Want to know the best Maureen O’Sullivan movies? How about the worst Maureen O’Sullivan movies? Curious about Maureen O’Sullivan box office grosses or which Maureen O’Sullivan movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Maureen O’Sullivan movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Maureen O’Sullivan (1911-1998) was an Irish-American actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Maureen O’Sullivan’s IMDb page shows 97 acting credits from 1930-1994 This page will rank 50 Maureen O’Sullivan movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances were not included in the rankings. Sadly, I was unable to find box office information on 11 of her movies made from the early 1930s….so they were also not included in the massive table below.
Drivel Part: Gotta admit..I have always gotten Maureen O’Sullivan and Margaret Sullavan mixed up. I knew one of them was Jane in the Tarzan movies (Maureen), I knew one of them was from my hometown of Norfolk, Va (Margaret), I knew one of them was Mia Farrow’s mom (Maureen), I knew one of them was married to Henry Fonda (Margaret)….well maybe after doing this UMR page on Maureen O’Sullivan…I will be able to keep the two Sullys separate in my head. This page comes from a request by one of our most recent commenters, John.
Maureen O’Sullivan 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 Maureen O’Sullivan movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan 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 Maureen O’Sullivan movie received.
- Sort Maureen O’Sullivan 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 Maureen O’Sullivan Table
- Fifteen Maureen O’Sullivan movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 30.00% of her movies listed. A Day At The Races (1937) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Maureen O’Sullivan movie grossed $81.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 32 of Maureen O’Sullivan’s movies are rated as good movies…or 64.00% of her movies. The Thin Man (1934) is her highest rated movie while The Phynx (1970) is her lowest rated movie.
- Seven Maureen O’Sullivan movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 14.00% of her movies.
- Two Maureen O’Sullivan movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 2.00% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 28 Maureen O’Sullivan movies scored higher that average….or 56.00% of her movies. A Day At The Races (1937) got the the highest UMR Score while The Phynx (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Maureen O’Sullivan
1. Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1911.
2. Maureen O’Sullivan’s film career began when she met motion picture director Frank Borzage, who was doing location filming on Song o’ My Heart. She got a small part in that movie and returned with Borzage to Hollywood to complete the movie….and the rest is history.
3. Maureen O’Sullivan was never nominated for an Oscar® or a Golden Globe® in her entire 60 plus year career.
4. Maureen O’Sullivan is considered to be Ireland’s first film star.
5. Maureen O’Sullivan despised working with the chimpanzee Cheetah during the filming of the Tarzan movies at MGM.
6. Maureen O’Sullivan was for awhile Frank Sinatra’s mother-in-law.
7. Maureen O’Sullivan was married two times and had seven children. Her first marriage was to Oscar®-winning writer John Farrow. They were married from 1936 until his death in 1963 they had 7 children together.
8. Maureen O’Sullivan’s cumulative box office totals: Adjusted domestic box office: $4.07 billion. 19 Oscar® nominations all her movies in all categories. 4 Oscar® wins all her movies in all categories.
Check out Maureen O’Sullivan‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globe® is a registered trademark.
Not enough stats for you? Well here are Adjusted Worldwide Grosses On 22 Maureen O’Sullivan Movies (in millions)
- A Yank In Oxford (1938) $341.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) $315.40 million adjusted worldwide box office
- David Copperfield (1935) $307.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan The Ape Man (1932) $304.40 million adjusted worldwide box office
- A Day At The Races (1937) $298.80 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942) $280.00 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tugboat Annie (1933) $268.70 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Crowd Roars (1938) $254.00 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan Finds A Son (1939) $251.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) $245.70 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan Escapes (1936) $241.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Tarzan And His Mate (1934) $233.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Anna Karenina (1935) $230.80 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Emperor’s Candlesticks (1937) $173.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Thin Man (1934) $159.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Pride and Prejudice (1940) $159.10 million adjusted worldwide box office
- West Point Of The Air (1935) $131.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Big Clock (1948) $120.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Where Danger Lives (1950) $65.20 million adjusted worldwide box office
- The Tall T (1957) $52.30 million adjusted worldwide box office
- My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937) $45.90 million adjusted worldwide box office
- Payment Deferred (1932) $33.50 million adjusted worldwide box office
1 Until this new page arrived I had almost forgotten about Maureen but my interest has been rekindled for the following reasons:
(1) In my opinion Maureen was the definitive and most lovely Jane.
(2) The last movie I can remember seeing her in was Bud Boetticher’s The Tall T in 1957 where she was Randolph Scott’s love interest and I thought they made a good team, Maureen being nearer Randolph’s age than many of his leading ladies in westerns
(3) In Mo’s second film Song of My Heart (1930) she was the leading lady of John McCormack who is my most favourite singer of all time – I have around 200 of his recordings on my I Pod including Irish songs, English Art Songs, operatic renditions and German Leider numbers. The British Broadcasting Company ranks him as the 16th greatest tenor of all time.
(4) McCormack made only 3 films – cameos in Hank Fonda’s Wings of the Morning (1937) &
Welles’ Citizen Kane and the lead in Song of My Heart. I was naturally interested in it’s box office performance and was delighted to see that it has a Cogerson adjusted domestic gross of around $155 million which I consider good for a film featuring a man who was not a movie star.
(5) According to Wikipedia two of Mario Lanza’s movies Toast of New Orleans and That Midnight Kiss were profitable and COMBINED they had an adjusted domestic gross** of little more than that of Song of My Heart on its own.
**$170 mil, which figure is consistent with the $83 mil accorded to Toast of New Orleans in Bruce’s 100 greatest musicals chart.
2 So through Maureen Bruce has provided a to me important piece of information from a source that I never could have initially expected it !
BOB
Hey Bob….glad I stumbled on to the box office Song of my Heart…for awhile I thought it was going to be one of the missing movies…but a late discovery save the day….as I found a list that showed it on an all time box office hit list in 1934…..a list put together by our buddies at Quigleys. Though I do admit I am unaware of McCormack….but his 3 movies are impressive.
I agree with you that she was the best Jane. As for the Tall T…I read that was her favorite later movie…so it is now on my list of movies to watch. I figured all the Ireland stuff would catch your attention…lol. It looks like McCormack should have made more movies. Thanks for the information on him….and thanks for the visit and the comment.
HI BRUCE:
1 Good research on little Mo.
2 The official reason given by historians for McCormack’s failure to make more movies is that he was a poor actor. I always thought that ironic because Lanza was no singing Bud or Larry Olivier. When the talkies arrived Mc was in his 40s and like most of those tenors seemed to do he had grown quite rotund – so maybe that was the determining factor as well as possibly the fact that by the 1930s his voice was well passed its prime which is regarded as having been in the 1910-1922 period.
3 But thanks for the interest in my singing idol. I see that in fact two McCormack videos are listed among Steve’s in that link that you gave me.
BOB
Hey Bob….thanks for the further information on one of your favorites. I will have to ask my mom if she knows him…..she is a huge Lanza fan….and really liked his movies….so McCormack might be somebody she likes as well. Glad you found some of his videos on Steve’s link.
FYI…was doing some research on my new WB ledger information…..a newly updated Bette Davis page is coming soon with 40 or more of her movies with worldwide box office. As always thanks for the comment and visit.
Nice job. Glad to see a new page seems like it has been ages since something new. Funny about the confusion on the two “Sullys”. I did not realize she was in Peggy Sue Got Married. Good stuff here.
Hey Stein….well maybe my Sullivan/Sullavan problem will finally be solved….as I now have a O’Sullivan page. Yep Peggy Sue Got Married had an O’Sullivan appearance….it was pretty small….but she is there. Thanks for checking out our latest page.
The greatest Jane ever. Seen all of her Tarzan movies many times. I watched them as a child, a teen and as an adult. Still entertaining and the first two Tarzan movies are the best. Blowing away the most recent one that was just in theaters. Really enjoyed this page.
Hey Timothy….glad to know that you really enjoyed the Tarzan movies. I have recently been re-visiting many Tarzan movie pages….and I agree with you 100%….she was easily the best Jane. I need to update my Tarzan page….especially with the new movie about to reach DVD. Thanks for the comment and the visit.
Nice job. A sweet lady. I don’t think she’s ever been a Star of the Month on TCM, has she?
Hey Top Billed….thank you. Not sure if she has been a Star of the Month….but she would be a good one for sure. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi
I always liked Maureen O’Sullivan. She was very good in character parts like The Barrets of Wimpole Street and David Copperfield and of course Tarzan movies, she was the perfect Jane. Although they might have hindered her career as I could never understand why she went further than she did. She would have made the perfect Cathy in Wuthering Heights.
But she married and seemed happy having a big family and putting her career on the back burner. She was brilliant in Hannah and her Sisters.
I know what you mean about getting her mixed up with Margaret Sullivan, who if you ever investigate, was an incredibly talented actress.
Hey Chris….thanks for the comment and visit to our latest page. I agree she was the perfect Jane….though my Sullivan viewing has only gotten me to see a couple of her non-Tarzan movies. From what I read…Irving Thalberg had identified her as the next great MGM star and had some plans to get her there…..but his untimely passing pretty much ruined those plans. I will have to re-watch Hannah and Her Sisters again….and focus on her performance. Glad to know I am not the only one to get them mixed up…lol.