The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

92. 1934 - It Happened One Night

It Happened One Night 1934
Columbia Pictures

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.

 
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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.