Christopher Plummer Movies

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

Christopher Plummer (1929-2021) was a Canadian Oscar® winning actor.  His movie career spanned over 8 decades. He currently holds the record for oldest actor to win an Oscar (82 when he won for 2010’s Beginnings) and oldest actor to receive an Oscar nomination (88 when got a nomination for 2017’s All The Money In The World).  His IMDb page shows 217 acting credits from 1953 to 2021. This page ranks Christopher Plummer movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  His many television appearances, shorts, uncredited and movies not released in North American theaters were not included in the rankings.  This page was requested but sadly we have forgotten who made the request.

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Christopher Plummer in his most famous movie…..1965’s The Sound Of Music

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

Christopher Plummer 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 Christopher Plummer movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Christopher Plummer movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Christopher Plummer movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Christopher Plummer 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 Christopher Plummer movie received.
  • Sort Christopher Plummer 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.
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Christopher Plummer in 1978’s The Silent Partner…..a forgotten gem that has a great Plummer performance.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Christopher Plummer

1. Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1929.

2. Christopher Plummer did an apprenticeship with the Canadian Repertory Company…..appearing in over 75 stage roles.  He made his Broadway debut in 1953’s The Starcross Story.  That was the good news…the bad news was it closed on opening night.

3. Christopher Plummer was the understudy for Tyrone Power in the play….The Dark is Light Enough.

4. Christopher Plummer’s The Sound of Music (1965) is the third biggest box office hit of all-time when looking at all-time adjusted box office grosses.

5. Christopher Plummer did not like The Sound of Music.  He referred to it as “The Sound Of Mucus”. Why you wonder?  Well here are his own words.  ““Because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey,”…and “You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”

6. Christoper Plummer has received 2 Oscar® nominations:  He was nominated for Best Actor for 2009’s The Last Station…and he won the Best Supporting Actor for 2013’s Beginners.  At age 82, he is the oldest person to receive an Academy Award®.

7. Christopher Plummer turned down the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and admits to regretting that decision.

8. Christopher Plummer has been married three times.  He has one daughter….actress Amanda Plummer.

9.  Christopher Plummer has worked with both Obi-Wan Kenobis on film. Alec Guinness played his father in 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire 46 years later Plummer played father to Ewan McGregor in 2010’s Beginners.

10. Check out Christopher Plummer‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Steve Lensman’s Top Ten Christopher Plummer You Tube Video

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51 thoughts on “Christopher Plummer Movies”

    1. I can use the same comment I just posted on our Dick Van Dyke page.

      “Hey Flora….when I first saw you commenting on this page….I was thinking he had passed….glad to see it was a birthday shout out. Happy Birthday to Christopher Plummer.”

      Knowing both Chris and Dick are so “experienced”….pretty sure that is a natural reaction..lol.

      Reply

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  3. 1 BRUCE Now that the Baxter mistake has been rectified it is appropriate to again quote the title of the Barry Fitzgerald film that we earlier discussed – And Then There were None! Anyway I’m obliged to you for attending to all of the minor irritants concerned. Unfortunately they were mostly on pages such as Tyrone’s that I tend to revisit often. Regarding Mr Mumbles’ reduced 100 million dollar status there is a passage in the Bible that states “The Lord gave. The Lord have taken away!” so Mr M will just have to learn to bow down before you like the rest of us!

    2 By the way good bit of trivia about Crowe which doesn’t surprise me. I have told you that the 3 artists that I most like writing about are Mumbles, The Duke and Sinatra because there is always so much guff about them in the public domain. Indeed I think that working with Russell must have been like appearing with Shirley Temple compared with being on set with Sinatra. According to what I read recently he would regularly belittle directors, verbally abuse underlings like script girls and fly into rages with a tirade of foul language if everything didn’t go his way. In the specific example quoted he shouted “I can’t take this **** anymore.” Then wrecking a couple of props Frankie sped off the set shouting “I’m off to Vegas for a few days. **** the lot of you! Shoot around me!” There was apparently always a flunkey on hand to ply him with cigs when he shouted “Light me up!”

    3 I think that Russell may have now joined the trio that I’ve mentioned in para 2 [along with Joel and Myrna of course just to annoy you!]. Indeed I’m beginning to wonder if Crowe’s a fantasist. I’ve told you previously that before he became famous he released a pop song called “I want to be like Marlon Brando,” but later denied knowing who Brando was at the time of the recording saying it was just a name Crowe had heard bandied about. I read recently that Russell claims to have been Mr M’s favourite actor and that old Mumbles on his deathbed had sent Russell a book of poems entitled “There are ones too gentle to live among men.”

    4 It seems strange to me that if Mr M was dying he would be preoccupied with Crowe, that a book with that kind of title would be sent to Russell of all people, and anyway I read that DeNiro was Brando’s fave among actors [it certainly wasn’t Rod Steiger!] There are in fact some very intelligent people who seem to be fantasists like your Al Gore and our former PM Tony Blair who it is said made claims that they seemed to believe about being in places and/or part of certain events.which it turned out they never had been anywhere near.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob
      1. Every couple of days WoC checks to see if NATO has updated the average ticket cost for 2017….if it jumps a lot….then maybe the Lord will move Brando back to 17 $100 million movies.
      2. Interesting points on Russell. I would think with his star status diminishing so much, that he would more down to Earth. Not thinking Frank saw his star status diminish at all.
      3. We will probably never know if Brando was really that high on Crowe….seems Brando lots of stuff like that all through his life.
      Thanks for sharing these Brando stories….they are always interesting.

      Reply

  4. 1 HI STEVE When most people think of Christopher Plummer it will probably be as Julie Andrews’ leading man in Sound of Music [in which he shared star billing with Julie] and he was excellent in the lead role of Sherlock Holmes in the 1979 Murder by Decree with James Mason as his Watson. However I personally admire Christopher more for the fine range of dramatic supporting roles that have littered his career, with for me the standout being The Insider with Pacino and Crowe and for which Chris won a slew of acting nominations/awards

    2. The latter and Elsa and Fred in which he partnered the wonderful Shirley MacLaine late in his career [2014] are probably my favourite Plummer flicks and frankly I never cared much anyway for Sound of Music and agree with Christopher’s own assessment of the film and his role in it as “Awful, sentimental and gooey.” I think that at 82 in 2010 when he won the best supporting Oscar for Beginners he remains the oldest performer ever to win an Academy award for acting and certainly his success in that respect strengthens my opinion that character/supporting acting was his true forte. Certainly his success in old age justifies the outlook that he espoused in your opening quote. He appears to have had success in all mediums throughout his career turning in apparently an amazing 100 TV appearances.

    3 The standard of your posters was very even throughout and easily meriting a 97% rating but these were my favourites on balance: Eyewitness. Conduct Unbecoming, Inside Daisy Clover, An American Tail [though Chris had just a voice only participation ] The Last Station, Somewhere in Time’ All the Money in The World. Waterloo, and Fall of the Roman Empire. However for some reason I found Remember 2015] the most striking pictorial, the lonely Plummer cutting a poignant figure on the poster

    4 You have also provided a very classy run of stills with my personal pick being Triple Cross, Dr Parnassus, Return of the Pink Panther, Murder by Decree, Star Trek V1, The Insider and The Sound of Music. You and the Big Guy agree on 3 of Christopher’s Top 5 artistically and I must applaud Bruce for having the courage to rate Sound of Music as relatively low as 10 for artistic merit though maybe the presence of Sir Maurice and Mr Willis had an influence on Bruce’s rankings!

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob
      1. Just added Steve’s Christopher Plummer video to the page.
      2. I agree with you about The Insider….that along with The Silent Partner are my favorite two Plummer performances.
      3. He got the Oscar for Beginnings…..got the star recognition for The Sound of Music…..has a fun supporting role in one of my all-time favorite movies…The Man Who Would Become King….but his role in The Insider is amazing.
      4. Good comments on the posters included in the video.
      5. No bias in 12 Monkeys or Man Who Would Be King….most people think those are two amazing movies.
      6. In a recent comment by Phil…..lots has changed since 2011 when many of these movies were researched….it is possible those two movies have taken some negative reviews since then…..maybe one day WoC will make that review score change whenever it changes on the source. For example Phil pointed out that The Catered Affair seemed really low in the review column….well….since Bette Davis was one for the first classic performers done….the IMDb score had gone from 6.8 to 7.7 over 7 years….that is a huge jump.
      Well the madness ever stop!…..lol.

      Reply

      2. Great video and Interesting exchange on Christopher Plummer. It’s probably true that outside of Canada, he may be most remembered for The Sound of Music, but here in his home country (where by the way, we are in the midst of a brutally cold winter!), many proudly consider him something of a legend, perhaps more because of his theater work than movies. He has certainly proven to be a survivor, remaining constantly active on the big screen, small screen and stage. Hard to think of another important actor from his generation who has remained as active (though Michael Caine does come to mind, at least in terms of movies).

        My favorite Plummer roles and films include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Waterloo, Murder by Decree, The Man Who Would Be King and The Insider. I found the highlight of Steve’s video was the part that moved from the still of Murder By Decree to that wide painting of British cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo and then to Plummer made up as Chang in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. I appreciate that new posters of Fall of Roman Empire spring up each time you are covering another star of that film (Loren, Mason, Sharif) and that you give the film a relatively high rating. While it was a monumental commercial failure, it’s one of my favorite Roman epics and I think one that have become more appreciated over time.

        Reply

        1. Hey PhilHOF17…I agree Bob and Steve….bring out some excellent points in these comments. I have read some Caine stories about how big Plummer was on the stage. Caine was his understudy at one point in time. They both hit the big time at about the same time.

          I give Plummer the edge over Caine with regards to being most productive….Caine seems to be more interested in hanging out with his grandson than doing movies…which makes sense to me…..he does have a new voice role coming out in a couple of months.

          Glad to see The Man Who Would Be King show up on your favorite Plummer movies…love that movie….as did my dad. Connery and Caine are awesome together….there off scree friendship really shines through in that movie.

          I have not see The Fall of the Roman Empire…but with that cast…it is one I want to see. Good feedback.

          Reply

          1. You definitely want to see FOTRE.Plummer is superb as Commodus.For me,it is the best of all the Roman epics.Great performances all round.

        2. Thanks for checking out my Chris Plummer video, PhilHOF17.

          I do try to use different posters if the same film pops up for different actors just to show some variety but sometimes I’m stuck with pretty much the same iconic poster, The Towering Inferno for example. There is a simpler poster design available for that epic disaster film but I can’t resist using the same artwork each time (by one of my favorite artists – John Berkey – I did a feature on him at Hubpages, one of my first hubs if I remember, he also did the famous poster of King Kong astride the Twin Towers)

          Reply

          1. Hey Steve…..I am pretty sure I remember that hub…..those were the “good old days”…..fighting with Hub Pages are content, duplicates and views…..seems no matter what I argued….I never won….lol.

    2. HI BRUCE

      1 Christoper’s Oscar success was well-earned in my opinion.

      2 Otherwise I always take Oscars with a pinch of salt because as the TV series Feud about Crawford/Davis observes often Hollywood “politics” can play as big apart as the acting when it comes to fine tuning nominations/wins.

      3 For example in Feud Davis kicks Crawford in the head when filming Baby Jane. Davis claims it was accidental but others including Joan have their doubts and Hedda Hopper [I think it was] cautions Davis, desperate for another Oscar,. that if the kick was deliberate that is not the sort of behaviour that wins the approval of the Academy. Indeed Russell Crowe was heavy favourite with the bookmakers to win an Oscar [his 2nd] for A Beautiful Mind but around Oscar time he got into another of his many public rows and observers think that may have cost him the 2nd Oscar.

      4 Indeed according to Feud Davis though that she was robbed of the Oscar for Margo in All about Eve and claimed that the performance of the actual winner that year, Judy Holliday, was
      far inferior to the Davis one but that Judy won because she was a relatively new face who was topical at the time and the Academy was thus keen to recognise Holliday. Oh if only Joel had been there to ensure that fairness prevailed!

      5 Anyway I enjoyed your feedback on my Plummer and McGuire posts.

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob…good stories on Crawford vs Davis and Crowe….I was just reading about some of Crowe’s behavior on The Gladiator. Apparently he told the screen writer….”your lines are complete crap….but since I am the world’s greatest actor I will make them sound awesome.”
        That sounds like a fun guy to work with….lol.

        Reply

    3. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my Christopher Plummer video, appreciate the info, trivia and comparison. Glad you enjoyed the pictorial content.

      My sources seem to really like The Sound of Music, a lot more than the lead actor did, but to be Plummer did have a change of heart about it recently – “People were unnaturally sentimental about the film. So I always gave it a tough time. But a few years ago, I went to an Easter party and had to watch the damn thing with these kids. I was a prisoner! And then I thought, it’s got everything – the lovely songs, the Nazis and the nuns and the kids. It’s timeless and I’m grateful for it.”

      My video might be out of date as soon as next week if Plummer wins a Golden Globe for All the Money in the World. And he will probably get an Oscar nom for the same film.

      I’m not as crazy about The Insider as much as you and Bruce but I did enjoy Murder by Decree a great deal, as well as The Man Who Would Be King in which Plummer played Rudyard “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs” Kipling .

      Btw Bruce ‘Murder by Decree’ is misspelt on the chart and I suspect others too.

      Four films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Up, The Insider, Man Who Would Be King and The Sound of Mucus (as Plummer dubbed it).

      Two more scored 9 – Dolores Claiborne and Fall of the Roman Empire.

      Highest scorer at IMDB is Up followed by A Beautiful Mind. Highest scorer at Rotten Tomatoes is Up followed by The Man Who Would Be King. Highest Scorer at the UMR factory – Up followed by The Insider. Which makes Up the most overrated Pixar movie of them all IMO, Plummer voices the main villain in that one.

      Another Canadian coming up next.

      Reply

      1. Btw looking at the front cover of my video – Plummer would have made a splendid Gandalf, and he was offered the role and turned it down – “I don’t know why I turned it down. I think it had to do with spending four years in New Zealand. There’s other countries I want to visit before I croak. But Ian McKellen got the role and he was fantastic in it.”

        Reply

        1. I can see Plummer in LOR. I am amazed as he pushes 90 that he is still so active….gives me hope that we still have another 5 or 6 years of Michael Caine movies.

          Reply

      2. Thanks Steve….for the heads up on Murder by Decree….I will fix that. As George Bernard Shaw said “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing”

        Reply

        1. HI BRUCE

          1 In 2017 I drew your attention to a number of small errors and although I couldn’t resist a leg pull at times I was sincerely trying to be helpful as I hate to see even minor, albeit given the scale of things unavoidable, blemishes on a site that is for the most part word perfect and crammed full of information that one will not get elsewhere particularly in relation to classic era films.

          2 I am glad to see from my records that all of the slight errors that I mentioned to you have now been rectified with the possible exception of Anne Baxter still being listed as Ty Power’s Blood and Sand co-star instead of Hayworth/Darnell. Knowing how generous you can be at times [ala Virginia Mayo in Up in Arms] I thought maybe you’d unearthed an uncredited Baxter role of which I was unaware but checking out other sites like IMDB and Wikipedia I have not been able to find any such uncredited role.

          3 On the plus side though the longstanding Mumbles error that gave him 17 one hundred million+ dollar hits .has now been amended by you correctly reducing the number to 16 [damn you!].

          Reply

          1. Hey Bob….I have fixed Blood and Sand. Back before the site was dynamic….I fixed some of these errors on the website….but not the database…..so when we went dynamic…..those errors have appeared again. But this time…they should be fixed for good. I see you noticed I fixed Mr. Brando’s page as well. Thanks again for all of the headsups.

      3. HI STEVE

        1 Christopher is maybe getting sentimental with old age over The Sound of Music. I think I’m a tougher cookie or maybe my turn’s yet to come as I’m 12 years younger than Chris!

        2 Anyway lot’s of good feedback in your post and indeed I’v got some enjoyable feedback from The Work Horse too today so a good start to the New Year.

        3 In fact I’ve been looking over my notes and see that throughout 2017 your were never unable to reply to even one of my initial posts about your videos. That’s an amazingly consistent record on your part particularly as you must have many other viewers with whom to exchange posts and I presume you have a “day job” to attend to as well. Anyway good on you.

        Reply

        1. In response to #3….Steve is the man. Looking at some of stats…when it comes to comments….I might have missed a few…..but I did have over 4,000 return comments in 2017…that is almost 11 comments a day for the entire year. I know….I will hurt myself patting myself on the back like this….lol.

          Reply

  5. I also enjoyed Remember. Not thinking there are many film scripts that feature a story about a 89 year old. But it was very well done with a good twist. I might be the last person over 30 not to see it, but I have never seen The Sound of Music. Funny that he does not like that movie.

    Reply

    1. Hey Stein….Remember was a pleasant surprise. So you don’t think Hollywood is making many films that feature an 89th year old lead?….no way…..those movies open up almost every other weekend…lol. Wow….you might be right…you might be the last hold out when it comes to The Sound of Music. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply

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