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.
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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.
Cary Grant’s first 20 or so movies were not altogether great but when they paid attention and gave him decent roles he didn’t let them down. He could act in all categories and was a trained baritone. They had millions on their doorstep but they didn’t realise it. Once they did they cashed in on it. Cary Grant was the leading man they had been looking for. He made 72 films during his career the last 50 were definitely much more enjoyable to watch than the first 22.
I felt sorry for him in The Philadelphia Story that he didn’t make the same type of deal Katharine Hepburn negotiated.
Cary actually negotiated a good deal. Can’t remember whether it was $125,000 or $100,000 but it was one of the two. for the film was extremely generous. Katharine cleverly deferred payment and agreed to accept 45% of the profits instead.. While their budget was just over $900,000 the box office receipts were about 3.3 million dollars. I’m sure they could have written off all sorts of expenses which should have been taken up in the budget. No matter what way you look at it Katharine came out with a cool $890,000 – $990,000 give or take a few dollars.
Cary donated all his salary for the film to the U.S. War Relief Fund which was extremely decent of him. He had only just started receiving decent pay cheques
The acting roles Paramount gave Cary Grant were an insult to his acting capabilities. It was such a shame he tied himself to a 5 year contract for $450 per week. When he got away from them he was given more scope with very decent roles for him, better scripts and better leading ladies.
Hey Leonnie….thanks for such a great and informative comment. I agree with you 100% about Grant’s early career. His Paramount days were not too impressive. But the fact that he realized that having one studio control him…was not good for his career. His “free agent” days were unheard of back then….and pretty changed how Hollywood worked.
For the first time I watched The Philadelphia Story I did not like the movie at all. But as time has passed it has become one of my favorite Grant roles. That was cool of him to donate his salary. In the end….his Paramount movies let him learn his trade….and he learned some valuable lessons from those days. Thanks for checking out my Grant page.
Later tonight I plan to watch Charade in honour of the late George Kennedy.
That is a good way to give tribute to George Kennedy. RIP Mr. Kennedy.
I have now seen 51 Cary Grant movies.
I’m moving up.
I am falling behind. Once tied….now 3 back. Sadly the last two “new to me” Grant movies were pretty bad…..DreamWife and Room For One More. I might have to go to you tube to find some of the missing Grant movies. Congrats on taking the top spot.
Hard to believe I haven’t commented on your Cary Grant page before Bruce. One of my favorite actors too.
The Philadelphia Story tops the UMR, one of the great Hollywood films but Grant was a lot more subdued in that one, Jimmy Stewart had the meatier role. My favorite Cary Grant film, North by Northwest is at no.2 on the chart. The only film from the top 20 I haven’t seen in is Mr. Lucky.
I know I’ve seen 33 of the 58 films you’ve listed, probably more but I can’t remember the titles. Other favorites of mine beside North by Northwest and Philadelphia Story include – Notorious, To Catch a Thief, Charade, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Gunga Din and Only Angels Have Wings.
Seems that Operation Petticoat was his biggest hit, a fun film but I’m not crazy about it, ditto Father Goose.
Arsenic and Old Lace was a black comedy I used to enjoy when I was younger but watching it recently I find some of the characters more annoying than funny, notably the two mad old ladies and their nutcase brother.
Excellent work as usual Bruce. Voted Up!
You likely did, Steve, but his comments were lost when he moved it from hubpages – why I re-commented on this page.
Hey Flora…you are 100% correct. This was one of the first pages Steve every read of my pages. He pretty much destroyed my ranking system…back then….maybe that is the real reason those comments got lost…lol.
Bruce I was always very supportive of your ranking system, especially those few times I actually agreed with it. 🙂
Hey Steve….this comment made me laugh….good job.
Hi Flora, yeah there’s no way I would have missed commenting on Cary Grant. I think Bruce regrets deleting all those hubs now.
I regret not transferring the comments…but not moving the pages. But I have very fond memories of HubPages.
Hey Steve…as Flora pointed out….you responded and read this page when it first appeared on HubPages..oh so many years ago. Sadly your comment which killed UMR Score was lost forever when I went from HubPages to our second website. It was actually the first one to move. Transferring the comments was not something I did right away….and those comments are gone…one of my big regrets.
Tally count….me and Flora are tied at 48….and you are at 33. When you first saw my Grant rankings….you had real issues with Operation Petticoat making the Top 5….well 5 years later we finally changed our equation….critic/audience reviews got more weight….while box office got less weight….for the Grant movies…box office smashes like Touch of Mink, Petticoat and Bachelor and Bobby-Soxer took some decent sized drops….the end result…which I give you credit is a better Top 10. Petticoat still clings to the Top 10….but the others left the Top 10…and movies like Charade and Gunga Din (my dad looks down and says…about time) join the Top 10.
Wow….we really differ on Father Goose…I love his performance in that movie…..I watch it more than any other Grant movie. I agree with you about Arsenic and Old Lace….as I kid…I thought the brother was funny….now his humor just seems sad. Thanks for the new Grant comment….if I ever have to move again…I will make sure your comment makes the move with me too.
I don’t hate Father Goose I just don’t rate it that highly and I admit Grant is underrated as a comedic actor. The film is very loosely a more lightweight and funnier version of The African Queen with more attractive actors.
Operation Petticoat popped up on TV regularly in my youth. it was fun but nothing outstanding. Director Blake Edwards would go on to better things.
Sorry I got so nasty with my old now defunct comment, must have got up on the wrong side of bed that morning, maybe it’s better off lost. 🙂
Hey Steve….got it. Interesting point about Father Goose and the African Queen….I had never thought of it that way. Pretty sure Petticoat was ranked higher than a few of the Hitchcock/Grant movies and that got you going…..oh so many years ago. Hey constructive criticism can be helpful…in this page….that probably created a better page…so thank you for the thoughts.
Father Goose is hands down my favorite Grant movie. Sad to see its UMR score is so low 🙁
Hey Bryan…well the negative of being as successful as Cary Grant was is that even good movies fall down the rankings when so many great movies are the table. Father Goose is the Cary Grant movie that I watch the most…I have already gotten Samantha to watch it once…thanks for the visit.