John Wayne Movies

Jump To John Wayne Links: 1. Box Office 2. Oscar Movies 3. Reviews 4. Trailers 5. Trivia 6. UMR Table

John Wayne made 88 movies before becoming a star in 1939’s Stagecoach. From Stagecoach to 1976’s The Shootist, Wayne made another 82 movies. That is a grand total of 170 movies in his career. John Wayne was the first movie star that I became aware of as a child. I still remember the shock of watching him die in The Alamo (my older brother had told me he was going to survive…he obviously lied to me). For nearly forty years, Wayne was one of the most popular stars making movies.

John Wayne’s IMDb page shows 180 acting credits from 1926-1976.  The following table only lists about half of John Wayne’s movies.  Cameos, television appearances, and almost all of his B westerns from the 1930s were not included in the rankings.  His remaining 94 movies are ranked by 6 different columns of sortable information.

Dean Martin, Walter Brennan & John Wayne in 1959's Rio Bravo
Dean Martin, Walter Brennan & John Wayne in 1959’s Rio Bravo

John Wayne Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

John Wayne 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.

  • If movie title is a blue, then there is a John Wayne movie trailer attached to the page link
  • Sort John Wayne movies by co-stars or in some cases directors
  • Sort John Wayne movies by adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort John Wayne movies by box office rank in the year of release
  • Sort John Wayne movies by how the movie was 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 John Wayne movie received.
  • Sort John Wayne 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.
  • Use the search and sort buttons to make this table very interactive.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above John Wayne Table

1.  51 John Wayne movies crossed the magical $100 million mark.  That is a percentage of 54.26% of his movies listed.  His top domestic box office hit was The Longest Day (1963).

2.  An average John Wayne movie grosses $124.30 million in adjusted box office gross.

3.  Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  55 John Wayne movies are rated as good movies…or 65.47% of his movies.  His highest rated movie is 1959’s Rio Bravo.  His lowest rated movie is The Conqueror (1956).

4.  24 John Wayne movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 28.23% of his movies.

5.  9 John Wayne movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 10.71% of his movies.

6.  A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00 or higher.  61 John Wayne movies scored higher that average….or 71.76% of his movies.  True Grit (1969) got the highest UMR Score.  Brannigan (1975) got the lowest UMR Score.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

Jump To John Wayne Links: 1. Box Office 2. Oscar Movies 3. Reviews 4. Trailers 5. Trivia 6. UMR Table

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284 thoughts on “John Wayne Movies

  1. Just ran a report that looked at the top box office stars for the years of 1950 to 1969….here were the results”

    #1 John Wayne $6.13 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #2 Dean Martin $5.57 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #3 James Stewart $5.42 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #4 Charlton Heston $5.38 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #5 Tony Curtis $5.23 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #6 Frank Sinatra $5.01 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #7 Rock Hudson $4.77 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #8 Jerry Lewis $4.62 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #9 William Holden $4.53 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #10 Burt Lancaster $4.51 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #11 Doris Day $4.50 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #12 Elizabeth Taylor $4.44 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #13 Gregory Peck $4.21 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #14 Deborah Kerr $3.96 billion in adjusted domestic box office
    #15 Paul Newman $3.95 billion in adjusted domestic box office

    1. HI BRUCE Anyone interested in these kinds of summaries would benefit from reading your highly comprehensive decade-by-decade summaries which not only highlight box office achievements but other kinds of status as well as reflected in your UMR ratings and Audience/critics tables.

      Those pages also give average box office as well as total box office, which help put in sensible context the commercial performance of those stars who do not make as many movies as others.

      My Babs Streisand for example made only 19 movies grossing around $3.6 billion in adjusted dollars but you take the trouble of highlighting on her page that she was [as you said of Dino] “a beast at the box office”! because her average per movie is one of the highest with $190 million per movie almost.

      However whilst of course box office is not the only factor you rightly have taken into account, nevertheless though Chuck tops your 1950s box office table he is absent from your other ones and didn’t even make your list of Top 100 Movie Stars of all time or your 1950-2010 male Legends list. How for example can someone like Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett, fine actresses though they are, be on a list of 100 and Chuck not on that list?

      Certainly that seems to ME anomalous given his gigantic box office record. Please note though that I am not complaining because –

      1/I have only ever seen one “all-time greats” ranking list from ANY source that mentioned Chuck.

      2/ those among my idols that I would have expected to do well have in most cases been given their due one way or another in your tables. For example in the aforementioned 1950s decade one Jimmy Stewart is excellently placed in all of them whilst Brando not only tops 2 of the 3 tables but his average box office is 7th overall for that decade.

      3/your tables overall definitely give a more measured and scientific picture of the status of stars down the decades than the rather bland broad-brushed Quigley polls and indeed I have never seen surveys to match YOURS for factual detail and a dazzling amount of content.

      However I am sure that Steve like me would be very interested to learn why Chuck Heston has by and large got no “Cogerson love” despite his great contribution to film making and his massive iconic persona. So perhaps you could let us have your thoughts on the subject and it will then hopefully be a case of as Nelson Eddy Sang to his Jeanette in Naughty Marietta –

      “Ah sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found thee.
      At last I know the secret of it all.”

      1. Hey Bob.
        1. Thanks for checking out this mini-list. It was fun actually looking through the database to find this stats….seems I rarely have time to do that anymore. WoC has created one “helluva” database.
        2. As for Chuck….I am sure….if I were to do that activity again (naming the Top Stars) Heston might sneak in….it is hard to remember the reason for my exclusion of him….granted…of the 50….25 were already named by AFI…..so that only left me 25 spots.
        3. I think Chuck fell into “no mans land”….as his career started when the greats were still working…(Bogie, Cooper, Gable, Grant) so he lost out to them with AFI….and then time swept him under the rug for the 1950 to 2010 range.
        4. I think the final thing, I held against him….was the top of his movie career is awesome….but….it quickly descends into lots of “not so great” movies.
        5. Pretty sure he was one of the last ones to get cut….and maybe the next time he will make the cut.
        6. Thanks for the kind words about our decades table….I still never got around to doing a 2000s page…and now we are almost to a 2010s page…as there are only 14 months left in that 10 year span….I fear that page will be loaded with superhero stars.
        Good feedback as always.

  2. Bruce, call me old fashioned but I prefer the original ‘wider’ chart. I appreciate you have to move with the times and adjust the charts for mobile users. The charts on this page take up almost a third of screen space, I’m sure they were wider a year ago.

    94 John Wayne films ranked and rated not bad at all. Amazingly my John Wayne video has even more – 100 films ranked and rated. No I didn’t make up some fake western titles and posters to take it up to 100. Hmm I wonder if anyone would have noticed if I did? Bob maybe?

    1. Hey Steve…..we will always keep the “big table”…..I personally like it…..but I am old….and generally always use my desktop computer…..but desktop usage is dropping like a brick in water…lol. WoC is actually working on something new….apparently it is going to drastically change the website again. Not sure when that will be rolled out…..but it will require every single page to be updated…..only this time the program will do it. Should be interesting.

      Yep….one of the few times you have me topped in movies…..but I only found box office numbers on a handful of his 1930s B movies….I think….we finally have all his movies from Stagecoach to The Shootist. I am sure you could have added in one fake B western and gotten away with it….for example…..two of these Wayne movies are real….and one is fake…..which one is fake

      Rainbow Valley
      Delta Range
      Paradise Canyon

  3. Hi Bruce am no good on tablet but with everybody writing about the duke I couldn’t take a back seat so I’m just registering my support for your new layout. It gives us the best of both worlds. For a stats overview we still have the old multi column table but if we wish to zone in on a particular aspect without having to wade through too much info we simply bring up the separate link concerned.

    1. Hey Bob Roy…..hope your two weeks in France is going well…..sorry about Roger….cool that you are in France right now….they have to be happy about the World Cup…..glad you see why we have to change…..but know we are keeping the multi column table. Back in the day….we used to brag….(1) No ads and (2) All on ONE page…..well both of those are now gone. Changing times indeed. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

      1. Hi Bruce

        Feel good factor enormous here after World Cup win

        I wa sorry Roger didn’t make it no 21 in grand slams. However I keep in mind that unlike my screen idol the duke roger is my hero in the real world-and roger can’t win every duel he’s in

        “The names david. That’s why we’re here give those b******s on the committee the names. Don’t confuse this with one of the movies you direct David. You have a family to support. Did you ever see cooper having to pay a medical bill up there on the screen”. Sam Wanamaker to deniro in McCarthyite movie guilty by suspicion 1991

        Thanks for your good wishes as u can see I am keeping an eye on site

  4. I understand your reasoning behind making this change. Even though I prefer a large screen and never am online on a mobile phone, lots of people are addicted to them.

    I am thrilled, however, that the original large tables will remain and that they will be on the main page of each artist. I prefer looking at everything at once.

    As you know, I am not a John Wayne fan, but my Wayne total has gone way up over the years because I try to watch famous titles at least once (with the exception of The Godfather). My current total films seen is 40 movies. Forty out of 94 is quite a high total for me.

    My top 5 John Wayne films:

    How The West Was Won
    They Were Expendable
    The Quiet Man
    The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
    The Alamo

    1. Hey Flora
      1. I am right there with you about the large screen….sometimes my kids seem confused about why there is a big screen on desk…..lol. Younger people are so mobile friendly…they do not even think about sitting in front of a computer screen….unless they are doing a research paper….lol.
      2. Yep…we will always keep the big tables…..no matter how much mobile takes over.
      3. 40 is amazing….not too far behind by total of 61…….and I have been watching his movies all of my life.
      4. I like your Top 5….The Quiet Man is my all-time favorite Wayne movie.
      Awesome feedback.

  5. lots of duplications popping up and increasing. green beret, Alamo, comancheros, big jake, blood alley. I started looking for a way to re analyse your data. I felt sometimes a movie was rated too low by umr usually, for box office like the conversation , I love your reviews but sometimes they too are lower than I like. I took your numbers for each on your top 100 actors. I added umr and review. if a movie had a total of 159 or higher (really 160 but I round up) and had a nom listed. then I counted it . I was delighted to find the number of movies this formula produced listed the top 25 acrtors exactly as I thought they should be. since I emphasize their top 20 movies rather than averaging in lesser works. while I was doing this I noticed an increasing number of duplications. this might be related to your concern that WoC letting some things automatically update may be causing difficulties. or some other cause you may like to address. I love UMR and these duplications make adding up box office difficult. several other greats had same problem. it registered when bob noticed a brando duplication that I should mention this. you are doing great, yea UMR, yea Cogerson, yea WoC, I hope you had a great fathers day weekend and a well deserved rest.

    1. Hey bob cox. The duplicates are actors that directed movies. WoC has not had a chance to change the “code” and only list a movie once. I have manually fixed numerous pages…but every time the website updates it puts the duplicate movies back on the table. This weekend should be a lot less stressful and she hopefully will fix the issue.

      Yep….I have fixed the Brando page three times now…..I will add the Wayne page to fix as well. Interesting way to use UMR……like hearing people using the stats to create new formulas. Once again sorry for all the duplicates. WoC job keeps getting in the way of UMR work…lol.

      1. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
        Mrs Cogerson , who I lovingingly call WoC, as I hear she prefers.
        Bruce , how did you find and keep such a great lady?

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