Joel McCrea Movies

mccrea-1111Want to know the best Joel McCrea movies?  How about the worst Joel McCrea movies?  Curious about Joel McCrea box office grosses or which Joel McCrea movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joel McCrea 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.

Joel McCrea (1905-1990) was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years. His IMDb page shows 95 acting credits from 1927-1976. This page ranks 65 Joel McCrea movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  His television performances, his uncredited roles, his cameos and some of his late 1920s and early 1930s movies (lack of box office information) were not included in the rankings.

Drivel Part:  So later today we are headed to Las Vegas and Hollywood.  In Las Vegas, WoC is a featured speaker at a conference.  In Hollywood….I have an appointment at the USC (University of Southern California) to view the William Schaefer Warner Brother’s Ledgers.  So before we leave for a week….we wanted to get a new page published.  Recently it has come to our attention…that Joel McCrea was being unfairly discriminated against at UMR.com (as he did not have a UMR page).  Well since we strongly believe that everybody should be treated equally and fairly…we have finally written a page on Mr. McCrea.  So Lyle, Flora and Bob you request has been completed. 

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Joel McCrea in 1941’s Sullivan’s Travels

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

Joel McCrea 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 Joel McCrea movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Joel McCrea movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Joel McCrea movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Joel McCrea 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 Joel McCrea movie received.
  • Sort Joel McCrea 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 Joel McCrea Table

  1. Fifteen Joel McCrea movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 23.05% of his movies listed. Union Pacific (1939) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Joel McCrea movie grossed $68.50 million in adjusted domestic box office gross.
  3. That translates to a career adjusted box office of $4.45 billion.
  4. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  41 Joel McCrea movies are rated as good movies…or 63.07% of his movies. Sullivan’s Travels (1941) is his highest rated movie while Cry Blood, Apache (1970) is his lowest rated movie.
  5. Eleven Joel McCrea movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 16.92% of his movies.
  6. Two Joel McCrea movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 3.07% of his movies.
  7. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 32 Joel McCrea movies scored higher that average….or 49.23% of his movies.  The More the Merrier (1943) got the the highest UMR Score while Cry Blood, Apache (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Fay Wray and Joel McCrea in 1932's The Most Dangerous Game

Fay Wray and Joel McCrea in 1932’s The Most Dangerous Game

Possibly Interesting Facts About Joel McCrea

1. Joel Albert McCrea was born in in South Pasadena, California in 1905.

2. Joel McCrea was good around horses.  Even as a high school student, he was working as a stunt double and held horses for cowboy stars William S. Hart and Tom Mix.

3. Joel McCrea met the real Wyatt Earp in Hollywood in 1928 and ended up playing the iconic lawman in 1955’s Wichita.

4. Joel McCrea’s nickname was McFee.

5.  Joel McCrea was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1969.

6.  Joel McCrea was married 1 time.  He married actress Frances Dee in 1933…..he passed away on their 57th anniversary….they had three children.

7.  We found worldwide box office on 13 of Joel McCrea’s movies:

  • The More The Merrier (1943) $211.50 million in adjusted gross
  • Foreign Correspondent (1940) $ 188.90 million in adjusted gross
  • The Outriders (1950) $ 109.30 million in adjusted gross
  • Stars In My Crown (1950) $107.50 million in adjusted gross
  • Primrose Path (1940) $103.20 million in adjusted gross
  • Our Little Girl (1935) $99.50 million in adjusted gross
  • The Lost Squadron (1932) $97.70 million in adjusted gross
  • Three Blind Mice (1938) $86.80 million in adjusted gross
  • The Common Law (1931) $85.10 million in adjusted gross
  • The Silver Cord (1933) $83.50 million in adjusted gross
  • Private Worlds (1935) $82.40 million in adjusted gross
  • Bird of Paradise (1932) $82.10 million in adjusted gross
  • The Most Dangerous Game (1932) $47.80 million in adjusted gross

8.  Joel McCrea was infamously modest about his own acting abilities, often bordering on a soft-spoken contempt.  The Top 2 actresses on the AFI Screen Legends list, Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, however spoke very highly of McCrea’s acting skills.

9. Joel McCrea was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1719 Vine Street and for Radio at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

10. Check out Joel McCrea ‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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32 thoughts on “Joel McCrea Movies

  1. Hey Paul….I was unable to find any box office information on Kept Husband…hopefully one day I will unearth those stats and be able to include on this table.

  2. Hello
    A very great actor too, in 1935 he was supposed to play with Dietrich in the Devil is a Woman by JVS but at the end Cesar Romero get the part.
    I read somewhere that Dietrich said that if he was in the film, may be the film was a succès but in the mean time there were some political problème with Spain.
    And the film was at the end a film maudit and a great box office failure.
    This is the favorite film of Marlene Dietrich, she said.
    I saw the film and I don’t think so.
    For me the best film of Dietrich are Stage Fright , Seven Sinners , Désir and Touch of Evil.
    And with JVS Shanghai Express , the Scarlet Empress and The German version of the Blue angel.
    A very good page as usual…..

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