Want to know the best Kim Novak movies? How about the worst Kim Novak movies? Curious about Kim Novak box office grosses or which Kim Novak movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Kim Novak movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Kim Novak (1933-) is an American film and television actress. Novak most famous role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)….which is considered by many to be the greatest movie ever made. Her IMDb page shows 33 acting credits from 1953-1991. This page will rank 25 Kim Novak movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Uncredited roles, bit parts, television roles and shorts were not included in the rankings.
Kim Novak 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 Kim Novak movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Kim Novak movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Kim Novak movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Kim Novak 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 Oscar® wins each Kim Novak movie received.
- Sort Kim Novak movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Stats From The Above Kim Novak Table
- Ten Kim Novak movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 40.00% of her movies listed. Picnic (1955) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Kim Novak movie grossed $90.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 15 Kim Novak movies are rated as good movies…or 60.00% of her movies. Vertigo (1957) was her highest rated movie while The White Buffalo (1977) was her lowest rated movie.
- Seven Kim Novak movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 28.00% of her movies.
- Two Kim Novak movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 8.00% of her movies.
- An “a good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 14 Kim Novak movies scored higher than that….or 56.00% of her movies. Picnic (1955) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while The White Buffalo (1977) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Kim Novak
1. Marilyn Pauline Novak was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1933.
2. Kim Novak won two scholarships to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Novak has become an well respected artist. Examples of her work can be found at her website Kim Novak Artist. Film buffs will really like the 9th painting down. It is called……Vertigo/Vortex of Delusion.
3. During the summer break in Kim Novak’s last semester of junior college, Novak went on a cross-country tour modeling for a refrigerator company at trade shows. She was “Miss Deepfreeze” in the shows.
4. Kim Novak/Miss Deepfreeze was spotted by an agent when the refrigerator tour stopped in Los Angeles. This led her to signing a movie contract with Columbia Pictures.
5. Columbia’s chief, Harry Cohn wanted (a) Novak to be the successor to Rita Hayworth and (b) wanted Novak to change her name to Kit Marlowe. Novak fought to keep her name, and the two eventually compromised on “Kim Novak”. One of Novak’s last roles was playing “Kit Marlowe” on the television show…Falcon Crest.
6. Kim Novak has been married two times. Since 1976, Kim has been happily married to Robert Malloy, a veterinarian who shares her passion for animals and nature. Kim and her husband live on a ranch in Oregon where they raise llamas and horses, and frequently go canoeing. Kim is also an accomplished artist who expresses herself in oil paintings and sculptures.
7. Kim Novak was the original choice to play Marion Wormer (the Dean’s wife) in 1978’s Animal House.
8. Kim Novak and Vertigo trivia part 1. (a) James Stewart was 49 and Novak was 24 when they made Vertigo. (b) Alfred Hitchcock thought Kim Novak was miscast in the movie. (c) Vertigo is considered the greatest movie ever made by Sight and Sound‘s movie poll. (d) Vertigo is ranked as the 79th best movie on IMDb. (e) Vertigo is ranked 30th on our UMR best reviewed movies in our database. (f) Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes’ characters never meet. (g) Novak’s character does not speak until a third of the way into the movie.
9. Kim Novak and Vertigo trivia part 2. Kim Novak went on strike during the filming of Vertigo. She was striking for more money from her home studio Columbia, who was paying her $1,250 a week even though they were receiving $250,000 for her loan-out for Vertigo and one more picture. The ploy worked and Novak got a raise.
10. Check out Kim Novak’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
I wasn’t sure this was a new page either. I didn’t see the name at the top.
Joel was a bit harsh on Miss Novak, Bruce. “if she had ever learned to act” oof. I thought she was pretty good in Vertigo.
Yikes! I’ve seen just 4 of the 25 films listed – Vertigo, Pal Joey, Bell Book and Candle and that all time classic The White Buffalo (psst saw this in the cinema, Charles Bronson as Wild Bill Hickock)
Vertigo easily tops the critics chart, as it should, one of Hitchock’s greatest but I’ve always preferred Rear Window of the four he made with Jimmy Stewart.
I still need to see Picnic and The Man With the Golden Arm.
Enjoyed the trivia. Another top movie page Bruce. Thanks for the share. Vote Up!
HI AGAIN STEVE
1 I agree with your sentiments about Kim but anyway would add that I think that it was L B Mayer who said that Oscar winning performances were prestigious icing on the cake but the primary function of a STAR was to draw people to the box office. Many of the Great Stars weren’t particularly noted for the acting skills of a Tracy, Nicholson or Olivier. In terms of stardom Kim was quoted by Quigley and other sources as being among the top 3rd to 13th stars between 1956 and 1963 and was also voted WORLDWIDE top movie star at one stage. The 9 movies that she made from becoming a star in 1955 and 1960 grossed almost $1.5 billion at the adjusted US box office and averaged amoun $165 million dollars according the WH’s table above.
2 According to the famed movie historian David Shipman those who were the very greatest of stars AND the very greatest of actors were rare and among Americans he cited Mumbles and Tracy as examples of ones who did fall into that category. However according to Trevor Howard by the time he got to act with Mr M the latter had ceased to act properly and had become a “bloody star”.
3 The kind of intelligence analysis that Mr. Shipman practiced was foreign to a Carpetbagger pontificator like Joel who also never acted and apparently was not much cop as a nightclub entertainer, his primary calling, either. Certainly he’s not in Entertainment Weekly’s Top 100 Greatest Entertainers of All Time!
… by the pricking of my thumbs…
🙂
Hey Bob…..I like Joel’s book…Rating The Movie Stars….but….I do not blindly agree with everything he and his team wrote. In this case….like Steve commented….he was indeed very harsh on her. Vertigo alone gives her a special place in movie history.
Speaking of his book….if you look at the cover…..John Wayne and Marlon Brando have two of the biggest pictures on the cover….Wayne and his The Quiet Man have a prominent spot on the front….while Brando and The Wild One have a prominent spot on the back cover. So I think he realized their star power….as he used it to see his book.
FYI….complete useless information….for the first time…I realized Dan Aykroyd is on the cover two times….once for Trading Places and once for The Blues Brothers….and he does not even have a section in the book.
HI BRUCE
1 So for today Pinocchio has become a real boy!
2 Seriously best of wishes again for tomorrow.
Hey Bob….it all went well….rough weekend but back to work today. Thanks for the positive thoughts.
Hey Steve.
1. Sorry for the confusion….I was trying to get some new pages done….and then slowly release them….but I shared the link…and BERN1960 commented on the page…and before I knew it….Kim Novak was on the trending page.
2. I agree…Joel…was very harsh on Novak…..of the 410 stars he ranked…she is coming in at 400th place…..just edging out Nelson Eddy.
3. I have seen 7 of her movies…so shockingly I ahead of you.
4. Wow…you saw The White Buffalo in theaters….I guess her entertained little Stevie…..but knowing you saw The White Buffalo, The Swarm and Meteor in theaters….it is surprising you still like movies….lol.
5. Vertigo…is the 30th best reviewed movie in our database….so it is among the greatest movies of all-time.
6. Picnic was ok…..but not a movie I plan on re-watching….but it was a huge hit. I have not seen The Man With The Golden Arm….which Frank Sinatra felt was his best performance.
Thanks for the visit, the comment and the tally count.
The late Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, once said of Kim Novak: “This girl has had five hit pictures. If you wanna bring me your wife or your aunt, we’ll do the same for them.” In her heyday, Novak was hauntingly beautiful, with a low, sensual voice and the “sort of face,” according to Life magazine, “that looks as if he rest of her body is making love.” If she had ever learned to act, she could have been a great movie star.
My Top 3 Kim Novak performances
1. Picnic – she managed to cast a few sparks with co-star William Holden
2. The Man With the Golden Arm – she was magnetic
3. Vertigo – she was very effective
GOOD DAY MR COGERSON
1 Well at least I HAD 5 hit pictures and HAD a heyday. As Mr Hackman said in Hoosiers “Most people would kill to be a God if only for a day.”
2 By the way’ Joel who? He’s not that In the Shadows character who keeps writing on your site, is he?
GOOD DAY AGAIN MR COGERSON
1 It strikes me that possibly I was too dismissive of your Mr. Hirschhorn and as you seem to drool over him I felt it would be at least courteous to you if I checked out Mr. H.
2 You may know that Sammy Davis Jr and I were lovers and that he was the Real Deal as far as nightclub and stage acts were concerned. Naturally therefore my social set didn’t have to pay good dollars to watch the small fry or Pretenders.
3 On browsing over past posts on your site I notice that some guy called Bob outed Mr. H to your viewers as a once-nightclub entertainer who never made the Big Time but vanished into the backrooms of journalism and shadowed around the fringes of movie-making co-writing film music regarding which, whilst audiences may not have been able to identify the composers, those audiences certainly would have been aware that the musical offerings were not the work of Mr .Dimitri Tiomkin who mainly for westerns collected 4 Oscars and 22 Academy Award nominations – a Real Winner
4 Some of my contemporaries have voiced concern about the decline of film music since the Golden Years of Hollywood of which I was a part and which regretfully your Mr H never was, even his hack writer career apparently not beginning until the 1960s when the Golden Years were over.
5 Even If Mr Harry Cohn could have turned his own aunt and somebody’s wife into failed nightclub singers it is questionable whether they would have thanked him for that. Anyway it’s an academic issue as Harry didn’t do losers.
Please have a nice day Mr Cogerson – EVER GORGEOUS KIM
Sorry Joel’s comments hit a nerve…..maybe if he had ever updated his book Rating the Movie Stars….he would have changed his tune on Kim Novak.
Good points.
Hey Joel….gotta agree…this assessment on Kim Novak seems a little bit harsh. Looks like you have pointed out her 3 signature performances though. Always good (even if I do not agree all the time) to see your views get out there.
Confused about this page. Is it new? I did not know there was a Kim Novak & Charles Bronson movie out there. After looking at your attached trailer I now realize why that was the case. It looks cheap and horrible. Fun page on one sexy woman.
Hey Taylor….I wrote this page on Monday…but I was hiding it in the site index. But I forgot it that I was hiding it when I shared the link with BERN1960. I was unaware of The White Buffalo too. It does look horrible. I asked Dwayne Epstein who is currently writing a book on Charles Bronson…and it seems Bronson was finishing out a movie contract by making this one. Thanks for the compliment on this page on Novak.
She was positively outstanding in Picnic. Also liked her 1960s comedies Kiss me Stupid and Boys Night Out. Surprised Vertigo is not listed first.
Hey Benjamin….Picnic was her biggest hit. Her 1960s comedies got destroyed by critics back when they were released….but I like them. Kiss Me Stupid is pretty dumb….but the cast makes it worth seeing. As for Boy’s Night Out…..any movie with James Garner is a winner to me. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
Oh boy – I watched four of the videos so far and it brought back some wonderful memories, seeing the trailers of some of my favorite, Vertigo, Strangers When We Meet, The Eddie Duchin Story and Picnic. I plan to see more trailers. THANKS FOR THE WONDERFUL MEMORIES OF THESE ACTORS AND MOVIES. YOUR SITE IS SO GREAT TO SEE AND LEARN SO MANY INTERESTING FACTS. THANK YOU.
Hey BERN1960…glad you are enjoying the new links to the trailers on these pages. Thanks for the very kind words…..even if we are related and you are required to do so…lol. Enjoy the rest of the trailers.