Sam Peckinpah Movies

Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984)

Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984)

Want to know the best Sam Peckinpah movies?  How about the worst Sam Peckinpah movies?  Curious about Sam Peckinpah’s box office grosses or which Sam Peckinpah movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Sam Peckinpah 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.

Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) was an American film director and screenwriter.   Peckinpah achieved great prominence following the release of the 1969’s  The Wild Bunch.  He was known for the visually innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence…showcased in The Wild Bunch.  Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members.

His IMDb page shows 27 directing credits from 1960-1983. This page ranks 15 Sam Peckinpah movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. His television show credits were not included in the table.

Sam Peckinpah directed Steve McQueen in two movies.

Sam Peckinpah directed Steve McQueen in two movies.

Sam Peckinpah 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 Sam Peckinpah movies by the stars of his movies.
  • Sort Sam Peckinpah movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Sam Peckinpah movies by domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort Sam Peckinpah movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Sam Peckinpah movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Sam Peckinpah movie won.
  • Sort Sam Peckinpah 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 Sam Peckinpahl Table

  1. One Sam Peckinpah movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 6.66% of his movies listed. The Getaway (1972) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Sam Peckinpah movie grossed $54.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  13 Sam Peckinpah movies are rated as good movies…or 86.66% of his movies.  The Wild Bunch (1969) is his highest rated movie while The Osterman Weekend (1983) is his lowest rated movie.
  4. Two Sam Peckinpah movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 13.13% of his movies.
  5. Zero Sam Peckinpah movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 0.00% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00.  8 Sam Peckinpah movies scored higher that average….or 53.33 of his movies.   The Wild Bunch (1969) got the the highest UMR Score while The Osterman Weekend (1983) got the lowest UMR Score.
Sam Peckinpah and William Holden on the set of 1969's The Wild Bunch

Sam Peckinpah and William Holden on the set of 1969’s The Wild Bunch

Possibly Interesting Facts About Sam Peckinpah

1.  David Samuel “Sam” Peckinpah was born February 21, 1925, in Fresno, California

2.  Sam Peckinpah’s Ride The High Country is now considered a classic.  However when the movie was first screened for Joseph Vogel (then president of MGM)…Vogel fell asleep during the showing….and at the end of the movie told Peckinpah….”Kid you’ve disgraced me. This is the worst film that’s ever been perpetrated on the American public”.  Thinking Vogel got that one wrong.

3.   Sam Peckinpah was in constant conflict with movie studios.  Peckinpah got fired, got barred from editing, got into fights over revenues, had movies canceled on him, fought with actors and had many of his movies re-edited and destroying his intended movies….pretty much the Terry Gilliam of the 1960s and 1970s.

4.  Sam Peckinpah was nominated for 1 Academy Award®He received a Best Screenplay Oscar® nomination for 1969’s The Wild Bunch.

5.  Sam Peckinpah liked to work with the same actors.  He worked with Warren Oates 4 times, Ben Johnson 4 times, James Coburn 3 times, Kris Kristofferson 3 times, Steve McQueen 2 times, Jason Robards 2 times and Ali MacGraw 2 times.

6.  Sam Peckinpah was married 5 times.  His 2nd, 3rd and 5th marriages were to Begoña Palacios.  He had 5 children.

7.  Sam Peckinpah most famous movie was 1969’s The Wild Bunch.  Lee Marvin was originally attached to the movie to play the William Holden role.  Marvin pulled out to make Paint Your Wagon. Holden was paid $250,000 for his role in the movie.  Ernest Borgnine was paid $120,000.  When the movie was previewed 60% of the audience strongly disliked the movie.

8.  Many of Sam Peckinpah’s movies performed better international versus domestically. The best example of this is 1978’s Convoy.  Convoy earned $76.00 million in North America and over $300 million in worldwide box office grosses.

9.  Sam Peckinpah turned down the chance to direct King Kong and Superman.  Both turned out to be box office hits…with Superman becoming one of the biggest box office hits ever.

10. While doing the research for this page….I stumbled across an excellent book….. David Weddle’s “If They Move…..Kill ‘Em! The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah”.  Book Link.

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

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.  Golden Globe® is a registered trademark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

 

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13 thoughts on “Sam Peckinpah Movies

  1. ‘Cross Of Iron” was my favorite SP film.Yes,it has graphic sex and violence,but hey,this is the Eastern front in WW2.Probably the bloodiest theatre of war in history.I also thought the cast was great,and Peckinpah got the best out of James Coburn.His other masterpiece was ofc,’The Wild Bunch”.What Iiked about the 1960’s westerns is they seemed to have more realism,as well as real character development.Many of the early westerns were just formulaic rubbish e.g John Wayne v the Indians ets.Absolutely tedious.

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