1938

Academy winner You Can't Take It with You poster

You Can't Take It with You

Composite 71.87

Should have won Grand Illusion poster

Grand Illusion

Composite 74.66

The Academy's ballot

🏆You Can't Take It with You#571.87 🎬Grand Illusion#174.66 🎬The Adventures of Robin Hood#374.01 🎬Jezebel#967.6 🎬Pygmalion#1067.23 🎬Boys Town#1565.01 🎬The Citadel#1762.24 🎬Four Daughters#1862.12 🎬Alexander's Ragtime Band#1962.03 🎬Test Pilot#2061.72

Your #1 was Grand Illusion (#1).

The full slate

Grand Illusion (1938)

🎬 Nominee

Composite 74.66

Dir. Jean Renoir · Jean Gabin · Pierre Fresnay · Erich von Stroheim · Marcel Dalio

IMDb 8.0 (41,139 votes) · TMDB 7.859

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

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Bringing Up Baby (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 74.08

Dir. Howard Hawks · Katharine Hepburn · Cary Grant · Charles Ruggles · Walter Catlett

IMDb 7.8 (69,301 votes) · TMDB 7.517

David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances, he meets Susan Vance, and the duo have a series of misadventures which include a leopard called Baby.

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The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #3

Composite 74.01

Dir. William Keighley · Errol Flynn · Olivia de Havilland · Basil Rathbone · Claude Rains

IMDb 7.9 (57,756 votes) · TMDB 7.475

Robin Hood fights nobly for justice against the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne while striving to win the hand of the beautiful Maid Marian.

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The Lady Vanishes (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 73.05

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock · Margaret Lockwood · Michael Redgrave · Paul Lukas · May Whitty

IMDb 7.7 (61,475 votes) · TMDB 7.434

On a train headed for England a group of travelers is delayed by an avalanche. Holed up in a hotel in a fictional European country, young Iris befriends elderly Miss Froy. When the train resumes, Iris suffers a bout of unconsciousness and wakes to find the old woman has disappeared. The other passengers ominously deny Miss Froy ever existed, so Iris begins to investigate with another traveler and, as the pair sleuth, romantic sparks fly.

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You Can't Take It with You (1938)

🏆 Winner⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #2

Composite 71.87

Dir. Frank Capra · Jean Arthur · Lionel Barrymore · James Stewart · Edward Arnold

IMDb 7.8 (30,424 votes) · TMDB 7.5

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

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Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #4

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Dir. Michael Curtiz · James Cagney · Pat O'Brien · Humphrey Bogart · Ann Sheridan

IMDb 7.9 (24,879 votes) · TMDB 7.542

Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.

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Holiday (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 69.81

Dir. George Cukor · Katharine Hepburn · Cary Grant · Doris Nolan · Lew Ayres

IMDb 7.7 (20,222 votes) · TMDB 7.311

Johnny Case, a freethinking financier, has finally found the girl of his dreams — Julia Seton, the spoiled daughter of a socially prominent millionaire — and she's agreed to marry him. But when Johnny plans a holiday for the two to enjoy life while they are still young, his fiancée has other plans & that is for Johnny to work in her father's bank!

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Port of Shadows (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Marcel Carné · Jean Gabin · Michel Simon · Michèle Morgan · Pierre Brasseur

IMDb 7.7 (10,881 votes) · TMDB 7.408

Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean, an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news.

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Jezebel (1938)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. William Wyler · Bette Davis · Henry Fonda · George Brent · Margaret Lindsay

IMDb 7.4 (16,469 votes) · TMDB 7.034

In 1850s Louisiana, the willfulness of a tempestuous Southern belle threatens to destroy all who care for her.

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#10

Pygmalion (1938)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

Composite 67.23

Dir. Leslie Howard · Leslie Howard · Wendy Hiller · Wilfrid Lawson · Marie Lohr

IMDb 7.7 (10,509 votes) · TMDB 7.0

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

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#11

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Sergei Eisenstein · Nikolai Cherkasov · Nikolai Okhlopkov · Andrei Abrikosov · Valentyna Ivashova

IMDb 7.4 (13,202 votes) · TMDB 7.0

When German knights invade Russia, Prince Alexander Nevsky must rally his people to resist the formidable force. After the Teutonic soldiers take over an eastern Russian city, Alexander stages his stand at Novgorod, where a major battle is fought on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe. While Alexander leads his outnumbered troops, two of their number, Vasili and Gavrilo, begin a contest of bravery to win the hand of a local maiden.

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#12

The Human Beast (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Jean Renoir · Jean Gabin · Simone Simon · Fernand Ledoux · Julien Carette

IMDb 7.5 (9,029 votes) · TMDB 7.08

Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.

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#13

A Christmas Carol (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Edwin L. Marin · Reginald Owen · Gene Lockhart · Terry Kilburn · Barry MacKay

IMDb 7.5 (10,010 votes) · TMDB 6.98

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

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#14

Block-Heads (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. John G. Blystone · Stan Laurel · Oliver Hardy · Patricia Ellis · Minna Gombell

IMDb 7.5 (4,954 votes) · TMDB 7.0

It's 1938, but Stan doesn't know the war is over; he's still patrolling the trenches in France, and shoots down a French aviator. Oliver sees his old chum's picture in the paper and goes to visit Stan who has now been returned to the States and invites him back to his home.

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#15

Boys Town (1938)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Norman Taurog · Spencer Tracy · Mickey Rooney · Henry Hull · Leslie Fenton

IMDb 7.2 (6,933 votes) · TMDB 6.8

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

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#16

The Dawn Patrol (1938)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 63.16

Dir. Edmund Goulding · Errol Flynn · Basil Rathbone · David Niven · Donald Crisp

IMDb 7.5 (3,650 votes) · TMDB 6.8

In 1915 France, Major Brand commands the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The young airmen go up in bullet-riddled "crates" and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the "brass hats" at headquarters see reason. Insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney is another thorn in Brand's side...but finds the smile wiped from his face when he rises to command the squadron himself. Everyone keeps a stiff upper lip.

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#17

The Citadel (1938)

🎬 Nominee

Composite 62.24

Dir. King Vidor · Robert Donat · Rosalind Russell · Ralph Richardson · Rex Harrison

IMDb 7.0 (2,608 votes) · TMDB 6.5

Young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor Andrew Manson arrives in Wales and takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does poorly, but when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.

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#18

Four Daughters (1938)

🎬 Nominee

Composite 62.12

Dir. Michael Curtiz · Claude Rains · Priscilla Lane · John Garfield · May Robson

IMDb 6.9 (2,480 votes) · TMDB 6.606

Musician Adam Lemp and his four equally musical daughters, Emma, Ann, Kay, and Thea, live happily together. Each daughter has an upstanding young man for whom she cares. However, the arrival of a cynical, slovenly young composer named Mickey Borden turns the household upside-down, and romantic and tragic complications ensue.

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#19

Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

🎬 Nominee

Composite 62.03

Dir. Henry King · Tyrone Power · Alice Faye · Don Ameche · Ethel Merman

IMDb 6.8 (2,499 votes) · TMDB 6.766

Classical violinist Roger Grant disappoints his family and teacher when he organizes a jazz band, but he and the band become successful. Roger falls in love with the band's singer, Stella, but his reluctance to lose her leads him to thwart her efforts to become a solo star. When the World War separates them in 1917, Stella marries Roger's best friend and, when Roger returns home after the war, an important concert at Carnegie Hall brings the corners of the romantic triangle together.

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#20

Test Pilot (1938)

🎬 Nominee

Composite 61.72

Dir. Victor Fleming · Clark Gable · Myrna Loy · Spencer Tracy · Lionel Barrymore

IMDb 6.8 (2,977 votes) · TMDB 6.074

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.

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How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.