Ranking All The Movies Nominated At The 1st Academy Awards In 1929
“What are the best movies nominated for the first Academy Awards in 1929?” We looked at all 24 movies nominated for an Oscar in 1929 and ranked them again one another to answer that very question!
We took all 24 movies that were nominated for an Academy Award in 1929 and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked on our list below, with the full chart of rankings included at the bottom of the page. We did not use Metacritic scores because of the lack of data for older movies on that site. Metacritic scores will be included when we do rankings for other years in the future.
If you want to see the rankings for additional years you can visit our Academy Award Rankings page.
Happy Viewing!
The Top 1929 Academy Award Movie Rankings
24 .) The Magic Flame
Nominated For:
- Best Cinematography
23 .) A Ship Comes In
Nominated For:
- Best Actress
An immigrant family experiences life in the United States.
21 (Tie) .) The Devil Dancer
Nominated For:
- Best Cinematography
21 (Tie) .) The Private Life of Helen of Troy
Nominated For:
- Best Title Writing
Queen Helen of Troy ( María Corda ), piqued by her husband’s lack of interest in her, elopes with Paris ( Ricardo Cortez ) to Sparta.
20 .) Sorrell and Son
Nominated For:
- Best Director, Dramatic Picture
Stephen Sorrell, a decorated war hero, raises his son Kit alone after Kit’s mother deserts husband and child in the boy’s infancy.
19 .) Glorious Betsy
Nominated For:
- Best Adaptation
The real-life courtship, marriage, and forced breakup of Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, and his rich wife from the American south, Elizabeth Patterson. Napoleon did not approve of the union and fixes him up with another girl.
18 .) The Dove
Nominated For:
- Best Art Direction (Win)
17 .) The Way of All Flesh
Nominated For:
- Best Actor (Win)
The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family.
15 (Tie) .) The Jazz Singer
Nominated For:
- Best Adaptation
The movie that broke the sound barrier! Vaudeville crooner Al Jolson stars as a Jewish cantor’s son who goes against his family’s traditions to make it in show business.
15 (Tie) .) The Noose
Nominated For:
- Best Actor
A crook’s ex-wife marries the state’s governor, and the crook sees an opportunity to make some money by threatening to expose his wife’s past if the governor doesn’t pay him off.
14 .) Two Arabian Knights
Nominated For:
- Best Director, Comedy Picture (Win)
Two American soldiers are captured by the Germans on the Western Front during World War One and escape a POW camp only to stumble into further life-threatening adventures when they come across an Arabian king’s daughter while on the lam.
13 .) Tempest
Nominated For:
- Best Art Direction (Win)
In Czarist Russia, a peasant officer, resented by the aristocrats, falls in love with a princess.
12 .) The Patent Leather Kid
Nominated For:
- Best Actor
A boxer has difficulty balancing his sport with a budding romance; both are further jeopardized when the United States enters the first World War.
11 .) The Racket
Nominated For:
- Outstanding Picture
An honest police captain vows to bring down a powerful bootlegger who is protected by corrupt politicians and judges.
10 .) Street Angel
Nominated For:
- Best Actress (Win)
A woman on the run from the law finds her past catching up to her just as she is on the verge of true happiness.
9 .) Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
Nominated For:
- Best Unique and Artistic Picture
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
8 .) Sadie Thompson
Nominated For:
- Best Cinematography
- Best Actress
This first film version of Somerset Maugham’s classic story “Miss Thompson” featured the creative talents of Gloria Swanson, Lionel Barrymore, Raoul Walsh, art director William Cameron Menzies and cameramen George Barnes and Oliver Marsh, at the height of their careers.
7 .) Wings
Nominated For:
- Outstanding Picture (Win)
- Best Engineering Effects (Win)
Wings is the story of two men who have gone to war and the girl they both leave behind. Director William A. Wellman makes one of his most humanistic statements as he explores the devastating results of war.
6 .) Speedy
Nominated For:
- Best Director, Comedy Picture
Speedy was the last silent feature to star Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!)—and one of his very best. The slapstick legend reprises his “Glasses Character,” this time as a good-natured but scatterbrained New Yorker who can’t keep a job. He finally finds his true calling when he becomes determined to help save the city’s last horse-drawn trolley, which is operated by his sweetheart’s crusty grandfather.
5 .) Underworld
Nominated For:
- Best Original Story (Win)
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed’s girlfriend.
4 .) 7th Heaven
Nominated For:
- Outstanding Picture
- Best Art Direction
- Best Director, Dramatic Picture (Win)
- Best Adaptation (Win)
- Best Actress (Win)
A beaten-down Paris street urchin meets and finds redemption in the arms of a bold working man, while war rages, in this romantic classic of the silent film era.
3 .) The Crowd
Nominated For:
- Best Unique and Artistic Picture
- Best Director, Dramatic Picture
The life of a man and woman together in a large, impersonal metropolis through their hopes, struggles and downfalls.
2 .) The Last Command
Nominated For:
- Best Original Story
- Best Actor (Win)
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
1 .) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Nominated For:
- Best Actress (Win)
- Best Art Direction
- Best Cinematography
- Best Unique and Artistic Picture (Win)
A farmer (George O’Brien) intends to drown his wife (Janet Gaynor), so he can be with a seductive city woman (Margaret Livingston). But although he considers carrying out the hideous crime, the farmer is unable to go through with it. Then, as husband and wife encounter a life threatening rainstorm, their love and loyalty are put to the ultimate test. This tender story of betrayal and redemption is debated as one of the finest silent movies of all time.
The Best 1929 Academy Award Rankings
1929 Academy Award Rankings
| Film | RT Critic | RT User | IMDB | Letterboxd | Overal Rank |
| Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| The Last Command | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| The Crowd | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 7th Heaven | 1 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| Underworld | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 5 |
| Speedy | 11 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
| Wings | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 |
| Sadie Thompson | 9 | 11 | 4 | 9 | 8 |
| Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness | 1 | 9 | 12 | 10 | 9 |
| Street Angel | 11 | 7 | 10 | 8 | 10 |
| The Racket | 1 | 9 | 13 | 13 | 11 |
| The Patent Leather Kid | 11 | 15 | 6 | 15 | 12 |
| Tempest | 11 | 14 | 13 | 10 | 13 |
| Two Arabian Knights | 11 | 12 | 15 | 12 | 14 |
| The Noose | 11 | 15 | 11 | 15 | 15 |
| The Jazz Singer | 10 | 13 | 15 | 14 | 15 |
| The Way of All Flesh | 11 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 17 |
| The Dove | 11 | 15 | 18 | 15 | 18 |
| Glorious Betsy | 11 | 15 | 19 | 15 | 19 |
| Sorrell and Son | 11 | 15 | 20 | 15 | 20 |
| The Private Life of Helen of Troy | 11 | 15 | 21 | 15 | 21 |
| The Devil Dancer | 11 | 15 | 21 | 15 | 21 |
| A Ship Comes In | 11 | 15 | 23 | 15 | 23 |
| The Magic Flame | 11 | 15 | 24 | 15 | 24 |
