Want to know the best John Ford movies? How about the worst John Ford movies? Curious about John Ford box office grosses or which John Ford movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which John Ford 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.
This John Ford (1894-1973) movie page comes from a request by Chris. Ford was an American film director, writer, producer and occasional actor. His career spanned more than 50 years. Ford’s films and personality were held in high regard by his colleagues, who have named him as one of the greatest directors of all time. When looking at adjusted domestic box office grosses, Ford’s movies, grossed almost $5 billion in box office dollars. His movies received 75 Oscar® nominations and won 20 Oscars®….including 1942’s How Green Was My Valley which won the Best Picture Oscar®.
His IMDb page shows 145 acting credits f rom 1917-1976. This page will rank 57 John Ford movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Shorts, documentaries and almost all of his silent films are not included in the rankings. We have ranked every John Ford movie from 1932 to 1966 as well as a few that we could find box office information from 1924-1931. Sadly reporting box office information back then was not a priority for movie studios ….and even sadder is that nearly all of his silent films, like the box office information, are lost forever.
John Ford 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 John Ford movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort John Ford movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort John Ford movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort John Ford 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 many Oscar® wins each John Ford movie received and
- Sort John Ford 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 search and sort button to make this page very interactive. For example type “Wayne” in the search box and up pop the 14 movies that John Wayne made with Ford.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above John Ford Table
- Twenty-seven John Ford movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 47.36% of his movies listed. How the West Was Won (1963) was his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average John Ford movie grosses $118.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 49 of John Ford’ movies are rated as good movies…or 85.64% of their movies. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) is his highest rated movie while Up the River (1930) was his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty John Ford movie received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 35.08% of his movies.
- Eight John Ford movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 14.03% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60. 45 John Ford movies scored higher than that average….or 78.94% of his movies. How Green Was My Valley (1941) got the the highest UMR Score while Up the River (1930) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About John Ford
1. John Martin “Jack” Feeney was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine on February 1st, 1894. Ford followed his older brother, Francis, to Hollywood and adopted Jack Ford as his professional name.
2. In 1915, John Ford appeared uncredited in D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. He appeared as a Klansman who lifts up one side of his hood so he can see clearly. The Birth of a Nation was the first ever blockbuster movie.
3. John Ford directed 62 shorts and silent movies from 1917 to 1929. He became one of the first pioneer directors of sound films. He shot Fox Studio’s first song sung on screen. He directed Fox’s first “talkie” short. His first full length talkie was 1929’s Black Watch.
4. In 1928 John Ford started using an unknown extra in his films. That unknown extra was John Wayne. Ford and Wayne would make movies together for the next 35 years. Their movies together earned over $1.4 billion in adjusted box office grosses and received 24 Oscar® nominations. That is one of the best actor/director combos of all-time.
5. John Ford received 5 Best Director Oscar® nominations. He won a record 4 times…..1935’s The Informer, 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, 1941’s How Green Was My Valley and 1952’s The Quiet Man. The only time he was nominated but did win was for 1939’s Stagecoach. Ford also two more Oscars® for his war time documentaries.
6. John Ford directed 10 different actors in Oscar®-nominated performances: Victor McLaglen, Thomas Mitchell, Edna May Oliver, Jane Darwell, Henry Fonda, Donald Crisp, Sara Allgood, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Jack Lemmon. McLaglen, Mitchell, Darwell, Crisp and Lemmon won a Oscar® for one of their roles in one of Fords movies.
7. Entertainment Weekly named John Ford as the third greatest director of all-time. Alfred Hitchcock was first and Orson Welles was second. Welles considered Ford to be the best director of all time.
8. John Ford was married one time. He married Mary Ford in 1920 and they stayed married until his death in 1973. They had two children.
9. John Ford cast the great character actor, Ward Bond, in 26 movies that Ford directed.
10. “So long, ya bastard” was the last line of 1966’s 7 Women. 7 Women was the last movie Ford directed…..so that is how John Ford’s incredible career ended.
Check out John Ford’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page. Another great read on John Ford is Print The Legend: The Life of John Ford by Scott Eyman. When I got stuck finding box office information on Ford’s films…this was an excellent resource to get outstuck….highly recommend it.
Steve Lensman’s John Ford Updated You Tube Trailer
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
I’d probably switch the rankings of Mister Roberts and The Sun Shines Bright, for starters!
Hey Jim N. Thanks for stopping by and commenting on our John Ford Page. Not sure of what movie you are referencing in The Sun Shines Bright. Is that one of his documentaries he made or an alternate title? I will have to do some Ford research. Thanks for the comment.
Bob Roy, thanks again, I just read the june through sept, 2016 conversation on john ford. delightful, you shared 9 insights/remembrances, flora , steve, Laurent and cogerson joined in. I read old comments often. this is why I would have thousands of smiley faces for you and others.
HI BOB COX
Glad you appreciated the John Ford comments though if you haven’t already done so please read Bruce’s Possibly Interesting Facts about John Ford on the same page which I thought were excellent by even Bruce’s hgh standards
JOHN FORD VIDEO 1-25
Best POSTERS in Part 2 are I feel The Whole Town’s Talking, Prisoner of Shark Island, Iron Horse, The Informer, Wagon Master, foreign language ones for They were Expendable, Fort Apache and The Searchers, She Wore Yellow Ribbon, Stagecoach and a scrumptious and highly original one for Cheyenne Autumn.
My idols Stewart and Widmark were reunited in the latter film though if I recall correctly they had no scenes together. They had appeared in the 1961 Two Rode Together under Ford’s direction and reports suggest that whilst Ford and Jimmy felt no warmth towards each other Ford had a “grudging respect” for Stewart. Maybe the latter was why Jimmy was surprised when Ford nastily rounded on him during the shooting of Liberty Valance which began in Sept that year. Is it possible that since Ford had a habit of bullying Wayne Ford felt that an even handed attitude to his two stars demanded that he mistreat both equally?!
My pick of the very best of the great run of STILLS in Part 2 is (1) The Hurricane. the players in the photograph presumably being Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall ? (2) the nostalgic movie magazine cover showcasing Drums along the Mohawk (3) Fort Apache (4) Pidgeon and O’Hara in How Green was my Valley [a sad movie recollection for me as I watched it on the evening of the day that I was sacked from my first job] (5) 3 legends together –Stewart, Wayne and ‘Liberty Valance’ himself! (6) The Quiet Man (7) the wonderful Earp porch scene in My Darling Clementine, probably my fave John Ford movie after The Quiet Man. Interestingly Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt and Arthur Kennedy as Doc also made a big thing of rocking about on a porch in Cheyenne Autumn if my memory serves me correctly(8) the legendary Stagecoach and (9) a beautiful one from The Searchers.
You and Bruce agree on 4 of Ford’s Top 5 best reviewed films though Bruce has a tie in his 5th place and for me your John Ford video was overall easily worth a 98% rating. These “EPs” of yours are sure good value for money for the movie buff.
Thanks Bob, appreciate the review, rating, info, trivia and comparison.
Happy you liked the posters and stills,
I’m pretty sure that is Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour in that still from The Hurricane, it’s been many years since I last saw that film I remember the last half hour was quite exciting. Crusty Ford was a versatile director.
I wonder if there are outtakes from Clementine showing Fonda on that chair falling backward, funny how that scene became one of the most memorable from that movie.
And fascinating how usually harmless old coot Walter Brennan can so effectively play the evil ‘Old Man Clanton’. He also played a nasty character in How the West Was Won.
John Ford has 13 films scoring 10 out of 10 from my various sources, and six of those films have an average score of more than 9 in the final count. That’s pretty amazing.
The 13 are as follows –
Searchers ,The
Grapes of Wrath ,The
My Darling Clementine
Stagecoach
Quiet Man ,The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ,The
How Green Was My Valley
Mister Roberts
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
They Were Expendable
Fort Apache
Rio Grande
Iron Horse ,The
12 more films scored 9 out of 10. That means that half the films in my John Ford top 50 have scored 9 or 10 out of 10 from various sources. I don’t think any other Hollywood director can match that.
Top rated at IMDB is a tie between Liberty Valance and Grapes of Wrath. No.1 at Rotten Tomatoes is Stagecoach followed by Apes of Wrath. Bruce and I have the same top 2 on our charts. How Green is My Valley tops the UMR chart.
HI STEVE
Thanks for the feedback and usual additional information.
If a movie was about the south seas or indeed anything to do with water and//or the jungle Hall and Lamour are a good bet. Hall was of course a prolific co-star of Maria Montez in her Arabian Nights type fantasies as was the great Sabu [how come neither you nor the Work Horse have ever, as least as far as I can recollect, profiled him or Hall?]
In the early decades of the talkies Walter Brennan and George Gabby Hayes seemed ALWAYS to be the side kick of western heroes like Wayne and Scott but whereas Hayes was a bit of a one-trick pony Walt had a broader acting range as your comments above reflect. Lyle Bettger in 1957’s Gunfight at OK Corral wasn’t in my view half as successful as Walter in conveying the Clanton evil.
STEVE
The 4th paragraph of my previous post [about your posters] went a bit awry and what I meant to say was –
When Willie Comes Marching Home’s title is no doubt a play on the American Civil War song“When Johnny Comes Marching Home” , which was the theme music to Holden’s Stalag 17 and indeed has been featured in many films]
They used to say about stand-in US President Gerald Ford that he “couldn’t walk straight and chew gum at the same time.!” It seems that I can’t cope with two similar-sounding titles at the same time , so please accept my apologies for any confusion
Although John Ford and John Wayne had a great professional relationship apparently Ford could be very disrespectful to Wayne as a person off camera. That was because Ford who considered himself a super patriot felt that Wayne should not have avoided the draft. It is reported for example that when filming the 1948 Fort Apache Ford made Wayne ‘s military officer in the movie salute numerous times for one scene. When Ford finally accepted a salute as satisfactory he said to Wayne “Now , if you had served your country you would have known how to salute properly and we wouldn’t have needed all those takes.”
Coincidentally whilst he did commence military service another of my tough guy idols was medically discharged – Alan Ladd allegedly because he was allergic to the sight of blood. Neither of those stories surprised that friend of mine about whom I told you, who was certain that Wayne would hide if the bad guys in real life came to shoot up the town. That friend hadn’t much respect for Ladd either.
ENTRIES 50-26 FORD VIDEO Only 2 stills in Part One but I liked them both (1) Gable/Gardner in Mogambo and (2) a plumb collector’s item of Ford actually directing Wayne in The Horse Soldiers.
I was though spoilt for choice in selecting the best POSTERS but here’s my final pick in Part One. Plough and the Stars, Black Watch, When Willie Comes song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” , which was the theme music to Holden’s Stalag 17 and indeed has been featured in many films] Air Mail, the foreign language posters for back-to-back Wayne flicks Donovan’s Reef and Wings of Eagles [Lee Marvin claimed that it was while making Donovan’s Reef that Wayne assured him that he Lee , in a supporting role in that movie, would soon become a big star] Sgt Rutledge , Wee Willie Winkie, Mogambo and 3 Godfathers.
My Wayne-loving/Brando-hating father would have thought that last title appropriate as he always contended that Wayne was more that 3 times the star that Brando was! Another slender Dan-like thread here is that the famous line from The Godfather “I’m gonna make him another he can’t refuse,” was apparently first uttered in one of those obscure B westerns that Wayne made in his early days but never caught on first time round not having wide enough exposure via a low budget western.
Continued——-
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing the first half of my John Ford video deluxe, it is appreciated. Glad the picture gallery met with your approval.
I searched for photos of John Ford directing John Wayne, most of them were fuzzy but I finally find one which was nice and clear.
I’ve read several biographies on Ford and Wayne over the years, so I know how nasty and cruel Ford was towards Wayne on the film set, always belittling and embarrassing him in front of the crew. But Wayne stayed loyal to Ford, he really did love the old goat, ‘pappy’ as he called him (and Ford was secretly very fond of Wayne).
Interesting trivia on Wayne and the Godfather quote but shouldn’t that famous line be “make him an offer he can’t refuse”?
Look forward to part 2 of your review.
HI STEVE
Correct “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” is what I meant to say. Apologies again. It just hasn’t been my day! Actually after Godfather was released somebody got a song into the charts using that catchphrase and identically titled.
Right too about Wayne’s attitude to Ford. In an interview Big John was asked what distinguished him as someone apart from the run of the mill cowboy star and he promptly replied “John Ford!”
When they were making Liberty Valance together Wayne warned Stewart that Ford could be crusty at times and Jimmy wouldn’t believe him. Later Ford rounded on Stewart over something and as Ford angrily walked away laughingly Wayne put his arms round Jimmy and said “See – T told you so.”
Hey Bob….nice review and breakdown of Steve’s updated John Ford video….which is now on this page. Just commented on his video….this was that comment.
“Nice update. Seen exactly half of these movies….strangely most starred Triple M… Marion Mitchell Morrison. The Top 10 is stellar. My favorite John Wayne Movies are found there. #5 The Quiet Man, #8 Mister Roberts and #6 The Man Who Shot Libert Valance. Further down the list I really enjoyed #27 The Lost Patrol, #35 Horse Soldiers and #39 Donovan’s Reef. So that is 50%…and slightly behind Flora’s total. Voted up and share on our John Ford UMR page.”
Hi Bruce, 25 out of 50 is good, I’ve seen 20 and Flora 29. I agree that is an amazing top 10, so many high scores. I think we have the same no.1 on our charts, let me check… yep and no.2 too, not bad. Thanks as always for commenting, appreciate the vote and share.
The Iron Horse was released in 1924 and lasted till 1926 at the box office. You listed it as a 1929 release.
Hey Kevin….thanks for the catch…not sure how I did that….but it is fixed.