1934 Hit Ranked Among the Top 10 ‘Best Picture Winners' of All Time

It Happened One Night, a romantic comedy starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, was ranked as one of the top 10 "Best Picture Winners" by Rotten Tomatoes. With a 98% critics score and a 93% audience score, many reviewers claim that the story still holds up today.

The 1934 film, which was directed by Frank Capra, is about "a rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story. [He] joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way."

This is one of the rare films that won five major categories at the Academy Awards. They included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

When speaking about the film, one fan said, "It Happened One Night is one of the most entertaining films I have seen. Its entertainment value is entirely due to good acting and good directing, particularly to the latter."

Another reviewer raved, "It Happened One Night rightly earns its place as one of the greatest romanticcomedies in film history. A pioneer of the screwball comedy genre, it holds up very well years after it was made."

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Gable, who was considered the King of Hollywood, appeared in more than 60 movies throughout his career. Some of his most beloved roles were in Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Teacher's Pet.

Colbert was also a well-known actress of the time. She was named one of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema in 1999 by theAmerican Film Institute. She also appeared in hits like Cleopatra, Private Worlds, and Since You Went Away. She also worked on Broadway and earned a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round.

Also making the list of Rotten Tomatoes' Best Picture Winners were Parasite, Casablanca, On the Waterfront, All About Eve, Moonlight, Schindler's List, Rebecca, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Best Years of Our Lives.

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This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 10:20 AM.