Want to know the best Greta Garbo movies? How about the worst Greta Garbo movies? Curious about Greta Garbo’s box office grosses or which Greta Garbo movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Greta Garbo movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Recently I decided to do a movie page on each person on the Top 50 Screen Legends of All-Time according to the American Film Institute. So I have now reached the 5th greatest actress of all-time Greta Garbo. I think I am a pretty knowledgeable person when it comes to the subject of movies, but I must admit that I really did not know very much about Greta Garbo (1905-1990) when I started writing this hub. Prior to writing this movie page I had seen one of her movies, Grand Hotel, and had really only heard of 3 or 4 of her movies.
After appearing in a few Swedish films, Greta Garbo received a contract from MGM and moved to the United States in 1925. Over the next 15 years, Garbo would appear in 24 movies and become one of the most famous people in the world. After appearing in 1941’s Two-Faced Woman she stopped making movies, moved to New York City and pretty much stopped appearing in public….she passed away in 1990.
Her IMDb page shows 32 acting credits from 1920-1941. This page will rank Greta Garbo movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her eight movies made in Sweden are not included in the rankings…not because I do not like Swedish films….but because the movies never got released in North America.
Greta Garbo Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Greta Garbo 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 Greta Garbo movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Greta Garbo movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Greta Garbo movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Greta Garbo 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 Greta Garbo movie received.
- Sort Greta Garbo 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.
Greta Garbo Adjusted World Wide Box Office Grosses
Possibly Interesting Facts About Greta Garbo
1. Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden. She went from a department store model to appearing in Swedish movies to signing a contract with MGM by the time she was 20. On her arrival in the United States the general consensus was MGM had made a mistake because she was “not extraordinary and could be safely disregarded”.
2. Greta Garbo’s big break occured when Monta Bell(a director) stumbled across her screen test that was accidently included in a reel of torrential rain storms that he was watching for research in his upcoming movie. Bell saw Garbo and immediately put her in his movie…1926’s Torrent.
3 Greta Garbo could not speak any English when she first arrived, that was not a problem as all of her first films were silent films. In 1930 she appeared in her first “talkie”, Anna Christie, ….the publicity for the movie was the famous line….”Garbo talks”….as the public loved her heavy Swedish voice as well as her looks.
4. Greta Garbo was nominated 4 times for a Best Actress Oscar® ….those movies were 1930’s Anna Christie, 1931’s Romance, 1936’s Camille and 1939’s Ninotchka. Garbo actually made Anna Christie twice….once in English and the other time in German….the German versus did not make the page.
5. Greta Garbo never married, never had children and lived alone. Her last years of her life were spent in absolute seclusion. She almost did marry actor and co-star John Gilbert in 1927 but left him at the alter when she got cold feet.
6. Greta Garbo was Adolph Hitler’s favorite actress. When she learned that Hitler had watched 1936’s Camille 7 times and wanted to meet her….Garbo actually considered meeting with Hitler…the catch? she wanted to bring a knife and end his life.
7. Greta Garbo wanted to keep working after 1941’s Two-Faced Women….but all the projects she was interested in making all fell apart due to financial reasons. By 1949 she had given up the thought of returning to the big screen.
8. Greta Garbo turned down these roles over the years: I Remember Mama, Airport 1975, Out of Africa, The Paradine Case, Red Dust, Sunset Boulevard, and My Cousin Rachel.
9. Greta Garbo’s nicknames were The Face, Garbo and The Swedish Sphinx. She was also very famous for being very frugal. When she passed away she left her niece over 32 million dollars.
10. Check out Greta Garbo‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
“I vont to be alone!” Her most famous quote though Garbo later claimed she never said it, it’s in all her films or variations of it. 🙂
Classy page Cogerson, lots of facts I never knew about this very private actress. Hitler was a big fan and she wasn’t flattered? 🙂
According to my database I have 10 of her films in the collection –
Anna Christie
Anna Karenina
Camille
Flesh and the Devil
Grand Hotel
Mata Hari
Mysterious Lady
Ninotchka
Queen Christina
Temptress ,The
But I only remember seeing 4, Anna Christie, Mata Hari, Grand Hotel and my favourite Ninotchka. So I still have the others to watch.
Ninotchka was remade as an MGM musical in the 1950’s starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse as Ninotchka. A big favourite of mine, a must see in widescreen.
Good work as usual Bruce and I like that photo too. You’ll have to add Mae West and Marlene Dietrich to your growing actor/actress list now. 🙂
Hey Steve….I think she said a line very close to “I want to be alone” in Grand Hotel….and as big as that movie was it seems to stuck to her the rest of her life. I am glad you liked the facts I dug up…I am fascinated about the Hitler fact….imagine the history books if she had killed Hitler.
It sounds like you have some Greta Garbo movies..lol. What was the name of the remake with Astaire? As for Dietrich and West they are on the schedule to be done…exactly I have already though Mae West and her 13 movies will share out a movie page with James Dean and her 3 movies. Thanks for the compliment and the visit.
Thanks for the information on Silk Stockings…Flora and Steve…that is one of the ones that I did not watch during by Astaire blitz of movies…but interesting that Lugosi was in the original and Lorre was in the remake…I assume the played the same roles.
HELLO – I saw Ninotchka on the Turner Classics Movies some time ago. She was a lovely looking woman. Not sure how many movies I have seen with her in them but a good movie page just the same. Some research must be hard to find on some of the older actors…good job once again.
Thanks for checking out my Garbo hub Bern1960….hopefully you picked up a few new things about Garbo…..no much of a personal life to report for her…..so sad. Thanks for the compliment.
I am quite familiar with Garbo’s life through seeing documentaries and other interviews- her public life, that is. I have heard of all of her Hollywood movies, whether I’ve seen them or not. I will confine myself to the films you discuss here. Just consider that some of these titles that make top ten lists I have seen the other version but not the Hollywood movie. Sometimes I’ve seen both. So the overall number of films of her career I’ve seen, though paltry, is higher than what I list here.
I have Flesh and the Devil taped and waiting for me to watch.
I have seen Ninotchka the most often. (Tagline: Garbo laughs. It was her last comedy as well as her first.) It is for sure my favorite as most of her films are tragedies. She was always playing tragic figures or the love interest of tragic figures.
I also love Grand Hotel. I would put that as my second favourite of her career.
As fpor the films I haven’t seen, I am most looking forward to Mata Hari and Two-Faced Woman.
Top ten box office:
I have seen four of these – #1,2, 3 and 5.
Top ten critics: I have seen three: 1,4 and 5
Top ten movie score: I have seen four of them -the top four.
Overall: I have seen few of her films so far. This has more to do with the tragic nature of several plot lines and my preference for other story lines than with availability – at least in terms of her Hollywood films. They are all available on TCM.
Besides her top four movie score films (and acknowleding that Flesh and the Devil is waiting for me), I have only seen one other film of hers from her Hollywood era: The Temptress.
Hey Flora thanks for stopping by….it was an interesting hub to write and I feel I understand her career much more, but I have to admit only two of her movies made my “must watch” list and that was Ninotchka and Mata Hari. So how many of her Swedish movies have you seen? I would have thought that they would be hard ones to find.
It looks like you are the tally champ again….as your 5 beats Steve’s 4 and my lonely one.
One of the books I read while doing the hub was The Great Garbo by Robert Payne…and he pretty much said that the movie that made her a star…Anna Christina is actually not that good as it was based on pretty bad play and Charles Bickford is especially bad in the movie.
Although he does give her credit for being the best part of the movie. As always I appreciate your comments and contributions.
The Documentary I saw of Garbo wasn’t as impressive as this page Cogerson…too bad she wasn’t ever known as Hitler’s assassin.;-))
Hey Mentalist acer….first of all Happy Belated Birthday….and thanks for such a nice compliment about my hub. Can you imagine how history would have changed if Greta Garbo would have taken out Adolph Hitler in 1930’s….it makes one’s mind spin.
Interesting page Cogerson, I have seen a couple of her movies but am not very knowledgeable about her at all. I think you did a really good job here. She was incredibly photogenic I think, great photos. It sounds like she decided to quit the screen and public life, very strange. What a shame, makes you wonder whether she might have gone on to other great roles.
Hey Jools99…thanks for checking out this hub…I imagine many people are aware of the name Greta Garbo and I am sure not many people know very much about her….she spent almost 50 years hiding from public view…that is amazing….especially the way current celebrities will call tabloids and let then know where they will be shopping and at what time.
I agree it is a shame that she did not continue to make movies….4 Oscar nominations in 24 movies is a pretty good percentage….I am sure she would have won an Oscar if she would have continued….but on the other hand by staying out of the public eye she managed to stay young forever in her movies…thanks for stopping by and commenting.