Directed by Howard Hawks
by ytzhu-52663 | created - 9 months ago | updated - 1 week ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,154 | Gross: $0.30M
2. The Criminal Code (1930)
Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After a failed attempt at running for governor, D.A. Mark Brady is appointed warden of the state prison where many of the criminals he prosecuted are incarcerated.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff
Votes: 1,378
3. The Dawn Patrol (1930)
Passed | 108 min | Action, Drama, War
World War I ace Dick Courtney derides the leadership of his superior officer, but Courtney is soon promoted to squadron commander and learns harsh lessons about sending subordinates to their deaths.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Neil Hamilton, Frank McHugh
Votes: 2,032
4. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 30,313
Scarface contains more cruelty than any of its gangster picture predecessors, but there's a squarer for every killing. The blows are always softened by judicial preachments and sad endings for the sinners.
5. The Crowd Roars (1932)
Passed | 85 min | Action, Drama, Sport
Race car driver becomes overprotective of his brother when he decides to become a racer as well.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Eric Linden
Votes: 1,476 | Gross: $1.14M
6. Today We Live (1933)
Approved | 113 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WWI, two officers, one a pilot and the other in the navy, compete for the same beautiful young woman.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young, Franchot Tone
Votes: 1,403
7. Twentieth Century (1934)
91 min | Comedy, Romance
A flamboyant Broadway impresario who has fallen on hard times tries to get his former lover, now a Hollywood diva, to return and resurrect his failing career.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 7,251
The movie is a veritable concerto for their remarkable talents, put across by Hawks with maximal energy and voltage.
8. Barbary Coast (1935)
Approved | 91 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Mary Rutledge arrives from the East, finds her fiance dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Louis Charnalis' Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in 1850s San Francisco.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea, Walter Brennan
Votes: 2,046
A wide-open San Francisco, circa 1890, is the background for one of Howard Hawks's intelligent love triangles.
9. The Road to Glory (1936)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, War
The story of trench life during World War I through the lives of a French regiment. As men are killed and replaced jaunty Lt. Denet becomes more and more somber. His rival for the affection of nurse Monique is Capt. La Roche.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Fredric March, Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, June Lang
Votes: 613
10. Come and Get It (1936)
Passed | 99 min | Drama, Romance
An ambitious lumberjack abandons his saloon girl lover so that he can marry into wealth, but years later becomes infatuated with the woman's daughter.
Directors: Howard Hawks, William Wyler, Richard Rosson | Stars: Edward Arnold, Joel McCrea, Frances Farmer, Walter Brennan
Votes: 2,385
The first part of the film, the best, is unmistakably Hawks.
11. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Votes: 66,084
12. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Passed | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
At a remote South American trading port, the manager of an air-freight company is forced to risk his pilots' lives in order to win an important contract as a traveling American showgirl stops in town.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Richard Barthelmess
Votes: 15,657
'Only Angels Have Wings' uses its paper-thin plot as an excuse to mount a scalpel-sharp analysis of men under pressure: bitching, blaming and refusing to back down.
13. Sergeant York (1941)
Passed | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
A Tennessee farmer and marksman is drafted in World War I, and struggles with his pacifist inclinations before becoming one of the most celebrated war heroes.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias
Votes: 19,789 | Gross: $16.40M
For Gary Cooper the role is made to order.
14. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 14,059
A splendidly funny twist on the story of Snow White, Ball of Fire boasts a pair of perfect leads in Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.
15. Air Force (1943)
Approved | 124 min | Action, Drama, History
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 3,816
Howard Hawks finds a perfect vehicle for his study of the male group. William Faulkner polished the dialogue, but as a silent it would still be tremendously exciting and evocative.
16. The Outlaw (1943)
G | 116 min | Drama, Western
Western legends Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid are played against each other over the law and the attentions of vivacious country vixen Rio McDonald.
Directors: Howard Hughes, Howard Hawks | Stars: Jack Buetel, Thomas Mitchell, Jane Russell, Walter Huston
Votes: 4,983
One of the weirdest westerns of all time, reflecting the eccentricities of its producer and credited director, Howard Hughes.
17. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran
Votes: 38,000
With Howard Hawks directing and Bogey and Bacall in front of the cameras, To Have and Have Not benefits from several levels of fine-tuned chemistry -- all of which ignite on screen.
18. The Big Sleep (1946)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers
Votes: 90,522 | Gross: $6.54M
It is typical of this most puzzling of films that no one agrees even on why it is so puzzling. Yet that has never affected The Big Sleep's enduring popularity, because the movie is about the process of a criminal investigation, not its results.
19. Red River (1948)
Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western
Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson | Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan
Votes: 34,383
It's a sign of the movie's complexity that John Wayne, often typecast, is given a tortured, conflicted character to play.
20. A Song Is Born (1948)
Approved | 113 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
With her gangster boyfriend under investigation by the police, a nightclub singer hides out in a musical research institution staffed by bachelor professors - one of whom begins to fall for her.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey
Votes: 2,799
The whole picture, which is done in color (we don't know why), reflects the tedium resulting from the restriction of Mr. Kaye.
21. I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Approved | 105 min | Comedy, Romance, War
After marrying an American lieutenant with whom he was assigned to work in post-war Germany, a French captain attempts to find a way to accompany her back to the States under the terms of the War Bride Act.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan, Marion Marshall, Randy Stuart
Votes: 9,212
The flimsiness of the film's foundations and the disorder of its episodes provoke the inevitable impression that it all fell together en route.
22. The Thing from Another World (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost.
Directors: Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks | Stars: Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, James Arness, Robert Cornthwaite
Votes: 33,354
As flying saucer movies go, The Thing From Another World is better than most, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting.
23. The Big Sky (1952)
Approved | 140 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
The success of the journey focuses on keeping the Indian girl alive as well as themselves to complete trade with the Blackfeet.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt, Arthur Hunnicutt
Votes: 4,748
Thought it is usually accorded a low place in the Hawks canon, it's a particular favorite of mine -- mysterious, beautiful, and even utopian.
24. O. Henry's Full House (1952)
Approved | 117 min | Comedy, Drama
John Steinbeck introduces a quintet of five of O. Henry's most celebrated stories from his New York Period (1902-1910) in this anthology film.
Directors: Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Henry King, Henry Koster, Jean Negulesco | Stars: Fred Allen, Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger
Votes: 3,064
25. Monkey Business (1952)
Approved | 97 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
A chemist finds his personal and professional life turned upside down when one of his chimpanzees finds the fountain of youth.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
Votes: 15,574
Attempt to draw out a thin, familiar slapstick idea isn't carried off.
26. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw travel to Paris, pursued by a private detective hired by the suspicious father of Lorelei's fiancé, as well as a rich, enamored old man and many other doting admirers.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid
Votes: 43,013 | Gross: $12.00M
Anchored by Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell's sparkling magnetism, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a delightfully entertaining 1950s musical.
27. Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
Approved | 106 min | Adventure, Drama, History
A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to ensure the impregnability of the tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin, Alexis Minotis
Votes: 4,768 | Gross: $1.50M
Fairly awesome if you can get beyond the clunky dialogue.
28. Rio Bravo (1959)
Passed | 141 min | Western
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson
Votes: 68,063 | Gross: $12.54M
To watch Rio Bravo is to see a master craftsman at work. The film is seamless. There is not a shot that is wrong. It is uncommonly absorbing, and the 141-minute running time flows past like running water.
29. Hatari! (1962)
Approved | 157 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
A group of men trap wild animals in Africa and sell them to zoos before the arrival of a female wildlife photographer threatens to change their ways.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Elsa Martinelli, Hardy Krüger, Red Buttons
Votes: 14,243 | Gross: $14.00M
This late masterpiece (1962) by Howard Hawks transcends every literary value in the book to become a brilliantly entertaining and insightful work of pure cinema.
30. Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)
Approved | 120 min | Comedy, Romance
The author of a best-selling fishing guide is actually extremely inexperienced in the sport, which causes mayhem when he is entered into a competition.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Rock Hudson, Paula Prentiss, Maria Perschy, John McGiver
Votes: 6,073
Matters are helped along somewhat by an attractive and spirited cast, but not enough to keep the film consistently amusing.
31. Red Line 7000 (1965)
Approved | 110 min | Action, Drama, Sport
The story of three racing drivers and three women, who constantly have to worry for the lives of their boyfriends. Jim Loomis and Mike Marsh drive for Pat Cassarian. Jim expects his fiancée... See full summary »
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: James Caan, Laura Devon, Gail Hire, Charlene Holt
Votes: 1,149
Depending on your point of view, you'll find it either beautifully pure or sadly unshaded.
32. El Dorado (1966)
Passed | 126 min | Drama, Romance, Western
Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with old friend, Sheriff J.P. Hara. Together with an old Indian fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher who's trying to steal their water.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Charlene Holt
Votes: 30,426
Howard Hawks is too good a director to depend upon stereotyped violence to keep the interest of the audience, and his well-made scenes between Wayne, Mitchum, Arthur Hunicutt and James Cann never lag for a moment.
33. Rio Lobo (1970)
G | 114 min | Drama, War, Western
After the Civil War, Cord McNally searches for the two traitors whose treachery caused the defeat of McNally's unit and the loss of a close friend.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Jennifer O'Neill, Jack Elam
Votes: 13,665 | Gross: $9.27M
Howard Hawks and John Wayne reunite to riff on their own Rio Bravo, and while the results are less memorable the movie does offer a curiously cynical perspective.
34. The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks (1973 TV Movie)
57 min | Documentary, Biography
A documentary filmography of Howard Hawks, including lengthy footage of Hawks himself discussing his films and many clips from his best-known pictures.
Director: Richard Schickel | Stars: Sydney Pollack, Howard Hawks, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall
Votes: 384
Tell Your Friends