Want to know the best Richard Widmark movies? How about the worst Richard Widmark movies? Curious about Richard Widmark’s box office grosses or which Richard Widmark movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Richard Widmark 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.
This Richard Widmark page comes from a request from film historian Flora Robison. Richard Widmark (1914-2008) was an American actor who was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota. His career spanned over 50 years and included work in film, radio, stage and television. Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 and his debut on Broadway in 1943’s Kiss and Tell. His work on the stage earned him a seven-year movie contract with United Artists.
His first movie role was playing a giggling sociopath, in the classic Kiss of Death (1947). His most notorious scene found Udo happily pushing a wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs to her death. The role earned Widmark his only Oscar® nomination, and won him the Golden Globe® for most promising newcomer. After the success of Kiss of Death, he would work steadily until he retired at the age of 76 in 1992, primarily as a character lead. His stardom would peak around the time he played the U.S. prosecutor in 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg, but he would continue to act for another 30 years. His final role would be in the John Cusack movie…. True Colors.
His IMDb page shows 79 acting credits from 1947-1992. This page will rank Richard Widmark movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system and his straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
Richard Widmark Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Richard Widmark 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 Richard Widmark movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Richard Widmark movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Richard Widmark movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort Richard Widmark 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 Richard Widmark movie received.
- Sort Richard Widmark 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Richard WidmarkTable
- Fifteen Richard Widmark movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 24.59% of his movies listed. How the West Was Won (1963) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Richard Widmark movie grosses $74.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 40 Richard Widmark movies are rated as good movies…or 65.57% of his movies. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is his highest rated movie while The Swarm (1978) is his lowest rated movie.
- Fifteen Richard Widmark movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 24.59% of his movies.
- Six Richard Widmark movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.83% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR)Score is 60.00. 28 Richard Widmark movies scored higher that average….or 45.90% of his movies. How the West Was Won (1963) got the the highest UMR Score while National Lampoon’s Movie Madness (1982) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Richard Widmark
1. Richard Widmark’s daughter was married to baseball legend Sandy Koufax from 1969 to 1982.
2. Richard Widmark was married to playwright Jean Hazlewood from 1942 to her death in 1997. One of the few successful Hollywood marriages.
3. Widmark Airport is located in Green City, Missouri and was named in honor of Richard Widmark. Widmark contributed funds to the construction of the airport.
4. Richard Widmark and director Robert Totten had artistic differences during the filming of 1969’s Death of a Gunfighter. Totten was replaced by Don Siegel. When the film was completed, Siegel, saying that Totten directed more of the film than he did, refused to take screen credit for it, but Widmark didn’t want Totten’s name on it. A compromise was reached whereby the film was credited to the fictitious Alan Smithee, thereby setting a precedent for directors who, for one reason or another, did not want their name on a film they made. On IMDB, Alan Smithee has over 100 projects to his name….but the first was Death of a Gunfighter.
5. Richard Widmark made three movies with Sidney Poitier…..1950’s No Way Out, 1964’s The Long Ships and 1965’s The Bedford Incident.
6. Check out Richard Widmark‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Taking A Closer Look At Richard Widmark’s Top Five Movies
5. Kiss of Death (1947) What a start to a movie career. Victor Mature was the star of the movie, but Richard Widmark stole the show. His Tommy Udo, a fiend who delights in pushing crippled wheelchair using women down stairs, is the primary reason to see this movie. Widmark based his character on The Joker from the Batman comics. Widmark would receive an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actor (his only nomination) and would win a Golden Globe® as most promising newcomer. One of my favorite quotes about Widmark in Kiss of Death….comes from writers Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton who wrote, “one will remember that nasty little creep with the wild eyes and high-pitched laugh, neurotic to the core”. Well that nasty little creep went on to make many classic movies over the next 50 years.
4. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) Judgment at Nuremberg is a fictionalized film account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trails. Widmark played prosecuting attorney Colonel Tad Lawson and is joined by another all-star cast….Spencer Tracy (nominated Best Actor), Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell (won Oscar® for Best Actor), Judy Garland (nominated Best Supporting Actress), Montgomery Clift (nominated Best Supporting Actor), William Shatner(yep Captain Kirk), and Marlene Dietrich. Movie was nominated for 11 Oscars®, including a Best Picture nomination and 2 Oscar® wins. According to critics and audiences this is Widmark’s best movie with a 86% score. – See more at: http://cogersonmoviescore.com/richard-widmark-movies-best-to-worst.html#sthash.HQW9Chp0.dpuf
3. Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Murder on the Orient Express is based on the 1934 novel by Agatha Christie. Albert Finney stars as Hercule Poirot, who is asked by his friend Bianchi, a train company director, to investigate the murder of an American business tycoon, Mr. Ratchett aboard a train with an all-star cast of suspects. That all-star cast included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Sir John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York and Anthony Hopkins. Widmark plays the very nasty Mr. Ratchett in one of my favorite Widmark roles. Movie earned 6 Oscar® nominations, including a win for Best Supporting Actress (Ingrid Bergman) and was Widmark’s 3rd biggest box office hit.
2. The Alamo (1960) By 1945 John Wayne had decided to make a movie about the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. It took Wayne 15 years to get The Alamo to the big screen. The result was one of the biggest hits of 1961 and 7 Oscar® nominations, including one for Best Picture. Wayne originally intended that Widmark should play Davy Crockett, while Wayne himself would have taken the small role of Sam Houston so he could focus his energy on directing the picture. However, Wayne was only able to get financial backing if he played one of the main parts, so he decided to play Crockett and cast Widmark as Jim Bowie. Rumor has it that Widmark was not a happy camper about the change in his roles, as he did not really want to play Jim Bowie at all.
1. How The West Was Won (1963) Talk about a big movie….an all-star cast (Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Eli Wallach and narrated by Spencer Tracy).. 3 directors (John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall)….and 5 segments that span four generations from 1839 to 1889. This western was one of the biggest hits of the 1960s, it earned 8 Oscar® nominations, including one for Best Picture. It won three Oscars®. Widmark appears as ruthless railroad man, Mike King, who violates a treaty by building on Indian territory.
I crossed another Richard Widmark movie off of my to-see list. TCM aired a premiere of the film on Friday. The topic is not really interesting to me, but I enjoyed the movie because of Richard and Patrick McGoohan. There are only a handful of Widmark movies I have not seen.
Hey Flora….very cool. Glad you were able to see another one of Widmark movies. How many more do you need to see to be a Widmark completist? The closest I have to seeing all of his movies is Bruce Willis….he is making so maybe direct to home entertainment movies these days…that it is hard to keep up with him. Thanks for sharing this information. Good stuff!
Hi, Bruce. I see from my comment that I forgot to list the title of the film: The Moonshine War.
As for films I still need to see, there are 8 movies I am still missing: in UMR order:
Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Slattery’s Hurricane
When the Legends Die
Death of a Gunfighter
The Final Option – I’ve not heard of this one
To The Devil a Daughter
The Domino Principle
National Lampoon’s Movie Madness
My favourite Top 10 Widmark flicks in no particular order.
Down to the Sea in Ships
Destination Gobi
The Trap [aka The Baited Trap]
Time Limit –co-produced by Richard/OK 63% rated by Bruce
Bedford Incident – co-produced by Richard/high 80% Cogerson rating
The Alamo
Warlock
Pickup on South Street
The Last Wagon
Backlash
NOTES
1/ The Alamo is not a particular fave of mine for overall content but it is not in my DNA to resist any opportunity to watch two of my idols together [The Duke and Richard]. As Jim Mitchum said when he saw Wayne and Jim’s own Brother Bob filming together “It was like watching three men instead of just two!”
2/These are the movies I believe to the best of my recollection I’ve most watched since the start of the official Modern Era of the cinema [ie from 1962 onward]
The Ipcress File [1965] – Sir Maurice
Alfie [1966] – Sir Maurice
Godfather [1972] – Marlon and ”Little Al”
Absence of Malice [1981] – Newman
The Verdict [1982] – Newman
The Natural [1984] – Redford.
The Best of Times [1986] –Robin Williams/Kurt Russell
Hoosiers [aka Best Shot/1986] – Hackman
Shawshank Redemption [1994] – Morg Freeman
The American President [1995] – Mike Douglas SEE ALSO PART 2
I calculate I’ve watched the following Classic Era films [ie up to 1961/62] and probably others the most and even 20 times or more
Blue Dahlia [1946] – Laddie
The World in His Arms [1952] – Greg
Sudden Fear [1952] – Joan
Bend of the River [aka Where the River Bends 1952] – Jimmy
Shane [1953] -Laddie
Arrowhead [1953] – Chuck
Calamity Jane [1953] – Doris
The Naked Jungle [1953] –Chuck
By the Light of the Silvery Moon [1953] – Doris
Rough Company [aka The Violent Men/1954] – Glenn
Lucky Me [1954] – Doris
Johnny Guitar [1954] – Joan
The Far Country [1954] – Jimmy
Fastest Gun Alive [1956] – Glenn
3.10 to Yuma [1957] – Glenn
Sayonara [1957] – Marlon
The Big Country [1958] – Greg/Chuck
The Sheepman [1958] – Glenn
Ben Hur [1959] – Chuck
Pillow Talk [1959] – Doris
Lover Come Back [1961] – Doris
My memory in respect of those films is quite reliable because I used to keep notes and when my viewings of a movie hit the 20 mark I got all excited as that was equivalent to me of a movie today crashing Bruce’s ‘magical 100 million dollar’ barrier in adjusted domestic grosses. There would have been others but I can’t recall them and my notes are ‘gone with the wind’.
The Bob, thanks.
Glad you were interested.
Hey Bob….very cool. Good to see the movies you have watched the most. I have seen 21 of the movies you listed….being perfect in the modern movies and not too good in the classic ones. Glenn and Doris are well represented in your classic movies. I keep track of lots of stuff….but have never kept up with how many viewings. This of course got me thinking which movies have I watched the most. Breakfast Club, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 48 Hours come to mind. For recent times…I have watched Odd Thomas 6 times in the last 5 years….so Thomas is coming on strong. I might have head parts of Aladdin and Little Mermaid over a 100 times…..the benefits of 6 kids aged 30 to 9….that has been background noise for 25 plus years. Thanks again for the sharin this information. And now….time to go to work!
HI BRUCE Thanks for feedback. In Prince of Tides Nick Nolte philosophically opined that people kept lists to stop them feeling guilty about things they HAD’T done, which in my case would if true apply to avoiding feeling guilty about movies I never saw,
I forgot to mention that another movie that I have probably seen seen more that 20 times is Roadhouse (1989) – indeed I watched it again just 2 nights ago.
In Part 2 in ranked order are my top dozen fave all-time movie stars, which I have listed before on the site though sometimes I change the order very slightly as further viewings come about and/or you or Joel change my mind.[So what! Steve says under his breath – indeed probably mumbles it!]
BOB’s ALL TIME FAVE MOVIE STARS
1/Richard Widmark
2/Deanna Durbin
3/Gregory Peck
4/James Stewart
5/Alan Ladd
6/Doris Day
7/Morgan Freeman
8/John Wayne
9/Marlon Brando
10/Glenn Ford
11/Burt Lancaster
12/Joan Crawford
The true Queen of Hollywood. Dammit SHE was Myrna’s idol & best friend!
SELECTED OTHERS IN TOP 30
13/Julia Roberts
15/Sir Maurice Micklewhite
16/Sir Dirk Bogarde
18/Charlton Heston
20/Denzel Washington
26/Sandra Bullock
30/Patrick Swayze
Still Having Issues, But Now Going On A Bike Ride
Having internet issues the last 24 hours. Efforting on fixing them. Hope everybody’s weekend is going well.
1 MO Good feedback as always. In an interview that I saw recently Jack Lemmon made the same point as Widmark – that fighting “stage fright” and not discourtesy is what kept Marilyn late most times. However Larry Olivier didn’t give a d**n about the reason and her unpunctuality on the set of Prince and the Showgirl is said to have driven him crazy and he vowed never to work with her again. Also others as well don’t take the charitable view that Lemmon and Widmark did and some observers even claim that her antics on the set of the Misfits may have contributed to Gable’s death from a heart attack at the age of 59 because apparently she kept the King waiting for long periods in searing desert heat, which got him highly agitated and made him suffer
2 Interesting point about Tracy not shouting. When Lee J Cobb sought the role of The Godfather Coppola saw his rather strong style of acting as totally unsuitable. “Men of power don’t HAVE to shout.” Nevertheless not only are preferred acting styles personal taste but as the Cobb example suggests each one depends on the requirements of the role. For example Tracy standing at the bottom of the stairway quietly saying “Stella, Stella” wouldn’t have had the desired effect that the Tennessee Williams drama demanded and anyway Stella maybe wouldn’t have heard him!
3 Moreover Stanley Kowalski wasn’t the sort of guy to practice quietude and one scholarly description of Williams’ play says Stanley is a “raging sleazebag” and Kowalski is as important a literary character as any that Tracy ever played and I would be interested in seeing how anyone could interpret the beast effectively without shouting. Accordingly I think that the bald statement that “bad acting is shouting” is complete nonsense and Cobb’s highly vocal style of acting was well suited to the bigot in 12 Angry Men and to low-life gangster Johnny Friendly who was losing control in On the Waterfront whereas Don Corelone was an “aristocratic” gangster Head who was in control. So Dickie’s statement is too sweeping in my view though I loved HIS OWN style of acting and that’s why HE is my all- time favourite actor so b***** Tracy!
1 MO In the Classic Era of the cinema we had of course no multi-screen complexes with their saturation releases and there were also no video libraries or internet downloading, and cinemas depended on a constant supply of films and actors who could provide it. Richard was one such actor and between his debut in 1947 and 1962, the end of the Classic Era, starred in 37 films according to WH’s comprehensive table above. Widmark and others like him thus became a big part of the entertainment culture of those times and that is often overlooked in assessing who are the “Greats”.
2 Like Myrna Loy Richard was never top billed when stars like in his case Tracy, Cooper or The Duke were also in the movie. Where Dickie differs from Myrna though is that as well as on occasions playing second or lower fiddle he churned out a long run of stand-alone movies and as I mentioned previously Bruce lists 26 of them between 1949 and 1965. Those kinds of films and their constant reruns were the life blood of the many suburban cinemas that sprang up on virtually every street corner in the early decades of talking pictures.
HI AGAIN O BIBLICAL ONE! 1 I know that your quote about quiet acting didn’t come from Tracy himself but it’s possible that nonetheless Dickie was reflecting the attitudes of the old school of actors like Spence. I have long thought that many of those actors were to an extent stuck in the format of the noble ”a man gotta do what a man’s gotta do” prototype or the Cary Grant sophisticated image and they didn’t like a low life person like Kowalski taking central stage and therefore chose to regard as bad actors the performers who played that type of over the top loud-mouthed character
2 .Indeed I have also concluded that it is possible that the Tracys et al didn’t like those actors personally as many of them were “method” boys and from a more modern school of acting and the old actors might have felt threatened by them.
3 Until the likes of the method actors came along Tracy was regarded as one of THE great MAINSTREAM Hollywood liberal and the method actors were perceived as being to the “left” of what Spence stood for. Cagney I think didn’t like the method guys because he was a conservative though Jimmy shouting from the top of a gas tank “Made it Ma. Top of the world!” wasn’t exactly quietude so was that bad acting?
4 In short Dickie’s statement about shouting could in effect reflect a deep-seated prejudice that existed in the old school just as many liberals and “lefties” seem to be prejudiced against The Duke for being “right wing”
5 Indeed some of the things Tracy and Cagney said about Mr Mumbles for example transcended any analysis of acting and were in my view like Joel Hirschhorn’s tirade personally and probably unnecessarily offensive as I don’t know if either Spence or “the dirty rat” ever even met The Great Mumbler though Joel seemed to hit out at both “right” and “left” because he went after the Duke as well as Mr M !
6 “You give the award not to me the greatest classic actor who ever lived but to a mumbling, twitching boy!” – Edward Lionheart Theatre of Blood. Always be on the lookout for prejudice in judgements passed on ANY celebrity. Consider also for example the following extract from an article by one entertainments historian.
“When the ‘establishment’ accused Elvis Presley of being vulgar, of being deliberately sexual, they did not mean this. This was the cover for what was really meant, what was really feared, and that was that Elvis would lead to equal rights and racial integration. And not just Elvis any white person singing rock ‘n’ roll. Carl Perkins was warned to not do his show. Elvis was simply the number one guy and therefore got the most attention.”
1 MO I have always admired performers who churned out long-runs of entertaining stand-alone movies [ie movies in which individually they were THE star] and among the stars that I have in mind there are Flynn, Laddie, Elvis, Joan Crawford, Deanna Durbin, Betty Grable child star Shirley Temple and Richard. As you know Myrna and Princess Grace were often in high prestige pictures but benefit from the presence of co-stars of considerable stature.
2 ENTRIES 1-25 of your Widmark video. Best posters I thought were Time limit, foreign language one for Two Rode Together, Down to the Sea in Ships, Cheyenne Autumn, Law and Jake Wade, Warlock, Madigan, The Alamo, a very unusual one for Yellow Sky, Pickup on South Street, Bedford Incident and Kiss of Death.
3 STILLS that pleased me were (1) excellent lobby card for Two Rode Together (2) The Last Wagon (3) with The Duke in The Alamo (4) Richard in No Way Out with Sidney Poitier (5) in gaol with Mature (6) the obviously posed one with Gene Tierney and (7) How the West Was Won.
4 You and Bruce agree on 9 out of Richard’s Top 10 best Reviewed movies you preferring to round off the 10 with Broken Lance and him Twilight’s Last Gleaming. Surprisingly WH has Broken Lance way down at 34th [61%] for review. It is a western remake of the 1949 film noir House of Strangers with Edward G Robinson.
5 The 1954 hype for Broken Lance screamed out “If Spencer Tracy does not get an Oscar Hollywood is mad!” Clearly no Oscar nomination from the Work Horse though he was far kinder to House of Strangers [77%] on Robinson’s page! I thought your profile of Richard was overall easily worth a 98% rating. PS Apparently Richard has an airport named after him near his home location.
Bob, thanks for the review, rating, info, trivia, comment and comparison, always appreciated. Happy you enjoyed the pictorial presentation.
The Last Wagon is an old favorite of mine and I’m glad it did well in the ratings.
I have a classic western playing right now on TV while I’m typing this – The Last Sunset starring Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Carol Lynley. Three villains have just turned up, two of them instantly recognisable – Jack Elam and Neville Brand, two faces perfectly suited for wild west villainy. Elam would show comic flair in later comedy westerns.
One of Widmarks movies scored 10 out of 10 and that was Judgment at Nuremberg, six films scored 9 – Panic in the Streets, Night and the City, Pickup on South Street, Madigan, Broken Lance and How the West Was Won
Highest rated Widmark film at IMDB is Nuremberg, tops at Rotten Tomatoes was Pickup on South Street. How the West Was Won tops Bruce’s UMR and Box Office charts while Nuremberg is no.1 on the critics chart.
Widmark on Marilyn Monroe – “Acting just scared the hell out of her. That’s why she was always late–couldn’t get her on the set. She had trouble remembering lines. But none of it mattered. With a very few special people, something happens between the lens and the film that is pure magic. And she really had it.”
Widmark on Spencer Tracy – “What an actor should be is exemplified, for me, by him. I like the reality of his acting. It’s so honest and seems so effortless, even though what Tracy does is the result of damn hard work and extreme concentration. Actually, the ultimate in any art is never to show the wheels grinding. The essence of bad acting, for example, is shouting. Tracy never shouts. He’s the greatest movie actor there ever was.”