Want to know the best James Earl Jones movies? How about the worst James Earl Jones movies? Curious about James Earl Jones box office grosses or which James Earl Jones movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which James Earl Jones 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.
James Earl Jones (1931–) is an Oscar nominated American actor. Widely regarded as the one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native USA and internationally. His IMDb page shows 192 acting credits since 1952. This page will rank 56 James Earl Jones movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies not released in North American theaters were not included in the page.
James Earl Jones Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
James Earl Jones 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 James Earl Jones movies by his co-stats
- Sort James Earl Jones movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort James Earl Jones movies by co-stars of yearly box office rank or trivia if rank not available
- Sort James Earl Jones 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 James Earl Jones movie received.
- Sort James Earl Jones 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.
Steve’s James Earl Jones You Tube Video
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
James Earl Jones, the man, the voice! A worthy UMR subject! (“they’re all worthy” Bruce moans)
I’ve seen 30 of the 56 films on the chart, that’s better than I did on my video of Jones.
Favorites include – The Star Wars saga, Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, The Lion King, Robots, Judge Dredd, Dr. Strangelove and The Hunt for Red October.
I’m glad he’s reprising his role as the voice of Mufasa in the Lion King remake, who could possibly top that? Orson Welles? Vin Diesel? Chris Tucker? But it’s a crying shame they couldn’t get Jeremy Irons to voice Scar. Oh well we’ll always have the original….
Dr. Strangelove tops the critics chart and Star Wars (1977) tops the UMR chart, nice.
Good work Bruce, and thanks for the link! Vote Up!
Hey Steve…we are tied with 30 movies each in our tally counts. Just a little more than half of the movies listed here. I am right there with you and all of your favorite JEJ movies. I am also glad he is returning to The Lion King. Though I can not say I am happy seeing all of these Disney reboots coming out in such rapid fire order. Irons’ Scar is one of the best voice roles ever…..so yes it is a shame that he is not returning. Glad you like the top ranked movies. I feel your JEJ video adds lots of value to the page. Good stuff.
I did not realize that James Earl Jones had been in any silent movies.
I have seen 5 James Earl Jones movies.
Favourite James Earl Jones Movies:
Dr. Strangelove
Field of Dreams
The Hunt for Red October
Other James Earl Jones Movies I Have Seen:
Naked Gun 33 1/3
Claudine
Hey Flora..thanks for the visit, comment and tally. I have seen 4 of the 5 you have seen. Claudine is the one I missed. Not sure what you mean by “silent movies”. He looks so young in Dr. Strangelove….granted he was in his early 30s when that movie came out. Good feedback as always.
At the top of the page in the second paragraph you have the comment “Television shows, shorts, cameos and many of his silent movies were not included…”
My comment was ironic as I knew that this was likely a mistake.
Hey Flora…..now I understand. I have since fixed that error. Thanks for catching that error. Makes me wonder how many times I copied and pasted that error. I always go straight to the tables when I am looking at one of these pages…so errors like that…I easily miss. Thanks again.
Somehow I forget to include Bingo Long. It is on the page now, but not in the right ranking spot. Ran out of time and did not get the chance to run the final update on this page. So it’s spot at the top will go away when I get home from work.
Bingo Long is now in it’s correct ranking spot.
If I was in your class I would probably be summoned up to the front and told to hold my hand out for a caning because in my previous post I forgot to add the Words of Wisdom that are available in the 1983 Book of Terror [and indeed I am surprised you didn’t get there first!].
“With his resonant voice and commanding presence James Earl Jones is probably most at home in the theatre. However for generations to come it is probably as the disembodied bass voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy that Jones will be best remembered.”
NOTE Some movie historians have argued that Olivier too though effective on the screen was actually more suited to the stage.
Hey Bob….I was thinking James had a spot in Joel’s book…just had not had the chance to verify it. So thank you for sharing the wisdom of Joel. I will add in James top Joel movies tomorrow. Thanks for the return visit and the shard information. Good stuff.
With his rich deep booming vocal delivery James was ideal for Vader’s voice but as you know unlike you and Steve I am not a true fan of the to me seemingly endless, overblown franchises of the modern cinema, nor do I particularly admire voice role acting, so I currently most remember James for-
1/His role of the reclusive radical author Terence Mann in the 1989 Field of Dreams. Who can forget his retort to Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella when the latter tracks Mann down to his ‘lair’? – “Oh my God, you’re from the 60s!”
2/His portrayal of author Alex Haley in the 1979 mini-series Roots 2 [Next Generations] and particularly [me being me!] Episode VII in which he interviews the American neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell played by the Great Mumbler, who won a Primetime Emmy as “outstanding supporting actor” for that performance. If you wish to look in on their scene together please Google “U Tube Marlon Brando and James Earl Jones in Roots Next Generations.”
Indeed 1979 seemed to be “Golden Oldies” year at the Emmys because as well as the King of Method’s award Hollywood female Legend Bette Davis won the best actress Emmy for ‘Strangers: Story of a Mother and Daughter’. Indeed one newspaper headline at the time rang out “Hollywood Old Guard honored at Emmys!”
James himself is overall credited by IMDB with 24 acting awards and 26 nominations and that haul includes 3 awards and I nom for his voice roles in the Star Wars franchise. He is reputed to have a net worth of $45 million. Anyway I personally warmly welcome this new page for this wonderfully-gifted African American actor – “Voted Up!”
Hey Bob. Thanks for checking out our JEJ new page. I think Steve and mine generation were pretty much kids when Star Wars blew us away. When the second batch of movies came out, I was older and did not love them as much. Heck by the time Return of the Jedi came out. I had gone from the age of 10 for Star Wars to 16 for the end of the trilogy. I remember being disappointed with the finale. The issue with getting older…I guess.
Good mentions of some of us better roles like Roots and Field of Dreams. He had those awards and a Honorary Oscar as well. Hard to believe he is almost 90. Good feedback as always.
HI BRUCE “When I became a man I put away childish things.” I guess that leaves Steve on his own. You and I should take heart from that other quote that I have mentioned before from Aunt Rosemary Clooney and Uncle Jose Ferrer’s iconic nephew- “I want to be remembered for more than just one summer’s blockbuster.”
Of course George Lucas has now achieved that goal – as the man who helped Martin Scorsese restore One Eyed Jacks! Though I am sure that George will also continue to take pride in his view that as he said about him and his contemporaries “We have out-grossed Old Hollywood.”
Indeed your excellent massively comprehensive All Time Worldwide Grosses page shows that Star Wars 1977 and Gone with the Wind have now all but reached the stage where their global revenues in adjusted figures are as the political election analysts would say “too close to call”.
Also of course that 1st Star Wars [I refuse to call it A New Hope] is just part of a massive franchise, responsible for numerous spin-off [or rip off!] productions and products and all of which have generated their huge revenues in the highly competitive age of television etc.
In fact too the adjusted global revenues of your chart-topper Titanic alone, at over $4.2 billion, have virtually equalled the entire all-time DOMESTIC overall career gross of my Doris for whose total of 39 movies you credit with an adjusted $4.5 billion roughly. Breath-taking really! – though it is only your site with its comprehensive classic as well as modern era coverage tha enables us to be aware of such comparisons.
Hey Bob. Good quote. With the massive success and cult status….Steve will never be standing alone when it comes to Star Wars. With the exception of Solo I have seen every live action Star Wars movies in theaters. I will probably see The Rise of Skywalker later this year as well. I actually enjoyed The Last Jedi….I loved that the movie went somewhere new. That pissed off so many Star Wars fanatics….but for the first time in almost 35 years I could not predict where a new Star Wars movie was going.
I am right there with you…..I also refuse to call Star Wars…Star Wars IV: A New Hope. No matter how old I get, I will know which Star Wars movie was first and which one created all of this massive franchise.
Good comparison of Day’s career to Titanic’s global grosses. I looked at the 22 Day movies that I have worldwide grosses on….and that total comes in around 3.5 billion. That is an average of $159.09 million per movie. Thanks for the kind word and for the feedback…all….Good Stuff.
HI BRUCE
That’s another very interesting stat which means that in inflation adjusted terms even the total global grosses of 22 of my Doris’ films didn’t match the worldwide gross of Titanic.
That’s mind-boggling when one considers how Doris virtually owned the Quigley popularity polls in her heyday.