Want to know the best Janet Leigh movies? How about the worst Janet Leigh movies? Curious about Janet Leigh box office grosses or which Janet Leigh movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Janet Leigh movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Janet Leigh (1927-2004) was an Oscar®-nominated American actress. She is best remembered for her performance in 1960’s Psycho, for which she was awarded the Golden Globe® Award for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award® nomination. Her IMDb page shows 86 acting credits from 1947-2005. This page will rank 48 Janet Leigh movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles and shorts were not included in the rankings. This page comes from a request by Mike.
Janet Leigh 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 Janet Leigh movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Janet Leigh movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Janet Leigh movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Janet Leigh 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 Oscar® wins each Janet Leigh movie received.
- Sort Janet Leigh movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Stats From The Above Janet Leigh Table
- Sixteen Janet Leigh movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 33.00% of her movies listed. Psycho (1960) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Janet Leigh movie grossed $90.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 26 Janet Leigh movies are rated as good movies…or 54.16% of her movies. Psycho (1960) was her highest rated movie while Night of the Lepus (1972) was her lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Janet Leigh movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 22.91% of her movies.
- One Janet Leigh movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 2.08% of her movies.
- An “a good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 31 Janet Leigh movies scored higher than that….or 64.58% of her movies. Psycho (1960) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while Night of the Lepus (1972) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Janet Leigh
1. Jeanette Helen Morrison was born in Merced, California in 1927.
2. In winter 1945, Janet Leigh was discovered by actress Norma Shearer. Shearer showed talent agent Lew Wasserman a photograph she had seen of Leigh while vacationing at Sugar Bowl, the ski resort where the girl’s parents worked. Shearer later recalled that “that smile made it the most fascinating face I had seen in years. I felt I had to show that face to somebody at the studio.
3. Janet Leigh secured a starring role in 1947’s The Romance of Rosy Ridge as soon as she reached Hollywood…despite having no previous acting experience.
4. Van Johnson was responsible for her stage name. While they were filming 1947’s The Romance of Rosy Ridge, he suggested she shorten her first name to Janet. He also thought that, since the film they were doing was a civil war drama, Lee would go well as her last name. But then he suggested she spell it Leigh. She was concerned there might a problem in being confused with Vivien Leigh; but then Van Johnson reminded her of Van Heflin. He said “there’s two Van’s and it hasn’t hurt either of us”.
5. Janet Leigh was married 4 times and had two children. Both of her daughters (Kelly & Jamie Lee) became actresses as well. Jamie Lee Curtis has been starring in movies for almost 40 years.
6. Janet Leigh made 5 movies with her third husband, Tony Curtis: 1953’s Houdini, 1954’s The Black Shield of Falworth, 1958’s The Vikings, 1958’s The Perfect Furlough and 1960’s Who Was That Lady?
7. Janet Leigh wrote four books: “There Really Was a Hollywood” (1984–an autobiography); “Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller” (1995, co-authored with Christopher Nickens); “House of Destiny” (1996–a novel); and “The Dream Factory” (2002–a novel).
8. Janet Leigh and Psycho trivia: (1) She stopped taking showers after filming Psycho…took baths for the rest of her life. (2) She only worked on the movie for three weeks. (3) One of those three weeks was filming the shower scene. (4) Hitchcock hired her because he knew audiences would be shocked to see a star of her stature killed off early in the movie.
9. Janet Leigh’s agent initially rejected Leigh’s role in 1958’s Touch of Evil due to the low salary offered without even consulting the actress. Orson Welles, anticipating this, sent a personal letter to the actress, telling her how much he looked forward to their working together. Leigh, furious, confronted her agent telling him that getting directed by Welles was more important than any paycheck.
10. Check out Janet Leigh’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Steve’s Janet Leigh You Tube video goes very well with this page.
Want more Janet Leigh stats? How about adjusted worldwide box office grosses on 19 of her movies?
- Psycho (1960) $626,811,593.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Little Women (1949) $330,801,051.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Words and Music (1948) $259,044,716.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Pepe (1960) $227,307,390.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- That Forsyte Woman (1949) $207,309,446.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947) $154,486,854.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Harper (1966) $154,009,323.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Rogue Cop (1954) $134,800,294.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Hills of Home (1948) $131,571,067.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- If Winter Comes (1948) $110,913,500.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- The Red Danube (1949) $103,878,214.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Holiday Affair (1949) $90,802,657.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Angels in the Outfield (1951) $82,348,000.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Act of Violence (1949) $63,086,881.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Just This Once (1952) $46,264,396.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Strictly Dishonorable (1951) $43,546,574.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Fearless Fagan (1952) $41,502,527.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- It’s a Big Country (1951) $32,375,704.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
- Confidentially Connie (1953) $32,022,474.00 in adjusted worldwide box office grosses
Who has the Curtis/Leigh family bragging rights – based on UMR score?
Can not believe Bye Bye Birdie ranks SO high!!
Hey Mary….the stats say it was one of her Top 10 box office hits….was one of her Top 10 best reviewed movies….and was one of 10 Leigh movies to earn an Oscar nomination…a good showing in all three categories we use in our formula…..I shockingly have not seen that movie…not a huge musical fan. Thanks the feedback.