Winners
- Best American Film: Confessions of a Nazi Spy
- Best Foreign Film: Le quai des brumes (Port of Shadows) , France
- Best Acting:
- James Cagney - The Roaring Twenties
- Bette Davis - Dark Victory and The Old Maid
- Geraldine Fitzgerald - Dark Victory and Wuthering Heights
- Henry Fonda - Young Mr. Lincoln
- Jean Gabin - Le quai des brumes (Port of Shadows)
- Greta Garbo - Ninotchka
- Francis Lederer - Confessions of a Nazi Spy
- Paul Lukas - Confessions of a Nazi Spy
- Thomas Mitchell - Stagecoach
- Laurence Olivier - Wuthering Heights
- Flora Robson - We Are Not Alone
- Michel Simon - Le quai des brumes (Port of Shadows) and The End of the Day [1]
The Roaring Twenties is a 1939 crime thriller starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, and Gladys George. The epic movie, spanning the periods between 1919 and 1933, was directed by Raoul Walsh and written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay and Robert Rossen based on "The World Moves On", a short story by Mark Hellinger, a columnist who had been hired by Jack L. Warner to write screenplays. The movie is hailed as a classic in the gangster movie genre, and considered an homage to the classic gangster movie of the early 1930s.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. With a career spanning 60 years and 100 acting credits, she is regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greatest successes were in romantic dramas. She was the first person to garner ten acting Academy Award nominations.
Dark Victory is a 1939 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Casey Robinson was based on the 1934 play of the same title by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch, starring Tallulah Bankhead.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy thriller film and the first blatantly anti-Nazi film produced by a major Hollywood studio. The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated from their country after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Many of the German actors, who appeared in the film, changed their names for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in Germany.
Port of Shadows is a 1938 French film directed by Marcel Carné. An example of poetic realism, it stars Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Michèle Morgan. The screenplay was written by Jacques Prévert based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. The music score was by Maurice Jaubert. The film was the 1939 winner of France's top cinematic prize, the Prix Louis-Delluc.
James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film. Known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing, he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is remembered by some for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939) and White Heat (1949), finding himself typecast or limited by this reputation earlier in his career. He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and ended up winning the Academy Award his role in a musical. In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of greatest male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Orson Welles described Cagney as "maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera".
