I mentioned a few days ago that I intended to post one of these each week… However, I've since decided to combine the 2n
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Classic Film
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 08:27 PM)
I mentioned a few days ago that I intended to post one of these each week… However, I've since decided to combine the 2nd through 6th Academy Awards into one post due to all future ceremonies covering a single calendar year. It could be irritating to have to look up each week whether or not your favorite movie from a certain year qualifies.
So we'll get the early ceremonies done now and kick off the weekly posts with the year 1934. If you missed the first post, you can find it here:
https://www.filmboards.com/t/Classic-Film/1st-Academy-Awards%3A-choose-your-alternate-nominees-3603979/
The idea is this: what if the nominees for Best Picture each year weren't nominated? Which films should have taken their place in that scenario? Pick your alternate selections for Best Picture and, if you wish, mention anybody who you feel was overlooked in any other category. No need to confine yourself to the types of films which typically get nominated or to English-language cinema.
The 2nd Academy Awards
covered films released between August 1, 1928 and July 31, 1929. The nominees for Best Picture were:
The Broadway Melody- Harry Beaumont
Alibi - Roland West
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 - Charles Reisner
In Old Arizona - Raoul Walsh
The Patriot - Ernst Lubitsch
My alternate picks:
The Wind - Victor Sjöström
Man with a Movie Camera - Dziga Vertov
Pandora's Box - G. W. Pabst
The Cameraman - Buster Keaton & Edward Sedgwick
Un Chien Andalou - Luis Buñuel
As I stated in the previous post, the intention here isn't so much creating a better list of films than the Academy, but rather an acceptable list of alternatives. That being said, I'm more than willing to pit my list for this year against the Academy's. They and the general public were understandably infatuated with the new "talkies." The only issue is that they weren't particularly great yet, as a rule. It was a brand new medium and everyone in front of and behind the camera had to learn to adjust. These growing pains were necessary and would lead to a lot of brilliant cinema within a few years. Nevertheless, silent films were still artistically superior at that point.
Note that two of my picks would belong in, respectively, the documentary and short film categories if released today but neither category existed at the time.
The 3rd Academy Awards
were open to films released between August 1, 1929 and July 31, 1930. The nominees were:
All Quiet on the Western Front- Lewis Milestone
The Big House - George Hill
Disraeli - Alfred E. Green
The Divorcee - Robert Z. Leonard
The Love Parade - Ernst Lubitsch
My alternate picks:
Diary of a Lost Girl - G. W. Pabst
Earth - Alexander Dovzhenko
The Blue Angel - Josef von Sternberg (silent version)
People on Sunday - Robert Siodmak & Edgar G. Ulmer
Westfront 1918 - G. W. Pabst
All foreign and mostly silent picks from me, but Hollywood was beginning to catch up: I'd rank
All Quiet on the Western Front
(perhaps the first masterpiece of the sound era) over any of these and
The Divorcee
and
The Love Parade
are quite good. And I'd probably like
The Big House
, which I should watch sometime.
The 4th Academy Awards
covered films released between August 1, 1930 and July 31, 1931. The nominees were:
Cimarron- Wesley Ruggles
East Lynne - Frank Lloyd
The Front Page - Lewis Milestone
Skippy - Norman Taurog
Trader Horn - W.S. Van Dyke
My picks:
City Lights - Charlie Chaplin
Dracula - Tod Browning
The Public Enemy - William A. Wellman
Little Caesar - Mervyn LeRoy
M - Fritz Lang
The Academy's long-standing bias against "genre films" is quite evident this year, isn't it?
M
aside, for me this is the year that American cinema finally came out on top of Germany and, frankly, it's thanks to films like those I've selected much more so than those honored by the Academy.
The 5th Academy Awards
covered films released between August 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932. Nominees were:
Grand Hotel- Edmund Goulding
Arrowsmith - John Ford
Bad Girl - Frank Borzage
The Champ - King Vidor
Five Star Final - Mervyn LeRoy
One Hour with You - Ernst Lubitsch
Shanghai Express - Josef Von Sternberg
The Smiling Lieutenant - Ernst Lubitsch
My alternate picks:
Freaks - Tod Browning
Frankenstein - James Whale
Scarface - Howard Hawks
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Rouben Mamoulian
I don't have eight alternatives for this year (hopefully somebody else does!), but I think I would enjoy Carl Theodor Dreyer's
Vampyr
as well.
The 6th Academy Awards
covered films released from August 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933. Nominees were:
Cavalcade- Frank Lloyd
42nd Street - Lloyd Bacon
A Farewell to Arms - Frank Borzage
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - Mervyn LeRoy
Lady for a Day - Frank Capra
Little Women - George Cukor
The Private Life of Henry VIII - Alexander Korda
She Done Him Wrong - Lowell Sherman
Smilin' Through - Sidney Franklin
State Fair - Henry King
My alternate selections:
King Kong - Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
Duck Soup - Leo McCarey
Sons of the Desert - Wi
- Harry Beaumont
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Uncreative — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 08:58 PM)
#2 and 3 I haven't seen any alternatives
#4 Dracula and City Lights are the only thing I've seen. On IMDb it says M came out August 31 so it just missed the deadline.
#5 is where I'd have to add M, Frankenstein and Vampyr because it's all I've seen.
#6 Duck Soup and King Kong are the only non winners I've seen so they'd get nominated by default -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 10:56 PM)
Wikipedia has a release date of May 11 for M, but I'll trust IMDb where there is (or at least used to be) some oversight of proposed edits. Either way, it was good that they eventually dropped the August-July thing. Although if I'm not mistaken the Emmys and Grammys still have some arbitrary cut-off date rather than a full calendar year.
I've been meaning to watch Vampyr for a while!
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
Clever Hans — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 11:05 PM)
for the 2nd, i'd go with Man with a Movie Camera
the 3rd got it right
the 4th and 5th must have been political, because any of those alternates were better than the winners.
for the 6th, i'd go with King Kong. i want to reward proper risk taking. -
PygmyLion — 3 months ago(December 31, 2025 02:39 AM)
The only movie I've watched recently in the 2nd academy award period was
Blackmail
(1929) - Alfred Hitchock
For the 3rd Academy award
All Quiet on the Western Front
is a good choice for Best Picture. The
Big House
is a good prison movie.
Others I'd add:
The Virginian
(1929) Victor Fleming
For the 4th Academy Award, I watched
Cimarron
once and didn't think it was particularly good. Your additions of
Public Enemy
,
Little Caesar
, and
M
all seem good. I'd add
City Streets- Rouben Mamoulian (Another gangster movie, with Gary Cooper)
The Devil to Pay! - George Fitzmaurice
Morocco - Josef von Sternberg
The Dawn Patrol - Howard Hawks
The Big Trai1 - Raoul Walsh
Chances - Allan Dwan
->
The Last Flight - William Dieterle
I imagine that
M
would be the popular favorite. I do like
The Devil to Pay!
the most myself.
I'll work on the 5th tomorrow.
- Rouben Mamoulian (Another gangster movie, with Gary Cooper)
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sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 31, 2025 07:21 PM)
It's a major oversight on my part, but I've not watched many of the very early Hitchcock films. I have seen nearly everything he made from 1934 onward, but I really should watch his first films at some point. I'm especially curious about
The Lodger
. I saw a version of it from 1944 with Merle Oberon and Laird Cregar that has stuck with me for more than a decade.
Likewise
The Virginian
. I actually read the novel as a kid and my dad was always watching reruns of the TV version. Victor Fleming and Gary Cooper seem like a good fit for the material.
The Big Trail
and
Morocco
are definitely good additions!
The Devil to Pay
is a new one to me, but if you'd put it ahead of all of those classics, it sounds like one I need to add to my watch list.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
PygmyLion — 3 months ago(December 31, 2025 07:54 PM)
I don't know that I think
Blackmail
(1929) is up there with the better Hitchcock movies. It is decent, watchable.
The Virginian
(1929) is a good western. I like Gary Cooper in the lead role and Walter Huston in the role of the bad guy, Trampas. Richard Arlen and Mary Bryan are good in supporting roles.
As I said, I like
The Devil to Pay!
. I think you really have to like Ronald Colman's schtick to like the movie a lot. You also get Loretta Young and Myrna Loy, and Frederick Kerr is very good as Colman's dad. -
PygmyLion — 3 months ago(December 31, 2025 03:33 PM)
5th Academy Awards
Looking at the original list.
Grand Hotel
is pretty good.
Five Star Final
and
The Champ
are fairly good.
Amongst your choices: I'd keep
Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
and
Frankenstein
.
Scarface
is fairly well liked on IMDB, but I wasn't too high on it.
Some others I've seen and liked a lot from the period:
Street Scene- King Vidor
Waterloo Bridge - James Wale
Union Depot - Alford E. Green
Taxi! - Roy Del Ruth
What Price Hollywood? - George Cukor
Guilty Hands - W.S. Van Dyke
Platinum Blonde - Frank Capra
Monkey Business - Norman Z. Mcleod
->
Broken Lullaby - Ernst Lubitsch
I think I'd be between
Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and
Street Scene
for the top movie of that period.
- King Vidor
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ZolotoyRetriever — 3 months ago(January 01, 2026 04:45 PM)
The 6th Academy Awards covered films released from August 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933.
…
My alternate selections:
Any love for
Ecstasy
(1933), with then-unknown Austrian actress Hedwig Kiesler, who would go on to Hollywood fame as Hedy Lamarr? -
PygmyLion — 3 months ago(January 01, 2026 05:09 PM)
6th Academy Awards
- We have a year and a half period to go with Hollywood churning out a lot of movies.
Looking at the Oscars list. I have seen
Cavalcade
and did not think much of it. It seems like a really strange (and poor) choice for best picture. Looking at the other nominees,
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
is really good. While not my type of movie
42nd Street
is probably worthy.
Little Women
is a nice rendition of Alcott's classic story, so I might keep it. I have seen a number of the other movies, most are good movies but not at the level that I would put on the nominee's list.
Looking at your list:
King Kong
is certainly impressive for its special effects and is also one of the more iconic movies of the 1930's. I imagine the Oscar selection committee was a little too snooty to nominate it.
Dinner at Eight
is very good, and I'm a little surprised it wasn't nominated - perhaps they didn't like the suicide in it.
Wild Boys on the Road
is certainly an interesting movie, giving us a real feeling of life during the depression for the masses. I, of course, like the Marx brothers' movies.
My Ten nominees would be:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang - Mervyn LeRoy
King Kong - Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
Dinner at Eight - George Cukor
Wild Boys on the Road - William Wellman
Horse Feathers - Norman Z. McLeod
Only Yesterday - John M. Stahl
Employee's Entrance - Roy Del Ruth
Hold Your Man - Sam Wood
Little Women - George Cukor
Heroes For Sale - William Wellman
->
Man's Castle - Frank Borzage
There are 10 or so other movies that I really like from this period, and a number of other good ones that I have seen. Further, there are probably a number of other good ones that I haven't seen yet.
For best picture I might go with
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
, although I also would consider choosing
King Kong
.
- We have a year and a half period to go with Hollywood churning out a lot of movies.