Want to know the best Esther Williams movies? How about the worst Esther Williams movies? Curious about Esther Williams box office grosses or which Esther Williams movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Esther Williams movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Esther Williams (1921-2013) was an American competitive swimmer who become one of the most popular actresses working in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1942 and 1953 she appeared in an incredible 17 $100 million (adjusted gross) box office hits. Esther Williams’ IMDb page shows 31 acting credits from 1942-1963. This page will rank 24 Esther Williams movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances and short films were not included in the rankings.
Drivel part of the page: Dan should be a happy camper….not only is this Esther Williams page one of his requests….but the next two current UMR pages will also be Dan requests. So Dan hits the trifecta….make sure you save that ticket. Since Esther Williams spent most of her career at MGM we were able to find not only her domestic box office grosses but her worldwide box office grosses. Gotta admit before putting this page together my basic knowledge of Esther Williams (I have only seen one of her movies) was….”she was the swimming lady”. After putting this page together and seeing her phenomenal box office numbers…now my thought is “goodness gracious movie audiences back in the 1940s and 1950s loved musical swimming movies”.
Esther Williams Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Esther Williams 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 Esther Williams movies by co-stars of her movies and by by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Sort Esther Williams movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Esther Williams movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Esther Williams movies by domestic yearly box office rank
- Sort Esther Williams movies by 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 Esther Williams movie received.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Esther Williams Table
- Seventeen Esther Williams movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 70.83% of her movies listed.
- An average Esther Williams movie grossed $146.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 12 of Esther Williams’s movies are rated as good movies…or 50.00% of her movies. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) is her highest rated movie while Magic Fountain (1963) is her lowest rated movie.
- Four Esther Williams movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 16.66% of her movies.
- One Esther Williams movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 4.16% of her movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 20 Esther Williams movie scored higher that average….or 83.33% of her movies. Bathing Beauty (1944) got the the highest UMR Score while Magic Fountain (1963) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Esther Williams
1. Esther Jane Williams was born in Inglewood, California, on August 8, 1921.
2. After breaking many swimming records Esther Williams was a strong contender for an Olympic Gold Medal in the 1940 Summer Olympics. When the outbreak of World War II ended that dream….she joined Billy Rose’s Aquacade. While performing at the Aquacade she was spotted by MGM scouts and signed to a MGM contract.
3. One of the clauses in Esther Williams’ MGM contract was it would be 9 months before she appeared on camera…. to allow for acting, singing, dancing, and diction lessons. Her thoughts on this: “If it took nine months for a baby to be born, I figured my ‘birth’ from Esther Williams the swimmer to Esther Williams the movie actress would not be much different.”
4. Esther Williams was not nominated for any Oscars® or Golden Globes®. She did receive the Golden Globe® for World’s Favorite Actress in 1952.
5. Esther Williams’ movie career played a major role in the promotion of competitive and synchronized swimming. It became an Olympic sport at the 1984 Olympics.
6. One tough lady. (1) Esther Williams broke her neck filming a 50 foot dive off a tower during a climactic musical number for 1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid and was in a body cast for seven months. Other swimming issues: (2) Her plaid flannel swimsuit in 1945’sThrill of a Romance was so heavy that she was dragged to the bottom of the pool, and had to unzip the suit, swimming naked to the edge of the pool to avoid drowning. (3) In another movie she nearly drowned after not being able to find the trap door in the ceiling of a tank. The walls and ceiling were painted black and the trap door blended in. Williams was pulled out only because a member of the crew realized the door was not opening. (4) Her many hours spent submerged in a studio tank resulted in ruptured eardrums numerous times.
7. Esther Williams nickname was America’s Mermaid. Her MGM nickname was Million Dollar Mermaid…probably due to the massive success her movies achieved.
8. Esther Williams was married four times….and had 3 children.
9. Esther Williams’ cumulative box office totals: Adjusted domestic box office: $3.41 billion. Adjusted worldwide box office: $5.38 billion.
10. Check out Esther Williams‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
10A. For Laurent. Some France box office information: 1944’s Bathing Beauty was one of the most popular movies of 1946 in France with admissions of 5,438,665.
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
I’ve always said, if I could look like ANYONE, it would be Esther Williams.
Hey Janet….She was lovely….while researching this page I came across numerous Esther pictures that looked very modern….it was amazing…even though the picture was taken in 1950 or so….the picture and she looked like some one took the picture on their iPhone yesterday.
Such a Beauty !! Not bad actress either!
Hey James….. without a doubt she was a beauty….and looking at her box office….she was very very popular….with 17 of her first 19 movies being $100 million hits.
See what 21st century kids miss? Attractive women swimming around, dancing and singing at the same time! With their clothes on! No guns! No drugs! No nudity or rape or killings! People speaking in complete sentences!
Hey Deb A good point. I think the closest kids will get to seeing her….is if they watch Hail, Caesar and see Scarlett Johannson playing a Williams like character.
the amazing beautiful mermaid of movies..and the acrobatics she did in water ..the bathing beauty xo
Hey Vera…. when researching this page I was amazed by her toughness….broken necks, ruptured eardrums, near death experiences while filming…and yet she kept coming back. I think I might have packed it it after the first event.
What was that famous quote? “Wet she’s a star, dry she ain’t”. Poor Esther they had to keep throwing her into water so she could maintain her popularity.
I remember reading that she sued MGM studios for using clips from her films in That’s Entertainment! (1974) without consulting her first.
I’ve seen 9 of the 24 films listed here. Many of her musicals seem kind of similar but my favorite is probably Take Me Out to the Ball Game mostly because Kelly and Sinatra were also in it.
Looking at the trivia – she’s lucky to have survived some of the musicals, whoa!
I could never remember which film featured Williams swimming with Tom and Jerry. Back in the 80s I would tape her films hoping the cartoon characters were in there somewhere and was disappointed when they weren’t, erasing the tape after (blank video tape was expensive in the early 80s). 🙂
Good work Bruce. Voted Up!
Hey Steve….thanks for checking out my latest page. Good quote on Esther Williams….it is amazing how popular her swimming movies were. Seems her lawsuit would be hard to win….as I am pretty sure MGM owned the rights to the movie…versus her…..but I could be wrong.
Tally count…..BERN1960 11, Steve 9, Hunsecker 2 and me 1……what a bad showing for me.
I can picture little Stevie trying to find that scene with Esther and Tom and Jerry….too bad the internet was not around….and a quick search would have provided the answer.
I was amazed about all the close calls she had….and she kept going back.
As always…thanks for sharing your movie knowledge.
I still don’t know which film it was. Million Dollar Mermaid?
Beaten by your mom on Esther Williams. I was surprised I got 9. I’ve already forgotten what films they were. 🙂
She tried to sue them for $1m not sure who won. Like you said it’s MGMs library of films, she just swam in them, ooh that’s cruel Steve!
Hey Steve…..Jerry got to dance with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh….and since he did such a good job…MGM allowed him and Tom to dance with Esther in Dangerous When Wet.
First gold medal for my mom….she is a happy camper. Only a million? I imagine MGM gave her a little something to make that suit go away….those movies were very successful…and could probably spare a couple of thousand for Esther.