Want to know the best Jennifer Jones movies? How about the worst Jennifer Jones movies? Curious about Jennifer Jones box office grosses or which Jennifer Jones movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jennifer Jones movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Jennifer Jones (1919-2009) was an Oscar® winning American actress during the Hollywood golden years. Jones was nominated for 5 Best Actress Oscars®….winning for 1943’s The Song of Bernadette. Jones starred in 23 films over a 30-year career. Two of her movies are still in the Top 100 Box Office Hits of All-Time when looking at adjusted totals: 1974’s The Towering Inferno is currently in 57th place and 1946’s Duel in The Sun is in 97th place. She went into semi-retirement following the death of her second husband, famed movie producer David O. Selznick, in 1965.
Her IMDb page shows 27 acting credits from 1939-1974. This page will rank 23 Jennifer Jones movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles, her early serials, shorts and movies not released in North America were not included in the rankings.
Jennifer Jones Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Jennifer Jones 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 Jennifer Jones movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by yearly domestic box office rank (in millions) or trivia about the movie
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and Oscar® wins each Jennifer Jones movie received.
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (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 table very interactive. For example…if you type in “Gregory Peck” in the search box….the 2 Peck/Jones movies will pop right up.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Jennifer Jones Table
- Eight Jennifer Jones movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 34.78% of her movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Jennifer Jones movie grosses $143.97 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 18 of Jennifer Jones’s movies are rated as good movies…or 78.26% of her movies. Portrait of Jennie (1948) was her highest rated movie while Angel Angel, Down We Go (1969) was her lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Jennifer Jones movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 47.82% of her movies.
- Five Jennifer Jones movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 21.73% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 13 Jennifer Jones movies scored higher that average….or 56.52% of her movies. The Song of Bernadette (1943) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while The Idol (1966) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jennifer Jones
1. Phylis Lee Isley was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her first three IMDb credits are under the name of Phylis Isley.
2. David O. Selznick changed her screen name to Jennifer Jones after signing her to seven year contract. Selznick took control of her movie career from 1943 to his death in 1965.
3. Jennifer Jones co-starred with Joseph Cotten in 4 movies: 1944’s Since You Went Away, 1945’s Love Letters, 1946’s Duel in the Sun, and 1948’s Portrait of Jennie. Cotten also narrated The Wild Heart (1952), in which Jones played the lead.
4. Jennifer Jones was married three times….and had three children. Her first marriage was to Robert “Strangers On A Train” Walker. Her 2nd second marriage was to David O. Selznick. Her third marriage was to Norton Simon. She had 7 grand children.
5. In 1981, Jones bought the rights to Larry McMurtry’s novel, “Terms of Endearment“, with the intention of starring in the film but director James Brooks told her that she was too old for the part. The role eventually went to Shirley MacLaine, who won an Oscar®.
6. Jennifer Jones’ first Oscar® nomination for The Song of Bernadette (1943) marked her first of 4 consecutive nominations, a feat she shares with Thelma Ritter (1950-1953), Marlon Brando (1951-1954) Elizabeth Taylor (1957-1960) and Al Pacino (1972-1975). (Pacino and Brando’s 4 consecutive nominations are the record for male actors. The female record is 5 in a row by Bette Davis (1938-1942) and Greer Garson (1941-1945).
7. Jennifer Jones turned 25 on the day she won the Best Actress Oscar® for 1943’s The Song of Bernadette
8. Jennifer Jones’ career adjusted box office gross was over $3.35 billion….while her movies earned 50 Oscar® nominations….winning 12 Oscars®. Four of her movies earned a Best Picture Oscar® nomination.
Check out Jennifer Jones’ movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
I am a little curious about some of the figures quoted for Jennifer’s films Carries is listed as 54th for 1952(and it was supposedly a failure) while Ruby Gentry is listed as 71st , the same year and it was a Box Office Hit? Good to see that the supposedly panned A farewell to Arms was a hit. My favorite Jennifer Jones film is the luminous “Portrait of Jennie” followed by “Love Letters” , I enjoyed her in “The Wild Heart/Gone to Earth” and “Tender Is The Night’. Surprised to see that “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” only ranked 33rd for the year(1955) as that was regarded as a Great Hit, while Tender is the night was regarded as a flop in 1962, but it as listed as #52 at Box Office.
https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/top-grossing-movies-of-1952/
In this one Carrie is 58th while Ruby Gentry was 59th. He is constantly adding in new movies so I have noticed his yearly rankings do not have much shelf life. But the box office numbers always stay the same.
I just realize why my comments disappeared. It was the link I attached. Thanks for releasing my comment.
Being a longtime reader of this website I can tell you they are constantly adding movies which makes the yearly rankings obsolete pretty quickly. It looks like the gross stayed the same on all the related Carrie and Ruby Gentry links. The following link is a more recent page and you will see they are closely ranked.
https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/top-grossing-movies-of-1952/
I agree the annual pages on this site, when available, provide a more accurate picture of the annual box office rankings. I had this discussion with Cogerson on the Burt Lancaster page (see March 11-12). It seems that the annual rankings on the actors pages come from Variety, which ranked movies based on their box office earned for the year only, not necessarily their total box office earnings. So a film like Love is a Many Splendored Thing, which was released in the latter half of 1955 likely also made money in early 1956, but this is not taken into account in Variety’s figures and ranking for 1955. It was indeed a big hit. On the other hand, Tender is the Night was released very early in 1962 so practically all the money it made was accounted for by Variety in 1962 and was used for its 1962 ranking (Cogerson can correct me if I’m wrong here but that’s my understanding).
I think it’s important to treat with some caution some of the claims made about a movie being a hit or a flop. I find some sources make these claims without much context or checking the facts. Sometimes, a movie is considered to be a commercial failure because its makers had higher expectations or because its budget was relatively high, when in fact it did not do too badly as compared to other, perhaps less ambitious, films released in the same year. I’m not familiar with Carrie, but probably people had high expectations of a film directed by William Wyler and pairing Olivier and Jones, and its rather average box office performance (average for 1952) was seen as disappointing. On the other hand, a film that was made on a relatively low budget but had a similar box office performance would be considered successful. The great thing about this site is it helps to set the record straight by giving the actual adjusted box office earnings (and in some pages the original box office as well), so that one can compare among films released around the same year and get a better sense of the film’s real popular success. When one looks at Tender is the Night, for instance, I would consider $48M in adjusted box office to be average for 1962, not a flop, but again probably less than what was anticipated.
JJ- another favorite! Have seen all of her movies, apart from Angel, Angel down we go…couldn’t get through that one. I guess that it was too much for me seeing Bernadette ending up as a former porn star in a badly written movie. Still got that one, so maybe one day…
One Question about Good Morning, Miss Dove- I always believed that this was much more successful at the box office. Do you happen to have the original boxoffice numbers or how it has ranked in the years end charts?
About my favorites- Almost everything she’s been in. Portrait of Jenny, the European cut of Indescretion of an American Wife, Since you went away, Love Letters, Bernadette, Duel in the Sun, Carrie, Madame Bovary, Barretts of Wimpole Street, Miss Dove, I even find merits in her performance in The Idol. Too bad she didn’t do more comedy, for she was quite enchanting in Cluny Brown. She certainly had her share of boxoffice bonanzas right into the 50’s, but then her career seemed to be slipping. As you already said, she was determined to revive her career in the late 70’s/early 80’s, but unfortunately that never happened.
Hey Lupino….glad you found, glad you like and glad you commented on our Jennifer Jones page. You lost some of her greatest movies for sure….with Duel In The Sun being my favorite. As for Good Morning, Miss Dove…it did not reach Variety’s Top Grossers of 1955 or 1956. My 20th Century Fox source lists the budget but does include it in it’s top box office hits for the studio. Somewhere in a book (sadly I did not source it) I read that it barely feel short of 1 million in rentals. In my database that currently makes it the 98th biggest hit of 1955. Yes…sad but true…she was not able to revive her career….though The Towering Inferno certainly let lots of younger people see her on the big screen for the first time. 🙂
Hello again,
thanks for answering my question. I think I read some glowing reviews on Miss Dove, maybe that’s what’s given me the impression it was a bigger hit- but since when do good reviews guarantee good box office 🙂 Also, it followed directly after Splendoured Thing, which had revived her career. Box office hit or not, I always liked it for its sentimentality and as a reminder of a different time, when movies transported more human values than some of todays movies do (Funny that comment coming from me, for I love myself a good Horror movie anytime).
Hey Lupino….you are 100% correct t…..great reviews do not always mean box office glory…just ask the producers of Citizen Kane or Shawshank Redemption. Good point about Love Is A Many Splendored Thing…..those days are long gone except in movies like that one. It is ok..horror movie fans can have a soft side too…..lol.
Had some time on my hand over the weekend and had a look into some of my film books. I found that in Julius’ Epstein’s A Portrait of Jennifer the Author claims that with Love is…, Miss Dove, Barretts and Man in the grey Flannel Suit JJ had 4 moneymakers in a row in the 50’s. He was quite accutate about the financial failures of Carrie, Indescretion, Beat he Devil and The wild heart.
Just to let you know where my information was coming from. A good read, by the way, since the book tells a lot about Hollywood and especially David Selznik.
Hey Lupino. Thanks for the information. I did some further research on the movie. Still not finding anything that makes me think it earned more money. In the past I have noticed some biographers like to list the worldwide gross. Maybe Miss Dove did well overseas… my movie ranking formula only uses domestic totals.
When I started doing these pages I had no idea I would reach people out of the United States..,.if I had known that I might have figured out a way to get worldwide grosses in the equation. Thanks for the return visit to this page.
Thank you for all the trouble you’ve gone through for answering my question. Maybe Mr. Epstein just wasn’t as accurate about Dove and Barretts as he was about the other movies. But it is possible that her 50’s pictures did better in the european market, with Jones quite popular in Britain and Germany seemingly eating up anything that Hollywood churned out at the time.
Hey Lupino…well….my calculations are not always right….but the way the studios played with the numbers…..I feel my numbers are in the right neighborhood. That being said I have no issue changing a number if I find a better source. Sadly biographies have proven not to be the most reliable of sources…but I will keep looking to see if I find anymore information.
1 I am not suggesting you or Bruce leave anything out.but am simply querying the value of some entries to the comparative ranking of performers. For example to again quote Baby’s father in Dirty Dancing “When I’m wrong I say I’m wrong.” so if you can give me a sensible explanation as to how an unknown, unbilled actress listed an unnoticed 82nd in a cast list and given a walk-on part can have attracted the crowds that generated an adjusted over $200 million dollars gross to a film I’ll say I’m wrong to suggest that crediting that actresses’ overall grosses with the amount concerned risks eschewing ranking comparisons.
2 Your site is slightly different from Bruce’s in that you are not normally attempting to rank one performer with another but rather are trying to rate the artistic differences between those films in which one artist has appeared so you are not being unfair to other artists in selecting films in which your subject of the moment may not have been a driving force. So in relation to you my objection was simply that you were partially making unfair comparisons between Loy and Crawford in the examples concerned by crediting Loy with a movie in which she was just a supporting player whereas Crawford was not in that weaker position in any of the movies you mentioned.
3 As Duke was given equal billing to every other star in Longest Day I would not suggest denying him credit for that film because as I’ve already told you my private system is to normally recognise for box office purposes only those movies in which the star concerned [where he/she is not the only star] has equal billing with all other stars in the film. It’s by no means a perfect way of sorting out the wheat from the chaff but it is a respectable cut-off point. Box office Mojo has a good system where most films are listed but those to which the performer concerned has made no significant perceived contribution are highlighted in grey and not included in box office totals.
4 Anyway would it not be very boring if we agreed on everything?
Hey Bob….good points…there are lots of ways to look at it….but there are no wrong ways….it just depends on what you want to focus on. Just like picking a favorite actor….as silly as it seems….I used to think Judd Nelson was the best actor working in the 1980s…..at that time if you would have said I was wrong…I would have fought tooth and nail against you…..even if it turns out I might have been wrong…. I now know he was the 2nd best actor working in the 1980s….lol.
HI AGAIN BRUCE
NATALIE WOOD
1 T hanks for the feedback here. Miracle on 34th Street is not in my Natalie Wood data base. It’s a bit like your Top 25 Actresses/Actors, you have to set a criteria and draw a line somewhere even though as you are the first to admit you will always be leaving somebody or something good out. Of course my database is set up to please just me whereas you are trying to cater for a wide following with all kinds of different tastes and interests.
2 I do though take your general point that there are some supporting roles that are so special and historical you simply can’t ignore them regardless of billing issues – for example Sinatra in From Here to Eternity, Nicholson in Easy Rider and Laddie in This Gun for Hire. Veronica Lake and Robert Preston were billed alone above the title in that one -see Wikipedia poster – but Ladd shone in the film and broke out of it into stardom – and executed the greatest con trick ever inflicted on the public according to my son!
3 GOLDIE Again I appreciate your comments. Like you I don’t see Goldie having any more stand-alone hits however well Snatched does and I think she is 3rd billed there. However I was
conveying my admiration of her soldiering on at whatever status at the age of 71 in an industry that’s not exactly kind to women even at 40. And your 24th ranking for her WAS an excellent call.
4 JUDD NELSON I think Mrs Willis was the most successful of the Brat Pack but even she is now long gone in terms of stardom.
Hey Bob….I agree you have to stick with your rules. Glad you see that sometimes there can be exceptions to the rules. Good examples of great supporting roles outshining the leading roles. I agree Goldie has had a great lengthy career….I agree Demi has had the best career…..just watched her in a western during my sick days….she played the love interest to Keifer Sutherland in Foresaken….which was a decent western with a great performance from Michael Wincott. Good stuff as usual.
Hi Bob, good posts on billings and their importance. Not sure I agree with everything you say. Bruce is more of a completist than I am and wants to include everything. I steer away from cameos and walk on parts but otherwise there’s no way I would leave out for example – The Searchers in a Natalie Wood video or Gunga Din in a Joan Fontaine video because their billings are further down the credits list and therefore might not be important entries in their filmographies. I think they are and should be counted too.
If Bruce and I were to concentrate our efforts on just the starring roles for these actresses it would give a false impression and a smaller list of films. I think people would like to know what else these actors and actresses have appeared in and not just their top billed or 2nd billed movies. Not to include The Towering Inferno in a Jennifer Jones video because she was just one of many guest stars would be wrong IMO.
Would you prefer the box office stats for The Longest Day not be added to John Wayne’s box office total because the film was not a starring vehicle for him and therefore might give a false reading? 🙂
Hey Steve…I agree…..if we only looked at starring roles….we would have to change the name of the website….as ultimate would not be a good way to describe it. Still trying to figure out a way to list the movie but mention that is was a supporting role is something we have been trying to do for a long time…so far we have not figured out a way to do that.