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Antti-Jussi Annila Director

Tommi Korpela as Jussi Ketola

Amalia Holm as Kathy

Sidse Babett Knudsen as Sara

Irina Björklund as Sofia

Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.

Mame

1974

5.9

♡ 9

36%

48%

based on play or musical

Gene Saks Director

Jerry Ayres as Bunny

Mark Hudson as Dancer

Audrey Christie as Mrs. Upson

Joyce Van Patten as Sally Cato

The madcap life of eccentric Mame Dennis and her bohemian, intellectual arty clique is disrupted when her deceased brother's 10-year-old son Patrick is entrusted to her care. Rather than bow to convention, Mame introduces the boy to her free-wheeling lifestyle, instilling in him her favorite credo, "Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death."

Disappearances

2006

5.0

♡ 3

52%

father son relationship

great depression

prohibition era

smuggling (contraband)

whiskey

Jay Craven Director

Luis Guzmán as Brother St. Hilaire

Gary Farmer as Herny Coville

William Sanderson as Rat Kinneson

Charlie McDermott as Wild Bill Bonhomme

Quebec Bill Bohomme is a hardy schemer and dreamer, who, desperate to raise money to preserve his endangered herd through the rapidly approaching winter, resorts to whiskey-smuggling, a traditional family occupation. Quebec Bill takes his son, Wild Bill, on the journey. Also Henry Coville, an inscrutable whiskey smuggler, and Rat Kinneson, Quebec Bill's perpetually disconsolate ex-con hired man. Together, they cross the border into vast reaches of Canadian wilderness for an unforgettable four days "full of terror, full of wonder."

King of the Hill

1993

7.3

♡ 19

91%

84%

based on memoir or autobiography

Steven Soderbergh Director

Amber Benson as Ella McShane

Adrien Brody as Lester

Elizabeth McGovern as Lydia

Karen Allen as Miss Mathey

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

Blondie of the Follies

1932

6.4

♡ 3

29%

Edmund Goulding Director

Jimmy Durante as Jimmy

Robert Montgomery as Larry Belmont

Charles Williams as Mr. Kinskey - Lottie's Friend

Douglass Dumbrille as Murchenson

New York City tenement dwelling neighbors Blondie and Lottie are longtime best friends. When Lottie makes the cast of the Follies and moves up in the world, she arranges for Blondie, as well, to join the cast and gain the advantages. But the friendship goes awry when Lottie's sweetheart, wealthy Larry Belmont, falls for Blondie and she for him.

American Madness

1932

7.4

♡ 4

80%

Frank Capra Director

Edwin Maxwell as Clark

Pat O'Brien as Matt

Fred 'Snowflake' Toones as Sam

Harry C. Bradley as Sampson

Socially-conscious banker Thomas Dickson faces a crisis when his protégé is wrongly accused of robbing the bank, gossip of the robbery starts a bank run, and evidence suggests Dickson's wife had an affair... all in the same day.

Brighton Beach Memoirs

1986

6.8

♡ 2

71%

79%

based on play or musical

breaking the fourth wall

brooklyn, new york city

Comedy

coming of age

great depression

semi autobiographical

Gene Saks Director

Judith Ivey as Blanche

Jonathan Silverman as Eugene Morris Jerome

Stacey Glick as Laurie

Lisa Waltz as Nora

Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.

Yoyo

1965

French

7.5

♡ 2

89%

Pierre Étaix Director

Claudine Auger as Isolina

Philippe Castelli as Le domestique

Fernand Guiot as Le paysan

Pierre Étaix as Yoyo / le millionaire

The story follows the son of a millionaire from the 1920s to the 1960s. After losing his fortune in the stock-exchange crash, he teams up with an equestrienne and becomes a circus clown.

Gold Diggers of 1933

1933

7.7

♡ 8

100%

Mervyn LeRoy Director

Billy Barty as Baby in 'Pettin' in the Park' Number

June Gittelson as Fat Woman in 'Pettin' in the Park' Number

Dorothy Coonan Wellman as Gold Digger

Bill Elliott as Night Club Patron

When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.

The Great McGinty

1940

7.2

♡ 6

100%

Preston Sturges Director

Duke Green as Double

Richard Carle as Dr. Jonas J. Jarvis - Card Player in Cantina

Paul Newlan as Prisoner Demanding Quiet

Louis Jean Heydt as Tommy Thompson

Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

1975

7.0

♡ 5

Documentary

great depression

Philippe Mora Director

Bill Elliott as (archive footage)

William Hopper as (archive footage) (as DeWolf Hopper Jr.)

Errol Flynn as Self

Harry S. Truman as Self

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

An American Christmas Carol

1979

6.8

♡ 4

61%

Eric Till Director

Cec Linder as Auctioneer

Henry Winkler as Benedict Slade

Michael Wincott as Choir Leader

Mary Pirie as Mrs. Brewster

In Depression-era New England, a miserly businessman named Benedict Slade receives a long-overdue attitude adjustment one Christmas Eve when he is visited by three ghostly figures who resemble three of the people whose possessions Slade had seized to collect on unpaid loans. Assuming the roles of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future from Charles Dickens' classic story, the three apparitions force Slade to face the consequences of his skinflint ways, and he becomes a caring, generous, amiable man.

The Secret Killer

1965

French

6.7

♡ 3

Robert Hossein Director

Marie-France Pisier as Anna

Robert Hossein as Peter Kuerten

Tanya Lopert as Une fille

Michel Charrel as Un policier

A true story of Peter Kurten, a serial killer who committed nine murders and many other offenses in Dusseldorf during the Great Depression era.

Sounder

1972

7.5

♡ 5

91%

79%

Martin Ritt Director

Janet MacLachlan as Camille

Kevin Hooks as David Lee

Taj Mahal as Ike

James Best as Sheriff Young

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

Parachute Jumper

1933

6.4

♡ 6

17%

smuggling (contraband)

Alfred E. Green Director

George Chandler as Chauffeur

Harry C. Bradley as Man in Society for Prohibition Enforcement Office

Frank Hagney as Marine

Bette Davis as Patricia 'Alabama' Brent

An Air Force washout and his buddy room with a pretty young lady. Desperate for jobs during the Depression, they finally land employment with the mob.

Bound for Glory

1976

based on memoir or autobiography

7.2

♡ 7

81%

76%

Hal Ashby Director

Bernie Kopell as Baker - Woody's Agent

Raymond Guth as Hobo in Hobo Camp

Gail Strickland as Pauline

Read Morgan as (scenes deleted)

A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.

Lawless

2012

7.2

♡ 135

67%

74%

John Hillcoat Director

Gary Oldman as Floyd Banner

Tom Hardy as Forrest Bondurant

Jason Clarke as Howard Bondurant

Jessica Chastain as Maggie Beauford

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

The Purple Rose of Cairo

1985

7.6

♡ 30

93%

Woody Allen Director

Dianne Wiest as Emma

Milo O'Shea as Father Donnelly

Peter McRobbie as The Communist

Juliana Donald as Usherette

Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom Baxter time and again.

Of Mice and Men

1939

7.8

♡ 9

100%

85%

Adventure

Lewis Milestone Director

Lon Chaney Jr. as Lennie Small

Betty Field as Mae Jackson

Baldwin Cooke as Ranch Hand

Barbara Pepper as Second Girl

An intellectually disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.

The Journey of Natty Gann

1985