| 1915 | The Birth of a Nation | Lillian Gish, Joseph Henabery | Elsie Stoneman, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth | D.W. Griffith | pro-Confederate account of the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, portraying the KKK as a heroic force | based on the novel "The Clansman" by Thomas Dixon |
| 1933 | King Kong | Fay Wray | Ann Darrow, Carl Denham | - | a giant gorilla from Skull Island, called "the eighth wonder of the world", runs amok in NYC and climbs the Empire State Building | contains the line "Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast" |
| 1934 | It Happened One Night | Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert | - | Frank Capra | - | first movie to win all 5 top Oscars; has a scene where the female lead flashes some leg to successfully hitchhike |
| 1937 | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | - | Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey, the Magic Mirror | - | a princess hides from her murderous step-mother in a cottage in the woods occupied by several miners | Disney's first animated feature; contains the songs "Someday My Prince Will Come" & "Whistle While You Work" |
| 1939 | Gone with the Wind | Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Hattie McDaniel, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland | Rhett Butler, Scarlet O'Hara, Mammy, Ashley Wilkes | Victor Fleming | set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, a headstrong Southern belle maneuvers through tumultuous romances and personal tragedies in a desperate struggle to save her family's Georgia plantation, Tara | Best Picture Oscar winner; produced by David O. Selznick; based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell; has a scene of Atlanta burning; Clark Gable says the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"; Vivien Leigh says the final line "After all, tomorrow is another day" |
| 1939 | The Wizard of Oz | Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton | Dorothy Gale, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda the Good Witch | Victor Fleming | after being swept away from her Kansas home by a tornado, a young girl embarks on a journey down the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City, befriending three whimsical companions who help her seek a wizard's aid to return home while evading an evil witch | based on a novel by L. Frank Baum; features the song "Over the Rainbow" |
| 1940 | Pinocchio | - | Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, Figaro, Monstro, Stromboli | - | a wooden puppet, whose nose grows when he tells a lie, comes to life but wishes to become a real boy | contains the song "When You Wish Upon A Star"; based on a novel by Carlo Collodi |
| 1940 | Fantasia | Leopold Stokowski | Mickey Mouse, Hyacinth Hippo, Ben Ali Gator | - | - | contains the songs "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", "Dance of the Hours" & "Night on Bald Mountain" |
| 1941 | Citizen Kane | Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead | - | Orson Welles | following the death of a powerful newspaper tycoon, a reporter scrambles to uncover the meaning of the man’s dying word, "Rosebud" | allegedly based on William Randolph Hearst & Marion Davies; Xanadu is the name of the main character's estate; written by Herman Mankiewicz & Orson Welles |
| 1941 | Dumbo | - | Timothy Q. Mouse, Mrs. Jumbo, Ringmaster | - | animated Disney film about a young circus elephant | contains the songs "When I See An Elephant Fly" & "Pink Elephants On Parade" |
| 1941 | The Maltese Falcon | Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet | Sam Spade, Kaspar Gutman, Miles Archer, Brigid O'Shaughnessy | John Huston | a private investigator becomes entangled with a group of eccentric criminals who will stop at nothing to track down a priceless statuette of a black bird | based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett |
| 1942 | Casablanca | Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre | Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund, Victor Laszlo, Louis Renault, Major Strasser, Ugarte, Sam | Michael Curtiz | during World War II, a cynical American expatriate living in Morocco must decide whether to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis or maintain his neutrality to protect his own interests | Best Picture Oscar winner (of 1943); based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's"; features the song "As Time Goes By"; Bogart says "I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray. You wore blue."; Bogart says "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"; Bogart says "Here's looking at you, kid"; Bogart says "We'll always have Paris"; Bogart says "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" |
| 1942 | Bambi | - | Thumper, Flower, Faline | - | a young, orphaned deer named navigates the wonders and challenges of life in the forest alongside his friends, a rabbit and a skunk | based on the novel by Felix Salten |
| 1946 | It's a Wonderful Life | Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore | George Bailey, Clarence Oddbody, Mr. Potter | Frank Capra | when a bank owner from Bedford Falls contemplates ending his life on Christmas Eve, a guardian angel intervenes to show him how different the world would be if he had never been born | has the line "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings" |
| 1948 | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston | Fred C. Dobbs | John Huston | in 1920s Mexico, two down-on-their-luck Americans team up with a veteran prospector to hunt for gold in remote mountains | based on the novel by B. Traven; has the lines "I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" & "I know what gold does to men's souls" |
| 1948 | Hamlet | Laurence Olivier | Claudius, Polonius, Horatio, Laertes, Ophelia | Laurence Olivier | The young Prince of Denmark stages a play in an attempt to prove that his uncle, the new king, murdered the prince's father, the deceased king | Best Picture Oscar winner |
