TCM's 31 Days of Oscar: 31 Movies You Should Watch

list compiled by Julian Spivey
Every February Turner Classic Movies (TCM) embarks on its greatest month of programming annually with 31 Days of Oscar, in which every film shown over a span of 31 days either won an Academy Award or was nominated for Academy Awards.
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TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar is currently underway and I wanted to handpick the 31 movies you should most check out or DVR during the month. The movies are in chronological order of when they will air. All times given are Central Standard Time. All synopsis from IMDb.com.
 
Doctor Zhivago
Saturday, February 1 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Bolt), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Art/Set Direction, Color, Best Costume Design, Color and Best Score.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (David Lean), Best Supporting Actor (Tom Courtenay), Best Sound, Best Film Editing

Synopsis: The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
 
The Maltese Falcon
Sunday, February 2 @ 11 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (John Huston), Best Supporting Actor (Sydney Greenstreet)

Synopsis: A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
 
White Heat
Wednesday, February 5 @ 1 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Writing (Virginia Kellogg)

Synopsis: A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.
 
North by Northwest
Wednesday, February 5 @ 10:45 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Screenplay (Ernest Lehman), Best Art/Set Direction, Color and Best Film Editing

Synopsis: A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies.
 
Singin’ in the Rain
Friday, February 7 @ 12:30 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Jean Hagen), Best Score

Synopsis: A silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
 
Bull Durham
Saturday, February 8 @ 11 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Screenplay (Ron Shelton)

Synopsis: A fan who has an affair with one minor-league baseball player each season meets an up-and-coming pitcher and the experienced catcher assigned to him.
 
On the Waterfront
Monday, February 10 @ 2:45 a.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director (Elia Kazan), Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint), Best Writing (Budd Schulberg), Best Cinematography, Black & White, Best Art/Set Decoration, Black & White and Best Film Editing

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Lee J. Cobb), Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden), Best Supporting Actor (Rod Steiger) and Best Score

Synopsis: An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.
 
Stagecoach
Monday, February 10 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell), Best Score

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (John Ford), Best Cinematography, Black & White, Best Art Direction and Best Film Editing

Synopsis: A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.
 
True Grit
Monday, February 10 @ 8:45 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Actor (John Wayne)

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Song (True Grit)

Synopsis: A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer in Indian territory.
 
The Grapes of Wrath
Tuesday, February 11 @ 5:15 a.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Director (John Ford), Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell)

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Henry Fonda), Best Writing (Nunnally Johnson), Best Sound Recording, Best Film Editing)

Synopsis: A poor Midwest family is forced off their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
 
Bonnie & Clyde
Friday, February 14 @ 5 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons), Best Cinematography

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Arthur Penn), Best Actor (Warren Beatty), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actor (Michael J. Pollard), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Original Screenplay (Robert Benton & David Newman), Best Costume Design

Synopsis: Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
 
Cool Hand Luke
Saturday, February 15 @ 2 a.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (George Kennedy)

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor (Paul Newman), Best Adapted Screenplay (Donn Pearce & Frank Pierson) and Best Score

Synopsis: A laid back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.
 
The Third Man
Saturday, February 15 @ 3 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography, Black & White

Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Carol Reed) and Best Film Editing

Synopsis: Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
 
Casablanca
Saturday, February 15 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Writing (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch)

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best Cinematography, Black & White, Best Film Editing and Best Score

Synopsis: A cynical American expatriate struggles to decide whether or not he should help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape French Morocco.
 
Key Largo
Saturday, February 15 @ 9 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actress (Claire Trevor)

Synopsis: A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.
 
The Philadelphia Story

Sunday, February 16 @ 5 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Actor (James Stewart), Best Writing (Donald Ogden Stewart)

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (George Cukor), Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn), Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Hussey)

Synopsis: When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
 
The Silence of the Lambs
Sunday, February 16 @ 9:30 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodie Foster), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally)

Oscar Nominations: Best Film Editing and Best Sound

Synopsis: A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
 
Taxi Driver
Sunday, February 16 @ 11:45 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Robert De Niro), Best Supporting Actress (Jodie Foster) and Best Score

Synopsis: A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action by attempting to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute.
 
Young Frankenstein
Monday, February 17 @ 2 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay (Mel Brooks & Gene Wilder) and Best Sound

Synopsis: An American grandson of the infamous scientist, struggling to prove that his grandfather was not as insane as people believe, is invited to Transylvania, where he discovers the process that reanimates a dead body.
 
Dr. Strangelove
Wednesday, February 19 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Stanley Kubrick), Best Actor (Peter Sellers) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George)

Synopsis: An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a War Room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
 
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Thursday, February 20 @ 4:45 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Writing, Original Story (Lewis R. Foster)

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actor (James Stewart), Best Supporting Actor (Harry Carey), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best Writing, Screenplay (Sidney Buchman), Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Score

Synopsis: A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.

Drums Along the Mohawk
Friday, February 21 @ 1 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Edna May Oliver) and Best Cinematography, Color

Synopsis: Newlyweds Gil and Lana Martin try to establish a farm in the Mohawk Valley but are menaced by Indians and Tories as the Revolutionary War begins.
 
How the West Was Won
Saturday, February 22 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Original Screenplay (James R. Webb), Best Film Editing and Best Sound

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Color, Best Art/Set Decoration, Color, Best Costume Design, Color and Best Score

Synopsis: A family saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century - including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads.
 
The Gunfighter
Saturday, February 22 @ 10 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Writing (William Bowers and Andre De Toth)

Synopsis: Notorious gunfighter Jimmy Ringo rides into town to find his true love, who doesn't want to see him. He hasn't come looking for trouble, but trouble finds him around every corner.
 
Gone with the Wind
Sunday, February 23 @ 9 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director (Victor Fleming), Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel), Best Writing (Sidney Howard), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Film Editing and Best Art Direction

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Supporting Actress (Olivia de Havilland), Best Sound, Best Effects and Best Score

Synopsis: A manipulative woman and a roguish man conduct a turbulent romance during the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods.
 
The Professionals
Tuesday, February 25 @ 1:30 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Richard Brooks), Best Adapted Screenplay (Richard Brooks) and Best Cinematography, Color

Synopsis: An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.
 
The Naked Spur
Tuesday, February 25 @ 3:45 a.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Writing (Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom)
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Synopsis: A bounty hunter trying to bring a murderer to justice is forced to accept the help of two less-than-trustworthy strangers.
 
Rebel Without a Cause
Friday, February 28 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Sal Mineo), Best Supporting Actress (Natalie Wood) and Best Writing (Nicholas Ray)

Synopsis: A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
 
The Graduate
Saturday, February 29 @ 5 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Director (Mike Nichols)

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Best Actress (Anne Bancroft), Best Supporting Actress (Katharine Ross), Best Adapted Screenplay (Buck Henry and Calder Willingham) and Best Cinematography
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Synopsis: A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
 
Tootsie
Saturday, February 29 @ 7 p.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Lange)

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Sydney Pollack), Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (Teri Garr), Best Original Screenplay (Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal and Don McGuire), Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Original Song (“It Might Be You”)
 
Synopsis: Michael Dorsey, an unsuccessful actor, disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a trashy hospital soap.
 
12 Angry Men
Sunday, March 1 @ 12:30 p.m.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Sidney Lumet) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Reginald Rose)

Synopsis: A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.
 
Lawrence of Arabia
Monday, March 2 @ 9:30 a.m.

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director (David Lean), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Art/Set Direction, Color, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Score

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor (Peter O’Toole), Best Supporting Actor (Omar Sharif) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson)

Synopsis: The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

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