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.
Loved him in Father Goose. Shows him in such a different light. Leslie Caron was so great in this movie.
FATHER GOOSE……ONE of my all time favorites….
I have so many favorite Grant movies….but Father Goose is watched at least once a year. My 10 and 7 year old daughters both love the movie too.
When his Walter character is talking about getting tired of wearing a tie everyday when he was a school teacher…in some ways it was Grant saying he took this movie so he could stop playing the suave leading man and be this relaxed unshaven character….but in the end he was still the suave leading man. Thanks for the feedback.
He will always be my suave, handsome leading man. In one of the photographs posted on this thread was a picture of him with a beard. I cannot stand unshaven men, but he is still so handsome despite the beard. He had class, through and through. I know he had a rough childhold, but he somehow arose above all of that.
Hey Nita S. I agree….even though he was supposed to be a “bum” his class shined through. Thanks for the awesome comments.
Another fine update Bruce, full of rare stats you won’t find anywhere else.
Looking at the worldwide grosses – Arsenic and Old Lace was a huge hit, North by Northwest did very well and Notorious was even bigger! Biggest of the lot is Gunga Din with half a billion in adjusted dollars worldwide. I’m impressed. I’m starting to think Archie Leach was a very successful actor. 😉
Vote Up!
Hey Steve….I think his career was somewhat successful. He was one of the few stars to go out on top….he was one of the biggest draws when he retired. His very last movie was the 23rd biggest hit of the year. Not too bad for a guy on his last legs…..lol. I found worldwide gross on 3 of the 4 Hitch movies….with To Catch A Thief being the missing one…..thanks for the visit and comment.
Cary Grant has 38 movies that have made 100 million on your list. There have been no Cary Grant movies since 1966. These are the only people on the current top 1000 Oracle of Bacon center of the Hollywood universe that worked with Cary.
Charade (1963) – 313 George Kennedy, 413 James Coburn
Dream Wife (1953) – 966 Kathleen Freeman
Houseboat (1958) – 966 Kathleen Freeman
Kiss Them for Me (1957) – 966 Kathleen Freeman
Monkey Business (1952) – 966 Kathleen Freeman
Night and Day (1946) – 912 Arthur Tovey
North by Northwest (1959) – 69 Martin Landau, 912 Arthur Tovey
Operation Petticoat (1959) – 897 Tony Curtis
The Grass is Greener (1960) – 809 Robert Mitchum
Walk Don’t Run (1966) – 923 George Takei
Hey Dan…I am a huge Cary Grant fan….I remember thinking that there were not many Grant leading ladies still alive….but after doing some research I was surprised (happily) so many were still alive and well. Seems Leslie Caron and Sophia Loren should be on the 1000 list…but I guess they have only worked off and on for the last 20 years. Looks George Takei is his last hope to get Grant back moving up the charts….maybe Sulu will start Danny Trejoing it and start making 15 to 20 movies a year. Thanks for this information…your hard work is appreciated.
BRUCE:
1 Great news that you have picked up some more Randolph Scott grosses.
2 It would of course be self-limiting to concentrate on Box Office grosses, Oscars etc to the
exclusion of other things related to movie actors and the kind of information that Your Possibly Interesting Facts provides is useful in giving a wider portrait of stars and their careers that is also tasteful.
3 For example I never knew that Charlize Theron did charity works for aids until your page mentioned it and that information interested me as it related to a humanitarian situation and it was comforting to know that a prominent personality such as Charlene cared about the matter and was trying to help with the problem.
Let’s see….working on a Mel Gibson update currently….as well as the Science Fiction page…I wonder when I get squeeze Mr. Scott in for his update. Glad you like my Possibly Interesting Facts. Back when we started we tried to include them before the massive movie table….WoC said I was burying the lead by having all of those facts at the beginning…so it got moved down the page. But it is a whole lot easier writing those facts as bullet points versus trying to create well worded paragraphs that includes the same information. Charlize Theron has been awesome about giving back. In many ways she reminds me of Paul Newman and the way he gave back. Speaking of Charlize….I need to add her new movie to her page. Thanks as always for the comment and the visit.
THANKS BRUCE:
1 Your Possibly Interesting Facts sub heading appeals to me IN ITSELF as I don’t like to overuse the word “trivia” .. Paul’s charity efforts and Charlize’s AIDS work may be incidental to movie careers but they are certainly not trivia as I’m sure that those who have benefited from the Newman/Theron efforts on their behalf would agree
2 I should add that I consider the format used in this page to be one of your bestl as it includes not only a box office stats table, the Ready Reckoner, Possibly Interesting Facts AND your selection with informed comment of Cary’s 10 best movies. The latter is of course a reduced version of similar input in the Steve Martin .
3 Incidentally we were talking recently about coincidences and it is therefore ironic that we have discussed Charlize; the awful Depp/Theron Astronaut’s Wife; you mentioning how George C Scott with his tantrums could be regarded as the Johnny Depp of his generation – and this morning I picked up an English newspaper whose headline was that Depp had cut off the top of his own finger in a jealous rage at his wife!!
Hey Bob.
1. Thanks….glad you find the possibly interesting facts part…interesting…lol. I agree Newman and Theron….are great examples for so many others to follow.
2. I think I have done My Personal Top 10….for my 3 favorites…Willis, Grant and Caine. I discovered another page that was done in the Steve Martin format…Mr. Mel Gibson….moved some stuff around…and made the Mel page look like most of the other UMR pages….though I did still keep “my thoughts” on each of the movies….I might do that with all the other ones that are different.
3. Wow…I had not heard about Depp and his finger….Ryan Lochte seems to have all the attention on him these last few days.
Thanks for the visit.
BRUCE
1 Let’s face it off screen Depp is a w- – – – r and I could never fathom why Bud wanted to be pals with him especially as MB would not even have lunch with Leo DeCaprio. According to Leo he had vainly tried for years to get a meeting with MB but decided to make one last effort by sending an E Mail inviting Bud to lunch; and the return E Mail said “Let us be clear about one thing – I don NOT do lunch!”
2 Talking about Depp/MB reminds me of another exchange that I had with my Brando hating dad whom as you know I used to wind up by praising Bud’s “greatness”. In 1995 there was a poster in the paper that said Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp in Don Juan De Marco which had just been released in cinemas and underneath that wording was a large picture of Depp and him alone striding along a beach in lavish costume and looking gorgeous as to be fair he did in those days; and I held it up to dad and said “What do you think of the new Brando movie.?”
3 At first he would not look at it but as I kept pressing he finally did and I repeated my question to which he replied “Must be an old movie. Brando looks very young there.” !!
Hey Bob.
1. Poor Leo….maybe he should have said..let’s have dinner sometime…maybe Brando did dinner.
2. Funny story about you. your dad, Bud and Depp….sounds like a great memory you have…thanks for sharing it.
🙂
GOOD MORNING AGAIN BRUCE
1 After years of silence the press here are starting to again bring out all those old insinuations about Randolph Scott and Cary. Even when two guys who actually did something big and constructive with their lives that entertained millions are long dead columnists still want to exploit them.
2 To me what matters is what those two Greats did on the screen and anything else is their own business. Indeed whilst I like anecdotes about some of the larger than life antics of The Duke, Sinatra, Bud and Tracy particularly when it relates to their film making stuff about stars’ deeply personal conduct actually bores me.
3 Whilst I was interested in the careers of the Burtons, was entertained by some of Richard’s volatile behaviour, and admired the way Liz tried to help the ailing Monty Clift I couldn’t have cared less about all the ‘romantic’ stuff that the fan magazines endlessly pedalled about them in the 60s and early 70s; and I could never understand why others found it so fascinating and I often felt like writing to the editors and paraphrasing Rhett Butler by saying “Frankly I don’t give a damn !”
4 According to a recent historical survey one of the main hang-ups that modern audiences have is “an obsession with minor celebrities” and indeed today many ‘entertainers’
, have done nothing except become “famous for being famous” as the saying goes. And the hype amazingly seems to convince many that some of the relevant nonentities are actually as great asthe like of Cary Grant was. Indeed greater as I think it says it all when a few years a go one gossip columnist asked his readers who the thought was the greatest actress of all time and the reply was Elizabeth Hurley !
5 You probably thought I have written to you to get the above off my chest but my ulterior motive is to take the opportunity to remind you that many of your readers still await Randolph’s update !!
Hey Bob
1. That is a shame. You would think that story will have played out by now.
2. I agree with this comment 100%. In the end this is what lives on….I wonder right now…as I type how many people in the world are watching a Cary Grant movie right this second…..the legends of Grant and Scott live
3. Rhett says it best..lol.
4. Elizabeth Hurley would have been my pick too….so I am not understanding your point….lol.
5. Updates have slowed to a crawl again….had a serious honey do list yesterday….UMR.com was pretty much ignored by me yesterday…..Steve’s science fiction request is taking all the research time…..but….when I do get to the Scott update….I think this movie total will be increasing….as the Harrison Reports have unlocked many previously not listed Scott movies.