Want to know the best Danny Boyle movies? How about the worst Danny Boyle movies? Curious about Danny Boyle box office grosses or which Danny Boyle movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Danny Boyle movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Danny Boyle (1956-) is an Oscar® winning director, producer and writer. He is known for his work on films including Shallow Grave, Trainspotting 1 &2 , 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Yesterday. His IMDb page shows 30 directing credits since 1987. This page will rank 14 Danny Boyle movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, videos and documentaries were not included in the rankings.
Danny Boyle Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Year
Movie (Year)
Rating
S
Year Movie (Year) Rating S
2008
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
AA Best Picture Win
AA Best Director Win
2019
Yesterday (2019)
2002
28 Days Later... (2002)
2010
127 Hours (2010)
AA Best Picture Nom
Director
1996
Trainspotting (1996)
Director
2015
Steve Jobs (2015)
2025
28 Years Later (2025)
2011
Frankenstein (2011)
2004
Millions (2004)
2017
T2 Trainspotting (2017)
2007
Sunshine (2007)
1994
Shallow Grave (1994)
2000
The Beach (2000)
2013
Trance (2013)
1997
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Danny Boyle 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 by Danny Boyle movies by the stars of his movies.
- Sort Danny Boyle movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Danny Boyle movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Danny Boyle 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 Danny Boyle movie received.
- Sort Danny Boyle 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 search and sort buttons to make this page very interactive.
| CreditRank | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Review % | Oscar Nom / Win | S | UMR Score | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CreditRank | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Actual B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) | B.O. Rank by Year | Review % | Oscar Nom / Win | S | UMR Score |
| 1 | Slumdog Millionaire (2008) AA Best Picture Win AA Best Director Win |
Dev Patel | 141.30 | 231.3 | 618.4 | 17 | 69 | 10 / 08 | 99.7 | |
| 3 | Yesterday (2019) | Himesh Patel & Lily Collins |
73.30 | 94.0 | 178.2 | 37 | 81 | 00 / 00 | 87.3 | |
| 4 | 28 Days Later... (2002) | Cillian Murphy & Naomie Harris |
45.10 | 97.1 | 178.3 | 54 | 79 | 00 / 00 | 86.4 | |
| 2 | 127 Hours (2010) AA Best Picture Nom Director |
James Franco & Kate Mara |
18.30 | 29.0 | 96.2 | 119 | 87 | 06 / 00 | 85.4 | |
| 5 | Trainspotting (1996) Director |
Ewan McGregor & Ewen Bremner |
16.50 | 43.8 | 190.2 | 95 | 90 | 01 / 00 | 84.9 | |
| 6 | Steve Jobs (2015) | Michael Fassbender & Kate Winslet |
17.80 | 24.8 | 48.0 | 99 | 85 | 02 / 00 | 79.7 | |
| 8 | 28 Years Later (2025) | Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Jodie Comer |
70.40 | 70.4 | 150.0 | 31 | 73 | 00 / 00 | 79.6 | |
| 6 | Frankenstein (2011) | Benedict Cumberbatch | 0.10 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 294 | 84 | 00 / 00 | 71.3 | |
| 7 | Millions (2004) | Alex Etel & James Nesbitt |
6.60 | 13.3 | 23.7 | 152 | 76 | 00 / 00 | 66.4 | |
| 9 | T2 Trainspotting (2017) | Ewan McGregor & Ewen Bremner |
2.40 | 3.3 | 58.1 | 156 | 75 | 00 / 00 | 60.7 | |
| 10 | Sunshine (2007) | Chris Evans & Rose Byrne & Mark Stro |
3.70 | 6.3 | 54.7 | 185 | 73 | 00 / 00 | 60.5 | |
| 10 | Shallow Grave (1994) | Kerry Fox & Christopher Eccleston |
2.10 | 6.0 | 56.7 | 174 | 73 | 00 / 00 | 60.3 | |
| 13 | The Beach (2000) | Leonardo DiCaprio & Daniel York |
39.80 | 86.7 | 314.0 | 58 | 43 | 00 / 00 | 52.9 | |
| 12 | Trance (2013) | James McAvoy & Rosario Dawson |
2.30 | 3.4 | 35.1 | 161 | 68 | 00 / 00 | 49.6 | |
| 14 | A Life Less Ordinary (1997) | Cameron Diaz & Ewan McGregor |
4.40 | 11.9 | 40.1 | 146 | 47 | 00 / 00 | 14.6 |
Check out Danny Boyle’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Love his Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. I was not as impressed with Yesterday as you and your wife were. I have actually seen half of his 14 movies. Millions is an underrated movie. Slumdog Millionaire is an overrated movie.
Hey Taylor….a tally count from you….very cool. Me 12, Steve 10, you 7 and Bob 2. Thanks for sharing that information. Glad you enjoyed Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. I thought the first half of 28 Days Later was amazing….once the army got involved the movie just became a standard zombie movie. I also agree with your thinking on Slumdog. Good stuff.
I wasn’t a big fan of Slumdog Millionaire, it’s all right but it should have been better. I enjoyed Yesterday (3 stars) , there were a few twists and turns and luckily the ending wasn’t what my wife and me thought it would be.
Hey Dan. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Danny Boyle. I thought Slumdog Millionaire was fine…but like many of the recent Oscar winning Best Picture movies….I was underwhelmed by it. Looks like we had the same movie experience with Yesterday. Good stuff…..hope you are recovering from your Iceland bucket list vacation.
Frankenstein? Bruce. It wasn’t really a movie, a theater production which was filmed and shown in a selection of theaters. It’s not even available on DVD, or is it?
Anyway I’ve seen 10 of the 14 films on the chart. The one’s I’ve missed are Frankenstein, T2, Millions and Yesterday.
Favorites are – Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Trance and Slumdog Millionaire.
I wasn’t that crazy about Trainspotting, I can barely recall Shallow Grave and I remember enjoying A Life Less Ordinary but I need to watch it again.
127 Hours was hard to watch… the rabid flesh eating infected from 28 Days later weren’t hard to watch but James Franco and his pocket knife in 127 hours was, go figure. 🙂
Looking at the box office chart – Slumdog Millionaire was far and away his biggest hit.
Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!
Hey Steve. Good feedback on Mr. Danny Boyle….who will soon be a Bond director. My tally is now up to 12…as I saw Yesterday in theaters this past weekend. So…I am slightly higher than your tally….which surprises me as he somebody that hangs out in your neck of the woods pretty often. As for Frankenstein….it got one of those special showings in limited theaters here in the states….so it got the least possible box office that I could add…and for it to show up in the database….that total is 50,001 dollars.
I never got around to watching Trainspotting…but I did watch the sequel….I had to read a Wiki plot summary of the first one before watching the second one. Apparently there is a classic scene in a bathroom….that has always made me stay away from that cult classic…but one day I will check that one out.
Good to see you enjoyed A Life Less Ordinary as well. So flesh eating zombies are no problem but a true story of survival was hard to watch …..interesting……lol. Actually…I stayed away from 127 Hours for awhile myself. I am sure Bond 25 will destroyed Slumdog Millionaire at the bocx office….but for now you are 100% correct…Slumdog is easily his biggest hit. Good stuff…as always.
I have seen just two of Danny’s films, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, neither of which I liked though I admired Ewan McGregor who starred in both.
I am sorry now that I never made more of an effort in the past to see A Life Less Ordinary also starring Ewan. When it was released back in 1997 I didn’t realize what a magical star Cam Diaz was and now that I am an admirer of hers I will certainly watch that movie at the next opportunity despite its low Cogerson rating of 47% and its poor box office gross.
Despite a low output of films to date Danny is credited with an enormous 84 acting awards and 83 noms by IMDB and has a reported whopping net worth of $60 million.
On top of the 14 directorial assignments listed in the tables above Danny has directed 15 television productions. He has PRODUCED a number of projects as well, Wikipedia for example listing in that artistic category 3 cinematic movies, 1 TV movie and 1 TV short. To me Danny resembles Martin Scorsese slightly in appearance, and to my eye did so especially when Danny was younger.
Hey Bob. Thanks for checking out our Danny Boyle page. Only two seen…but both starred Ewan McGregor. I think it is beyond time to see A Life Less Ordinary….you might not love it….but it will stick with you…added bonus….a Cameron Diaz leading performance. Plus an excellent supporting cast….Delroy Lindo, Ian Holm, Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalboub and of course….Boyle’s original go to star…Ewan McGregor. Good point on the resemblance to Marty S…..I see it now after you pointed it out. Good stuff as always.
Hey Bob….my Letterboxd review of A Life Less Ordinary….which I re-watched most recently on May 13th 2016.
Why I re-watched this one? For some reason….and I know I am in the minority…I really like this movie….and felt it was time to re-visit the movie.
What is this one about? Ewan McGregor stars as a cleaning man in L.A. who takes his boss’ daughter hostage after being fired and replaced by a robot. Two “angels” who are in charge of human relationships on earth, offer some unsolicited help to bring this unlikely couple together.
Why I like it: What a great cast. Besides McGregor, Diaz, Hunter and Lindo you also get great character actors Dan Hedaya, Stanley Tucci, Ian Holm and Tony Shalhoub. All under the watchful director’s eye of Danny Boyle who later went on to direct 127 Hours and the Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. Cameron Diaz gives the best performance in the movie as the spoiled rich girl who is capable of anything. The soundtrack is another part of the movie that I like very much. A quirky movie that I never could figure out where it was going….but I enjoyed the ride.
Why people do not like it: The angels are some of the strangest angels to ever appear on movie screens. The movie does not seem to know what kind of movie it is….sometimes it is a comedy, sometimes it is a fantasy, sometimes it is a drama, sometimes it is a musical, sometimes it is a claymation movie and sometimes it is a Pulp Fiction clone. Put altogether you end up with a very bumpy movie ride. A Life Less Ordinary earned only 4.7 million in worldwide box office.
HI BRUCE Thanks for the feedback.Your personal review of Life Less Ordinary has whetted my appetite to watch that movie.
You may remember that pal of mine who liked only Archie Leach and Ole Mumbles among stars and who said Wayne would hide if the bad guys came after him in real life. Well my pal detested my Jimmy’s A Wonderful Life because angels came down to look after Stewart’s interests in particular in that one. Pal o Bob said to me “The lesson there is that as long as things turn out OK for Stewart, it doesn’t matter about the rest of us!”
I have seen 11 of these movies….with number 12 being seen tonight by WoC and myself. Review will be posted later tonight. Favorites include #14 A Life Less Ordinary (wow….me and my UMR score differ on this movie), #2 127 Hours and the first half of #3 28 Days Later….
The only ones I have not seen are the original Trainspotting and Frankenstein….I actually did not even know that movie existed before doing this page.