Want to know the best Lee Marvin movies? How about the worst Lee Marvin movies? Curious about Lee Marvin’s box office grosses or which Lee Marvin movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Lee Marvin 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.
Seems that we have been receiving requests to do a Lee Marvin (1924-1987) movie page for a very long time. Recently we have gotten three more requests for a Marvin page. So Dan O., Wayne S., Jules and all the other people that wanted a Marvin page….the time is finally here…..as Mr. Lee Marvin now has an UltimateMovieRankings page.
Rugged, white-haired, gritty, lanky and with a low voice…..those are words used to describe a major movie star? When it comes to describing Lee Marvin….they perfectly describe one of the most original movie stars of all-time. Marvin was an Oscar® winning actor who starred in movies for over 35 years. During those 35 years he appeared in many classic movies: The Big Heat, The Caine Mutiny, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Cat Ballou, The Dirty Dozen and Point Blank….just to name a few.
His IMDb page shows 107 acting credits from 1950-1986. This page will rank 48 Lee Marvin movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, cameos, bit parts and some of his movies never released in North America were not included in the rankings.
Lee Marvin Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Lee Marvin 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 Lee Marvin movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Lee Marvin movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Lee Marvin movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Lee Marvin 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 Lee Marvin movie received.
- Sort Lee Marvin 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.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Lee Marvin
1. Lee Marvin was born in New York City in 1924. He was named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee….who was a relative. Marvin was also related to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
2. Lee Marvin served with the 4th Marine Division in the Pacific Theater of World War II. He was wounded in action during the Battle of Saipan. He was awarded four medals….including a Purple Heart. Marvin said “I learned to “act” in the Marines….as I was trying to act unafraid during combat”.
3. Lee Marvin’s rise to stardom….Cliff Notes style. After the war he was working as a plumber’s assistant when he decided to take a chance as an actor. This led to acting jobs first in off-Broadway plays and then Broadway plays. In 1950 he headed to Hollywood. From 1950-1957 he appeared in many supporting roles…usually either as a cop or a thug. In 1957 he gained his first fame….as he landed a role in the hit television show M Squad. In the early 1960s he appeared in 3 John Wayne movies….with his part getting bigger and bigger with each passing movie. This would lead to starring roles….with his role in Cat Ballou (1965) winning him a Best Actor Oscar®. He was a star for the rest of his life.
4. Lee Marvin was married twice in his life. He married Betty Ebeling from 1951-1967. They had 4 children…..1 son and 3 daughters. His second marriage was to Pamela Feely from 1970 until his death.
5. Lee Marvin received one Oscar® nomination for acting in his career. He was nominated and won Best Actor for 1965’s Cat Ballou. His Oscar® win was unusual for two reasons. One….it is the only Oscar® winning performance to be a dual role…..as Marvin played the hero and the villain in Cat Ballou. Two…..it is one of the few times that the Oscar® voters have given an Oscar® to a comedic role. He was nominated for two Golden Globes®. He won for Cat Ballou and picked up a Best Actor nomination for 1969’s Paint Your Wagon.
6. Roles Lee Marvin turned down or was seriously considered for: For A Few Dollars More (Lee Van Cleef role),The Wild Bunch (William Holden role), Deliverance (Jon Voight role), Death Wish (Charles Bronson role), Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood role), First Blood (Richard Crenna role) and Jaws (Robert Shaw role).
7. Lee Marvin best selling singer? Yes it is true….even though Marvin’s co-star in Paint Your Wagon, Jean Seberg, described his voice as “rain gurgling down a rusty pipe”. Lee Marvin’s song Wandering Star from 1969’s was a surprise hit. Selling over one million copies and earning a Gold Record. Wandering Star was even a number hit on United Kingdom charts.
8. Lee Marvin only kept 4 movie souvenirs from his movies. (1) His Oscar® from Cat Ballou. (2) His National Cowboy Hall of Fame citation for his role in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. (3) His Gold Record from the single “Wandering Star” from Paint Your Wagon. and (4) The high heel shoe Vivien Leigh hit him with in their movie Ship of Fools.
9. Lee Marvin’s Point Blank (1967) was the first of two movies to be based on the Richard Stark novel The Hunter. The second was the Mel Gibson movie Payback (1999). There is one theory that Lee Marvin dies at the beginning of Point Blank and he is a ghost or spirit for the rest of the movie…..or basically Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense.
10. This Lee Marvin Movie Poster Page by Steve Lensman is a wonderful companion piece to this page….see almost all of Lee Marvin’s movie posters in one place….highly recommend checking out this page.
11. Another great source into the life and movie career of Lee Marvin is the book Lee Marvin: Point Blank by Dwayne Epstein.
12. Two movies not in the rankings. We could not find any box office information on Lee Marvin’s 1955 movie Shack Out on 101. 1954’s Gorilla At Large was not included because his part was so small in that movie…..just in case you want to know why these movies are not in the rankings.
Check out Lee Marvin‘ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Clint Walker who played Posey opposite Lee Walker in The Dirty Dozen has died at the age of 90. That iconic war movie will be airing Friday night after The Guns of Navarone on TCM as part of TCM’s Memorial Day Weekend marathon of war movies. I’m writing this on Marvin’s page as there is no War Movies page or Clint Walker page.
For Steve: Walker was a Sardinian captain in The Ten Commandments.
I’ve seen him in The Great Bank Robbery as well.
Walker was also a TV star on Cheyenne.
RIP Clint Walker
Clint was pronounced dead 5/1971 after a ski pole pierced his heart . a surgery saved him. 47 extra years. RIP Clint.
Hey bob cox….thanks for the information on his accident. That sounds like a successful surgery for sure.
Hey Flora….sad news. Clint Walker was the star of the movie seen by my parents on their first date. 1959’s Yellowstone Kelly. The Dirty Dozen are slowly leaving us. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on him. RIP Mr. Clint Walker.
Hey Steve….do you remember Clint’s role in The Ten Commandments? The movie buff I work with….who lists The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur in his Top 5 All-Time movies does not remember his role in that classic.
In the 1980s, I was Hollywood rep for La Victorine Studios on the Riviera. We had a film in the can shot there starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in which Lee Marvin played a role. While I was there, Marvin was quoted in a ‘Variety’ column asking whatever happened to that film never released. I responded to ‘Variety’ and to Marvin it never got released because it was the worst film ever made. Some attorney was listed as the owner. Now I can’t remember the film’s title. Can you?
Hey Claude Brickell. Sounds like you are describing Klansman. Which got a limited release but quickly disappeared. Marvin thought it was the worst movie he ever made.
Hey SteinHoF16…that would be my guess to….I have also read that Marvin thought it was his worst movie. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hey Claude….like Stein thinks……Klansman seems to be the movie….I actually know the author of Point Break …..I will ask him if Burton and Marvin made another movie.
1 Lee’s relationships with his co-stars seemed to vary. In a TV interview I saw after Cat Ballou made him a star he told of how well he had gotten on with John Wayne when making Liberty Valance and Donavan’s Reef and he said that during the shooting of the latter Wayne predicted Lee would make stardom. Then leaning forward he waved into the TV camera and shouted “Hope you’re watching this Duke!” A true ‘character’ was Lee!
2 Reportedly on the set of Klansman Marvin and Burton became 24/7 drinking buddies throughout shooting. With Spencer Tracy though things were apparently different. Lee is said to sometimes make elaborate preparations for a scene and allegedly before commencing a scene for Bad Day at Black Rock he jogged a couple of laps of the set to energise himself leaving Tracy and other impatiently waiting. When a breathless Lee finally stopped Old Cantankerous growled in front of the others “Now do you suppose you could cut out all this bull and let us get on with some acting?”
3 I always value the updates because Cogerson is the only site I know that comprehensively provides adjusted grosses for Classic era films and therefore for consistency I include only Bruce’s stats in my own data base. I especially looked forward to this update because every site quotes dramatically different figures for Paint your Wagon and as I knew Bruce constantly reviews and improves his figures I wanted to be assured that his Paint your Wagon stat on the Eastwood/100 Musicals sites was holding firm. For that movie The Numbers quotes $31.6 million actual which equates to some $195 million, Mojo gives us $14.5 million actual/$89 million adjusted, and Bruce had listed $40 million actual/some $238 million adjusted on the Eastwood/Musical sites. I was pleased to see in Lee’s update Bruce’s figures were holding firm as they best reflect my own sense of the size of Paint you Wagon’s audiences when it was released. I think I have already mentioned on Cogerson that my favourite Marvin films are probably his gangster trilogy, Prime Cut, Point Blank and The Killers.
Hey Bob. I have been studying and preparing a comment for your comment for months….lol. I have seem an interview/video on the making of Donovan’s Reef. It looks like Wayne, Marvin, Ford and the entire team had a blast making that movie…..their fun jumps off the screen in that movie….which is a very fun move to watch.
As for Klansman….you are right…it sounds like Burton was drunk for the entire shooting…with Marvin not too far behind. I not seen that movie….but it sounds like it might be like ng at car accident that you pass on the highway.
Hey Bob…..as for Paint Your Wagon….I stand by our number. Box Office Mojo lists Paint Your Wagon at 14.5 million actual…..that is the rental total….I have e-mailed them that they are getting it wrong….but they have quickly dismissed me and my e-mail. It made a ton of money…..but cost a ton of money. Sorry it took so long to respond.
HI BRUCE
1 Thanks for the feedback. Glad to know you’re standing by your Paint Your Wagon figure as it seems the most realistic.
2 Donovan’s Reef was Dotti Lamour’s last film role of any note and also her final appearance in a prestige production of the kind she used to feature in regularly. Sad..
Good job, Bruce and thanks for the plug of my book, LEE MARVIN: POINT BLANK.
Thanks Dwayne.