Want to know the best Joanne Woodward movies? How about the worst Joanne Woodward movies? Curious about Joanne Woodward box office grosses or which Joanne Woodward movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joanne Woodward 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.
Joanne Woodward (1930-) is an Oscar® winning American stage, film, and television actress. She is best known for her Academy Award-winning role in 1957’s The Three Faces of Eve as well as her many projects with her late husband Paul Newman. Her IMDb page shows 78 acting credits since 1952. This page will rank 29 Joanne Woodward movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her many television roles and her movies not released in North American theaters were not included on this page. This page comes from a request by Mike.
Joanne Woodward Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Joanne Woodward 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.
- Column One is the name of the Woodward movie and possibly the link for the trailer for that movie
- Sort Joanne Woodward movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Joanne Woodward movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Joanne Woodward movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Joanne Woodward 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 Joanne Woodward movie received.
- Sort Joanne Woodward movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Joanne Woodward
1. Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward was born in the Thomasville, Georgia in 1930.
2. When Joanne Woodward was 9 years old, Joanne traveled with her mother to Atlanta for the premiere of 1939’s Gone with the Wind. During the parade, she leapt into a limousine carrying Laurence Olivier and sat in his lap as she had a crush on him after seeing 1939’s Wuthering Heights. Years later when the two were working on 1977’s Come Back, Little Sheba, Olivier claimed to remember the incident vividly.
3. Joanne Woodward developed her craft at the Actor’s Studio. She was hired as an understudy for the Broadway play, Picnic. Any guesses who was the understudying the male lead?…..Mr. Paul Newman.
4. Third time is the charm. Joanne Woodward won her Oscar® for only her third movie…..1957’s Three Faces of Eve.
5. Joanne Woodward was nominated for 4 acting Oscars®. She received 10 Golden Globe® acting nominations (movies and television roles).
6. Joanne Woodward was married 1 time and had three children. She was married to Paul Newman from 1958 to his death in 2008.
7. Joanne Woodward’s favorite movies are 1939’s Gone with the Wind, 1939’s Wuthering Heights , 1940’s The Philadelphia Story and 1938’s Jezebel.
8. Joanne Woodward’s all-time favorite actress is Bette Davis and her all-time favorite actor is Laurence Olivier. Other major favorites of hers include John Garfield, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn and Clark Gable.
9. Paul Newman on his marriage to Joanne Woodward. “I don’t like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?”…one of my all-time favorite comments.
10. Check out Joanne Woodward’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Happy 90th birthday to Joanne Woodward!
I am right there with you Flora…Happy Belated Birthday to Joanne Woodward.
HI DEPUTY MASTER. Thanks for your feedback in which you make some excellent points in my opinion. For the record, overall Paul is credited with winning37 acting awards and 65 nominations. However as I indicated in my earlier posts it is difficult to compare the awards/noms achievements of actors whose careers started decades ago with the artistic recognition that more modern thespians have earned. That’s because, it seems to me, that nowadays awards may possibly be more readily obtained via perhaps greater numbers and diversity of awards ceremonies, or else wins/noms in the more minor competitions were maybe not recorded and/or published in earlier years. I suppose another alternative could be that more performers were contenders years ago.
For example let’s look at the figures for 5 acknowledged greats of the past and compare them with the awards/noms credited to 5 of the greats of recent times.
THE OLD GUYS & GALS
Laurence Olivier-39 wins/36 noms/Total 75
Marlon Brando-30 wins/33 noms/Total 63
Katharine Hepburn-28 awards/36 noms 64
Spencer Tracy-12 wins/20 noms/total 32
Cary Grant-11 wins/20 noms/ Total 31
THE MODS
Meryl Streep-175 awards/357 noms/Total 530
Daniel-Day Lewis-143 wins/93 noms/Total 236
Denzel Washington-84 win/166 noms/Total 250
Tom Hanks-84 wins/151 noms/Total 235
Tom Cruise-52 wins/81 noms/Total 133
Taken at face value each of the MODS was by far a better actor/actress than any one of the Old Guys & Gals and I don’t think that’s a realistic conclusion – do you? The figures are supplied by IMDB
Hey Bob….I think some of the increase in awards for modern thespians compared to classic thespians is the volume of awards given out these days. In my opinion the main awards are Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Golden Globe and Tony Awards….the rest are nice….but pretty minor….sorry BAFTA and People’s Choice.
I think Newman is one of the greatest of all-time. His awards do not show that….though he has 3 Oscars…two were honorary. He has 3 Golden Globes…one honorary….one for a television mini-series (the excellent Empire Falls) and one for Best Newcomer…for The Silver Chalice….not thinking he had that displayed anywhere….lol.
At this point I think Streep gets nominated for name only…versus putting up great performances….that probably explains nominations for Into The Woods and Florence Foster Jenkins….ok performances…but far from Oscar roles…..nobody else would have even been considered for a nomination in those roles.
Good stuf as always.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for offering your explanations for the awards ‘enigma’.
What you say makes sense and I think that your take on Meryl’s success reflects the old adage that “if you get the name of rising early you can lie in bed all day!”
Take care.
Here is just a SELECTION of my pick of your Woodward POSTERS (1) Harry & Son (2) foreign language one for A Fine Madness (3) Sound and the Fury – at the time it was released there was a great fuss in the press about the fact that Yul had hair for once! (4) 1st one for Winning (5) Signpost to Murder (6) complete set for Count 3 and Pray (7) 1st exceptionally saucy one for The Stripper (8) two absolute crackers for Kiss Before Dying – great movie in my view (9) both for The Fugitive Kind (10) the 2nd one for Paris Blues and (11) From the Terrace. You couldn’t resist rubbing it in on Bruce, could you? Your posters for From the Terrace show one of his “idolesses” being billed 3rd and in small letters below the title whilst Joanne and Paul are billed in large letters above it.
A marvellous run of stills, among my faves being (1) Life Cover (2) script reading (3) Joanne scantily dressed with Paul (4) tomboy Joanne with Van Heflin (5) is that Sylvia Sidney and Joanne together? (6) Balloon Girl! (7) Mr and Mrs Bridge (8) iconic one for A Kiss before Dying (9) From the Terrace (10) lobby card for Philly and (11) last but not least 2 for The Fugitive Kind.
I was pleasantly surprised that you gave Fugitive Kind such a high rating [72%] because most critics that I know didn’t like it at the time and WH gives it just a 58%. However one maverick film historian reckoned that before Godpop it was the Great Mumbler’s best performance EVER. Anna Magnani threw a tantrum on the set because Mr Mumbles would “not let me have top billing even in my native Italy!”
Your Woodward video is a par excellence 98% rated trip down memory lane for me despite it not being as long as we’ve become used to in recent times. Also, Full House! – you and WH agree on all 5 of Joanne’s best reviewed movies. Pity therefore about the big gap in Fugitive Kind’s rating
Nicole’s career started too late to attract any potential Master Love but The Great Panjandrum talks about Joanne in his 1983 Book of Terror [see below ]. I must confess that, on my continued reading through The Master’s book, when I first I come across an entry about one of MY OWN idols I tremble with fear and foreboding. “We live in a time of Gods and Monsters.”
We were privileged to have The Master send us a post way back on Christmas Eve 2017 on this page and convey to us some of the thoughts in his 1983 Necronomicon about Joanne. For easy reference I hereby bring up a copy of those comments. Like “a good wine they improve with age.”
“Joanne Woodward is certainly as talented as her husband Paul Newman (he, himself rated her superior to him), but she has not achieved a fraction of his public acceptance. Woodward is superb in comedy and drama, and she has warmth and humanity. Her failure is a lack of an image, but she’s a character actress with star billing.
My 4 Star Joanne Woodward performances from Consumer Reports’ Rating The Movie Stars book.
1956’s A Kiss Before Dying
1957’s The Three Faces of Eve
1957’s No Down Payment
1958’s The Long, Hot Summer
1966’s Big Hand For The Little Lady
1968’s Rachel Rachel
1968’s Winning”
Note, Steve, that even The Master recognised the importance of billing! This is a 3-parter because The Great Panjandrum deserves a part all to himself
I always equate Joanne Woodward with Nicole Kidman. Both were married to mega icons whom they couldn’t match in terms of box office stardom, Newman and Cruise, and yet each of the two ladies carved out a career for herself which was highly prestigious.
Olivier and Leigh were more equal to each other in terms of stardom as were Burton and Taylor. Nora Charles was nowhere near as big a star as hubby Nick but then they were married on the screen only so I don’t really include them in the comparisons.
Joanne has 27 acting awards and 42 nominations and her net worth is said to be $50 million. Nicole is credited with 95 acting awards and 198 nominations and has a reported net worth of $130 million.
Those gaps in the achievements of the two ladies are probably not as a large as they appear as (1) movie awards today seem to be given out more frequently and diversely than in previous decades. The great Katie Hepburn for example is credited with just 28 awards and 36 noms over her entire career, whereas even Jason Statham got 1 award and 3 noms in today’s cinema! (2) net incomes quoted are not adjusted for inflation and Joanne’s career started some 30 years before Nicole’s so that if the figures were inflation adjusted the incomes of the 2 ladies would most likely be a lot closer in real terms.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, comments, posts, generous rating, info, trivia, stats, comparison and evaluation, much appreciated.
Glad the picture gallery met with your approval.
Everyone has seen more Joanne Woodward movies than I have. I’ve only seen two – The End and A Kiss Before Dying, not the best examples of this award-winning actresses work.
A casual viewer might be forgiven for thinking this was a Paul Newman video. His name appears on 13 of the 28 films films included here. And there are six stills containing Paul and Joanne.
That was Sylvia Sidney in the still with Woodward.
I’m wondering if The Three Faces of Eve was the first film to deal with multiple personality disorder, three years before Norman Bates and his mother visited the multiplexes. Recently James McAvoy had been scaring audiences with 23 different personalities in the film Glass.
One Joanne Woodward film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Philadelphia, in which she played Tom Hanks mother. Two scored 9 out of 10 – Three Faces of Eve and Rachel, Rachel. Eight more scored 8 out of 10.
Philadelphia tops IMDB chart and Three Faces of Eve tops Rotten Tomatoes.
Bruce and I have the same five films in our top 5, in completely different order.
Not sure why The Fugitive Kind got a low rating on Bruce’s chart, it never got below 7 out of 10 from my sources. Maybe Hirsch appeared on his shoulder whispering in his ear when he was putting the chart together? [wink]
Joanne on Paul being snubbed in the Best Director Oscar category for Rachel Rachel – “How do you figure it? He even won the New York Film Critics award that year for it, but didn’t get in as one of the five Oscar nominees. I was really hurt about that. And I have to admit that I still don’t think the awards mean what they say they mean. The Oscar has become a political gesture, or a business gesture. People tell you it adds $5 million to a film’s gross, and I believe it, but that’s not what the Oscar is for. It didn’t use to be that way.”
Joanne on Paul being a sex symbol – ” I don’t get it. He’s over 40, has 6 kids and he snores.”
HI STEVE
As always your feedback including new information, interesting quote (s) is much appreciated.
You may have something when you day that WH’s rubbishing of The Fugitive Kind was the result of The Master’s influence.
To be honest though whilst WH’s stuff is normally 99% logical and often brilliant, there is the odd occasion on which I fail to see where he’s coming from.
However I have given up trying to match my mind to his and have come to accept that as the great English poet and hymnodist William Cowper –he’d be Sir William or Lord Cowper today! – said about God in a 1773 poem, possibly Bruce “works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.” Indeed I have often mused whether In the Shadows is the Work Horse.
Keep safe and take care.
Hey Bob and Steve. Thoughts on your comments.
1. I like the comparison of Nicole Kidman and Joanne Woodward.
2. I agree…the opening quote in the videos…are usually top notch….and no exception in Steve’s latest video.
3. Not thinking my mind will ever be figured out…even WoC (who knows me the best….occasionally does not understand me…lol.)
4. Newman and awards…..despite his stardom…when it came to Oscars and Golden Globes….they did not get along…..taking away the snubs,,,,he should have gotten a Director nomination for Rachel, Rachel…..he was 1 for 18 in nominations…..1 for 9 in Oscars and 0 for 9 in Golden Globes.
5. The strangest thing is….that his one win….is for one of his weakest performances.
Good stuff as always from the two of you.