Want to know the best Ron Howard movies? How about the worst Ron Howard movies? Curious about Ron Howard’s box office grosses or which Ron Howard movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Ron Howard 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.
For over 60 years Ron Howard has had one of the greatest entertainment careers ever. He has had great success on television and in movies as both an actor and as a director. I have been fascinated by his career since the mid 1970s. I remember coming home from school everyday and watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show and on Tuesday nights at 8 o’clock I would watch a new episode of Happy Days. Of course both shows starred Ron Howard. Howard played Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith show from 1960-1968 and he played Richie Cunningham on Happy Days from 1974-1984.
As a movie actor, Ron Howard appeared in 11 motion pictures from 1959 -1979. In 1976 he starred in Roger Corman’s Eat My Dust. Eat My Dust had a budget of $300,000 and returned a profit of over 5.2 million dollars. After that success, Corman wanted to make another movie with Howard. Howard only agreed to make 1977’s Grand Theft Auto if he was allowed to direct the film. So at the age of 23 Ron Howard started his directing career. Once he caught the directing bug, Howard decided he wanted to spend the rest of his career behind the camera rather than in front of the camera.
Over the next five years he finished his role on the Happy Days series and directed numerous tv movies. His most notable tv movie that he directed was 1980’s Skyward starring the legendary Bette Davis. In 1982 he got his second chance to direct a movie for the big screen. Night Shift became a hit and Howard’s directing career never looked back.
His IMDb page shows over 134 acting and directing credits since 1956. This page will rank Ron Howard movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances and video shorts were not included in the rankings.
Ron Howard Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Ron Howard 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 Ron Howard movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Ron Howard movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Ron Howard movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Ron Howard 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 Ron Howard movie received.
- Sort Ron Howard 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.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Ron Howard
1. Let’s say you decide to watch all of Ron Howard’s Happy Days and The Andy Griffith Show episodes in one sitting…..it will only take you a 192 hours or 8 days non-stop to watch all 380 episodes.
2. Ron Howard uses his family members in all most of his movies. You can usually spot his father Rance Howard and brother Clint very easily. Spotting his wife, Cheryl, is a little harder but she is there too.
3. Talk about bad timing…..on the morning the Oscar® nominations came out for the 1995 movies….Apollo 13 received 9 nominations but no nomination for Howard as Best Director. Within hours of the announcements he was back on the set of his current movie, Ransom starring Mel Gibson…..Meanwhile Gibson arrived on set having just receiving the news that he got numerous Oscar® nominations for Braveheart…including his surprise nomination for Best Director.
4. Ron Howard has received two acting Golden Globe® nominations.…he won Best Actor in a comedy series for the 1978 season of Happy Days… he was also nominated as Best Supporting Actor in 1976 for The Shootist.
5. Ron Howard and business partner Brian Glazer formed Imagine Entertainment. Imagine Entertainment has produced such movies as Friday Night Lights and 8 Mile. Imagine also produced the television shows…..24, Felicity, Arrested Development and my daughter’s favorite show…Curious George.
6. Ron Howard has been married one time in his life. In 1975 he wed his high-school sweetheart, Cheryl Alley. They have four children, oldest daughter Bryce, twin daughters Jocelyn and Paige and son Reed. His daughter’s middle names indicate where they were conceived. Bryce was conceived in Dallas, Texas so her full name is Bryce Dallas Howard. While the twins were conceived at the Carlyle Hotel…so they are Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard.
7. Ron Howard attended high school with actress Rene Russo. They later would make the movie Ransom together.
8. Ron Howard and Tom Hanks have been working together for almost 30 years. The first time they worked together was when Hanks appeared on Happy Days in 1982. They have made 4 movies together. Those 4 movies are Splash, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.
9. When casting Willow, Ron Howard gave Gavan O’Herlihy the part of Airk Thaughbaer. Gavan played Ron Howard’s older brother Chuck on the first season of Happy Days. Chuck Cunningham(or the missing Cunningham) was never mentioned again after season one…….but at least Ron did not forgot his older brother.
10. Check out Ron Howard‘ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time
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Just wanted to take a minute and list some of the television shows that Ron Howard has appeared on during his career. Checking out the names of the shows he appeared on, is like reading an encyclopedia of television history. Twilight Zone (1959), Dennis the Menace (1959-1960), The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1961), Dr. Kildare (1964), The Fugitive (1964), The Big Valley (1965), Gomer Pyle (1966), I, Spy (1966), Mayberry, R.F.D. (1968), Gunsmoke (1969), Lassie (1970), M.A.S.H. (1973), Happy Days (1974-1984), The Waltons (1974), Laverne and Shirley (1976-1979) and Arrested Development (2003-2006, 2013).
Hey Bruce, I’ve spotted Ron’s dad Rance in a few films most recently as a priest in the film Angels & Demons. I don’t think he was in Frost/ Nixon. I don’t remember seeing him in that one.
Hey Steve…he is in Frost/Nixon…he plays Ollie….Rance was most recently in the Dilemma…he played Jennifer Connelly’s father in that one. Looking at IMDB…Rance has appeared in 16 of Ron’s 21 movies….Rance also has a credit on Happy Days as well….actually looking at Rance’s career…he has 243 credits….4 in post production and 4 in pre-production…they man has been busy.
Thanks for the info, yep Rance has been busy. I can’t remember seeing Clint in Frost/ Nixon either and I watched it again recently, my memory is like a sieve.
Hey Steve….Clint was in there as well…he played Lloyd Davis in Frost/Nixon….Clint has been very busy as well with 202 screen credits so far….meanwhile Ron’s wife Cheryl is the slacker of the bunch…lol…as she only has 14 screen credits to her name…but 11 of them are Ron Howard movies.
Great Page! I think I’ve only seen him act in one movie, but he is an amazing director. What’s he working on next?
Hey Alecia he wanted to do Stephen King’s The Dark Tower….it was going to be a Lord of the Rings type of trilogy and television show….but financing fell through….which I found amazing considering how much money could have been made…..now he has two projects in pre-production as director….Under the Banner of Heaven and Rush…no idea what Banner of Heaven is about…but Rush is about a race driver surviving a horrible crash.
On the producer side of things….he produced the latest Clint Eastwood/Leonardo DiCaprio movie J. Edgar..which is one of the contenders going to Oscar season. Thanks for the comments.
If it wasn’t for the fantastic questions my answers couldn’t have been so magnificent! 🙂
BTW…I know a cheap, reliable magnet manufacturer! Kinda. Sorta.
I appreciate the help Sunshine625…..cause if I can lower the price of the magnets…then I could maybe lower the shipping expenses…and maybe the time for arrival could get under a year at least….lol.
Great page, I am right there with you. Ron Howard is one of the greatest entertainers out there and he has been out there longer than most current celebrities have been born. I think when he is done…he will have had 75 or more years as a celebrity. I really enjoyed reading this article. Voted up and awesome.
Hey hinton1966….welcome aboard the Ron Howard fan club band wagon…he should write a book and think of the subjects he could write about….acting with John Wayne, James Stewart, Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Johnny Cash, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Andy Griffith, and The Fonz….directing Jason Robards, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, Michael Keaton, Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, and the list goes on and on….just in this list…I have done hubs on 7 of the actors already….thanks for the compliment.
Good Morning – I agree that Ron Howard has done such a great job as actor and director. I have seen most of his movies but not all. GREAT JOB ONCE AGAIN COGERSON. No photo this time – I only got Sign Off – no Sign In this time. Looking for PAGE 100…you will need to have some balloons for that one.
Hey BERN1960…thanks for checking out my Ron Howard hub….I am glad you agree with me about his career. Most people might be ready to retire after working in a field of work for 55 years….but he still has about 25 to 30 years left to go before retirement. As for my 100th hub…it will be completely different than my other hubs…it is essential going to be a big thank you to people like you for all their comment support…..it is coming soon. Thanks for the compliment