Want to know the best Jean Arthur movies? How about the worst Jean Arthur movies? Curious about Jean Arthur box office grosses or which Jean Arthur movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jean Arthur movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Jean Arthur (1900-1991) was an Oscar®-nominated American actress. From the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s, Jean Arthur was one of the most popular actors working. Between 1936 and 1944, she appeared in 15 $100 million (adjusted) box office hits and 5 movies that earned a Best Picture Oscar® nomination. Jean Arthur‘s IMDb page shows 97 acting credits from 1923-1966. This page will rank 26 Jean Arthur movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her silent films, her early 1930s movies, television appearances, uncredited roles and shorts were not included in the rankings.
Drivel Part: This page comes from a request by Lyle. Lyle made the request many many months ago. After lots of fruitless research we have waved the white flag. Her entire film career from 1923 to 1934 is not included in the page. Ok….1930’s Street of Chance was included….but that is the only one. Maybe some box office numbers on her early career are somewhere out there…..but we can not find it….and we give up! Every movie she made from 1935 to 1953 did make the rankings….and it does include her most famous movies. So we are apologizing up front for all the missing movies.
Jean Arthur 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 Jean Arthur movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jean Arthur movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jean Arthur movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Jean Arthur 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 Jean Arthur movie received.
- Sort Jean Arthur 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.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Jean Arthur Table
- Sixteen Jean Arthur movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 61.53% of her movies listed. Shane (1953) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Jean Arthur movie grossed $127.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 20 Jean Arthur movies are rated as good movies…or 76.92% of her movies. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) is her highest rated movie while Arizona (1940) is her lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Jean Arthur movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 42.30% of her movies.
- Five Jean Arthur movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 19.23% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 21 Jean Arthur movies scored higher that average….or 80.76% of her movies. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) got the the highest UMR Score while Arizona (1940) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jean Arthur
1. Gladys Georgianna Greene was born in Plattsburgh, New York in 1900.
2. So how did Gladys Greene become Jean Arthur? Her screen name came from two of her greatest heroes, Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc) and King Arthur.
3. Jean Arthur was cast in over twenty low budget westerns (Action Pictures) in a two-year period during the 1920s. She was paid $25 dollars per movie. Twenty movies at $25 per movie equals a total pay of $500!
4. Jean Arthur was nominated for one acting Oscar®….1943’s The More The Merrier.
5. In Danny Peary’s excellent book, Alternate Oscar®, he (Peary) makes a great case of the fact that Jean Arthur should have won the Best Actress Oscar® for 1943’s The More The Merrier.
6. Jean Arthur was married two times….but did not have children.
7. Jean Arthur’s favorite leading man?……Mr. Gary Cooper.
8. Director George Stevens famously called Jean Arthur “one of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen” while Frank Capra credited her as “my favorite actress”.
9. After retiring, Jean Arthur was teaching at Vassar at the same time that Meryl Streep was studying there in her junior year. Upon seeing the young drama major rehearsing August Strindberg’s play “Miss Julie”, Arthur remarked it was “just like watching a movie star”.
10. Check out Jean Arthur‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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I know the ones that are ranked higher than Shane are classics, but no way they are better than the greatest western of all time. Certainly I am not alone in this thinking.
Hey OU812 …..I think her Top 4 is very impressive…..in my database which is now almost 30,000 movies…those 4 movies rank in Top 150. That being said…..Shane is without a doubt one of the greatest westerns ever. Bob (one of regularly readers and commenters) probably agrees with you about Shane being ranked so low (though many would be happy with 3rd). Thanks for the visit and the comment.
Love her. Here are my Top 10 in no real order, as they are all classics. The Talk of the Town, The Devil and Miss Jones, The Whole Town’s Talking, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The More the Merrier, Easy Living, Too Many Husbands, You Can’t Take it With You, Only Angels Have Wings, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
Hey J.J……glad another Jean Arthur fan found this page. I have seen and liked 7 of your Top 10 movies. I want to see Easy Living. I do not know much about Too Many Husbands. The other one I have not seen is the John Ford directed The Whole Towns Talking….but with Arthur, Ford and Edward G. Robinson, that one seems interesting too. Thanks for the comment and the visit.
I have always liked her. I can’t not believe she was 53 when she made Shane and then retired. I have seen 10 of her movies. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Hey Bern1960….thanks for the visit and the tally count (10). That so far is the best total…..so good for Canada. As your total barely beats me (USA) and Laurent (France) by one movie. Thanks for the nice words.
I am disappointed in you Mr. Cogerson. Giving up on research. Not sure if I will even bother to read this table since it is so far from being done. I am how can I take these rankings serious if her The Poor Nut and Flying Luck are not included? I am of course joking, I would have given up a very long time ago. As for the two movies never even heard of them before a IMDb search on Jean Arthur.
As for Arthur, she is a pleasure to watch in movies. One of the most natural actresses ever. Love her voice. Another winning page from the Ultimate Movie Rankings team.
Hey Stein….sorry to disappoint you….but I did try my best. I realize how disappointing it is to not find The Poor Nut and Flying Luck on the page…especially when lesser known Arthur movies like Shane made the page…lol.
Glad you mentioned her voice…..her voice was originally thought to be a problem for her….but luckily the movie going public liked and responded to it. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
Hi
I thought I was losing my mind because I could have swore you done Jean Arthur before. But then i remembered it was George Stevens you had done. I think one of the reasons she isn’t remembered so much today is her aversion to the whole movie hype. She was a very private person and also surprisingly for an actress, very shy. She was due to appear in Born Yesterday on Broadway and pulled out at the last minute. Julie Holiday got the part and became a star.
I think she’ll be best remembered for her role in Shane. I can’t believe that she was in her 50’s then. She looked much younger.
She was one of the great comedians of Hollywood’s golden years. I recently seen The More The Merrier where she was really good. Whether she was better than Jennifer Jones for Song of Bernadette is a matter of opinion. Nevertheless she has left a great body of work.
Hey Chris….well in fairness Shane has made a few UMR pages. Our George Stevens page, our top western page and our Alan Ladd page. So I can easily see you thinking we had Jean Arthur page.
I had not heard about her shyness before I finally did this page. That goes as the opposite of so many of her roles. Sounds like she and Paul Muni needed to hang out together when they were not making movies.
I am sure that shyness had a lot to do with her retiring so early. But as you say, she left behind so many great roles. Interesting about her and Born Yesterday. As always, great comment. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.