Ranking All The Movies Nominated At The 6th Academy Awards In 1934
“What are the best movies nominated for the 6th Academy Awards in 1934?” We looked at all 28 movies nominated for an Oscar in 1934 and ranked them again one another to answer that very question!
We took all 28 movies that were nominated for an Academy Award in 1934 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 6th Academy Award Movie Rankings
27 (Tie) ) Mister Mugg
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Comedy
27 (Tie) ) The Sea
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Novelty
26 ) Reunion in Vienna
Nominated For:
- Best Cinematography
An exiled archduke (John Barrymore) tries to renew romance with a former lover (Diana Wynyard) now wed to a psychiatrist (Frank Morgan).
24 (Tie) ) Cavalcade
Nominated For:
- Best Actress in a Leading Role
- Best Art Direction (Win)
- Best Director (Win)
- Best Picture (Win)
A cavalcade of English life from New Year’s Eve 1899 until 1933 seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot. Amongst events touching their family are the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great War.
24 (Tie) ) The Merry Old Soul
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Cartoons
Oswald is at the dentist. A tooth being pulled hangs on tight. Just then, the radio reports “Old King Cole has the blues” and Oswald races off in his car. He gathers up a collection of comics: Charles Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, etc. At the castle, they start singing off-kilter versions of Mother Goose rhymes, with Al Jolson in a blackface routine, and the king is quickly cheered up. Laurel & Hardy haul in a large pile of pies, and an all-out fight breaks out. The jester, who has been getting jealous of Oswald, kidnaps him during the fight and hauls him into a dungeon, submitting him to various tortures, where we discover that the real torture has been the dentist pulling the tooth all along.
21 (Tie) ) Krakatoa
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Novelty (Win)
21 (Tie) ) Menu
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Novelty
A chef helps a housewife cook a duck dinner that will not give her husband indigestion.
21 (Tie) ) So This Is Harris!
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Comedy (Win)
Walter can’t stand the singing of Phil Harris – unfortunately, he can’t seem to escape it, even on the golf course. His golf partner sympathizes, but when Walter discovers that the fellow is Harris himself, he quickly realizes that Harris’ appeal with female fans might be turned to his advantage – but only if Harris will play along.
20 ) She Done Him Wrong
Nominated For:
- Best Picture
New York singer and nightclub owner Lady Lou has more men friends than you can imagine. Unfortunately one of them is a vicious criminal who’s escaped and is on the way to see “his” girl, not realising she hasn’t exactly been faithful in his absence. Help is at hand in the form of young Captain Cummings a local temperance league leader though.
19 ) Morning Glory
Nominated For:
- Best Actress in a Leading Role (Win)
Wildly optimistic chatterbox Eva Lovelace is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. She attracts the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom, or will she fade like a morning glory after its brief blooming?
17 (Tie) ) A Preferred List
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Comedy
Leigh Jason directed short film that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Comedy.
17 (Tie) ) The Prizefighter and the Lady
Nominated For:
- Best Writing, Original Story
An ex-sailor turned boxer finds romance and gets a shot at the heavyweight title.
16 ) Rasputin and the Empress
Nominated For:
- Best Writing, Original Story
The story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin’s influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.
15 ) When Ladies Meet
Nominated For:
- Best Art Direction
Mary, a writer working on a novel about a love triangle, is attracted to her publisher. Her suitor Jimmy is determined to break them up; he introduces Mary to the publisher’s wife without telling Mary who she is.
14 ) Berkeley Square
Nominated For:
- Best Actor in a Leading Role
A young American man is transported back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meets his ancestors.
13 ) Building a Building
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Cartoons
Mickey’s a shovel operator and laborer at a construction site; Minnie is delivering box lunches; Pete is the foreman. Mickey pays more attention to Minnie than to his work, and keeps having accidents (mostly involving the blueprints Pete is holding). Pete steals Mickey’s lunch, so Minnie offers him one on the house. While he’s eating, Pete kidnaps Minnie; Mickey fights him, but the tide turns when Minnie dumps a load of hot rivets into Pete’s pants…
12 ) A Farewell to Arms
Nominated For:
- Best Art Direction
- Best Cinematography (Win)
- Best Picture
- Best Sound, Recording (Win)
British nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) and American Lieutenant Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) fall in love during the First World War in Italy. Eventually separated by Frederic’s transfer, tremendous challenges and difficult decisions face each, as the war rages on. Academy Awards winner for Best Cinematography and for Best Sound, Recording. Nominated for Best Picture and for Best Art Direction.
10 (Tie) ) State Fair
Nominated For:
- Best Picture
- Best Writing, Adaptation
The Frake family attend the Iowa State Fair. Father Abel enters his Hampshire boar, Blue Boy, in the hog contents. Mother Melissa enters the mincemeat competition. And their children, Margy and Wayne, find love with newspaper reporter Pat Gilbert and trapeze artist Emily Joyce. But will everyone return home safe and happy or will hearts be broken?
10 (Tie) ) The Sign of the Cross
Nominated For:
- Best Cinematography
After burning Rome, Emperor Nero decides to blame the Christians, and issues the edict that they are all to be caught and sent to the arena. Two old Christians are caught, and about to be hauled off, when Marcus, the highest military official in Rome, comes upon them. When he sees their stepdaughter Mercia, he instantly falls in love with her and frees them. Marcus pursues Mercia, which gets him into trouble with Emperor (for being easy on Christians) and with the Empress, who loves him and is jealous.
9 ) Smilin’ Through
Nominated For:
- Best Picture
John has lead a solitary life for thirty years since the death of Moonyeen Clare. But now Owens, a close friend, insists that he care for his niece, Kathleen, orphaned when her parents were lost at sea. Kathleen is five, but the years pass and now she is a young woman who is the image of Moonyeen. Willy wants Kathleen for his wife, but Sparks fly when she meets Kenneth Wayne one dark and stormy night. John is horrified for it was Wayne’s father who shot Moonyeen dead on her wedding day and John has never found him or forgiven the family. When Ken goes off to war, John forbids any marriage and Ken agrees, while Kathleen does not. When Ken returns four years later when the war is over, he is crippled. He conceals his condition and makes plans to leave for America.
8 ) Three Little Pigs
Nominated For:
- Best Short Subject, Cartoons (Win)
The two pigs building houses of hay and sticks scoff at their brother, building the brick house. But when the wolf comes around and blows their houses down (after trickery like dressing as a foundling sheep fails), they run to their brother’s house. And throughout, they sing the classic song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”.
7 ) Little Women
Nominated For:
- Best Director
- Best Picture
- Best Writing, Adaptation (Win)
Little Women is a “coming of age” drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by thier beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.
6 ) The Private Life of Henry VIII.
Nominated For:
- Best Actor in a Leading Role (Win)
- Best Picture
Laughton won an Oscar for his portrayal of the 16th-century English monarch in Alexander Korda’s biographical account.
4 (Tie) ) 42nd Street
Nominated For:
- Best Picture
- Best Sound, Recording
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.
4 (Tie) ) One Way Passage
Nominated For:
- Best Writing, Original Story (Win)
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other’s secret.
3 ) Lady for a Day
Nominated For:
- Best Actress in a Leading Role
- Best Director
- Best Picture
- Best Writing, Adaptation
Apple Annie is a never-wed rough around the edges poor elderly woman who has always written to her daughter Louise in Spain that she is married and a member of New York’s high society. Upon receiving unexpected word from Louise (who hasn’t seen Annie since infancy, having been raised in a Spanish convent) that she is en route to America with her new fiancé and his father, a count, so the three of them can meet her, Annie panics, despairing that her beloved daughter will be destroyed when not only the aristocrat refuses his blessing for the young couple to marry, but Louise learns that everything Annie has told her is a lie.
2 ) Gold Diggers of 1933
Nominated For:
- Best Sound, Recording
Four aspiring musical actresses – Carol, Trixie, Polly and Fay – are struggling to make a living on Broadway in the midst of the Great Depression. When producer Barney Hopkins has the idea of creating a show about the Depression, the girls team up with newly-discovered songwriter Brad Roberts to make it happen. But Brad is not who he seems.
1 ) I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Nominated For:
- Best Actor in a Leading Role
- Best Picture
- Best Sound, Recording
Warner Bros.’ hard-hitting chain-gang movie was a faithful adaptation of the similarly titled autobiography of Robert Elliot Burns. Paul Muni plays World War I veteran James Allen, whose plans of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Times get really tough when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and forced to work on a chain gang.
The Best 1934 Academy Award Rankings
1934 Academy Award Rankings
| Film | RT Critic | RT User | IMDB | Letterboxd | Overal Rank |
| I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Gold Diggers of 1933 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Lady for a Day | 1 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 |
| One Way Passage | 12 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 42nd Street | 5 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| The Private Life of Henry VIII. | 1 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 6 |
| Little Women | 6 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
| Three Little Pigs | 12 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 8 |
| Smilin’ Through | 12 | 5 | 11 | 11 | 9 |
| State Fair | 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 10 |
| The Sign of the Cross | 11 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 |
| A Farewell to Arms | 6 | 15 | 16 | 11 | 12 |
| Building a Building | 12 | 19 | 9 | 9 | 13 |
| Berkeley Square | 12 | 11 | 16 | 11 | 14 |
| When Ladies Meet | 12 | 19 | 12 | 9 | 15 |
| Rasputin and the Empress | 12 | 16 | 15 | 11 | 16 |
| A Preferred List | 12 | 19 | 3 | 22 | 17 |
| The Prizefighter and the Lady | 12 | 4 | 23 | 17 | 17 |
| Morning Glory | 9 | 17 | 16 | 17 | 19 |
| She Done Him Wrong | 8 | 14 | 19 | 19 | 20 |
| Krakatoa | 12 | 19 | 19 | 22 | 21 |
| Menu | 12 | 19 | 19 | 22 | 21 |
| So This Is Harris! | 12 | 19 | 19 | 22 | 21 |
| The Merry Old Soul | 12 | 19 | 24 | 19 | 24 |
| Cavalcade | 10 | 18 | 25 | 21 | 24 |
| Reunion in Vienna | 12 | 19 | 26 | 22 | 26 |
| Mister Mugg | 12 | 19 | 27 | 22 | 27 |
| The Sea | 12 | 19 | 27 | 22 | 27 |
