Stanley Kramer Movies

Want to know the best Stanley Kramer movies?  How about the worst Stanley Kramer movies?  Curious about Stanley Kramer box office grosses or which Stanley Kramer movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Stanley Kramer 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.

Stanley Kramer (1913-2001) was a 9-time Oscar® nominated American director and producer.  Kramer was responsible for making many of Hollywood’s most famous “message films”.  As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided.  His IMDb page shows over 61 producing & directing credits from 1942 to 1979.   This page will rank Stanley Kramer movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles, and movies that were not released in North American were not included in the rankings.  This page comes from a request by Greg.

1958’s The Defiant Ones

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

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Stanley Kramer 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 Stanley Kramer movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Stanley Kramer movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Stanley Kramer movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Stanley Kramer 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 Stanley Kramer movie received.
  • Sort Stanley Kramer movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

*Movies made between 1942 and 1954 were only produced by Stanley Kramer.   Movies made from 1955 and 1979 were produced and directed by Kramer.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Stanley Kramer

1. Stanley Earl Kramer was born in Manhattan, New York in 1913.  His mother worked at a New York office of Paramount Pictures,  while uncle, Earl Kramer, worked in distribution at Universal Pictures.

2.  Stanley Kramer served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, making training films. He finished the war with the rank of first lieutenant.

3.  Stanley Kramer produced six Best Picture Oscar® nominees: High Noon (1952), The Caine Mutiny (1954), The Defiant Ones (1958), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Ship of Fools (1965) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967).

4. Stanley Kramer was going to name his child after Spencer Tracy, but when the baby turned out to be a girl, he named her after Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn was also her godmother.  An avid Yankee fan, he could name players on every team over the decades. In fact, he named his first daughter, actress Casey Kramer, after player/manager, Casey Stengel.

5. Director Steven Spielberg described Stanley Kramer as an “incredibly talented visionary”, and “one of our great filmmakers, not just for the art and passion he put on screen, but for the impact he has made on the conscience of the world.”

Check out Stanley Kramer’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 Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press. Emmy® is a registered trademark.

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22 thoughts on “Stanley Kramer Movies”

  1. Stanley Kramer, famous producer and director. What isn’t clear from your tables is which films did he actually direct. He didn’t direct his highest rated movie – High Noon, and he didn’t direct The Caine Mutiny either, arguably the two most famous films on the chart.

    My tally, 10 of the 35 films on the chart, not impressive. Favorites are – High Noon, Champion, The Michael Caine Mutiny, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Defiant Ones.

    On the Beach I watch occasionally but it’s not a favorite. I’ve seen just bits of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and it’s been years since I last saw Judgment at Nuremberg.

    Looking at the trivia – Spielberg was a huge fan, not that surprised. But not everyone was a fan, there are many that cringe at the thought of sitting through one of his movies. One reviewer writes – “Stanley Kramer, a director obsessed with moralising about social issues he wasn’t very articulate about as a filmmaker and whose movies only ever worked due to weirdness unrelated to the message.”

    Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve….thanks for checking out our Stanley Kramer page. Tally count: Flora 21, Greg and Bob at 18, me 12 and 10 for bob cox and yourself. Right before the main table with all the stats is a sentence about his producer only movies and his director movies. Essentially anything before 1955 was from his company Stanley Kramer Productions, and from 1955’s Not As A Stranger to 1979…everything was directed and produced by him.

      I have seen and enjoyed all of your favorites. Good find on the reviewer. As for me, I like his movies, but do not love them. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

      1. Hey Bruce, just to update your tally, I’m at 13 on Stanley Kramer movies, a bit disappointing after my gold medal finish on Richard Attenborough…but not bad 🙂 Essentially I have seen mostly his most famous movies towards the top of the list, with Judgment at Nuremberg being my favorite (though The Caine Mutiny and The Defiant Ones comes close). Kramer certainly handled interesting social issues in both an entertaining and intelligent manner. A little like Sidney Lumet who I sometimes confuse his films with.

        Reply

        1. Hey PhilHoF17. Tally count: Flora 21, Greg and Bob at 18, you at 13, me at 12 and bob cox and Steve at 10. Fr o m the gold to not even on the platform. It ‘s ok….there will be other competitions….lol. I can see you getting him mixed up with Sidney Lumet. The Caine Mutiny would be my favorite of his movies…..”but I had them with the strawberries”. Good stuff as always.

          Reply

  2. Thank you, Bruce, for honoring my request in such a timely manner. I have seen 18 Stanley Kramer movies with HIGH NOON being the highest ranked movie I have seen while OKLAHOMA CRUDE is the lowest ranked movie I have seen. Highest ranked movie I haven’t seen is ON THE BEACH. Favorites include CHAMPION, HOME OF THE BRAVE, THE MEN, HIGH NOON, THE WILD ONE, THE CAINE MUTINY, THE DEFIANT ONES, NOT AS A STRANGER, JUDGEMENT AT NUMERBERG, IT’S A MAD MAD MAD WORLD, and BLESS THE BEAST AND THE CHILDREN. Other Stanley Kramer movies I have seen include CYRANO DE BERGERAC, MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION, and GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER. Here’s a bit trivia for you, folks!!! Supposedly, Writers Doris and Frank Hursley created the American soap opera, GENERAL HOSPITAL, after seeing Kramer’s film NOT AS A STRANGER at a private viewing in a television network executive’s home. Hmmm…..Go figure!!!

    Reply

    1. Hey Greg…glad you like your requested Stanley Kramer page. Tally count: Flora 21, you and Bob at 18, me 12 and 10 for bob cox. Shocked you have not seen On The Beach. That is one of the first movies I knew Stanley Kramer from. I have not actually seen many of your favorites…you listed 11..I have seen 5, missed 6. The Pride and the Passion is one of my least favorite Cary Grant movies. Great trivia on Not As A Stranger and General Hospital. Not As A Stranger is a movie I did not even know existed when I started down this movie website path. So far I have written pages on 8 of the actors in the movie and now the producer and the director…and I thought I knew movies. Good stuff.

      Reply

  3. i saw 7 of his 17 directorial efforts. 10s and favorites: its a mad, mad, mad, mad world, inherit the wind, guess who is coming to dinner, on the beach. 10 not favorite judgement at Nuremberg. 9 not favorite the defiant ones. i saw 3 more of his efforts as producer Caine mutiny a 10 not a favorite, high noon a 9 not a favorite. the wild one an 8.

    what a controversial scope of topics: comedy, evolution in schools, interracial marriage, nuclear apocalypse, holocaust/war crimes , race relations, military injustice (caine mutiny and a docudrama of the william calley trial around the my lai massacre), feminism (high noon), motorcycle gangs. most of these Kramer caught at pivotal moments in American history.

    the cameos in “its a mad mad mad mad world” rival the player.

    what an honor to be chosen to direct spencer tracy’s 2 swan songs and 4 of his last 6 roles.

    Cogerson, does the typo for best picture double listed on high noon effect anything?

    Reply

    1. Hey bob cox….Tallly count – Flora 21, other Bob 18, me 12 and 10 for you. I am right there with your favorites… as It’s A Mad Mad Caine Mutiny are two movies I can watch over and over. I also agree about the cameos in Mad Mad rivaling the ones in The Player and his topics. He got along with Tracy great, probably made it easier for Tracy to work knowing Kramer so well. As for the typo…..one is Best Picture…and one is for Kramer’s nomination for Best Producer….it is confusing…so thinking we will have to fix that. Good catch. Good comment.

      Reply

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