positively the same dame) she whips Henry Fonda into the kind of man she desires.

4. Baby Face

   Director: Alfred E. Green
   Co-starring: George Brent
   Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

   Baby Face is quite possibly the most salacious pre-Code film ever made and one of Stanwyck's earliest hits. As Lily "Baby Face" Powers, Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top, in the most literal sense.

5. Ball of Fire

   Director: Howard Hawks
   Co-starring: Gary Cooper
   Production/Distribution: Samuel Goldwyn Productions, RKO Radio Pictures

   Ball of Fire is the screwball comedy rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, if Snow White was a nightclub singer and gangster's moll. As Sugarpuss O'Shea, Stanwyck lights up the screen like the Fourth of July.

6. Sorry, Wrong Number

   Director: Anatole Litvak
   Co-starring: Burt Lancaster
   Production/Distribution: Hal Wallis Productions, Paramount Pictures

   Sorry, Wrong Number was probably the only film noir in which Stanwyck plays a victim rather than a perpetrator. As Leona Stevens, the bedridden heiress, Stanwyck proves her range, showing great vulnerability just as well as she did great strength.

7. Night Nurse

   Director: William A. Wellman
   Co-starring: Joan Blondell, Clark Gable
   Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

   Another outrageous pre-Code, Stanwyck stars as Lora Hart, a fiesty, dedicated nurse who uncovers a murderous conspiracy to steal the inheritence of two children. Stanwyck was already a powerhouse actress by her sixth film.

8. Christmas in Connecticut

   Director: Peter Godfrey
   Co-starring: Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet
   Production/Distribution: Warner Bros.

   In the holiday screwball comedy Christmas in Connecticut, Stanwyck proves she can play light just as a well as heavy. She stars as Elizabeth Lane, a food writer and single New Yorker who poses as a married Connecticut farm wife to fool her boss.

"This is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield, but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home, and in the heart of every man, woman, and child who loves freedom!"

- The Vicar, Mrs. Miniver, 1942

World War II was fought in Hollywood as well, with major studios becoming de facto propaganda factories during the 1940's, when the studio system was at the height of its power. The films produced during the war helped with military recruitment, news circulation, training, and most importantly, morale-boosting in an era of unprecedented sacrifice. No other armed conflict permeates the landscape of American film as vastly as WWII, and for a time, Hollywood turned away from lush spectacle and towards real-world drama, depicting the lives of average people under extraordinary circumstances. This is a list of such depictions in classic Hollywood cinema, released either during or just after the war. Some are humorous, some are tragic, some are uplifting while others are somber; all of them reflect the contributions of the Greatest Generation.

• To Be or Not to Be

  Director: Ernst Lubitsch
  Starring: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny
  Production/Distribution: Romaine Film Corp., United Artists

  A plucky troupe of Polish theater actors band together to outwit the occupying Nazi forces. This film also marks the last appearance of Carole Lombard on screen, who was tragically killed in a plane crash while returning to Hollywood from a war bond drive.

• Mrs. Miniver

  Director: William Wyler
  Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loew's Inc.

  The lives of an unassuming English family are upended by air raids, evacuations and a foreign agent. This film is regarded as a key piece of propaganda for the war, and dialogue was printed in Time and Look magazines, and quoted by President Roosevelt.

• The Pied Piper

  Director: Irving Pichel
  Starring: Monty Woolley, Anne Baxter
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  A curmudgeonly Englishman on vacation in finds himself in the middle of the Nazi invasion, and as he attempts to return to his home country, he unwittingly leads an ever-growing group of children to safety.

• Five Graves to Cairo

  Director: Billy Wilder
  Starring: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  A British Army corporal goes under cover at a remote hotel in North Africa to sabotage the military plans of German forces, with the unwilling aid of a French chamber maid. This film is a blend of fiction and non-fiction; real-life Nazi field marshall Erwin Rommel is played German actor Erich von Stroheim.

• Bataan

  Director: Tay Garnett
  Starring: Robert Taylor
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United States Office of War Information

  A rag-tag group of military men of multiple branches and disciplines are left behind on the Bataan Peninsula to destroy a bridge in order to delay Japanese military advances for as long as possible. This film was the first to depict a racially integrated military unit.

• So Proudly We Hail

  Director: Mark Sandrich
  Starring: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake
  Production/Distribution: Paramount Pictures

  An intrepid group of Army nurses are sent to the Philippines shortly before the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Bataan and Corregidor; they became known as "the Angels of Bataan."

• Lifeboat

  Director: Alfred Hitchcock
  Starring: Tallulah Bankhead
  Production/Distribution: 20th Century Fox

  A group of civillians are stuck on a lifeboat after their ship and a German U-boat sink each other in battle. Together, they fight to beat the odds with a saboteur among them.

• port to Destiny

  Director: Ray McCarey
  Starring: Elsa Lanchester
  Production/Distribution: RKO Radio Pictures

  An English cleaning woman believes a "magic eye" amulet left to her by her late husband will protect her from harm, so she travels to Nazi to personally assassinate Adolf Hitler.

• Since You Went Away

  Director: John Cromwell
  Starring: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
  Production/Distribution: Selznick International Pictures, Vanguard Films, United Artists

  A middle-class American wife and her two daughters are left behind when her husband goes off to war. Together, they struggle to make ends meet while contributing to the war effort, battling grief, loneliness and fear.

• Keep Your Powder Dry

  Director: Edward Buzzell
  Starring: Lana Turner, Susan Peters, Laraine Day
  Production/Distribution: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  A glamour girl trades in the social high life for the WACs (Women's Army Corps), finding new purpose as a mechanic. This film was one of a handful of war-themed pictures starring Lana Turner, who was one of the war's most popular pin-up girls.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.