Natalie Wood Movies

wood 11111Want to know the best Natalie Wood movies?  How about the worst Natalie Wood movies?  Curious about Natalie Wood box office grosses or which Natalie Wood movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Natalie Wood movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Natalie Wood  (1938-1981) was a three-time Academy Award® nominated actress. Wood began her acting career as a child actress (1947’s Miracle on 34th Street), gained renown as a teenage actress (1955’s Rebel Without A Cause & 1956’s The Searchers) and became one of the most successful actresses of the 1960s (1961’s West Side Story, 1969’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice).  Her movies grossed over $3.46 billion in adjusted box office gross….picked up 51 Oscar® nominations…..won 15 Oscars®.  So with all of these great movie stats and great movies in her movie career, it seemed that we were way overdue it writing a Natalie Wood Movie Ranking page…..well that error has been fixed!

Her IMDb page shows 73 acting credits from 1943-1983. This page will rank 43 Natalie Wood movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in North American theaters were not included in the rankings.  To do well in our rankings a movie has to do well at the box office, get good reviews by critics, be liked by audiences and get some award recognition.

Natalie Wood and James Dean in 1955's Rebel Without A Cause
Natalie Wood and James Dean in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause

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

Natalie Wood 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 Natalie Wood movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Natalie Wood movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Natalie Wood movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Natalie Wood 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 Natalie Wood movie received.
  • Sort Natalie Wood movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the sort and search box to make this table very interactive.  For example if you type in “Redford” in the search box….the 2 Robert Redford/Natalie Wood movies will pop right up.

Natalie Wood in 1965's Inside Daisy Clover
Natalie Wood in 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover

Possibly Interesting Facts About Natalie Wood

1.  Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko was born in 1938 in San Francisco, California.  RKO Studios executives changed her name to Natalie Wood.  Her sister, Lana Wood, would become a Bond girl….Diamonds Are Forever.

2.  Natalie Wood made her film debut a few weeks before turning five during a fifteen-second scene in the 1943 film Happy Land.

3.  Natalie Wood went to high school with Robert Redford.  Wood also attended ballet classes as a child with Jill St. John and Stefanie Powers. All three women would eventually be a huge part of Robert Wagner’s life.

4.  Natalie Wood was nominated for three acting Oscars®: 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause, 1961’s  Splendor In The Grass and 1963’s Love With The Proper Stranger.

5.  Natalie Wood has been nominated for five acting Golden Globes®: 1961’s Splendor In The Grass, 1962’s Gypsy, 1963’s Love With The Proper Stranger, 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover and 1966’s This Property Is Condemned.  She won Golden Globes® for Best Newcomer in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause (had they not seen Miracle on 34th street?) and Best Actress in a television movie…1979’s From Here To Eternity.

6. Natalie Wood was married three times.  Twice to Robert Wagner (1957-1962) & (1972 to her death in 1983) and once to Richard Gregson (1969-1972).  She had one child with both of them.

7. Natalie Wood was voted the 51st Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

8. Natalie Wood’s pallbearers were Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Fred Astaire.

9. Don Henley wrote the song “Dirty Laundry” to express his outrage at the tabloid press for their treatment of Natalie Wood after her death.

10. Natalie Wood turned  down or was seriously considered for the following roles: Jane Fonda role in Barefoot in the Park, Faye Dunaway role in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, Audrey Hepburn role in Charade, Liza Minnelli role in Cabaret, Mia Farrow role in The Great Gatsby, Lois Lane role in Superman and Katharine Ross role in The Graduate.

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

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37 thoughts on “Natalie Wood Movies”

  1. I have recently come to Natalie Wood off my obsession with Jean Harlow. I was trying to figure out what Harlow, who died at age 26, might have become had she lived another ten or twenty years.

    Not Marilyn Monroe, who was only a pale copy of her. Then, it occurred to me. It had to be Natalie Wood. Harlow practically invented movie slapstick in the talkies, and her brassy gold digger could get in anybody’s face, even bullies like Wallace Beery. She could also crack you up or make you cry.

    Match them up. I can see Harlow and Wood doing each other’s movies. Harlow never played a teenager, but her character found itself in a family way a couple of times, as did Harlow herself.

    Harlow could carry “This Property is Condemned” or “The Great Race”. Not sure about “Splendor in the Grass” as she never played a teenager.

    Wood could carry “Bombshell”, “Red Dust”, Libeled Lady”, and “Wife vs Secretary”.

    Both magnificent, both cut short before their time.

    Reply

    1. Hey Michael. I enjoyed reading your comment. You have a very interesting take on Harlow and Wood. I have had the same thoughts about Monroe and James Dean……in her case what would have happened to her career if she made to the 1980s. As for Dean, I have actually worked on a page that would try and guess what his career would have been if he had not passed away. The Cobweb would have been his 4th movie. I estimated that he would have gotten the Paul Newman role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (that would have been a Taylor/Dean reunion). Then in the 1960s he would have probably gotten some of Steve McQueen’s iconic roles. It is a fun game to play. good comment.

      Reply

  2. I have been unable to get your sorting headings to work on this and some other pages recently. i am using an iMac and Safari, if that matters. The BO rank by year is my preferred ranking.

    Reply

    1. Hey Anonymous….sorry the sorting headings were not working. I just tried a few different places like Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and iPad and the headers let me sort. Some times…I have noticed the arrow button is not too responsive…..but if you click inside the box….it does the sort button. I will keep experimenting….sorry that I do not have a better answer for you.

      Reply

  3. My favourite Natalie movie is Love with the proper stranger with Steve McQueen.
    One of the most attractive sizzling couples on screen ever and really good acting from them both?

    Reply

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