Francis Sayles Movies List

Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. Can the old folks take matters into their own hands?

A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.

The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.

J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.

American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However, he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance at being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner, she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend.

In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.

A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.

Falsely convicted of murder, young Robert Draper escapes custody during a practice blackout drill. Under cover of darkness, Draper hopes to find the real killer, who turns out to be a member of a Nazi sabotage ring. Completed shortly before America entered WW2.

When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Sassy manicurist Eve Fallon is recruited as an even more brassy reporter and she helps police detective boyfriend Danny Barr break a jewel theft ring and solve the murder of a baby.

A silent Western star has trouble adjusting to the coming of sound.

Mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.

In the second screen version of The Maltese Falcon, a detective is caught between a lying seductress and a lady jewel thief.

Roy is a Confederate officer stationed in Missouri during the Civil War. He must put an end to outlaw gangs working under the pretense of service to the Confederacy.

Judge Kirby is being blackmailed and forced to let outlaws go free. He was once the partner of Roy's father and when Roy reads in the paper that he is in trouble he heads out to help him. Arriving, Roy quickly realizes he has been mistaken for one of the outlaws and is not wanted in town. However he stays, and now posing as that outlaw, hopes to learn who is causing all the problems.

Kay and June, two showgirls, are hurt when they seek financial help from Daisy. On Daisy's wedding night when she is rendered missing, Kay and June decide to look for her to claim the reward.

Talbot uses a phony land grant to rule thirteen million acres, taxing everyone heavily and evicting those who won't pay. The Three Mesquiteers becomes mysterious "night riders" to fight this evil.

A radio commentator named Perry Travis fancies himself a brilliant amateur detective. The cops wish he’d stick to his microphone and let them do the detecting. This proves impossible when a famed scientist is murdered in Perry’s studio, right in the middle of the interview. All evidence points to Perry, and he sets out to clear his name before the Shadow-like villain roaming the hallways of the radio station gets away with murder.

A French doctor sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's daughter.

It is the Christmas Holidays and reformed thief, Boston Blackie goes to Castle Theater to pick up players who will perform for prisoners that are still in prison. He takes a girl with him who has a brother already in prison. She has visited the prison twice in the month, so is not suppose to visit again. However when the group is completed the girl is included as well as Inspector Farrady. One of the clowns in the show is kidnapped and replaced by a con who wants to get even with two ex-partners. Boston Blackie figures out that a con has replaced one of his clowns but is unable to stop him. Blackie's clothes are stolen and a murder is committed. Of course, the Inspector immediately suspects Blackie of being involved. Now it is Blackie's job to find the killer, exonerate himself and help the girl free her brother.

Set at the turn of the century, smooth talking con man Eddie Johnson weasels his way into a job at friend and rival Joe Rocco's Coney Island night spot. Eddie meets the club's star attraction (and Joe's love interest), Kate Farley, a brash singer with a penchant for flashy clothes. Eddie and Kate argue as he tries to soften her image. Eventually, Kate becomes the toast of Coney Island and the two fall in love. Joe then tries to sabotage their marriage plans.

David Ross organizes the ranchers into a vigilante group to rid the town of outlaws. The plan succeeds but the trouble starts when some of the men form a new vigilante group and posing as the original one plunder for loot.

A newly hired police chief vows to clean up a notoriously corrupt police department. When he is murdered, investigators find that there is no shortage of suspects, most of them being fellow cops.

Bodies start mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue. An investigator tries to determine what is going on.

A man who has been railroaded into prison is framed for the murder of a fellow inmate and must prove his innocence.

The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend.

In the 1840s, Ramsey MacKay, the driver for the struggling Wells Fargo mail and freight company, will secure an important contract if he delivers fresh oysters to Buffalo from New York City. When he rescues Justine Pryor and her mother, who are stranded in a broken wagon on his route, he doesn't let them slow him down and gives the ladies an exhilirating ride into Buffalo. He arrives in time to obtain the contract and is then sent by company president Henry Wells to St. Louis to establish a branch office.

Roy and Gabby fight bad guys to save the town of Deadwood.

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.

The future of a group of strangely connected lives is determined on one crucial night at a dinky motel in the desert.

Kirby and Evans are pulling off an irrigation project swindle and newspaper editor Scott realizes it and sends for Lee. Lee agrees with Scott and forms a vigilante group to fight the Sheriff and his deputies brought in by Kirby. But a dying Uncle Dan sets the Sheriff straight and this brings the two sides together for the big shootout.

Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson are Broadway stars who return to Universal Studios to make another movie. The mere mention of Olsen and Johnson's names evacuates the studio and terrorizes the management and personnel. Undaunted, the comedians hire an assistant director and unknown talent, and set out to make their own movie.

When Pegleg and his Black Raiders threaten the westward expansion of the United States, the government sends Kit Carson and David Brent to straighten things out.

Former Texas Ranger Wade Patterson (Starrett) returns to his home town, only to find that the territory is in the grip of cattle rustlers. For a while, it looks as though heroine Linda Holden (Meredith) is in cahoots with the bad guys, but Patterson quickly clears her name and takes on the crooks himself.

Dave Crockett (Bill Elliott) comes to the aid of ranchers living on the Yucca Strip, who want their area made part of the United States. A greedy land baron, however, wants the property as his own.

A poor country girl from Vermont travels to New York City to attend a theatrical school.

Two marine lieutenants battle a masked would-be world conqueror who uses electricity as a weapon.

A girl decides to consult her natural father, whom she's never seen, for advice on her mixed-up love life.