Brian De Palma (1940-) is an American director and writer. De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is best known (at least in the Cogerson houshold for his many Hitchcock-like thrillers. De Palma’s IMDb page shows 42 directing credits from 1960. This page will rank 27 Brian De Palma movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles, cameos, shorts and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings. Sadly we were unable to determine box office grosses on two of his early movies (1968’s Murder à la Mod and 1970’s Dionysus in ’69) …so they were also not included in the rankings.
Brian De Palma 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 Brian De Palma movies by his co-stars
- Sort Brian De Palma movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Brian De Palma movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Brian De Palma 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 Brian De Palma movie received.
- Sort Brian De Palma movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Brian De Palma
1. Brian Russell De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1940.
2. When Brian De Palma was in high school , he built computers. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled “An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations”.
3. Brian De Palma enrolled at Columbia as a physics student…but after seeing Vertigo and Citizen Kane….De Palma became enraptured with the filmmaking process…and the rest is history.
4. Brian De Palma became friends with Robert De Niro in the early 1960s. In 1963 they would make The Wedding Party. It was unreleased until 1969, when De Palma’s star had risen sufficiently. De Niro was such an unknown actor he was mistakenly billed as “Robert Denero”. To date De Niro and De Palma have made 4 movies together.
5. In the 1970s, Brian De Palma helped a close friend on a film project. He helped audition and interview actors. When the film was shot, DePalma did some uncredited writing on an opening “scrawl,” a device the friend thought of at the last minute to help explain events in the film, so the audience would not be confused. The friend was George Lucas and the film was Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977).
6. Brian De Palma received a special thanks credit in 1973’s Mean Streets for introducing Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro to one another.
7. Brian De Palma is the godfather of Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving’s son Max.
8. Brian De Palma bases his most famous cinematic predilection, voyeurism, on a specific childhood incident. When he was a child, his parents split up, his mother accusing his father of infidelity. The young De Palma spent several days stalking his dad with recording equipment, hoping to find evidence to confirm his mother’s suspicions.
9. Brian De Palma has been married three times and has two children. He was married to Nancy Allen (his star in Blow Out and Dressed To Kill) from 1979 to 1988. He was married to movie producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator) from 1991 to 1993.
10. Check out Brian De Palma‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
HI BRUCE
Good profile of De Palma, one of the fabled Movie Brats of the modern era. I have seen 7 of Brian’s overall top 10 in your chart including of course Sir Maurice’s terrifying Dressed to Kill.
The other Movie Brats include of course Lucas, Spielberg and Mumbles’ career-revival mentor. George and Steven are the box office kings [“We have outgrossed Old Hollywood!”] whereas Brian and Francis have had more mixed commercial success.
However artistically their legacy seems secure. One historian said in a radio interview “Years from now people will still be saying of Coppola “This is the man who made the Godfather movies. This is the man who made Apocalypse Now.”
Carrie has passed into folklore as a common “household” name drop. I watched an episode of the TV sitcom Frasier in which he said about a lover who seemed all sweetness and light but turned out to be a shrew “I went to bed with Scarlett O’Hara and woke up with Carrie!”
I agree with you that before Clift/Mumbles/Dean there was John Garfield though sadly he never became the legend that the latter two did. .
PS Until I saw your chart it never registered with me that De Palma had directed Mission Impossible. You provide education even away from the classroom!!
Hey Bob…..thanks for checking out our De Palma page. I have seen 9 of the Top 10 reviewed movies…..only missing Obsession. I recently rewatched Body Double…..but have not seen Dressed To Kill in a long time. Going to have to see that one again. Amazing that now the title of the movie almost seems like a “spoiler”.
Those young Movie Brats are now senior citizens…..Lucas 74, De Palma 77, Coppola 79 and the kid Spielberg 71. I agree with you about Coppola’s latest legacy. Glad we agree on Mr. Garfield…..his “red scare” really hurt his legacy if not his life. Yep the Mission Impossible franchise was started by De Palma…..Cruise wanted him back for part 2…..but De Palma did not want to make the sequel…..and sadly his career has been mostly unseen since that monster hit. Good feedback as always.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for feedback and for bringing The Movie Brats saga up to date.
Obsession was one of the De Palma movies that I did see and it was enjoyable though no classic so that your own 74% rating gets its quality just about right.
I think maybe Garfiled’s films were often too bleak for him to gain popular Legend status. Also his masterpiece in the eyes of many historians, the 1948 Force of Evil, was regarded as “anti-capitalist” which wouldn’t have endeared him to the “Legend-proclaimers” of Old Hollywood. Indeed its director and screenplay writer Abraham Polansky was one of the greatest victims of the McCarthy witch hunts and blacklisting.
The Untouchables and The Fury were 4 star movies of mine with Body Double and Carrie at 3 1/2 stars. Scarface to me was silly, what Al Pacino got shot maybe 200 times at the end and he was still standing.
Hey Dan…..good see we like the same movies. I agree about Scarface….but the amount of cocaine consumed by him at the end of the movie might have kept on his feet to receive those 200 bullets..lol.
Director Brian De Palma was a favorite of mine back in the 70s and 80s.
I’ve seen 18 of the 27 films on the chart. Favorites include – Carrie, The Fury, Body Double, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way, Mission Impossible and Mission to Mars.
I was disappointed and angry that De Palma’s Mission Impossible betrayed the main character from the TV series and turned him into a traitor. But otherwise I enjoy it as a high-tech action movie, the two most recent entries in the series are far more enjoyable.
I was a huge fan of Scarface and Carlito’s Way when they were new, watched both films many times, helped that I was an Al Pacino fan. The Untouchables was another gangster film I really enjoyed and watched many times back in the day.
Good to see Carrie top the critics chart. I saw Carrie a couple of times at the cinema in the 70s, it’s still one of the best Stephen King movie adaptations, along with Kubrick’s The Shining (which King hated).
Good stuff Bruce, Vote Up!
Hey Steve….right there with on De Palma in the 1980s…..as a teenager Dresses to Kill and Body Double were must watch movies whenever they played on HBO. The Angie Dickinson shower scene made a huge impression on little Cogerson. You have me beat by 3 movies in the tally count. Seen all of your favorites. Seems my dad took me to see The Fury in cinemas…which as an adult seems surprising….since I was not even a teenager yet…and he was far from a horror fan. Maybe Kirk Douglas was the main reason for going….he shortly after that movie would take me to see The Awakening with Heston..yet another horrorish type movie.
I remember how Mission Impossible made many people mad. At least it was not Peter Graves playing the role…that would have been even worse. Scarface is my brother’s favorite movie….I have bought him so much Scarface merchandise over the years he could probably open a Scarface museum….lol. I agree with you 100% on Carrie. Good stuff as ALWAYS.
saw 8. one favourite, a ten, the untouchables. connery is fabulous. deniro perfect. cosner himself. carrie is one amazing horror flick. scarface is a horrific gangster epic movie.
Hey bob cox…..thanks for checking out latest page. I have seen 15 of these movies…including the Top 8. Including three of them in theaters….Untouchables,Bonfire and Casualities of War. I liked The Untouchables but did not love it. Carrie is a classic…one of the best King adaptations. Some of his movies got destroyed by critics but I liked ….mainly Body Double, Dressed to Kill and Bonfire of the Vanities. Now that Bonfire has no buzz…I think people watching it will enjoy it…..I thought Hanks was pretty good in the movie…..Bruce is ok. Good stuff.