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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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.

96 thoughts on “James Garner Movies

  1. STEVE 1. The Work Horse has long-since stolen a march on you in profiling Garner’s career but your video is “better late than never” for me because I simply loved Garner on the big screen and in his 2 hit TV series Maverick and Rockford and of course Jim is one of a handful of stars who was a big success both in the cinema and on television. In real life he was very bad tempered and in fact claims to have given up booze because it made him even meaner. Indeed he is supposed to have floored a co-worker with his fists on the set of Grand Prix which film is highlighted in your catalogue.

    2 96% rating for this top-notch video whose glut of fine POSTERS include Castaway Cowboy, the saucy one from Marlowe, Fire in the Sky, Boys Night Out and A Man Could Get Killed. The haunting theme tune for the latter was Strangers in the Night which was of course a huge vocal musical hit for Sinatra.

    3 Very interesting STILLS from Marlowe, the big screen Maverick, The Thrill of It All with my Doris, Murphy’s Romance, The Great Escape and Sayonara with Mr. Mumbles. Jim and Mumbles got on very well when making that one and in a TV interview Garner claimed to be one of the few who could exert influence on the Legendary One saying that he lectured Mr. M into treating Joshua Logan the director of Sayonara with more on-set respect.

    4 You and this site’s own Legend agree on 4 of the Top 5 with Bruce choosing for his Top 5 The Children’s Hour [aka The Loudest Whisper] Instead of Support Your Local Sheriff. I agree with his choice but I see you both have included Sayonara in your 5 and can only conclude that on this occasion WH freed himself momentarily from the Svengali like influence of Hirschhorn who as you imply seems to have become an active Big Deal on this site. Indeed I’m beginning to wonder if it was not an automation but Joel who was operating the site from b.t.g on the Work Horse’s recent AWOL occasions !!

    5 To conclude, another wonderful entertaining presentation from you NB: Bruce’s stats show that Sayonara was Mr M’s biggest hit before Godpop and his 3rd biggest hit of all time at least domestically. Following his trip to Warners Bruce kindly gave me a worldwide gross for Sayonara which amounted to well over half a billion inflation adjusted dollars a goodly sum for 1957 when the foreign box office was not as buoyant as it is today. Anyway have a good weekend.

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and comparison, always appreciated.

      Glad you liked the posters and stills.

      Bruce and I have the same no.1 – The Great Escape – a big favorite of mine. I don’t think I’ve ever read a negative review of that film. I didn’t know Sayonara was such a bit hit, it’s been years since I last saw it. I always mistake it for the one where Brando plays an Oriental, forgot the title.

      My sources liked the two ‘Support Your Local’ comedies more than Bruce’s. I suppose it was Cat Ballou that started the run of western comedies in the 60s and early 70s. Two of the best were Italian westerns starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer – They Call Me Trinity and Trinity is Still My Name.

      Only one Jim Garner film scored 10 out of 10 on my scoresheet – The Great Escape – 5 others scored 9 – Sayonara, Americanization of Emily, Victor Victoria, Support Your Local Sheriff and Skin Game.

      I don’t think I’ve seen Skin Game, co-starring a young Louis Gossett Jr years before he won an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman. He was only the third African-American to win an Oscar at that time.

      Garner on Steve McQueen – “Steve was my neighbor for some time, I called him “Crazy McQueen”, because, quite frankly, he was crazy. We were friends, but he wanted to play my part in Grand Prix (1966) and because of that we didn’t talk for four years. He wasn’t a great actor, but he was a star – McQueen had probably the highest amount of star quality I’ve ever seen in an actor.”

      1. Thanks for the video on James Garner, Steve. Just recently I had wondered what such a video would look like! Again, some great posters, a number of which I had never seen. Having followed Garner’s career closely and seen almost all of his films, I think your ratings are mostly on the mark. On the whole, I also find Bruce’s ratings in the ball park, but I always thought he somewhat underrated Support Your Local Sheriff, Skin Game and Duel at Diablo, while over-rated The Art of Love and The Pink Jungle (which does not even appear in your top 30). Your ratings of these films are more what I would have expected. I still think Skin Game, Duel at Diablo and Marlowe could do better (while Move Over Darling and Support Your Local Gunfighter are given rather generous treatment), but I generally think these films are somewhat under-appreciated and your ratings reflect this. Garner’s rendition of Philip Marlowe was a forerunner of his Jim Rockford, but at the time, he and the film were rather derided by critics who may have expected Bogart in The Big Sleep. To be sure, Garner was no Bogart, but he had a unique tongue-in-cheek humour and could deliver deliver dry wit in such a natural manner that one did not always realize it was funny.

        In the end, Garner may be best remembered for his TV work, but as your video shows, he has quite a number of interesting film credits to his name, best of which is of course The Great Escape, where in my view, he comes off even better than Steve McQueen. By the way, picking up on your comment above on The Great Escape, the NY Times actually gave it a rather mean review when it came out. In fact, while the film was a big hit in the US, it was not a huge hit like The Longest Day or The Guns of Navarone. Like Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven, it was more successful in Europe, and notably was the biggest hit in France in 1963. Over time, the film became more appreciated in North America, both in terms of popularity and critical acclaim.

        Anyway, as Richard Attenborough told Garner in The Great Escape, you get 10 out of 10 on this old boy!

        1. Hey Phil, thanks for checking out my James Garner video, and thanks for the rating too, that’s more than some of Garner’s films managed to score. [wink]

          I’ve found that review from Bosley Crowther at the NY Times and you’re right, he hated the film. “…for much longer than is artful or essential, “The Great Escape” grinds out its tormenting story without a peek beneath the surface of any man, without a real sense of human involvement. It’s a strictly mechanical adventure with make-believe men.”

          oof he even rolled his eyes at Steve McQueen “….surly and sophomoric, tediously whacking a baseball into a glove, which he continues to do at intervals throughout the picture, providing one of the most-moronic running gags in years.”

          And at James Garner too “…silken and mysterious, light-fingeredly lifting crucial tools from trucks without a single guard’s noticing the pilfering — in a maximum-security prison yet!”

          For a young Bruce Lee fanatic as I was back in the 70s, Marlowe was something special and not to be missed when it popped up on TV.

          I don’t think I’ve seen Move Over Darling, or The Thrill of it All. I remember Support your local Gunfighter had one of the funniest closing lines in any western, and from the great Jack Elam “…and me? I go on to become a star in Italian westerns.” 🙂

          1. Hey Phil and Steve. Good stuff on Steve’s video and the career of Mr. James Garner….who is among my favorite actors.

  2. Hi, Bruce.

    I see I have not commented on this page since James Garner died? I was devastated. I watched his 24 hour tribute on TCM. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to do it.

    Luckily, I have since been able to get to the point where I am able to watch Garner’s films in general.

    Earlier today I just watched his film number 24 on this list: PINK JUNGLE.

    I got the title mixed up with a TV show when I was looking for the title on Letterboxd and I believe I called it Lipstick Jungle because there is a reference to using lipstick in different shade instead of Chapstick. LOL!

    I found out this movie was available on Youtube through James Garner’s official page on Facebook. I had to watch it in 15 minute segments, but that did not bother me.

    I enjoyed watching this movie. It was fun. It required a willing suspension of disbelief. But it was fun. Another movie crossed off my list of Garner films and Kennedy films.

    1. Hey Flora…it was a sad day indeed. I did a Letterboxd person Top 10 Garner Movie page…as a way to deal with my sadness about his passing. Having his daughter respond and use my HubPage article was one of the highlights of my time at HubPages. Glad you enjoyed The Pink Jungle….I am sure Lipstick Jungle could be an interesting movie as well….lol.

  3. YES, IT IS A SAD DAY TO LEARN THAT JAMES GARNER PASSED. I THOUGHT HE WAS SUCH A GREAT ACTOR – ENJOYED ALL HIS WORK. MY CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY AS WELL. I ENDJOYED 36 HOURS ON TCM JUST LAST WEEK – THAT WAS A GOOD MOVIE TOO.

    1. Hey BERN1960. On this sad day….we can at least be grateful for all the great movies James Garner made and that we can enjoy. RIP Mr. James Garner.

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