Want to know the best Sophia Loren movies? How about the worst Sophia Loren movies? Curious about Sophia Loren’s box office grosses or which Sophia Loren movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Sophia Loren movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which movie got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Sophia Loren (1934-) is ranked as AFI’s (America Film Institute) 21st greatest female screen legend. Her first movie appearance was in 1950 while her most recent movie appearance was in 2009’s Nine. This Sophia Loren (1934-) Ultimate Movie Rankings page comes from a request on our request hot line. While researching the movie career of Sophia Loren it quickly became apparent that we would have to concentrate on Loren’s Hollywood career. It is not that I have anything against the Italian cinema….it is just that I need domestic box office numbers to calculate my rankings. Sadly the movies in my Loren table represent less than half of her movies.
Her IMDb page shows 94 acting credits from 1950-2014. This page will rank Sophia Loren movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that received limited North America releases were not included in the rankings.
Sophia Loren Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Sophia Loren Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In Ther Table
The really cool thing about ther table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Sophia Loren movies by the co-stars of her movies.
- Sort Sophia Loren movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Sophia Loren movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort Sophia Loren 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 Sophia Loren movie received.
- Sort Sophia Loren 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 Sophia Loren
1. Sophia Loren was born Sofia Scicolone in Rome, Italy.
2. Sophia Loren’s path to stardom….Cliff Notes style. After being named “Miss Elegance” in the 1948 Miss Italy beauty contest she was noticed by movie producer Carlo Ponti. Ponti helped get her started in the Italian movie business. From uncredited roles to supporting roles to starring roles…Loren became very famous in Italy. In 1956…Hollywood came calling and she appeared in her first Hollywood movie…1957’s Boy On A Dolphin.
3. Sophia Loren was nominated for two Best Actress Oscars®. She won the Oscar® for her role in 1960’s Two Women Her other nomination was for 1964’s Marriage Italian Style.
4. Sophia Loren was nominated for three movie Golden Globes®. She received a Best Actress Golden Globe® nomination for 1960’s It Started In Naples and 1964’s Marriage Italian Style. In 1994 she received a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe® nomination for Ready To Wear.
5. Sophia Loren was nominated 6 times for the Golden Globe award…World Film Favorite. She won the award 4 times…..1964, 1965, 1969 and 1977.
6. Sophia Loren has been married one time. She was married to Carlo Ponti (the guy in Fact #2) from 1966 until his death in 2007. They had two children.
7. Sophia Loren roles she turned down or was seriously considered for: Elizabeth Taylor parts in Cleopatra (1963), The Taming of the Shrew (1967) and The Comedians (1967). Julie Christie part in Doctor Zhivago (1965). Eva Marie Saint part in North by Northwest (1959). Julie Andrews part in The Princess Diaries (2001)
8. Marcello Mastroianni and Loren starred in 7 movies together.
Check out Sophia Loren‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
The critic/rating of some important Sophia Loren movies that did not see the light of day in many North America theaters. The last four movies listed co-starred Marcello Mastroianni. Loren and Mastroianni starred in 7 movies together.
- La favorita (1953) 57.5%
- The River Girl (1954) 65.0%
- Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (1963) 79.5%
- Sunflower (1970) 79.0%
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
The legendary songress and actress Juliette Greco died a couple of days ago.
Her parents were part of the French Resistance and she herself was arrested by the Gestapo and put into a concentration camp. After the war she became the most important French singer, influencing many others, including the Beatles, who wrote “Michelle” in her honor.
Miss Greco starred in French films and later in the United States starred in such films as The Sun Also Rises (1957) with Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power; John Huston’s Roots of Heaven (1958), a film ahead of its time about the declining world’s environment with Errol Flynn and Orson Welles; A Crack in the Mirror (1960) with Welles, and several others.
She made dozens of best-selling albums and gave hundreds of concerts.
May you rest in peace Juliette Greco!
Hey Frank…thanks for sharing the sad news of the passing of Juliette Greco. Good background information on her. I did have to look her up on IMDb but I did recognize her when I did. I personally remember her best in The Sun Also Rises…Flynn’s last great role. Rest in Peace Ms. Greco.
Thank you for featuring Sophia Loren in your website. Whatever, her personal flaws and films, that fact that an impoverished Italian women became an international film star is an extraordinary acconplishment.
Re the comment that she was paid more than Charlton Heston for El Cid is qukesitonable. By 1961, when the film was made Heston had starred in three of the top 10 grossing films of all time: The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments, and Ben-Hur. Sophia only had limited appeal in U.S. films, as your film grosses show, even if at often she was paired with top Hollywood male actors. Would a producer pay her more than Heston, who was a much greater box office draw? Very unlikely. The rumor derives from the comments of one person in the extras for the DVD version of El Cid. When Heston turned down working with her in The Fall of the Roman Empire (which is an excellent film), was a boxoffice disaster.
The much-maligned Boy on a Dolphin grossed $139.4 in the U.S. is her fourth highest grossing film (thanks to Alan Ladd and less to Sophia, who was no doubt stunningly beautiful). Critics have been incredibly hard on Ladd, mostly due to his alleged height. However, Cagney, Raft, Bogart, Tom Cruise, Pacino, De Niro, etc. and hundreds of other leading men have been short. It is life. Ironically, Sophia in real life married a short, heavyset Italian producer (a brilliant one at that), Carlo Ponti. So much for the reality of life. Love comes in all sizes and types.
God bless you Sophia and thank you for decades of fine films. Happy Birthday!
Happy 85th birthday to Sophia Loren!
Hey Flora. Thanks for the birthday shout out to Sophia Loren.
1 STEVE I’ve mentioned that in their Hollywood heyday Sophia Loren and La Lollo were hyped up as great rivals because they were Italians competing in the same period of movie history. I preferred Gina as for me she had more sexual warmth than Sophia. I thought that cuddly Gina could easily be regarded as one of the fashionable new “sex kitten” wave whereas I saw Sophia as the Ice Maiden beautiful and shapely though she was.
2 One thing they had in common though was that as Bruce’s chart amply demonstrates both of them depended heavily on the important Hollywood stars of the day to help carry their movies. For example Gina had Rock, Burt and Yul whereas Sophia had the likes of Chuck, Cary and Marlon [though unfortunately in his Chaplin outing with her poor Mumbles was unable to carry her too far!]. Gina never made the AFI’s legends lists but Sophia did, though I thought that she was one of the least deserving entries on the female list. Like La Lollo Sophia had a prolific career in European/Italian movies before making it in Hollywood.
3 Anyway enough of my personal perceptions about personalities and on to an examination of the pictorials in your Loren video which actually speak quite well for themselves, and the posters I most admire are Firepower, Man of La Mancha, both versions of the ones for Legend of the Lost, Heller in Pink Tights, Woman of the River, Cassandra Crossing, Five Miles to Midnight, Pride and the Passion, Gold of Naples, and the very raunchy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.
4 Great stills from my viewpoint were black and white solo of the young Loren, her and Mr. Mumbles, two excellent ones from Boy on a Dolphin, one of which was with a very relaxed Laddie, Sophia and Chuck, and her with my Greg in Arabesque. It must be my birthday with 4 of my personal idols featuring prominently in a single video though a poster for Arabesque has the wrong order of billing – no way would my Greg have come 2nd to Loren at any stage of her heyday. You and Bruce agree on 3 of Sophia’s Top 5. Overall a top-notch video presentation easily worth a 97% rating.
Hello Bob, thanks for reviewing, rating and commenting on my Sophia Loren video, it is appreciated. Happy you liked the posters and stills.
Sophia was a lot more famous than Gina, probably the most popular European actress of them all at her peak. Look at her co-stars – Charlton Heston, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd, William Holden, Anthony Quinn, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and John Wayne!
It’s funny how foreign movie posters of American movies change the order of billing to suit the taste of their countrymen. I remember seeing a poster for The Cannonball Run with Jackie Chan’s name in big bold letters followed by the rest of the cast in smaller letters and his image was predominant on the poster.
Looking at Bruce’s chart – El Cid was easily Loren’s biggest grossing film and it has to be her most famous, even in Italy, the film was a smash hit. She was paid more than Chuck Heston to star in that epic. I think she was the first actress to earn a million dollars for a movie, beating Liz Taylor by a couple of years. Heston was mightily miffed when he found out how much she was being paid. But I’ve seen photos of the two of them many years later hugging and kissing, so, water under the bridge than.
Three of Loren’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and El Cid. Three have scored 9 – Fall of the Roman Empire, Houseboat and Operation Crossbow.
Her highest rated at IMDB was A Special Day scoring 8.1 – it topped Bruce’s chart too. One of my sources gave it 4 out of 10, andother 6 out of 10, which knocked it out of my video top 5.
HI STEVE
1 Very interesting backchat as usual.
2 Yes sometimes concessions can be made to popular European artists in their own countries. However I’ve mentioned before that when Italian actress Anna Magnani approached Mr Mumbles on the set of the 1960 The Fugitive Kind and asked if she could have top billing “in my native Italy” and when he said no she apparently went into hysterics in front of cast and crew. Not having seen any of the Italian posters for that flick I can’t say whether her histrionics did the trick.
3 Just like every now again this star or that will be credited for “saving the studio from bankruptcy” so we get conflicting stories about who was “the first to get a million dollars”. For example whilst Liz is the most publicised in that respect it was stated by one of his biographers that Mr M got it for the aforementioned Fugitive Kind but the producers didn’t want such a huge salary publicised. Other historians reckons that the accolade goes to Golden Holden who got more than $1 million for Bridge on River Kwai but to reduce tax on the sum Golden had it paid to him in instalments over a number of years so that the size of the amount went under the radar in its day. However we should keep thinks in perspective because whilst $1 million was big in its day for a star’s salary it would be worth about $8 million in today’s money and pales beside the salaries paid to the like of Tom Cruise and even the likes of Demi Moore in the 1990s when she was said to have got $20 million for one movie.
4 Nevertheless stars’ salaries were getting heftier for their times in the 1950s/early 1960s and Chuck in fact went public in criticising the rising levels and he said that the only two 1950s stars that he felt were worth high fees were the Duke and Mumbles. Accordingly when Chuck came to make El Cid in 1960/61 possibly the producers were taking him at his word !! However I doubt if he ever starved.
1 BRUCE I have long thought that Sophia was one of the weakest entries in the AFI legends lists because her box office was not great and although the update improves things she still has only 5 films [merely increased from I think 4 prior to the update] that crashed your million dollar barrier and was not the top billed star in any of them being buttressed by established major male stars though she did acknowledge a debt to Grant for helping her cope with comedy routines in Houseboat. but said she didn’t like Laddie having to stand on a box to make love to her in Boy on a Dolphin
2 At least Myrna was in a large number of high grossing hits even if they weren’t always her own! However honour where honour is due and Sophia was a beautiful woman, AFI DID recognise her as a Legend and she is probably one of the most successful actresses ever to break out of the foreign cinema into Hollywood films which must have been quite hard to do in her day Accordingly I welcome her page and its comprehensive update
3 In 1969 singer Peter Starstedt released a song Where Do You Go to My Lovely? which was a massive hit and was about a girl who rises from the poverty-stricken back streets of Naples to join the jet set, live in Paris and become rich and famous. Many people at the time thought he was singing about Loren:
You talk like Marlene Dietrich —
And you live in a fancy apartment
On the Boulevard of St Michel,
Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
And you’re a friend of Sacha Distel.
However Peter denied the connection saying that the earlier similar lives and the subsequent rise to fame of the subject of his song and Sophia were just coincidental. Whether or not that’s so it demonstrates the fame Sophia achieved when many people immediately associated the song with her.
Hey Bob…..I agree with you 100%…. just by going by the stats….this is easily the worst group of movies for all 50 legends. Almost all of her Hollywood movies under performed. Her greatest success occurred when she returned overseas and made some good movies….but those movies barely registered in the states.
She was without a doubt a superstar and one of the most famous people (not just actresses) in the world. I think Angelina Jolie and Loren have a lot in common.
Good stuff about the song…seems Loren influenced some of those lyrics.
You were right….she had 4 before the update and 5 after…probably one of the least impressive updates yet.
Thanks for the feedback on our latest update.