Want to know the best Cary Grant movies? How about the worst Cary Grant movies? Curious about Cary Grant’s box office grosses or which Cary Grant movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Cary Grant movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place.
I would say my favorite three actors of all-time are Sir Michael Caine, Mr. Bruce Willis, and Archibald Leach….better known as Cary Grant (1904-1986). I discovered Cary Grant when I was in high school. During a sick day, I was stuck at home and bored out of my mind while watching television. As I flipped through the channels I came across a black and white movie. Back then I extremely disliked black and white movies. But I started to watch the movie that was on television. It took about 5 minutes before I realized I was enjoying the movie and another 45 minutes to realize I needed to see the beginning of the movie. That movie was called Bringing Up Baby and it opened the wonderful doors of Cary Grant movies.
Cary Grant made 73 full length movies from 1932-1966. When I wrote the page the first time I was able to find all the required information on 50 of the movies. Since then I have found box office information on the rest of the 23 movies. In the table below Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 73 of his movies in 5 different sortable columns. Television roles, shorts and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
I have seen 51 of the 73 movies listed in the following tables. So I figure I would add my personal Top Ten Cary Grant movies…..located at the bottom of the page
Cary Grant Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Cary Grant 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 Cary Grant movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Cary Grant movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Cary Grant movies by domestic yearly box office rank or trivia
- Sort Cary Grant 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 Cary Grant movie received.
- Sort Cary Grant 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 sort and search buttons to make this a very interactive table.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Cary Grant Table
1. 41 of Cary Grant’s movies crossed the magical $100 million mark. That is a percentage of 64.06% of his movies listed. His top box office hit was Operation Petticoat (1959).
2. An average Cary Grant movie grosses $147.10 million in adjusted box office gross.
3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 49 of Cary Grant’s movies are rated as good movies…or 77.77% of his movies. His highest rated movie is 1959’s North by Northwest. His lowest rated movie is The Last Outpost (1935).
4. 28 of Cary Grant’s movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 44.44% of his movies.
5. 8 of Cary Grant’s movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 12.63% of his movies.
6. A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 48 of Cary Grant’s movies scored higher that average….or 76.19% of his movies. The Philadelphia Story (1940) got the highest UMR Score. Born To Be Bad (1934) got the lowest UMR Score.
7. Cary Grant starred in 6 movies that were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar® nomination. She Done Him Wrong (1933), The Awful Truth (1937), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Suspicion (1941), The Talk Of The Town (1942), and The Bishop’s Wife (1947).
Cary Grant Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide
Cary Grant made many great movies….so picking a personal Top Ten for him is very very tough…but here goes my list in alphabetical order.
1. The Awful Truth (1937)….Cary Grant and Irene Dunne made a great screen couple, this was their first of three movies together. Grant is hilarious in the movie. Movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar® and won the director, Leo McCarey an Oscar® for Best Director.
2. Charade (1963)…..Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn team up in this almost Hitchcock like movie. Is Grant the good guy or the bad guy? A great supporting cast in James Coburn, George Kennedy and Walter Matthau.
3. Gunga Din (1939)…Gunga Din was one of my father’s favorite Cary Grant movies….so this story of soldiers in 19th century India makes my list….great action, great fun and a terrific ending.
4. Father Goose (1964)…Father Goose is a movie can I watch again and again. Grant is stuck on an island with a school teacher(Leslie Caron) and her 7 students(all girls) during World War II. Great lines throughout this movie.
5. His Girl Friday (1940)….one of the few times that Cary Grant got to be instigator of the comedy mayhem….versus being the one that had to react to all the craziness. A fast pace, fast talking comedy classic.
6. My Favorite Wife (1940)….his second movie with Irene Dunne and another classic. Dunne is assumed to have perished in a boat sinking seven years ago, she is rescued and returns home just as Grant remarries….and then the fun begins.
7. North by Northwest (1959) ….Grant’s fourth and final film with Alfred Hitchcock…. great scenes throughout the movie like the crop dusting plane, the auction scene and of course the Mount Rushmore finale.
8. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)….one of his lesser known classics from the great movie year of 1939…Howard Hawks directed this story about pilots that risk their lives flying in South America…a great supporting cast of Rita Hayworth, Jean Arthur and Thomas Mitchell.
9. The Philadelphia Story (1940)….Grant and Katharine Hepburn made 4 movies together…this by far is their best movie together….and yet James Stewart is the one that won the Oscar® for this movie…..this movie gets better every year.
10. To Catch A Thief (1955)…Grant thought his movie career was over….and then Hitchcock talked him out of semi-retirement to play a cat burglar nicknamed “The Cat”. This movie gives you a Cary Grant and Grace Kelly falling in love on screen and off screen…direction by the great Alfred Hitchcock….with the French Riviera as a backdrop…what more could you want?
Other great movies that just missed my Top Ten cut….Notorious, Operation Petticoat, Arsenic and Old Lace, An Affair To Remember and Bringing Up Baby.
Our brand new Cary Grant You Tube Video.
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Want more Cary Grant information? Then I highly recommend http://www.carygrant.net/articles/i%20cary.htm
My Cary Grant letterbox.com reviews. Highly recommend Letterboxd.com. It is free and great way to keep track of the movies you have watched.
I see you found a way to incorporate a UMR logo as the star/ticket system. Congratulations. I like that you started this new feature with Cary Grant. I had not commented on your including star rating before, but I find it fascinating.
Hey Flora. Thanks for the compliment on our new ticket rating method. Hope your holiday was a good one as we start to gear up for New Years. This Cary Grant Page has changed so much since Hub Pages. Now three sets of Grant stats. Wondering if it is getting too big? Thanks again.
Hey Bob….both Grant and Scott collected massive sums during their lifetimes…..so their “stingy ways” did that for their families. Yes….there were lots of rumors about Grant and Scott…..and lots of photos. My thought has always been…..if they were an item……there is no way they would have let those photos see the light of day. Different world different time. I do not care either way….as it is none of my business. I had not thought of Edberg in a very long time….he and Wilander seemed connected for years….either way they followed in the footsteps of Borg. As for Brando…..ex-wives can be expensive…..good stuff as always…and now I go to work.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for your additional feedback – I agree totally with your analysis of the matters concerned.
Enough of Steve telling us about HIS idols. I’m fed up hearing about Chuck and Jason – let’s talk about one of YOUR idols for a change! I’ve just watched a very interesting 90 minute documentary about Al Leach. It included much home movie footage that he made himself and followed his entire career and included many shots of the Bristol of his young years. The point was made that in his early days at Paramount he was so good looking that “they used him as jewelry for their big-name female stars of the time such as Mae West, Sylvia Sidney, Kay Francis and Myrna Loy [in Wings in the Dark]”
Ultimately he became bigger than almost the 4 put together from my perspective, despite historical nostalgia for Mae’s saucy one-liners and Myrna becoming a Cogerson Queen. Instructively in the 1947 Bachelor and Bobbysoxer [aka Bachelor Knight] and 1948’s Mr Blandings it had become Cary Grant/Myrna Loy.
Also they told him at the start “You will have to change that name. No one will pay to see Archibald Alexander Leach.” But it was agreed people would pay to see someone called Cary Grant! “People will come! People will come!” [Field of Dreams 1989] If you look at Joanne Dru’s page on Wikipedia you will see why SHE certainly had to change her name.
Archie seems to have been very thoughtful though. His father had his mother committed to an Asylum when he was young but when he started to earn the big bucks he got her out and made sure she was looked after in comfort, visiting her regularly. Seemingly he would never return to Bristol when he was Archie Leach but went back when he became Cary Grant.
The documentary suggested Grant quit at the peak of his box office success because he wanted “family time” to watch Jennifer grow up. Wise man! Why wait until guys like Joel can kick you on the way down? She was born in 1966 the year he retired and she spoke fondly of him in an interview. They apparently used to watch together movies on TV.
The Bob, beautiful. even more reasons to love Cary Grant. thanks for sharing. he is my number one favorite all time.
HEY BOB MAJOR
If you keep picking Bruce’s idols like Cary as your own idols you’ll be getting a page of your own on this site to enthuse about them.
Nice to here from you. Take care and have a good weekend.
maybe I can reach Joel status. I gotta dream, baby, I gotta dream. just a shade below
The Bob and Steve and Flora.
You are getting there bob cox….even with your dismissal of A Bridge Too Far…lol.
Hey bob cox….I agree with you….good stuff as always.
HI BOB COX
If Cary is your No 1 you’ll definitely go far on this site and maybe eclipse even Joel and Myrna! Certainly overtaking Steve and me should be a stroll in the park for you , but Flora will be a tougher proposition.
The Bob, not the ladies. Flora and Myrna are untouchables. you and steve are out of my league. as a UMR HOF commenter , a bruce willis fan, a cary grant fan, a Myrna loy fan, I had potential. but then my lack of enthusiasm for Michael caine and all was lost, especially after down ranking a bridge too far. LOL. Joel is within reach as the constant criticism of him has kept us all laughing and I love to laugh. add to that a general agreement with the work horse on every movie I have seen and on sports in general, well, it keeps the dream alive. I have Joel in my sights.
HI BOB COX
It’s good to know that stories and comments about Joel are making some people laugh because for others on this site Joel and his reviews and ratings are deadly serious subjects. .
Indeed in 1972’s Lady Caroline Lamb the latter asks Laurence Olivier’s historically iconic Duke of Wellington to endorse her husband at court. The Duke is aghast because Lady Caroline’s husband is widely regarded as a buffoon and he says to Lady C “I cannot get involved with matters relating to HIM!” and then the reason that Lord W gives for not being willing to help is probably the same as the words that Joel would chastise us with for having fun at his expense “I am a serious man!”
I don’t know about Myrna Loy but I agree with you that Flora is untouchable. Anyway always great chewing the fat with you Bob C.
Hey Bob….thanks for talking about Mr. Grant. He was feeling neglected by you. Especially with all the talk about Brando, Ladd and Ford….and very little for Mr. Grant….whom you have claimed is one of your favorites too…..it just did not add up…lol. Good pieces of trivia on Grant. I agree his childhood was pretty rough. I think he and the power people back then had the right idea about changing his name.
As for his retirement…I am sure Jennifer making her appearance was a factor….but another factor would be him feeling uncomfortable opposite the younger leading ladies. Father Goose there was a 31 year difference between himself and Caron. When he made Walk Don’t Run…..he did not get the girl…..and realized it was time to go….especially since it seemed to make more sense that Samantha Eggar should be with him than Jim Hutton…..even with their age difference was 37 years….but Cary Grant or Jim Hutton….sorry Jim….but Cary is the winner….if being in his 60s. Glad you enjoyed that documentary. Good stuff.
HI BRUCE Excellent points and indeed another reason for Cary’s retirement was possibly that if he wanted a certain part he may have to wrestle with the current much younger “flavour of the month” superstar to protect his own billing. For example he was reportedly in line for the Robinson part [even before Tracy] as “The Man” in Cincinnati Kid but McQueen wouldn’t cede top billing to Cary.
However healthy as he looked in 1966 when he retired he wasn’t going to get any younger. I’ve just watched Chevy Chase in a TV Christmas movie and all you now see is an old man, contrasting with how fine and virile he used to look.
Still in the documentary Cary gave as his official reason for retiring the fact that throughout his professional life he had never enjoyed family time with a wife AND daughter and he wasn’t now going to spend 12 hours on the set and so miss Jennifer growing up.Certainly he could afford to retire. He left an estate worth between $135 and $180 million in today’s dollars when he died in 1986. That’s big money for a movie star of those days and apparently most of it was willed to Jennifer and Cary’s widow Barbara Harris.
Conversely despite those big pay cheks that Joel became infuriated with ole Mumbles left on his death in 2004 an estate of “only” $27 million in 2018 dollars [and in fact pretended to be broke in his final years to claim benefits and avoid paying bills]. He had many children by various wives/lovers and apparently some of the closest and long-standing of them found themselves cut out of his will whilst money was left to 2 children whom nobody including his closest friends and relatives and ever heard of before. As my brother remarked Mr Mumbles was “Barking mad to the end!”
Hey Bob…..good points. Another Grant benefit of retiring when he did….is we (the audience) have not movies to remember him by when he became older. Walk Don’t Run and Father Goose were his last two movies….and he was the Grant we all knew and loved. If he would have returned to the screen in the 1970s or early 1980s we would have seen the “old” Cary. Clint Eastwood is a great example of my point…..his new movie shows the frail looking Eastwood in The Mule (coming out next month)….there is no Grant movie that shows the “frail” Cary…..so he lives forever as the Grant in his last movies. James Dean also has that as well. Yep…Grant appears to have been more stingy with his money than Brando. In Leslie Caron’s autobiography she talks about how stressed Grant was, as the producer of Father Goose. He was convinced Father Goose was going to bankrupt him. Good feedback as always.
HI BRUCE You were saying you wanted more comments from me about Cary Grant?! I think you are spot on about the money issue. Apparently Brando spent a lot on what he considered good causes and in keeping a lot of ex-wives/lovers and his children by them
On the other hand a close friend of Grant in an interview after Archie’s death, in referring to the more controversial interpretation put upon Archie’s relationship with Randolph Scott, said that those rumors were all nonsense and Grant and Scott lived together for a while to share costs as BOTH were “tight wads” with cash.
A sporting hero who is apparently a “tight-wad” is Stefan Edberg, 6-time Tennis Grand Slam champion and a former world No 1, who coached Fed for a while. Although a Swede Stefan lives in London and was friends with Andrew Castle, a much lower ranked Brit [and now a tennis commentator] The pair would travel to and from tennis exhibitions and tournaments in London together but although Andrew earned far less money than Stefan it was Castle who often had to pay the taxi fare or for snacks as Stefan had ”left my wallet at home.”
When Edberg retired from professional tennis Andrew was interviewed on TV about their friendship and mentioned what I have just said. Then he added “Funnily I bumped into Stefan just last week in Harrods superstores and I spotted him walking my way and smiling happily to himself. We chatted and I asked him what he was so pleased about apart from maybe his retirement and holding up two CDs that he was carrying he said ‘I can afford these as I’ve just had my credit card statement and managed to keep expenditure down to £50 last month.’ Stefan is such a nice guy though in every other way.” [Edberg’s net worth in 2016 was reported as $25 million.]
Even Brando had some human frailties?!! say it ain’t so, Joe.
Hi Steve,
I enjoyed your Cary Grant video as well as the detailed comments from Bruce and Bob. However, as much as I like Grant, your ratings seem to support my suggestion last week that James Stewart had a slightly stronger career overall. In your videos, Stewart had 14 films rated 8 and above, and 6 films rated 9 and above, while Grant had 12 rated 8 and above and only 3 rated 9 and above.
But let’s not be petty about such things, Cary Grant was still one of the greatest movie stars ever. His film personality, unique charm, and irresistible style of understated humor seem to get better with age, and will continue to be appreciated by generations. They just don’t make them like that any-more.
Just to pick up on one of Bob’s comments, Grant actually appeared 11 times among Quigley Poll’s top 10 money-making stars, which is quite a strong showing actually. But perhaps, more significantly, he made the top 25 every year from 1939 to 1952, and then from 1957 to 1966, which may be one of the longest runs on this poll of any star.
Finally, Bruce is certainly the Cary Grant expert, but I’m not sure I agree it would have been better if Grant turned out to be a wife killer in Suspicion. Firstly, I just can’t picture Grant as evil (though I’m sure he would have been capable if given the chance). Secondly, I was not aware that in the original version Hitchcock did have Grant as a killer, but I have to say Suspicion worked for me the first time I saw it, granted it was a long time ago. The fact that Grant turned out not to be a killer despite all evidence pointing the opposite provided for a nice twist in the ending. Would Bruce also have liked Grant to be the killer in Charade (a role obviously inspired by Suspicion), and coldly murder the lovely Audrey Hepburn as she ran towards him and away from Walter Matthau? Now that would have been a surprise ending! 🙂
Hi Phil, thanks again for checking out my latest videos, it is appreciated.
What I could do if I have the time is tot up the average scores on the top 10s of each of these acting legends and see who has the highest total or highest average. Bogart had some high ratings in his top 10 too.
Unless I’m wrong I don’t think Cary Grant has ever starred in a western, even Bogart appeared in a couple of cowboy films but not Grant. The closest he came to wearing a cowboy hat was in Only Angels Have Wings which was set in a small fictional South American town.
As far as I know the only historical films Grant has appeared in were Gunga Din, set in colonial India circa 1880, and The Pride and the Passion, set during the Napoleonic Wars circa 1807.
Hey Steve….no westerns for Grant…..but he made some more historical films…The Howard of Virginia (Revolutionary War) and The Eagle and The Hawk (World War 1).
Top 8 UMR Average Score …minimum 36 movies
1. Cary Grant 53.80
2. Spencer Tracy 53.37
3. Gary Cooper 53.10
4. Clark Gable 53.05
5. James Stewart 52.49
6. Bing Crosby 51.80
7. Gregory Peck 51.23
8. Humphrey Bogart 50.89
One of the things Grant has going for him……every star generally has two weak spots in their career…..the time period before they become a star and the time period they have when their star has faded (see Bruce Willis today)….. Grant retired when he was still near the top….he had an awesome 1960s….meanwhile even the beginning of his career has some good movies…as he was able to appear opposite Dietrich, West, Cooper, March, Lombard and others when he first started.
Always good to talk about Cary Grant.
Steve, Bruce,
Apparently the producers of Vera Cruz (Harold Hetch and Burt Lancaster) had intended to have Cary Grant play the violent, immoral outlaw in the film, with Lancaster playing the more straightforward role, but Grant declined because of a dislike of working with horses. So they got Cooper to play more upright character, while Lancaster took on the role intended for Grant. I guess it can be tricky to do a western if you don’t like working with horses!
Hey PhilHOF17……good breakdown on Grant……when comparing the stars I like the old UMR Scores…..this is the Top 8….with average UMR Score per movie…minimum of 35 movies
1. Cary Grant 53.80
2. Spencer Tracy 53.37
3. Gary Cooper 53.10
4. Clark Gable 53.05
5. James Stewart 52.49
6. Bing Crosby 51.80
7. Gregory Peck 51.23
8. Humphrey Bogart 50.89
*Claude Raines, Walter Brennan and Clint Eastwood would in the mix but were excluded dud to be supporting actors or in Eastwood’s case…many movies in which he only directed.
As for Grant being the bad guy in Suspicion….in theory I am all for it….but I did not enjoy when Harrison Ford turned out to be the bad guy in What Lies Beneath……so I guess I do not know what I would think if Hitch would have gotten his way.
Your Charade scenario….got me thinking……what if Cary was Dan Duryea in his movies…..Ingrid Bergman would have died in Notorious, there would be no re-union with Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember, Eva Marie Saint would have been thrown from a plane and died in North By Northwest, the Japanese army would have captured Leslie Caron and all those cute kids in Father Goose, he would have become a bigamist in My Favorite Wife, he and Irene Dunne would have divorced in The Awful Truth, he would have quickly dumped Doris Day in That Touch of Mink, ….I could go on and on…..but I guess in the end….I like that Cary was a good guy in the movies…lol. Good feedback as always.
Hi again Bruce,
Fair enough on Cary Grant having the highest UMR scores of the classic stars. As mentioned last week, Stewart has slightly more films with a UMR score above 90, so it depends which statistic one looks at, but I think both are defensible.
You sure don’t pull an punches with your revised Cary Grant endings! Just throw Eva Marie Saint from a plane hey? As you know, she’s still alive and looked fit at the Oscars this year, so watch out! You should do a UMR page on her just to apologize (yes, that’s another request). Funny stuff 🙂
Hey PhilHOF17….yes stats are amazing….you can bend them and twist them until they finally give you the answer you want…..lol.
Doing the list based on the best movies…..our Top 10 with the Top 10 movies are
1. Dustin Hoffman
2. Tom Hanks
3. Marlon Brando
4. Jack Nicholson
5. Harrison Ford
6. Gary Cooper
7. Ingrid Bergman
8. James Stewart
9. Katharine Hepburn
10. Spencer Tracy
Cary Grant is 30th….behind #29 Cate Blanchett.
I think Eva Marie Saint would be a good pick….thankfully Cary went and stopped her from boarding that plane in North By Northwest….Dan Duryea would have watched the plane take off….and then mean ole Martin Landau would have tossed Eva right out of the plane….lol.
Hi Bruce, I replied to this comment, but my reply was lost somewhere in UMR cyberspace. Let’s see if it pops up at some point.
Sorry about that PhilHoF17…..we have now done an alert for comments… it buzzes my phone…most of the time it says a comment has arrived…..lately it sadly says a comment is waiting for approval a lot more than it ever did before…..somewhat of a pain but my turnaround for approvals has greatly improved. One day we will exorcise the gremlin out of the comment box.
Damn….even my comment got sent to the approval folder….this is getting very very frustrating….thank you spammers and thank you website provider….you make my life stress free.
No problem, it popped up a few minutes after I sent my second comments. Looking at the Blake Edwards page, but think I’m done commenting for the night!
Hello Bruce,
One of my favorite classic actors but i prefer Cooper and i regret when they were together at Paramount, they did not play in the film of Lubistch « Angel « with Marlene the part of Melvyn Douglas and Herbert Marshall;
I simply think the film would be so different;
But my favorite films of Grant are on the 40 and the 50, he was really good and his films were greats;
Bye
Pierre
Hey Pierre….thanks for sharing your thoughts on one of my all-time favorite actors. I agree it would have been awesome if Grant had appeared in a second movie with Dietrich. Heck he did two with Mae West….he has due another with Marlene…lol. My favorite Grant movies come from all different decades…another reason I like him so much…what a career. Good feedback.