The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

92. 1934 - It Happened One Night

Honourable Mentions: The Lost Patrol, Manhattan Melodrama, The Thin Man

Nothing goes quite as hard as Frank Capra and a pre-Code picture, and especially one that stars Clark Gable as a romantic lead opposite Claudette Colbert, which, wouldn't you know it, is exactly what It Happened One Night happens to be.

Capra's film swept the Oscars following its theatrical run and is a defining picture of the Old Hollywood, with Gable and Colbert's chemistry still just as sizzling today as it was in 1934. Capra's other pre-WW2 films Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and especially Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are just as seminal, but there's something ineffable about Gable at the peak of his powers.