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Mr. Moto Movies

lorre-moto-11111
Peter Lorre starred as Mr. Moto in eight movies

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

Mr. Moto is a fictional Japanese secret agent and detective created by the American author John P. Marquand. He appeared in six novels by Marquand published between 1935 and 1957.  From 1937 to 1939, Peter Lorre starred in eight Mr. Moto movies.  The last Mr. Moto movie was made in 1965 and starred Henry Silva as Mr. Moto….that reboot was a flop with critic and audiences.  This page will rank 9 Mr. Moto movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.
 
Drivel part of the page:  When we wrote a UMR page on Peter Lorre, we were very frustrated that we were unable to find box office grosses on most of the Mr. Moto movies…and even more frustrated that had to leave Lorre’s Moto movies off our UMR page.  Well with the help of (1) the Harrison Reports (2) the ledgers of MGM, Warner Brothers & RKO and (3) the awesome computer skills of WoC…we were able to come up with box offfice grosses for the Moto movies.  Like all calculations of old box office grosses…. these are educated guesses.  We might not have the right house…. but we feel confident we are in the right neighborhood. mr-moto-poster

 

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

Year Movie (Year) Rating S
Year Movie (Year) Rating S
1937 Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)
1938 Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)
1937 Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)
1938 Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938)
1939 Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939)
1938 Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938)
1939 Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939)
1939 Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)
1965 The Return of Mr. Moto (1965)

Mr. Moto Movies Can Be Sorted 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 Mr. Moto movies by stars of the movies
  • Sort Mr. Moto movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Mr. Moto movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Mr. Moto movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort Mr. Moto 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.
  • Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
R Movie (Year) UMR Co-Star Links Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) Review Oscar Nom / Win UMR Score
R Movie (Year) UMR Co-Star Links Actual B.O. Domestic (mil) Adj. B.O. Domestic (mil) Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) B.O. Rank by Year Review Oscar Nom / Win UMR Score S
1 Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937) Peter Lorre &
John Carradine
2.20 107.7 107.70 107 70 00 / 00 83.9
3 Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938) Peter Lorre &
Henry Wilcoxon
2.20 101.5 101.50 104 60 00 / 00 77.3
2 Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) Peter Lorre &
J. Carrol Naish
1.60 79.2 79.20 137 66 00 / 00 76.5
4 Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938) Peter Lorre &
Ward Bond
1.90 86.5 86.50 124 61 00 / 00 74.4
5 Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939) Peter Lorre &
Ricardo Cortez
1.90 83.4 83.40 123 57 00 / 00 69.4
6 Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938) Peter Lorre &
Rochelle Hudson
1.70 78.7 78.70 138 55 00 / 00 65.9
7 Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939) Peter Lorre &
Jean Hersholt
0.90 41.8 41.80 181 60 00 / 00 55.6
8 Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939) Peter Lorre &
Joseph Schildkraut
0.80 34.8 34.80 192 61 00 / 00 53.4
9 The Return of Mr. Moto (1965) Henry Silva &
Terence Longdon
0.90 10.8 10.80 137 50 00 / 00 17.8
 
Check out Mr. Moto movies career compared to other performers/groups.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
 
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
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6 thoughts on “Mr. Moto Movies”

  1. SteinHoF16 says:
    September 17, 2016 at 7:08 pm

    I have heard of these movies but have never seen one. The grosses are pretty low for a franchise. Good job.

    Reply
    1. Cogerson says:
      September 17, 2016 at 9:03 pm

      Hey Stein….true these movies did not gross much….but they were money makers….the average budget was around $100,000 so in many cases they earned about 5 times that amount for the producers….it was only when it got to about 2 times that amount that the movies came to an end. Thanks for checking out our latest page.

      Reply
  2. Flora Breen Robison says:
    September 17, 2016 at 11:42 am

    I’ve read the Mr. Moto books and seen one of them.

    I adore Peter Lorre.

    Reply
    1. Cogerson says:
      September 17, 2016 at 8:46 pm

      Hey Flora….I have seen all of the Lorre movies….but not the Silva one. I couple of years ago I was trying to see how many movies I could watch in a year….I found the Moto movies and the Charlie Chan ones good to watch because they were barely over one hour long. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  3. Steve Lensman says:
    September 17, 2016 at 9:46 am

    Konnichiwa Bruce! Nice to see Mr. Moto get his own movie page, it’ll be interesting to see how many people have actually seen any of these movies. I had watched the Peter Lorre series again last Xmas, I was alternating with the Charlie Chan series which you should mark down for future consideration.

    I haven’t seen the most recent one on your chart starring Henry Silva in the role.

    Looking at the UMR the second one in the series is the chart topper and the first movie is at no.2. They all seem quite similar to me and many of them are only about an hour long. B pictures that were shown before the main movie and were sometimes more entertaining. It’s always fun to see Lorre karate chopping the bad guys. Voted Up!

    Sayonara!

    Reply
    1. Cogerson says:
      September 17, 2016 at 8:50 pm

      Hey Steve….you were one of the people that asked for a Peter Lorre page….and I always felt that I dropped the ball by only including one of his Moto movies….and then recently I was doing some research in the Harrison Reports I kept seeing the Moto movies popping up…..so I figured I would make up for my previous drop by giving him Moto his own page.

      I am not thinking many people have seen the Silva Moto movie….I did not even know it existed until I did a IMDb Moto search and it popped up. As for Chan….I have seen a few of the Chan movies pop up in the Harrison Reports….so maybe in the future I will do the same process for Chan that Moto got.

      Yep… think the first two were the most successful….then it was a steady slide down for the last 6 movies…at least box office wise….though the last Moto movie (Mr. Moto Takes A Vacation) actually got decent reviews.

      As always…thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

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