Want to know the best Rock Hudson movies? How about the worst Rock Hudson movies? Curious about Rock Hudson’s box office grosses or which Rock Hudson movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Rock Hudson 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.
Since I started my new hobby, Ultimate Movie Rankings, my mother has been requesting a Rock Hudson page. So since she is my mother, and since she is such a good mother, what can a son do other than produce a Rock Hudson page.
Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr in 1925. After serving as a mechanic in World War II, Hudson moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He appeared in his first film in 1948’s Fighter Squadron. His first big success was 1954’s Magnificent Obsession (one of my mom’s favorites) with Jane Wyman.In 1956 he appeared in Giant which co-starred James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. It was his biggest hit of his career and earned over $454 million in adjusted for inflation dollars at the box office and Hudson received his only Oscar® nomination for his role as Bick Benedict.
The peak of his career was the time frame of 1957-1964, he appeared on Quigley Publishing’s Top Ten Stars every year, including the top spot in 1957 and 1959. During this time span he made three very popular romantic comedies with Doris Day. The best of those three movies is the classic 1959 film Pillow Talk (my mom’s second favorite Hudson movie). After 1964’s Send Me No Flowers, his movie grosses started to decline. By 1970 his movies were no longer popular at the theaters. He then turned towards television, most notably a show called McMillan and Wife which ran from 1971 to 1977. In 1985 he passed away from an AIDS related illness.
His IMDb page shows 75 acting credits from 1948-1985. This page will rank 50 Rock Hudson movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.
Rock Hudson 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 Rock Hudson movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Rock Hudson movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Rock Hudson movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Rock Hudson movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Michael Biehn movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Rock Hudson movie won.
- Sort Rock Hudson 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.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive. For example: Type in Doris Day in the search box and the three Day/Hudson movies will pop right up.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Rock Hudson Table
- Thirteen Rock Hudson movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 25.49% of his movies listed. Giant (1956) is his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Rock Hudson movie grosses $91.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 31 of Rock Hudson’s movies are rated as good movies…or 60.78% of his movies. Winchester ’73 (1950) is his highest rated movie while Embryo (1976) was his lowest rated movie.
- Twelve Rock Hudson movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 23.52% of his movies.
- Three Rock Hudson movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 5.88% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 24 Rock Hudson movies scored higher than that average….or 47.05% of his movies. Giant (1956) got the the highest UMR Score while Embryo (1976) got the lowest UMR Score.
Check out Rock Hudson’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.
Steve’s Updated Rock Hudson You Tube Video
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
Rock Hudson, is the # 16 most connected actor of the 1950’s.
Someone on my video channel asked if anyone knew what film this, here is his comment –
“Rock Hudson said, He could “never play a loser, because he didn’t look like one?” NO. He played a loser in SECONDS…and wasn’t there another movie where he played a prisoner of war and they were trying to brain wash him into giving up top secret information, and they almost succeeded, but he figured out what was happening because he had a paper cut on his finger. They had him believing that years had passed since the war, but he’d gotten the paper cut on his finger a day before, and it was still there. Years had passed and he still had the paper cut…and then he realized years could NOT have passed and he spoiled their game. Do you know the name of this movie?”
He’s pretty sure it is a Rock Hudson film, does anyone here know?
It’s NOT a Rock Hudson film. It is a James Garner film with Rock Hudson and Eva Marie Saint movie entitled 36 Hours. The secrets were to do with D Day. Garner was a top official who knew all the details of D Day so he was abducted and made to believe he had amnesia for several years.If I can find the comment on your video channel I will relay the information.
Flora, thanks for letting him know what the film was.
Bruce, I haven’t seen that film but it does sound interesting.
36 Hours with James Garner is the movie he is talking about. Garner and Hudson got the same type roles in the 1960s. So I can see the person getting confused. Heck the 5 movies Doris Day made with James and Rock almost seem like the same movie.
Rock hudson in 2021 watching : acting is modern unpretensious creative camerawork. Incredible entertaining . No other actor has this direct craft.actors usualy stay to long to the cameraangle.
HI LUPINO
I thought that Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows were two movies with a lot of compassion in them.
In All that Heaven Allows Hudson and Wyman had actually a kind of closing role reversal from how they related to each other at the end of the earlier Magnificent Obsession. In the latter Rock nursed Wyman back to health whereas the former ended with Jane nursing an ailing Rock well again.
I should add that the philosopher that I mentioned in my 4.33pm post to Steve yesterday was English [though I can’t remember his name] so he was speaking in relation to his own countrymen in what he said.
However his meaning was that people generally of probably multi nationalities.seemed to think at times that an idea was bad if the person promoting it was for example a hypocrite who didn’t believe in it or practice it himself.
I wouldn’t want you to think that I was quoting things that showed just the English in a possibly unflattering light because as I’ve said before I lived in England for a long time and still have contacts there [cousins in Burnley for example] and am very fond of the English as a nation and love the sense of humour of many of them.
I maybe should add the caveat though that I know STEVE only through correspondence and have never met him – but he could never be as bad as Joel, could he? !!!
I’ve mentioned before that Bogart allegedly took a delight in needling fellow artists and others whom he disliked for one reason or another such as Bill Holden who nearly came to blows with Hump over the latter’s taunts.
Apparently when they were at the same social gatherings Rock was another Bogie victim. Fore example on one occasion Bogie reportedly said to Rock “Why a ridiculous name like Rock Hudson? Why not something equally over the top like Dung Heap?”
ROCK HUDSON VIDEO 1-25 I regard as the best POSTERS Captain Lightfoot Gathering of Eagles The Undefeated, both brilliant ones for The Last Sunset, Send Me No Flowers [probably the last commercial success of the Rock Hudson heyday era] stupendous ones for All that Heaven Allows [great movie] Bend of the River, Pillow Talk, the foreign language ones for Magnificent Obsession, Winchester 73 and Giant and The Lawless Breed one of my own fave Hudson movies albeit a B production
..
STILLS I most enjoyed (1) Rock with Wayne (2) is that Rock with Dana Wynter in Something of Value? (3) lobby card for Ice Station Zebra [along with The Conqueror this was said to be Howard Hughes’ favourite film which he is supposed to have watched many times (4)Rock, my Doris and Tony in Lover Come Back (5) with “Mrs Bogart” who obviously didn’t dislike Rock as much as her husband did! (6) seemingly relaxing on the set with my happy Doris (7) Rock with the future Mrs Burton (8) closing solo of Rock in possibly his “beefcake” days when Universal was moulding him into a future star and (9) an unglamoros Rock in Seconds, regarded by many as his best performance but regrettably such a flop that it underlined the message that Hudson’s top-star days had gone.
For me your extended play of the movies of the easy-to-watch 50s/60s icon Hudson was packed with nostalgia and well worth a 98% rating. You and a guy who SHOULD have been around in the 50s to be the butt of Bogie’s taunts agree on 5 of Rock’s Top 6 best reviewed. You include Tarnished Angels in your 6 whereas Bruce goes for All that Heaven Allows. I’v got to unequivocally back his choice there.
Overall your Hudson video was the fine work that we’ve come to expect.
Rock Hudson was so popular in his heyday that one journalist quipped “Even dogs follow him about.” [They probably followed Joel about too – but angrily barking!]
However compared with for example Cary Grant’s longevity Rock’s period as a top box office star was relatively brief, probably from about 1954 until 1964 at most, not even one CALENDAR decade.
ROCK HUDSON EXTENDED VIDEO 50-26. Best POSTERS are I think Avalanche, Embryo, Bengal Brigade, Taza, Back to God’s Country, both for Scarlet Angel, Horizons West, Seminole, raunchy one for One Desire, a truly terrific foreign language one for Gun Fury and both excellent ones for The Golden Blade which over here the Rank Organisation released as a second feature to their own production Meet Mr Lucifer a comedy starring Stanley Holloway of My Fair Lady Fame [“get me to the Church on time!”]
I should also highlight Pretty maids all in a Row because not only have you given us a marvellous risqué poster but its historical significance is that Rock’s movie career had gone into free-fall by 1971 and that movie was an attempt to revive it with a mystery thriller that was at the same time saucy and went beyond the earlier Doris Day milder sex comedies. Unfortunately the sauce didn’t work and Rock had to fashion a 2nd career via television.
Only 2 STILLS recorded by me in Part one but both are good – Rock as Taza the son of Cochise and the ensemble photo of “The Big Four”. I understand that all were at Universal at that time around 1962/63 and Grant, Peck and Rock visited Brando on the set of The Ugly American where the photo shoot was taken. To be continued……
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my bigger and better Rock Hudson video, appreciate the info, trivia, quotes and comparison.
Glad the picture gallery met with your approval.
Rock was another of your favorites. I wonder if you would have enjoyed those Douglas Sirk dramas as much if another actor had starred in them, say Montgomery Clift? Or John Gavin?
I think that is Dana Wynter in the photo with Rock. It’s an odd angle.
The Tarnished Angels had an average score of 6.9 on Bruce’s chart and didn’t even make the top 10. But the lowest score for that film from my sources was 7.3. So it did better on my chart, even better than All That Heaven Allows. I think the only source Bruce and I have in common is IMDB.
Only one Rock Hudson film scored 10 out of 10 from my sauces and that was Giant.
Five more scored 9 out of 10 including Tarnished Angels and Winchester 73. Six more scored 8 out of 10 including All That Heaven Allows and Bend of the River.
There’s no overall top scorer at IMDB four films scored 7.7 including Heaven Allows, Seconds and Giant. No.1 at Rotten Tomatoes is Winchester 73 followed by Bend of the River.
Rock Hudson on The Undefeated – “John Wayne was then the Hollywood legend, and I was on screen with him. The guy is an angel. He saved my life back then when no other film maker wanted to know me.”
Rock on Rock – “I had to overcome the name Rock. If I’d been as hip then as I am now, I would have never consented to be named Rock.”
Rock on Smoking and Exercise – “I love to smoke. I keep hoping someone will discover it’s a healthy habit because the smoke kills all the germs in your system. I love to drink, and I hate exercise. I don’t mind going out on the side of a hill and chopping down a tree, but I hate organized exercise. I built a gym in my house but I never use it. I don’t even like to walk through it.”
HI STEVE
Thanks for the usual thoughtful feedback, this time on my Hudson posts and for more delicious quotes.
I personally thought that The Tarnished Angels was one of Rock’s most boring films.
Some philosopher once said that the English have this quaint notion that an idea is valid only if the person espousing it believes in it HIMSELF whereas the idea is in fact either good or bad IN ITSELF
Thus even if I didn’t like All that Heaven Allows with another actor in it that would not detract from the quality of the film itself [hailed as a masterpiece by many movie historians] but merely be a reflection of my personal taste in actors.
Of course to an extent it is a chicken and egg argument because if some ham like Stallone was in it he’d probably ruin it so that it WOULD be bad in itself.
So ultimately Rock wanted to disown “Rock”. Could it be that after all Bogie did ultimately have some influence on ole “Dung Heap”?
Interesting Rock’s feeling about exercise. Personally I have run marathons in my time but now at 77 have moderated my transports so that I walk for about 40-60 minutes daily.
In Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Lord Henry Woton [played in the movie by George Sanders] advised Dorian to cherish his youth while he still had it but then added “To get back my youth I’d do anything on earth except get up early, take exercise and behave respectably.”
But more about exercise when I come to respond to your Yul Brynner video. Meanwhile see Annex which follows.
ANNEX/ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS
All that Heaven Allows was initially described by critics as a “woman’s picture” and was marketed as such in its day.
However reviews were generally positive and Sirk praised for his use of color and mastery of artful story telling and the visual theme.
Sirk’s reputation faded in the 1960s but had a revival in the 1970s with the praise of New German Cinema directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder .
Fassbinder used All that Heaven Allows as an inspiration for his multi-prizewinning 1974 movie Fear Eats the Soul also hailed as a masterpiece and certain scenes in it are a direct homage to Sirk
Since then the reputation of Sirk and All that Heaven Allows has only but grown further.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film had a 93% rating and the movie has been selected for preservation in the US National Film Register by The Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
Film historians hold it up as a telling commentary on the attitudes and morals of small town America in the 1950s
NOTE The above passages are extracts from Wikipedia
Can’t repeat it often enough and, as you can see, jump to every possible occasion: All that Heaven allows is a GREAT movie!
Apart from Fear eats the Soul, a german classic I really admire, Far from Heaven starring Julianne Moore might be considered a “semi remake”. Director Todd Haynes really managed to copy the visual style of All that Heaven allows here.