The 1930s decade was a golden time for film. It was the era of Gone with the Wind, Showboat, King Kong, The Thin Man, and Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was also the age of Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Mae West, and Shirley Temple, not to mention the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and W.C. Fields.

Here are five classics from the '30s that are worth a watch.

1. Grand Hotel (1932). "Ladies and gentlemen... I guess that takes in most of you." Directed by Edmund Goulding. Starring John Barrymore and Greta Garbo. Another Best Picture winner, this film tells the story of a menagerie of characters – including a thief, a ballet dancer, a stenographer, and a terminally ill bookkeeper – whose lives become intertwined in Berlin's poshest hotel.

2. Little Women (1933). Directed by George Cukor. Starring Katherine Hepburn and Paul Lukas. "Christopher Columbus!" An early Hepburn classic.

3. It Happened One Night (1934). Directed by Frank Capra. Starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. A delightful screwball comedy that was the first film to win every major award: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. Curiously, the film didn't have a very promising beginning: other actors and actresses turned down the lead roles, believing the script to be a wreck, and Colbert assented only because of Capra's bribe of a double salary and a short shooting schedule of four weeks.

4. A Night at the Opera (1935)."Ladies and gentlemen... I guess that takes in most of you." Directed by Sam Wood. Starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx. A good introduction to the masters of the mad caper – one of their best films. The home of the famous "sanity clause" scene.

5. Modern Times (1936). Directed by Charles Chaplin. Starring Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard. Chaplin's Tramp struggles to live well in the modern industrial world; his homeless sweetheart is played by Goddard. A partial talkie, the film's last lines appear on what was to be the last title card of the silent film era: "Buck up – never say die. We'll get along."