Pre-Code Movies on TCM and Criterion Channel, February 2026

Wow, what a year, everyone. I’m glad we made it all through. Can’t believe 2026 is drawing to a–

I’m sorry, I’m getting news in that that was only January.

Well. That’s not great.

Plenty of stuff happened this month that I guess is movie related, so let me dive right in.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to anyone who has picked up Pre-Code Essentials, either at a screening, online, at a bookstore, or even checked it out at a library. I have not been told how successful or unsuccessful the book is yet, but people have said and posted some really nice things about it, and that’s really all I wanted. (I mean, I also wanted to be in WorldCat, but that’s a weirdo librarian thing, so there.) If you read the book and liked it, leaving a review at Amazon or Goodreads or StoryGraph genuinely helps the book out in the algorithm and I would appreciate it.

As I will post again, now and forever, you can order the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and Larry Edmunds.

If you enjoyed the book, I made a list of the movies it covers over at Letterboxd. I also made, for anyone curious, a list of movies I would put in a sequel to the book, The (Almost) Essential Pre-Codes, if you want more.

Other important and extremely time consuming thing I did! I announced it on my Bluesky, but I guess it’s probably helpful to share here. Check out my list of where to find the films of 1930, which covers all of the feature films that came out that year and where you can see them at, organized by release date.

I’m hoping this list helps people watch more pre-Codes now that they can freely find them and they are mostly free!

In other news, I’m moving back to the States in June after five years in Germany. My wife and I were talking about actually subscribing to cable again if only to save ourselves from hour plus marathons of Teen Titans Go!, and because, truly, deeply, I would love to get to watch TCM on my TV again. This is, of course, precisely when it has been announced that TCM is in the process of being acquired by Netflix.

As someone who worked at multiple video stores and loathes Netflix, I can’t say I’m super thrilled with this news, but I’m not despondent over it. Not when there are so many other things to be despondent about, I guess.

Pre-Codes on Criterion Channel

Criterion Channel is hosting a Mervyn LeRoy pre-Code retrospective which includes some absolute bangers. I’m even a little excited to revisit some of these.

Links below go to my reviews of the movies. Films marked with an asterisk have a chapter dedicated to them in Pre-Code Essentials.

Pre-Codes on TCM in February 2026

Lots of great pre-Codes to catch on TCM this month. They’ve changed the annual 31 Days of Oscars so it no longer runs the entire month and instead runs straight into a lead up of the Oscar ceremony on March 15th. (Everyone else putting their bets on Sinners getting Best Pic, I’m with you.) The event now starts on the 13th of February, so the first half of the month includes some non-Oscar classics plus some fun pre-Code flyers on the 3rd and a night of pre-Code Lubitsch on the 9th.

Full TCM listings available here. All times listed below are EST and subject to change. All links go to my reviews of the listed films. Movies marked with an asterisk are covered in a chapter of my book Pre-Code Essentials, out now from TCM and Running Press.