Want to know the best Joan Crawford movies? How about the worst Joan Crawford movies? Curious about Joan Crawford’s box office grosses or which Joan Crawford movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joan Crawford movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which one got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Even though Joan Crawford (1904-1977) was voted by the American Film Institute as the 10th greatest film actress, I have to admit that I have not seen many of her movies (fourteen to be exact). So how did I write a movie page that ranked all of her movies from 1st to 78th? Lots and lots of research is the answer.
Well the first place I started was IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and saw she had lots of acting credits. Then I read two of her biographies….Not The Girl Next Door by Charlotte Chandler and Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto. Next I was lucky enough to find this Best of Everything Joan Crawford tribute page on the internet which was jam packed with tons of hard to find box office information from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Using the information that I had collected from these sources I was able to finally write this page.
Her IMDb page shows 103 acting credits from 1925-1972. This page ranks 78 Joan Crawford movies from Best to Worst in seven different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in North American theaters were not included in the rankings.
Joan Crawford Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
78 Joan Crawford 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.
- The highlighted movie links take you to that movie’s trailer or a small clip of the Joan movie.
- Sort Joan Crawford movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Joan Crawford movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Joan Crawford movies by yearly domestic box office gross
- Sort Joan Crawford 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 how many Oscar® wins each Joan Crawford movie received.
- Sort Joan Crawford 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Joan Crawford Table
- Twenty-seven Joan Crawford movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 34.61% of her movies listed. Mildred Pierce (1945) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Joan Crawford movie grosses $80.50 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 36 of Joan Crawford’s movies are rated as good movies…or 46.15% of her movies. Johnny Guitar (1954) is her highest rated movie while Trog (1970) was her lowest rated movie.
- Fifteen Joan Crawford movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 19.23% of her movies.
- Three Joan Crawford movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 3.84% of her movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 47 Joan Crawford movies scored higher than that average….or 60.25% of her movies. Mildred Pierce (1945) got the the highest UMR Score while Trog (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Joan Crawford
1. Joan Crawford’s birth name was Lucille Fay LeSueur. The only movie that lists her birth name is Pretty Ladies (1925). How she got the Joan Crawford name comes from Bob Kale. “Her name was voted on by the public in a movie magazine. The public’s first choice was Joan Arden. Since there was already a Joan Arden already making movies….they had to go with the second choice…..Joan Crawford. She initially hated the name because she thought it was to close to “crawfish”.
2. Joan Crawford was nominated for 3 Oscars® during her career….winning one time for 1945’s Mildred Pierce. Her other two nominated performances were for 1947’s Possessed and 1952’s Sudden Fear. She amazingly was never nominated for a Golden Globe®.
3. Speaking of Possessed….she is one of the few actresses to appear in two movies with the same name that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Possessed (1931) was about a factory worker and was a romantic movie…while Possessed (1947) was about a woman that is obsessed with a man and how that obsession leads to murder.
4. Joan Crawford was married 4 times in her life. Marriage one was to actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (an actor), marriage two was to Franchot Tone (they appeared in 8 movies together), marriage three was to Phillip Terry (an actor) and finally she was married to Alfred Steele (CEO of Pepsi-Cola). Many of her movies at her request/demand had Pepsi placement in them. Joan Crawford adopted five children. The three girls were Christina, Cathy and Cynthia. The two boys were both called Christopher …although one of the two boys was reclaimed by his birth mother. Christina authored the book…Mommie Dearest….which was turned into a movie starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford.
5. Joan Crawford appeared in two all-star movies….1929’s Hollywood Revue and 1944’s Hollywood Canteen. Both roles were cameos and were not included in the rankings. It should be noted that Hollywood Revue was the first time Crawford’s voice was heard in movies….while Hollywood Canteen was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1940s.
6. One of Joan Crawford’s last project was one of Steven Spielberg’s first projects. She appeared in the TV movie Night Gallery, which had 3 segments (she starred in the 2nd segment, directed by Spielberg) and aired in November of 1969. The actual TV show did not premiere until over a year later, in December of 1970.
7. According to Quigley Publications…..Joan Crawford was a Top Ten Movie Star from 1930 to 1936. She was ranked #1 in 1930, #3 in 1931 and 1932, #10 in 1933, #6 in 1934, #5 in 1935 and #7 in 1936. By the end of 1937 she was considered “box office poison”….without a doubt a case of …”what have you done for me lately”.
8. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis simply hated each other. Their feud lasted for decades and is legendary in the history of Hollywood. Somehow they managed to actually act in a movie together….1962’s Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?. Then again I guess the fact that their two characters in the movie hated each other as well…made the acting pretty easy for them.
9. Joan Crawford was Fred Astaire‘s first on screen dance partner. The two appeared in 1933’s Dancing Lady. Others in the cast….Clark Gable, Franchot Tone (her 2nd husband) and the Three Stooges.
10. One of the best collection of Joan Crawford fans can be found on Facebook at Joan Crawford Chat Room. If you are a Joan Crawford you have to join this group….it is easily the best movie group on Facebook that I have come across….and I am in many Facebook movie groups.
Check out Joan Crawford‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
This is the 3rd home for my Joan Crawford movie page….but this is a brand new You Tube video…made especially for my new and hopefully final home for my Joan Crawford page.
But Wait…We Have More Joan Crawford Movie Stats…How About Adjusted Worldwide Grosses on 59 Joan Crawford Movies
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
I remember my father and I had a heated argument about Jerry Lewis versus Phil Silvers as comedians and my mother intervened and told us to stop it. “They won’t be fighting about you, she said.
THE FUNERAL OF JOAN CRAWFORD
According to Crawford’s instructions, she was cremated, and her ashes were placed in an urn at Ferncliff Cemetery, Westchester County, New York, next to her last husband, Alfred Steele. The funeral was held at Campbell’s Funeral Home, in New York City. Among those in attendance were the actress Myrna Loy, who had known her the longest, the actors Van Johnson and Brian Aherne, the artist Andy Warhol, John Springer, and Joan’s four children: Christina, 37; Christopher, 33; and the twins, Cindy and Cathy, 30.
THE PUBLICATION OF MOMMIE DEAREST [CRITICAL OF JOAN CRAWFORD]
Some of Joan Crawford’s friends disputed the version of events presented in Mommie Dearest. Among them Van Johnson, Cesar Romero, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Sydney Guilaroff, Ann Blyth, Gary Gray, and in particular Myrna Loy,[1] Joan’s friend since 1925.
🙂
Hi Bob, I didn’t know there was such a strong connection between Joan and Myrna, thanks for that bit of info. Best of pals eh? So really you shouldn’t get too antsy when Bruce and I keep posting stuff like “Queen of the Box Office”. To a big Crawford fan like yourself, Loy’s practically family. 😉
Merry Xmas!
1 Strange that according to Bruce’s links column above they never made a movie together as to some extent they were interchangeable, Crawford taking over from Loy in Last of Mrs Cheyney and Myrna slotting into the role that Gable wanted Joan to play opposite him in Parnell.
2 I didn’t realise that you actually STILL lived in England until I saw one of your recent posts and had assumed that you had immigrated to the states; but I suppose even that vast country could not permanently accommodate both you and Bruce ! Anyhow I better watch what I say about the Brits from now on. Hope your Xmas day going well.
Hey Bob….hope your Christmas was awesome….I agree it is hard to believe that Loy and Crawford did not appear in a movie together….especially since they were active in almost the same time frame which covered almost 55 years. I think Steve is very happy in England…..there is a much greater chance of me getting to London than him coming to America. Son #2 is coming your way in January……he is either training in England or Ireland…..he was recruited by a company that is big your way and expanding my way….so some Cogerson blood will be trumping around your lands soon.
1 Now that I’ve found out how loyal Moy was to Joan I’m glad you and I had prised Bruce into acknowledging Myrna’s greatness. Now that Bruce knows Loy has become one of my idols you and I will have to be on our guard against him reducing Myrna’s well-earned grosses – in the past fortnight he savaged my Laddie’s Iron Mistress domestic total and during the summer he took a hatchet to Mr Mumble’s Julius Caesar and Superman (1978) stats [though to be fair he did give Mr M an extra billion on update and a super worldwide gross for Sayonara].
2 I was thinking why don’t you concoct a poster for an imaginary Loy/Crawford movie and give Myrna top billing? I am at long last convinced she has earned it.
BRUCE
3 Interesting news about your No 2 son for as you know my daughter lived for Atlanta for a time and my son works in London as a barrister at present. You will recall that I saw It’s a Wonderful Life last Sat at a College here and a young person whom I took to be a staff lecturer came out and astonished with his grasp of interesting fact about the movie. Are you sure that wasn’t your son over her for an advanced scouting?
4 You have anyway reminded me of the old Charlie Chan movies – “Follow that man No 1 son. You follow that woman No 2 son.”
Hey Bob
1. I think I will leave Ms. Loy’s box office numbers alone…..even if she is now one of your favorites.
2. Speaking about Marlon Brando…..I was just in an awesome book store….and one of the books I looked at was Chocking on Marlon Brando….a critical essay on film. I of course thought of you when I saw that title.
3. As for Son #2, he got word yesterday…..he is by passing England and going to your neck of the woods……the country will Ireland…the city is still unknown.
4. Funny Chan movie quote.
Hey Steve…I agree….I found it interesting as well that Loy and Crawford remained friends for so long. I think Bob realizes that we are just giving him a hard time. Loy was good….but Crawford is a legend.
Hey Bob, your new found respect for Myrna Loy has warmed the cockles of my heart, it really has. And I’ve found an old photo of Crawford and Loy together, enjoy!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/c2/5e/d5/c25ed5f773df06b65cd08a3438321e46.jpg
Hey Bruce, London has had the warmest Xmas since records began, what’s happening to the weather? President-elect Trump says Global Warming is a myth invented by the Chinese, who do we believe?
1 Classy photo Steve as one has come to expect from you and I much appreciate your sharing it with me
2 I noticed that they were such fiends that in the photo they were holding hands. What a disgrace that with his stats that Cogerson chap tried to drive a wedge between these two Greats !
Nice photo…..your observation on Loy and Crawford’s friendship….finally has Bob seeing the light…lol. As for the weather…..we had two third party candidates also run for President….combined they got about 4% of the vote….anyway…..one of them (Gary Johnson) on global warming….”In 10 billion years the sun will explode….and it won’t matter what is going on with the temperature today”.
Hey Bob….I am sorry that I failed to notice the greatness of Loy…..but I am capable of learning from my mistakes.
JOHN
1 As a result of a new link that Bruce gave me a few days ago and some more information I discovered in Wikipedia I have compiled mainly for my own amusement and records a final list of Joan Crawford’s KNOWN profit making pictures from 1925 until 1947. In that period there were 44 declared hits and 7 known misses and you are aware of all of the serious misses.
2 There was one other small hit and another minor loss but for consistency as Bruce didn’t recognise them so I have excluded them – ie everything in my list has been credited to Crawford is on Bruce’s stats table too. I will be posting the updated list shortly and I thank you and Bruce for your contributions in the matter.
3 As you pointed out The Women was initially a loss maker. Crawford was though maybe entitled to do a ‘Sandra Bullock’ and mention that in the 30 years between 1929 and 1959 she was billed less that 1st only two times and The Women was one of those times. However that is academic as both Wikipedia and Bruce’s link illustrate The Women went into profit after a re-release in 1947.
4 In an interview once Gary Cooper opined that to maintain stardom there should be a hit/ flop ratio of at least 2/1. Crawford’s success/loss ratio among those movies for which we have relevant stats was in fact slightly better than 6/1. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood (In the Line of Fire) “Cooper would have known a thing or two about stardom,” John
5 But shall leave the last word t to Louis B Mayer –
I was always reluctant to loan out my top stars because I didn’t want other studios making money from profit-making machines like Joan Crawford.
JOAN CRAWFORD 44 KNOWN PROFITABLE PICTURES FROM 1925-1947
1925 Sally Irene and Mary
1926 Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
1926 Paris
1927-The Taxi Dancer
1927 Winners-
1927 The Understanding Heart
1927 Twelve Miles Out
1927 Spring Fever
1927-West Point
1927-The Unknown
1928 Law of the Range
1928 Four Walls
1928 Rose Marie
1928 Across to Singapore
1928 Our Dancing Daughters
1928 Dream of Love
1929 Untamed-PROFIT
1929 The Duke Steps Out
1930 Our Blushing Brides
1930 Paid
1930 Montana Moon
1931 Dance Fools Dance
1931 Laughing Sinners
1931 This Modern Age
1931 Possessed
1932 Letty Lynton
1932 Grand Hotel
1933 Dancing Lady
1934 Sadie McKee
1934 Chained –PROFIT
1934 Forsaking all Others
1935 No More Ladies
1935 I Live my Life
1936 The Gorgeous Hussy
1936 Love on the Run
1937 The Last of Mrs Cheyney
1938 Mannequin
1940 The Women
1949 Strange Cargo
1941-When Ladies Meet
1942Reunion in France
1945 Mildred Pierce
1946-Humoresque
1947-Possessed
THE 7 KNOWN FLOPS IN THE 22 YEAR PERIOD
The Boob
Rain
Today we Live
Susan and God
The Shining Hours
Ice Follies
A Woman’s Face
Hey Bob…glad you have been able to find that link useful. Good summary…thanks for sharing.
Bob & Cogerson
I am enjoying your spirited defense of Crawford. So I decided to add to the bottom line. I’m a green eyeshade guy anyway. Awards, critics, prestige, etc. Yeah. Yeah. But what about what really mattered in Old Hollywood–return on investment? Well, one has enough info on MGM so one can study that. We have the budgets and profits in many cases. Now there are distribution costs, but I think we can assume there would be pretty steady if we are dealing only with b/w and academy ratio films. So I will simply go with the budget versus profits for my bottom line on return on investment. I will coin the term “budget to profit ratio” or PBR for short. Now I was going to do this anyway to see what Cogerson thinks, but I will do it with Crawford to shock you.
I picked out films from her peak era in my estimation (1928-1935) at random. I have no idea if these films did the best or the worst on the PBR scale.
1928
Our Dancing Daughters
budget—–$178,000
profit——-$304,000
budget to profit ratio—–170%
1929
Untamed
budget—–$229,000
profit——-$508,000
PBR———222%
1930
Paid
budget—–$385,000
profit——-$415,000
PBR———108%
1931
Possessed
budget—–$378,000
profit——–$611,000
PBR———-162%
1934
Forsaking All Others
budget—–$392,000
profit——-$1,132,000
PBR———289%
1935
I Live My Life
budget—–$586,000
profit——-$384,000
PBR———66%
Now the bottom line here is that Joan Crawford during this era was a tremendous asset for MGM at the box office. These returns on investment are fantastic.
Note–I Live My Life. The profit margin dropped because of the increased budget. If one dropped the budget $200,000 to $386,000 (in line with the other budgets) and added that $200,000 to the profit, moving it up %584,000, the PBR would be 153%, right up there with the others.
Cogerson—–One problem I see you having with these early films is that the budget inflation seems to have been much more severe over the years than the ticket-price inflation. This makes sense as the adjustment in ticket prices upward would come after the grosses came in and the studios realized they needed to charge more to keep making profits.
Anyway, I apologize for the green eyeshade stuff, but I thought it a point which should be made that gross and profit can go in separate directions.
I hope this post pleases Bob.
Hey John.
1. I fixed your error you wanted me to fix.
2. I agree MGM provides lots of stats that allow for some really in depth study.
3. The Crawford movies you listed are from the MGM ledgers (I think)….but there is another website that has even more profit numbers…I recently shared that link with Bob…but if you missed it….here it is. https://www.joancrawfordbest.com/boxoffice.htm
4. I think the movies you picked out….do show how important she was to the studio….which makes how they labeled her “box office poison” so quickly even more confusing.
5. I think using Bob’s approach of using the CPI would make the budgets look like ones we see today….because when I have tried to use a formula…the budgets always end up really low in 2016 dollars.
6. I think your green eyeshade stuff makes sense…..in setting up my formula for the UMR score…I looked at from the producers eyes…..the first think a producer wants is a movie to be a hit at the box office…so they get lots of money…..the reviews and awards are nice….but the money is what it is all about.
7. I would think Bob will like this comment….thanks for all the information.
Bob
Actually this doesn’t surprise me at all. As Crawford was getting top billing over Gable, it makes sense she would get top billing over Cooper. By the way, is this William Faulkner? I knew Fitzgerald worked on several films for MGM. Didn’t know that William Faulkner did. Thanks for putting up that fact, if I am drawing the proper conclusion from “Faulkner.”
Anyway, keep up the good work in defending Crawford.
Hey John….I think all the great writers worked in Hollywood at different times.
1 JOHN
Thought this extract from the internet would interest you as it shows Crawford taking over an all male Cooper picture, having the script rewritten so that a female is included as the lead , and gazumping Coop’s top billing. In 1981 Gene Hackman had started working on All Night Long when his original female co-star was belatedly replaced by Barbra Streisand and Hackman apparently shouted from the rooftops “She’s not getting my top billing!” It was in fact the only movie in which Babs was billed second during her heyday from 1968 -1996 – though I don’t know what the marquees said !!
2 BRUCE The extract is from a site called Tripod and it may be of passing interest to you as well as the authors officially use the CPI method of inflation adjustment.
“TODAY WE LIVE” 1933
Cast: Joan Crawford , Gary Cooper, Robert Young, Franchot Tone,
Director(s) – Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson (co-director)
Producer – Howard Hawks
Studio – MGM
INTERESTING TRIVIA
Gary Cooper Cooper, Robert Young and Franchot Tone had been selected by Hawks before Joan Crawford was approached with the script. In early July 1932, Faulkner wrote a screen treatment of his story, which Hawks then presented to M-G-M production head Irving Thalberg. Although Thalberg approved the treatment, which was strictly a three-man war drama, other studio executives insisted that the story be rewritten to accommodate Crawford. Faulkner complied with the studio’s demands and wrote, on instruction from Hawks, a complete first draft of a screenplay (his first), creating the character of “Ann.”
Although Joan Crawford at first resisted being cast in the all-male picture, she finally accepted the assignment and insisted that Faulkner write her dialogue in the same clipped manner as the male characters’.
Cost: $663K/Domestic Studio Gross: $590K/Foreign Studio Gross: $445K/ LOSS: $23,000
Box Office Gross Receipts: $1,035m.
Box Office Receipts: $1,035m.
Inflation Value in 2007: $16,553,391.92.***
****about $19 million in 2016 dollars
Hey Bob. Good stuff as usual. I will have to check out Tripod….their adjusted gross looks way too small. The power of Joan in the 1930s….at least the early 1930s.