Will Rogers Movies

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

Will Rogers (1879-1935)  was an American stage and film actor Rogers was known as “Oklahoma’s Favorite Son”.  By the mid-1930s Rogers was hugely popular in the United States for his leading political wit and was one of the highest-paid film stars.  He died during a plane accident in 1935.  His IMDb page shows 54 acting credits from 1918 to 1935.   This page will rank Will Rogers movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Shorts and his early movies in the 1920s were not included in the rankings.

Doctor Bull (1933)

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

A Connecticut Yankee (1931)

Will Rogers 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 any way you want.

  • Sort Will Rogers movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Will Rogers movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Will Rogers movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Will Rogers 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 Will Rogers movie received.
  • Sort Will Rogersmovies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Judge Priest (1934)

Possibly Interesting Facts About Will Rogers

1. William Penn Adair Rogers was born in Oklahoma in 1879.  He was a Cherokee citizen born in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory.

2.  Will Rogers began his show business career as a trick roper in “Texas Jack’s Wild West Circus” in South Africa:

3. On a trip to New York City, Will Rogers was at Madison Square Garden, on April 27, 1905, when a wild steer broke out of the arena and began to climb into the viewing stands. Rogers roped the steer to the delight of the crowd. The feat got front-page attention from the newspapers, giving him valuable publicity and an audience eager to see more.

4. In 1922 Will Rogers’ weekly articles for the “New York Times” became so popular that they appeared in more than 500 U.S. newspapers daily. The articles dished out down-to-earth, biting criticism of politics, politicians, big business, and the imbalance of the wealthy and the poor. In all, Rogers wrote more than 2,800 daily articles up until his death.

5. As host of the 1933 Academy Awards ceremony, Will Rogers made a minor blunder when announcing the Best Director Award. After reading the nominees he told the winner, “Come and get it, Frank!” Frank Capra (nominated for Lady for a Day (1933)) was halfway to the podium before he realized Rogers meant Frank Lloyd (winner for Cavalcade (1933)).

5a.  Will Rogers on his tombstone.  “When I die, my epitaph, or whatever you call those signs on gravestones, is going to read: “I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I dident [sic] like.” I am so proud of that, I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved.”

Check out Will Rogers’ career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Steve’s Will Rogers YouTube Video

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12 thoughts on “Will Rogers Movies

  1. BEST POSTERS STEVE’s WILL ROGERS VIDEO

    1/2 for Headless Horseman
    2/Lightning
    3/2 for Country Chairman
    4/David Harum
    5/1st one for Business and Pleasure
    6/3 for Ambassador Bill – one exceptionally racy!
    7/1st one for Dr Bull
    8/Doubting Thomas
    9/Life Begins at 40
    10/1st one for Judge Priest
    11/2 for In old Kentucky
    12/1st two for State Fair
    13/1st one for Steamboat Round the Bend
    14/1st one for Connecticut Yankee.

  2. Wikipedia credits Will Rogers with (1) 50 silent films including 14 “travel” movies in which he visited big places such as Dublin and Paris (2) 21 sound films.

    In 1935 he was Hollywood’s highest paid star. Here is his early 1930s record in the Quigley popularity polls:

    1932 Ranked
    1933 Second
    1934 First
    1935 Second.

  3. I saw the Will Rogers Follies on Broadway with Keith Carradine. Think I saw Carradine in another show.

    Considering Will passed in 1935 he amazingly still connects to 3 people on the 2020 Oracle of Bacon list.

    107 MICKEY ROONEY The County Chairman (1935)
    512 RAY MILLAND Ambassador Bill (1931)
    597 PAUL FIX Young as You Feel (1931)

    Will appeared with 6 Oscar winners, 3 times Jet Li.

    HATTIE MCDANIEL JUDGE PRIEST (1934)
    JANE DARWELL David Harum (1934)
    JANE DARWELL Life Begins at Forty (1935)
    JANET GAYNOR State Fair (1933)
    RAY MILLAND Ambassador Bill (1931)
    VICTOR MCLAGLEN Happy Days (1929/I)
    WARNER BAXTER Happy Days (1929/I)

    1. Hey Dan….thanks for the thoughts on Will Rogers. Steve’s YouTube video got me motivated to do a page on him. Cool that you saw Carradine as Rogers. The County Chairman was a new addition to the database…it gave Rooney another movie….he is getting close to 100 movies….not many people reach that mark. 6 Oscar winners is not bad considering he died in 1935 when there were only a handful of Oscar winners at that time. Good stuff as always.

    1. Hey Flora… I am right there with you….I have seen 1 Will Rogers movie…Too Busy To Work….a movie that was ok….but so “dated”. Good stuff.

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