Want to know the best Laurel and Hardy movies? How about the worst Laurel and Hardy movies? Curious about Laurel and Hardy box office grosses or which Laurel and Hardy movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Laurel and Hardy 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.
Recently Ultimate Movie Ranking page asked the question….”Which Screen Duo was the most successful of all-time when looking at box office grosses?” The answer turned out to be the Screen Duo team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Lots of people suggested Laurel and Hardy….but at the time we did not have box office totals for many of their movies…so we could not include them. Now that we have box office numbers for Stan and Ollie….you will see they finished in 2nd place when looking at the greatest Screen Duos of all-time….so everybody that answered Laurel and Hardy…..good job!
Laurel and Hardy made many short films in their career. The following table only looks at their 27 full length movies. The movies are ranked from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. You can decide which is the best way to rank their movies……just pick the category and sort the results.
Laurel and Hardy 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 Laurel and Hardy movies by co-stars of their movies.
- Sort Laurel and Hardy movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Laurel and Hardy movies by domestic box office rank by year
- Sort Laurel and Hardy movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort Laurel and Hardy movies by how many Oscar® nominations and Oscar® wins their movies received.
- Sort Laurel and Hardy 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 Laurel and Hardy Table
- Seven Laurel and Hardy movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 25.92% of their movies listed. Sons of the Desert (1933) was their biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Laurel and Hardy movie grosses $76.22 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 19 Laurel and Hardy’ movies are rated as good movies…or 73.07% of their movies. Sons of the Desert (1933) is their highest rated movie while Hollywood Party (1934) was their lowest rated movie.
- Three Laurel and Hardy movies received Oscar® nominations or 11.11% of their movies
- Zero Laurel and Hardy movies won an Oscar® or 0.00% of their movies
- An “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00 or higher. 17 Laurel and Hardy movies scored higher than that UMR score….or 62.96% of their movies. Sons of the Desert (1933) got the the highest UMR Score while Utopia (1951) got the lowest UMR Score.
Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston, Lancashire in north west England in 1890. He joined Fred Karno’s troupe of actors in 1910 with the stage name of “Stan Jefferson”; the troupe also included a young Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin and Laurel arrived in the United States on the same ship. Both ended up in Hollywood making comic shorts. Laurel began working with Oliver Hardy in 1927. They quickly became friends and that friendship really showed up on movie screens. They would quickly become some of the biggest stars working in Hollywood. Laurel was married 5 times and had two children. Laurel was given a Honorary Oscar® in 1961. He passed away on February 23rd, 1965.
Oliver Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia in 1892. In 1910, when a movie theater opened in Hardy’s hometown of Milledgeville, he became the projectionist, ticket taker, janitor, and manager. He soon became obsessed with the new motion picture industry and was convinced that he could do a better job than the actors he saw….turns out he was correct. After appearing in a few shorts with Stan Laurel in 1927. Leo McCarey, realizing the audience reaction to the two, began intentionally teaming them together. This led to the start of a Laurel and Hardy series later that year. Hardy was married three times and no children. He passed away on August 7th, 1957.
Steve Lensman’s Laurel and Hardy You Tube Video
Check out the Laurel and Hardy movie career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time
Be aware. Normally we have some great resources for classic box office grosses. In this case we had to rely on the Harrison Reports for most of our estimated grosses. We like the Harrison Reports, but they are not our favorite source. Usually we feel pretty good in our calculations. That is not the case on this page. After years of looking, we have determined Laurel and Hardy grosses are nowhere to be found. So going with the “something is better than nothing” approach, we decided to finally show our estimated Laurel and Hardy box office grosses. But we freely admit…we are standing on cracked ice on this page.
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
You are my favorite
Right back at you WoC.
The only actor on the 2016 Oracle of Bacon Top 1000 Center of the Hollywood Universe list to work with L & H was;
809 ROBERT MITCHUM The Dancing Masters (1943)
The following are the only people on the 2000 list now all gone who appeared in a film with the boys.
219 ELISHA COOK JR. A-Haunting We Will Go (1942)
222 BESS FLOWERS Hollywood Party (1934)
222 BESS FLOWERS Thicker Than Water (1935)
222 BESS FLOWERS We Faw Down (1928)
256 HANK WORDEN The Bullfighters (1945)
375 PETER CUSHING A Chump at Oxford (1940)
506 DOUGLAS FOWLEY Jitterbugs (1943)
508 ROBERT BLAKE The Big Noise (1944)
515 BESSIE LOVE The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
682 RAY TEAL Nothing But Trouble (1944)
783 JAMES FLAVIN Great Guns (1941)
832 DON BRODIE Sons of the Desert (1933)
867 RORY CALHOUN The Bullfighters (1945)
894 PHILIP VAN ZANDT Air Raid Wardens (1943)
894 PHILIP VAN ZANDT The Big Noise (1944)
982 BILLY BENEDICT Great Guns (1941)
994 ELLEN CORBY Babes in Toyland (1934)
994 ELLEN CORBY Sons of the Desert (1933)
They actually appeared with 10 Oscar winners .
GARY COOPER The Slippery Pearls (1931)
JANET GAYNOR 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926)
JOAN CRAWFORD The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
JOAN CRAWFORD The Slippery Pearls (1931)
LIONEL BARRYMORE The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
LORETTA YOUNG The Slippery Pearls (1931)
MARIE DRESSLER The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
NORMA SHEARER The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
NORMA SHEARER The Slippery Pearls (1931)
VICTOR MCLAGLEN The Slippery Pearls (1931)
WALLACE BEERY The Slippery Pearls (1931)
WARNER BAXTER The Slippery Pearls (1931)
Buster Keaton who you did a page on appeared with them twice. Jean Harlow, Paulette Goddard and Lou Costello all whom you’ve done pages on appeared in shorts with them. Paulette was Pack Up Your Troubles and The Bohemian Girl.
Hey Dan. Good stuff as always. These lists are so small compared to the larger lists that you normally post. So Bob Mitchum is the last man standing…..I image his appearance in The Dancing Masters is very very brief. All of their Oscar winners are from essential two movies….The Slippery Pearls is also known as The Stolen Jools. I have just recently watched that short….silly fun…..but it is fun spotting all the stars. Did not know Lou Costello appeared in one of their shorts….that is a pretty good piece of trivia….putting that one in my brain vault.
I must have seen all of Laurel & Hardy’s greatest comedies in the past, they were on TV all the time in my youth. The only ones I might have missed were some of the early silents.
Looking at the chart, counting the titles I must have seen – at least 12 out of 27, the famous ones. Favorites? I remember enjoying Way Out West, A Chump at Oxford (co-starring a young Peter Cushing), Swiss Miss and Sons of the Desert.
I think I have the same no.1 on my video – Sons of the Desert. Thanks for the share.
A great tribute to the legends of comedy. Vote Up!
Hey Steve…..I am sure I saw many of their shorts…but with the exception of Babes in Toyland…I have not seen any of their movies. So your 12 crushes my lonely old 1…..and triples Flora’s total of 4. Hmmmm….I will have to include Mr. Cushing in the co-star column…..their co-stars are lacking a lot of star power. Our Top 5s almost match. Thanks for the feedback on one of the greatest duos of all-time.
HI BRUCE
1 You told me that when I woke up this morning I would find that Joel was again pontificating on this site and when I saw that that was indeed true I thought I was still asleep and having a nightmare!
2 Still you are right in that I seem to be agreeing with him more often as time goes on. For example his comment about the public rather than critics appreciating L & H in a way reflect my own surprise at the number of the lighter entertainers who were massively popular were excluded from the AFI Legends lists like Hope & Crosby and on the ladies’ side my gals Deanna and Doris.
3 The two Road To — boys in particular were like The Duke not just national institutions in the US but worldwide as well. The likes of Bacall and Loren greater Legends than Doris, Deanna, L & H and Bing and Bob? As Mr McEnroe might express it “C’mon man, you CANNOT be serious!” The renowned movies English critic and films author the late Barry Norman [‘The Hollywood Greats’] was adamant that Bacall for example was NOT a legend but rather was more “”famous for being famous” because of the Bogie association.
4 However as the saying goes thank Heaven for small mercies because if Joel and his Committee had compiled those lists even the Duke might not have been on them, or Mr. Mumbles either for that matter if one goes by Hirsch’s opinion of those two great stars.
Hey Bob…..after doing 3 news UMR pages in 3 straight days….I forgot all about including Joel’s two cents. But your Marx Brothers “triggered” my memory….and Joel gets his moment in the UMR sun.
It makes my heart warm…knowing you and Joel can agree on some things…lol. Light comedy has never and will probably never get any real respect from critics and Oscar voters. Bing Crosby might be the biggest omission on the AFI list.
I like Lauren Bacall….but I agree with you and Mr. Newman. Pretty sure Joel and his committee would have included your two favorites…..he does mention many positive things in his write up on both AFI Legends.
Good stuff as always.
Rivaled only by the Marx Brothers as the movies’ greatest comedy team, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have always been the people’s choice rather than that of the critics. Their films for the Hal Roach Studios from 1927 to 1940 bridge the great era of silent comedy and the maturity of dialogue comedy. Laurel and Hardy made this transition more smoothly than all other comics who began in the silent era.
My four star Laurel and Hardy performances from my Rating the Movie Stars Book
Sons of the Desert (1933)
Babes in Toyland (1934)
Bonnie Scotland (1935)
Our Relations (1936)
Way Out West (1937)
A Chump At Oxford (1940)
Hey Joel….thanks for sharing your movie opinion on Laurel and Hardy.
HOWDY MR HIRSCHHORN
1. Pappy Ford said to me the other day that when one reads your “guff” as he put it and sees how some people can be taken in by it [especially the things you’ve said about me and even that twit Mr Brando] it reinforces Uncle Abe’s opinion that you can “fool some of the people all of the time.” Pappy then added “Thank goodness for that Bob critter and the rest of ALL of the people.”
2 I’m not one for blowing my own trumpet as everybody knows but when I see some of the excellent art work of Mr Lensman I automatically think of my buddy Chuck Heston and movies like Ben Hur and The Big Country because Mr L is sure one heck of a Heston fan.
3 However when I read comments from Mr Cogerson who obviously idolises you my thought association processes normally go in a couple of different directions (1) I think of the Lancaster Douglas movie The Devil’s Disciple (2) I note that the Bob fella nicknames Mr Cogerson The Work Horse and whilst I am the first to admire Mr Cogerson’s and highly comprehensive prolific output his hanging on to your every word somehow brings to mind a verse from a country and western song about a poor cowpoke who goes to one of the big Eastern cities and falls in love with a beautiful gal only to be jilted and made a fool of so he sadly sings –
“So I’m goin’ back to Texas,
To my herds of cows and grass.
I’m goin’ back to Texas,
To be one more Horse’s a**.
The Capital H is my own contribution to the song – hope you like it.
Have a nice day – BIG JOHN
Hey Duke…..thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. Just trying to get some different viewpoints out there. Like the song……good stuff.