Margaret Sullavan Movies

Want to know the best Margaret Sullavan movies?  How about the worst Margaret Sullavan movies?  Curious about Margaret Sullavan box office grosses or which Margaret Sullavan movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Margaret Sullavan movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Margaret Sullavan (1909-1960) was an Oscar®-nominated American actress.  Sullavan’s movie career was fairly brief…but she was considered one of the best actresses of her era.  Margaret Sullavan’s IMDb page shows 21 acting credits from 1933-1954.  This page will rank 16 Sullavan movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances and her unfinished movie, I Loved A Soldier, were not included in the rankings.  This page comes from a request by Lupino…who just discovered this website a couple of weeks ago.

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in 1940’s Shop Around The Corner….which was remade as a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy

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

Margaret Sullavan 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 Margaret Sullavan movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Margaret Sullavan movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Margaret Sullavan movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Margaret Sullavan 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 how many Oscar® wins each Margaret Sullavan movie received.
  • Sort Margaret Sullavan 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.
  • Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page

Margaret Sullavan in 1938’s Three Comrades

Possibly Interesting Facts About Margaret Sullavan

1. Margaret Brooke Sullavan was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1909.  Norfolk is only about 15 minutes from my house…so she is a hometown girl in my area.

2. One of Margaret Sullavan’s first acting experiences was in a summer stock group called the University Players.  Others in that group?  James Stewart and Henry Fonda.

3.  Margaret Sullavan was starring in Broadway plays in the early 1930s.  In 1932 she starred in four straight flops….one co-starred Humphrey Bogart.

4.  Despite being in numerous flops on Broadway….Sullavan’s personal stellar reviews in those plays earned her a movie contract with Universal Pictures.

5.  Margaret Sullavan turned down Claudette Colbert’s role in 1934’s It Happened One Night.  Colbert would win an Oscar® for her performance.

6. Margaret Sullavan was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar® for 1938’s Three Comrades.

7. Margaret Sullavan was married four times and had three children.  Her first marriage was to Henry Fonda…while her second marriage was to William Wyler.

8.  Sadly Margaret Sullavan took her own life in 1960.  Equally tragic is that two of children did the same thing.  Her third child, Brook Hayward, is happily alive and well.  Hayward is an actress and author.  She wrote the best selling book Haywire which told of her childhood with Sullavan.

9.  We have worldwide adjusted grosses on three of her movies:  1938’s Three Comrades $255 million, 1938’s The Shining Hour $170.60 million and 1938’s Shopworn Angel $130.20 million.

10. Maureen Sullavan and her Easy Rider (1969) connections. Sullavan’s daughter Brook Hayward was married to Dennis Hopper who starred and directed that massive hit.  Meanwhile, Peter Fonda who starred and produced that massive hit, was in love with Sullavan’s youngest daughter….Bridget.  Fonda would later name his daughter after Sullavan’s daughter.  Bridget Fonda was an actress that made movies for almost 20 years before retiring in 2002.

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

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42 thoughts on “Margaret Sullavan Movies

  1. The scope of Margaret Sullavan’s ability can be measured by her last movie, No Sad Songs For Me, a heavy-handed soap opera. Sullavan played a dying cancer patient who nobly arranged her husband’s new marriage, and she made it believable and moving without resorting to teary melodramatics.

    Ratings for her movies……highest rating is 4 stars

    1933 Only Yesterday 3 stars
    1934 Little Man What Now? 4 stars
    1935 The Good Fairy 3 stars
    1935 So Red The River 3 stars
    1936 Next Time We Love 3 stars
    1936 The Moon’s Our Home 3 stars
    1938 Three Comrades 4 stars
    1938 The Shopworn Angel 3 stars
    1938 The Shining Hour 4 stars
    1940 The Shop Around the Corner 4 stars
    1940 The Mortal Storm 4 stars
    1941 Back Street 4 stars
    1941 So Ends Our Night 3 stars
    1941 Appointment For Love 3 stars
    1943 Cry Havoc 4 stars
    1950 No Sad Songs For Me 4 stars

    1. Hello Mr. Nrohhcsrih,
      I just love your comment about Sullavan’s acting ability by pointing out her masterful performance in the otherwise mediocre No Sad Songs For Me. So you rate 50% of her perfomances as great and 50% as good…not bad for an almost forgotten actress. Her only 4 star performance I have not seen yet is her debut in Only Yesterday, but to me, she has delivered mostly 4 star performances. I do agree with you on So Red The Rose, or as you prefer to call it So Red The River…Sullavan in a western? Or is it a Horror movie I haven’t heard of yet 😉 I also agree with your verdict on The Good Fairy, that one was a (minor) disappointment. But what you said about No Sad Songs For Me is also true for The Shopworn Angel. That old chestnut must have seem dated even on original release, but Sullavan managed to make you feel for her character…and she avoided all the trappings that part offers to an actress less talented than Margaret to “resort to teary melodramatics”. 4 Stars definetely!!!

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