Jezebel is a 1938 American romantic drama film released by Warner Bros. and directed by William Wyler. It stars Bette Davis and Henry Fonda, supported by George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Richard Cromwell, and Fay Bainter. The film tells the story of a headstrong young Southern woman during the antebellum period whose actions cost her the man she loves.

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about a beautiful English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance. It was Hitchcock's last British film until the 1970s; he relocated to Hollywood soon after its release. Although the director's three previous efforts had done poorly at the box office, The Lady Vanishes was widely successful, and confirmed American producer David O. Selznick's belief that Hitchcock indeed had a future in Hollywood cinema.

The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American Technicolor swashbuckler film from Warner Bros., produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, that stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains. Written by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller, the film concerns a Saxon knight who, in King Richard's absence in the Holy Land during the Crusades, fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla band against Prince John and the Norman lords oppressing the Saxon commoners.

Angels with Dirty Faces is a 1938 American crime film directed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Brothers. It stars James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft. The screenplay was written by John Wexley and Warren Duff based on the story by Rowland Brown. The film chronicles the fictional rise and fall of the notorious gangster William "Rocky" Sullivan. After spending three years in prison for armed robbery, Rocky intends to collect $100,000 from his co-conspirator, mob lawyer Jim Frazier. All the while, Father Jerry Connolly tries to prevent a group of youths from falling under Rocky's influence. Angels with Dirty Faces is considered to be one of the best movies of all time, and is widely regarded as a defining moment in Cagney's career.

Olympia is a 1938 German documentary film written, directed and produced by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The film was released in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker (Festival of Nations) and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit (Festival of Beauty). It was the first documentary feature film of the Olympic Games ever made. Many advanced motion picture techniques, which later became industry standards but which were groundbreaking at the time, were employed —including unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups, placing tracking shot rails within the bleachers, and the like. The techniques employed are almost universally admired, but the film is controversial due to its political context. Olympia set the precedent for future films documenting and glorifying the Olympic Games, particularly the Summer Games. The 1936 Summer Olympics torch relay was devised by the German sports official Dr. Carl Diem for these Olympic Games in Berlin. Riefenstahl later staged the torch relay for this film, with competitive events of the Games.

The Baker's Wife (French: La femme du boulanger) is a 1938 French drama film directed by Marcel Pagnol. It is based on the novel Blue Boy by French author Jean Giono and became the basis of the American musical The Baker's Wife. It tells how the peace of a Provençal village is shattered when the baker's wife runs off with a handsome shepherd. In his despair, the baker becomes heartbroken and can no longer bake. The villagers organise themselves to bring the wife back to her husband and so regain their daily bread.

Bringing Up Baby is a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film tells the story of a paleontologist in a number of predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress and a leopard named Baby. The script was written specifically for Hepburn, and was tailored to her personality. Production was frequently delayed due to uncontrollable laughing fits between Hepburn and Grant. Hepburn struggled with her comedic performance and was coached by another cast member, vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett. Bringing up Baby was a commercial flop upon its release, although it eventually made a small profit after its re-release in the early 1940s. Shortly after the film's premiere, Hepburn was infamously labeled box-office poison by the Independent Theatre Owners of America and would not regain her success until The Philadelphia Story two years later. Since then, the film has received acclaim from both critics and audience for its zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, perfect sense of comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy.

Captains Courageous is a 1937 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adventure film. Based on the novel by Rudyard Kipling, "Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks", it had its world premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. The movie was produced by Louis D. Lighton and directed by Victor Fleming. Filmed in black-and-white, Captains Courageous was advertised by MGM as a coming-of-age classic with exciting action sequences.

Song at Midnight is a 1937 film directed by Ma-Xu Weibang. Often referred to as the first Chinese horror film, Song at Midnightis a remake/adaptation of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, though the film injects a significant political subplot involving the leftist revolutionary movement to the original story. The film stars Gu Menghe, Zhou Wenzhu, and Jin Shan as the disfigured anti-hero Song Danping.

La Grande Illusion (also known as The Grand Illusion) is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape. The title of the film comes from the book The Great Illusion by British journalist Norman Angell, which argued that war is futile because of the common economic interests of all European nations. The perspective of the film is generously humanistic to its characters of various nationalities. La Grande Illusion is regarded by critics and film historians as one of the masterpieces of French cinema and among the greatest films ever made.

The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 American biographical film about French author Émile Zola, played by Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle. It has the distinction of being the second biographical film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. It premiered at the Los Angeles Carthay Circle Theatre to great success both critically and financially. Contemporary reviews cited it the best biographical film made up to that time.

Stella Dallas is a 1937 American film based on the Olive Higgins Prouty novel of the same name. It was directed by King Vidor, and stars Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, and Anne Shirley. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Make Way for Tomorrow is a 1937 American drama film directed by Leo McCarey. The plot concerns an elderly couple (Victor Mooreand Beulah Bondi) who are forced to separate when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents. The film was written by Viña Delmar, from a play by Helen and Noah Leary, which was in turn based on the novel The Years Are So Long by advice columnist Josephine Lawrence. McCarey believed that it was his finest film. When he accepted his Academy Award for Best Director for The Awful Truth which was released the same year, he said "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture."

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animatedmusical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences.

The Awful Truth is a 1937 American screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades. The film was directed by Leo McCarey (who won the Academy Award for Best Director) and was written by Viña Delmar, with uncredited assistance from Sidney Buchman and McCarey, from the 1922 play by Arthur Richman. 

Pépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. The film depicts a gangster nicknamed Pépé le Moko. Moko is slang for a man from Toulon, derived from the Occitan ("with that"), a term which punctuates sentences in Provence and which, in Toulon, is pronounced em'oquò. The film is based on Henri La Barthe's novel of the same name, and La Barthe contributed to the screenplay under the pseudonym "Détective Ashelbé". Pépé le Moko is an example of the 1930s French movement known as poetic realism, which combines realism with occasional flashes of unusual cinematic tricks. The film is often considered an early predecessor of film noir.

Modern Times is a 1936 American comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin.

Swing Time is a 1936 American RKO musical comedy film set mainly in New York City, and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The film was directed by George Stevens. Noted dance critic Arlene Croce considers Swing Time Astaire and Rogers' best dance musical, a view shared by John Mueller and Hannah Hyam. It features four dance routines that are each regarded as masterpieces. "Never Gonna Dance" is often singled out as the partnership's and collaborator Hermes Pan's most profound achievement in filmed dance, while "The Way You Look Tonight" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and went on to become Astaire's most successful hit record, scoring first place in the U.S. charts in 1936. 

My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava. The screenplay was written by Morrie Ryskind, with uncredited contributions by La Cava, based on 1101 Park Avenue, a short novel by Eric Hatch. The story concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her family's butler, only to fall in love with him. The film stars William Powell and Carole Lombard. Powell and Lombard had been briefly married years earlier.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (a.k.a. A Gentleman Goes to Town and Opera Hat) is a 1936 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Capra, starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in her first featured role. Based on the 1935 short story Opera Hat by Clarence Budington Kelland, which appeared in serial form in The American Magazine, the screenplay was written by Robert Riskin in his fifth collaboration with Frank Capra.