Want to know the best Frank Sinatra movies? How about the worst Frank Sinatra movies? Curious about Frank Sinatra’s box office grosses or which Frank Sinatra movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Frank Sinatra 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.
Talk about procrastinating! I originally got a request to do a Frank Sinatra movie page almost three years ago by Earle1670 from HubPages. Frank was bumped many times….but finally “The Chairman of the Board” has his very own UltimateMovieRankings page.
Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) was an American actor, director and of course singer. He won a Best Supporting Oscar® for his performance in From Here To Eternity. On this page we will be only looking at Sinatra’s movie career. Despite being in the shadows of his singing career…he managed to put together a pretty successful movie career. Including 20 movies that crossed the magical $100 million mark when looking at adjusted domestic box office dollars.
His IMDb page shows 65 acting credits from 1941-1987. This page will rank 46 Frank Sinatra movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system and his straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
Frank Sinatra Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Frank Sinatra 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 Frank Sinatra movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Frank Sinatra movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Frank Sinatra movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort Frank Sinatra 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 Frank Sinatra movie received.
- Sort Frank Sinatra 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Frank Sinatra Table
- Twenty-eight Frank Sinatra movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 60.86% of his movies listed. From Here to Eternity (1953) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Frank Sinatra movie grosses $132.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 26 Frank Sinatra movies are rated as good movies…or 56.52% of his movies. Manchurian Candidate (1962) is his highest rated movie while The Pride and the Passion (1957) is his lowest rated movie.
- Eighteen Frank Sinatra movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 39.13% of his movies.
- Four Frank Sinatra movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 8.69% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 32 Frank Sinatra movies scored higher that average….or 69.56% of his movies. From Here to Eternity (1953) got the the highest UMR Score while First Deadly Sin (1980) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Frank Sinatra
1. Francis Albert Sinatra was born and raised in born in Hoboken, New Jersey.
2. Frank Sinatra’s voice carried him into movies. In the 1930s and 1940s Sinatra went from a saloon singer, to a band singer, to working with musical greats Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. As he gained more notoriety in the music world he started landing cameo singing roles in movies By the mid 1940s, he was starring in blockbuster movies.
3. Frank Sinatra had many nicknames…here are the most famous: The Voice, Chairman of the Board, Ol’ Blue Eyes, Swoonatra, The Sultan of Swoon and La Voz. Frank Sinatra has an incredible 321 (and counting) soundtrack credits on IMDb and has sold over 150 million records (and counting) in the world.
4. Frank Sinatra was married four times. His first marriage was to Nancy Barbato from 1939-1951…they had 3 children (singer actress Nancy Sinatra, singer Frank Jr. and Christina Sinatra) together. His second marriage was to actress Ava Gardner 1951-1957. His third marriage was to actress Mia Farrow 1966-1968. His final marriage was to writer Barbara Marx 1976-1998 (his death).
5. After Frank Sinatra’s movies Meet Danny Wilson (1951) and Double Dynamite (1951) bombed at the box office he got the dreaded label “box office poison”. Around this time From Here To Eternity was being cast. Sinatra really wanted to play the Angela Maggio role. The producer of the movie was strongly against using Sinatra and cast Eli Wallach in the role. However when filming started Sinatra had the role. There are many theories on how Sinatra got the role….my favorite is the Hollywood legend that parts of The Godfather are based on Frank Sinatra…..the “offer he can’t refuse” part.
6. Frank Sinatra turned down or was seriously considered for the following roles: On The Waterfront (Marlon Brando part), North by Northwest (Cary Grant part), Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood part), Death Wish (Charles Bronson part), The Odd Couple (Walter Matthau part), The Graduate (Mr. Robinson), The Music Man (Robert Preston part), and Flaming Star (Elvis Presley). A part Sinatra really wanted to play but did not get was the Marlon Brando role in The Godfather.
7. Frank Sinatra did many cameo roles in his career. Blink and you might have missed him in Cannonball Run 2, The Oscar, The Road To Hong Kong, The List of Adrian Messenger, Around the World in Eighty Days, Meet Me In Las Vegas and Cast A Giant Shadow.
8. In 1963 his son was kidnapped. The kidnappers told Frank Sr. to call them from pay phones. During one call he ran out of coins, and briefly feared that it had cost him his son (the kidnappers gave him another chance). He paid the $250,000 ransom, Frank Jr. was returned, and the kidnappers were eventually caught. However, as a result of the payphone scare, Sinatra swore never to be caught without dimes again, and carried a roll of dimes with him constantly until his death.
9. Frank Sinatra was listed in Quigley Publications’ Top Ten Box Office Stars in 1956 (10th), 1957 (5th), 1958 (10th), 1959 (7th),1960 (8th), and 1962 (8th). 19 of his movies grossed over $100 million when looking at adjusted for inflation box office numbers. Check out Frank Sinatra’s movie career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
10. Three more quick facts: Frank Sinatra’s last starring role, The First Deadly Sin, was Bruce Willis‘ first ever movie appearance. When Bela Lugosi died broke….Frank Sinatra paid for his funeral. Frank Sinatra’s epitaph on his tombstone says “The Best Is Yet To Come”.
Check out Frank Sinatra‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
believe that I have seen 99% of his movies. Enjoyed them. He had a very good voice and acted well. Thanks for finally doing this one. GOOD AS ALWAYS. You can not have too many movie stars left to do – especially the famous movie stars that worked under contract years ago. THANKS AGAIN. VERY INTERESTING..
Hey Bern1960…..glad you liked this page….it sounds like you have seen many more of his movies than I have. The beauty of Hollywood is that there are so many stars to do….and although I have done a few there are still many to do.
Great!
Hey Me…..yep your Frank page is alive and well now….and yes we of course do requests….currently the request que is Irene Dunne, JK Simmons, Bob Hope, Shirley Temple and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Anybody else that you are looking for?
I am pleased Frank finally made it. Do you do other requests?
Of course!…..fire away with the requests.
“Start spreading the news…” Excellent work Bruce, all the facts and figures on Frankie, all on one page. So glad he turned down Dirty Harry. A Bela Lugosi fact I didn’t know, interesting. I did read he was angry with Godfather author Mario Puzo for the character Johnny Fontane which was obviously based on Sinatra and his mafia connections.
I’ve seen 20 of the 44 films you’ve listed, might be more I just can’t remember them all. From Here to Eternity is probably my favorite of his serious roles. Let’s see my favorite musical is… On the Town. I’m a bigger fan of Gene Kelly than Sinatra, better dancer too, wink. Wait a sec, On the Town didn’t even make the top 10 on your chart, tsk tsk. High Society had some good tunes but was inferior to The Philadelphia Story. I’m starting to ramble on here, top marks Bruce and remember ‘you did it your way!’ 🙂
Hey Steve…let’s see my Frank tally is only 10…so you double my total. I figured you would like the Bela Lugosi fact. Well all three of the Gene Kelly/Sinatra movies did pretty well…with your favorite coming in 11th place….which is pretty high.
Another great page, Cogerson.
The link to organized crime has always been there but it’s to imagine anybody else than Brando playing The Godfather…
@S�ren….I imagine at the time…some of the studio executives would have had Sinatra in the role…especially since Brando was on a 12 year box office drought when they made The Godfather. Glad you liked my latest page.
Nice history here.
Thanks Jamie…..and thanks for stopping by.