James Garner Movies

garner 111111Want to know the best James Garner movies?  How about the worst James Garner movies?  Curious about James Garner’s box office grosses or which James Garner movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which James Garner movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

James Garner (1928-2014) was an American Oscar® nominated actor.  Garner pretty much had two careers.  On television he starred in not one but two all-time great shows…Maverick and The Rockford Files. His feature film career lasted over 50 years and included many classic films like The Great Escape, Sayonara and Grand Prix. His IMDb page shows 95 acting credits from 1956-2010. This page will rank 48 James Garner movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system and his straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part of the page:  When I originally wrote this page, my state of Virginia, had just had it’s worst earthquake in over 100 years (I lived about 100 miles away from the epi-center), Hurricane Irene was closing in on my area (I live 15 miles from Va Beach), and the Great Dismal Swamp fires (about 20 miles away) had reached “can be seen from space” status. So what was I am thinking? Safety of my family? Tape for the windows? Batteries for the flashlights? Will Irene put out the fires? Nope…..I was thinking I should do another UMR movie page before I lose power.   Well it turned out the storm only knocked out the power for a few hours…and I managed to finish the page in time….and my Garner movie page quickly became one of my more popular pages.  When I was much younger, James Garner was known to me for two things. I knew he was on the very popular show, The Rockford Files and that he was in the Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley. It was only after the discovery of one of my favorite movies of all-time, The Great Escape, that I realized that Garner had already had a very successful movie career.

James Garner in Oscar nominated performance...1985's Murphy's Romance.

James Garner in Oscar nominated performance…1985’s Murphy’s Romance.

James Garner Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

James Garner Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort James Garner movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort James Garner movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort James Garner movies by yearly box office rank
  • Sort James Garner movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each James Garner movie received.
  • Sort James Garner movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the sort and search buttons to make this page very interactive….for example you just want to see the Doris Day/Garner movies….just type in “Doris Day” in the search box….and up they pop.  Or if you want to see his type rated movies according to critics and audiences click the sort button in that column.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above James Garner Table

  1. Twelve James Garner movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 25.00% of his movies listed. Sayonara (1957) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average James Garner movie grossed $70.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  28 James Garner movies are rated as good movies…or 58.33% of his movies.  The Great Escape (1963) was his highest rated movie while The Distinguished Gentleman (1992) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Nine James Garner movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 18.75% of his movies.
  5. Three James Garner movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 6.25% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00.  19 James Garner movies scored higher that average….or 39.58% of his movies.  Sayonara (1957) got the the highest UMR Score while Sunset (1988) got the lowest UMR Score.
Everytime I watch The Great Escape....I keep hoping one time Garner and Donald Pleasance's plane will make it to the border.

Every time I re-watch The Great Escape….I keep hoping one time Garner and Donald Pleasance’s plane will make it to the border.

Possibly Interesting Facts About James Garner

1. James Garner served in the Army’s 24th Infantry Division during the Korean War. He was wounded twice during his time in Korea. He received the Purple Heart for the first injury.

2. James Garner’s two most successful television shows ended prematurely. Garner quit Maverick the series in the third season because of a dispute with Warner Brothers. And he had to quit The Rockford Series for health reasons after season six.

3. James Garner’s first starring role was 1958’s Darby’s Rangers…..he got the role after Charlton Heston turned down the role.

4. James Garner was married to Lois Clarke. They married 14 days after meeting for the first time. They got married on August 17, 1956. According to Garner, “Marriage is like the Army; everyone complains, but you’d be surprised at the large number of people who re-enlist”. Garner has two daughters: Kimberly, from Clarke’s first marriage, whom he adopted when she was nine years old, and Greta “Gigi” Garner…who is an author.   Gigi wrote the books…Girl Talk and The Cop Cookbook.

5. James Garner turned down the lead role in First Blood. Imagine if he had taken that role? Stallone would have probably made 13 Rocky movies instead of the 6 he did make.

6. In February 2005 James Garner received the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

7. James Garner has one Oscar® nomination to his credit…..1985’s Murphy’s Romance…Best Actor ……he also picked up two Golden Globe® nominations for his movies…Murphy’s Romance and 1963’s The Wheeler Dealers.

8. For his television career, James Garner received 9 Golden Globe® nominations…including two wins……and received 15 Emmy® nominations with two wins.

9. James Garner’s daughter, Gigi Garner, has an awesome tribute page to her father….check out that tribute here at http://mavrock1.tumblr.com/ . It should also be noted that probably one of James Garner’s greatest accomplishments…was being a great father….I got this information directly from Gigi Garner.

10. Check out James Garner career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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96 thoughts on “James Garner Movies

  1. Hello again,
    Although we just had an exchange on James Garner a few days ago following Steve’s release of his 30 highest films video, as today (July 19) is the anniversary of him passing away, I wanted to share a few more thoughts. Yes, it was exactly 3 years ago that Garner left us at the age of 86, so Steve’s video was rather well timed, and Bruce may want to post the link here in commemoration of this exceptional, long-lasting actor.
    Interesting, Bruce, that you mentioned a couple of day ago in response to my post that James Garner was one of you favorite actors. When I was growing up, Garner was my favorite actor ever since I saw him in The Great Escape and Support Your Local Sheriff, and I guess even something of a role model. So it meant something to me when he passed away.
    Many people of our generation probably know him best for TV’s The Rockford Files and may be surprised to hear that in 1963, Garner was ranked as #16 on Quigley’s Poll of top money-making movie stars. Yet, despite some strong performances in films such as The Great Escape, The Americanization of Emily, 36 Hours, and Hour of the Gun, Garner was often dismissed as “lightweight”. I think his easy-going style and natural delivery hid his considerable talent, which was later acknowledged, notably with some excellent dramatic performances in the latter half of his career (Murphy’s Romance, Promise (TV), Barbarians at the Gate (TV) and perhaps his crowning achievement, The Notebook). Between his work on television and the big screen, Garner proved to be a survivor and remained highly popular much longer than expected.
    And Garner was a survivor as a human being as well. When I read his memoirs published in 2011, I was touched by the fact that someone who had suffered such abuse at the hand of his step-mother could turn himself around, develop such a good-humored, humble and amiable persona, and be a caring family man.
    Recalling an old Barbara Walters interview, where she asked Garner how he would like to be remembered, he responded “with a smile”, which I think is fine way to conclude my little commemoration this true Maverick:)

    1. Hey Phil….great comment on Mr. Garner. I have his autobiography on my book case. Great book with so many great stories. 3 years today he passed? Wow…time flies. One of the highlights of running this website was waking up one morning and seeing that his daughter had commented on our page. I thought then…and still think now…..”That is cool that Rockford’s daughter took the time to comment.”

      I think his movie career was severely underrated. If this is the career of “lightweight” then I do not think anybody would be a heavyweight. I watch The Great Escape pretty regularly….as it is one of my Top 100 movies…..I also hope one time….his plane will not run out of gas….and he and Donald P. make it…..it has not happened yet….lol.

      Nice tribute to James Garner on the anniversary of his passing.

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