Best Movies of 1930

The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.

The Foreign Legion marches in to Mogador with booze and women in mind just as singer Amy Jolly arrives from Paris to work at Lo Tinto's cabaret. That night, insouciant legionnaire Tom Brown catches her inimitably seductive, tuxedo-clad act. Both bruised by their past lives, the two edge cautiously into a no-strings relationship while being pursued by others. But Tom must leave on a perilous mission: is it too late for them?

A waitress from Chicago falls in love with a man from rural Minnesota and marries him, with the intent of living a better life - but life on the farm has its own challenges.

Policeman Edgar Kennedy is told by his chief he better stop a string of burglaries that have been happening on his watch or else he will get the sack. He persuades vagrants Stan and Ollie to rob the chief's house so he can regain his reputation by catching them. The policeman promises to later get the boys off. Things do not go as planned.

Stan fakes receiving a telegram so he can go to a club with Ollie and a bottle of his unsuspecting wife's liquor, but she overhears his plans.

When World War I breaks out, brothers Roy and Monte Rutledge, each attending Oxford university, enlist with the Royal Flying Corps.

Stan and Ollie try to hide their pet dog Laughing Gravy from their exasperated, mean tempered landlord, who has a "No Pets" policy.

Ollie can't find his hat, much to the amusement of his wife and maid. Then Ollie and Stan attempt to install a rooftop radio antenna.

When a woman is convicted of murder, one of the jurors selected to serve on the murder-trial jury believes the accused, an aspiring actress, is innocent of the crime and takes it upon himself to apprehend the real killer.

Stanley and Oliver are trying to spend a relaxing night at home playing checkers, but the antics of their mischievous sons keep interrupting their recreation.

Two homeless vagabonds hide out in a vacant mansion and pose as the residents when prospective lessees arrive and try to rent it.

Young scout Breck Coleman leads a wagon train along the dangerous trail to Oregon as he tries to get the affection of the beautiful pioneer Ruth Cameron and plans his revenge on the harsh scoundrels who murdered a friend of his in the past.

The boys think their days of fishing to feed themselves have come to an end, when Stan's rich uncle Ebenezer dies leaving a large estate. But they soon learn that Ebenezer was murdered and all the relatives, including Stan, are suspects.

Street musicians Stan and Ollie have no success earning money in the dead of winter in a bad neighborhood. Their instruments are destroyed in an argument with a woman, but their luck seems to turn when Stan finds a wallet.

Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.

World War I ace Dick Courtney derides the leadership of his superior officer, but he soon is promoted to squadron commander and learns harsh lessons about sending subordinates to their deaths.

Min, the owner of a dockside hotel, is forced to make difficult decisions about the future of Nancy, the young woman she took in as an infant.

The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.

A countess fleeing her husband mistakes a count for her hairdresser at a Monte Carlo casino.

Ambitious shoe salesman, Harold, unknowingly meets the boss' daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon. The rest of the film he spends hiding his true circumstances, in the store and later on a ship. Trying to deliver a letter, he later finds himself dangling high above the street on a building's scaffolding.

Western sheriff Bob Wells is preparing to marry Sally Morgan; she loves part-Indian Wanenis, whose race is an obstacle. Sally flees the wedding with hypochondriac Henry Williams, who thinks he's just giving her a ride; but she left a note saying they've eloped! Chasing them are jilted Bob, Henry's nurse Mary (who's been trying to seduce him) and others.

After young Robert Graham commits a murder while drunk and defending his girlfriend, he is prosecuted by ambitious Mark Brady and sentenced to 10 years. Six years later, Brady becomes the prison warden and offers the beleaguered Robert a job as his chauffeur. Robert cleans up his act, but, on the eve of his pardon, his cellmate drags him back into the world of violence, and he faces a difficult choice that could return him to prison.

When a woman discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her, she decides to respond to his infidelities in kind.

This one has it all, the apprentice, the multiplying brooms, the buckets of water, everything that the Fantasia sequence has.

Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.

A Dave Fleischer's Talkartoon Sound Cartoon Featuring Bimbo. As work begins on a high-rise building, Bimbo is too lazy, and all he thinks about is getting some sleep. The crazy building structure goes straight into the sky and through the moon.

Two rival seamen fight for both a promotion to a captaincy in their shipping line and the attentions of a Havana saloon singer. Sparks fly as they both try to out do each other in obtaining what they know their opposite is after. In the end they will need to work together in order to save the day.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.

A chorus girl gets bad advice from her fellow chorines in handling a rich suitor who assumes she is a gold digger.

The company of a musical comedy gets shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by a "king" from Brooklyn and his coterie of wild native girls.

Infamous burglar "The Bat" commits a daring jewelry theft despite heavy police presence. Soon after, a bank theft occurs, which may be the work of the criminal as well. Meanwhile, Cornelia Van Gorder has various people arrive at her old mansion, including her niece, Dale, a bank employee, and police detective Anderson. When guests start turning up dead, Cornelia begins to suspect that The Bat may be lurking around the estate.

A vicious crime lord decides that he has had enough and much to the shock of his colleagues decides to give the business to his second in command and retire to Florida after marrying his moll. Unfortunately, he has no idea that she and the man are lovers.

A story about a man from Wyoming who enlists in the Army and is sent to the front during World War I. There he saves the life of an American society girl working in the Ambulance Corps. Afterwards at a rest camp, they meet again, fall in love, and are secretly married.

Yvonne, daughter of Philibert, a Paris cafe owner, is in love with dreamy, blundering Albert, a waiter, though he pays little attention to her. Philibert plans to marry his daughter to a wealthy Parisian, but upon learning that Albert is to come into a large inheritance, he conspires to place him under a longterm contract, confident that he willingly will pay a forfeit to break it.

Charley Chase is obsessed with a woman, however his attempt to meet her father is complicated by an asylum escapee.

A trio of former sideshow performers double as the "Unholy Three" in a scam to nab some shiny rocks.

Jackie prepares a series of elaborate jokes for his new teacher.

Bimbo sings a funny take-off of "Gay Caballero" and the comedy construction is adequate to the situation.

Two phony fortune tellers get mixed up with gypsies.

Angela and Bob Brooks are an upper class couple. Bob is an unfaithful husband. Angela has a plan to win back his affections.

Daily life at men and women's prison units where baseball and the marching band are serious business. Two prisoners escape in order to help paroled Steve from being blackmailed by his girlfriend's ex-partner-in-crime.

The first Terrytoons animated short

At a Florida hotel, absconding miscreant J. Effingham Bellweather goes slapstick golfing with the house detective's flirtatious wife and an incompetent caddy.

A biopic dramatizing Abraham Lincoln's life through a series of vignettes depicting its defining chapters: his romance with Ann Rutledge; his early years as a country lawyer; his marriage to Mary Todd; his debates with Stephen A. Douglas; the election of 1860; his presidency during the Civil War; and his assassination in Ford’s Theater in 1865.

Bimbo is seen late at night trying to steal a chicken. He runs away from a policeman and enters a haunted cemetery. Various ghosts and monsters harass him and tell him that he will be punished for his sin before he is chased into a cave

The kids mistake Miss Crabtree's brother for a potential boyfriend, and plot to discourage him.

Not-so-smart chatterbox Dulcy Parker does and says all the wrong things, but they right themselves to prove she's not so dumb after all.

Lora Moore, the club champion, loses a golf match to a woman from another golf club. Then Jerry Downs, a handsome golf pro, and his goofy friend, Jack Martin, show up. Lora takes him on as her golf teacher to work on her putt. She falls for him, but so do several other women. Meanwhile Angie Howard, Lora's friend, chases after Jack. A lot of silliness ensues.