Ginger Rogers Movies

The AFI listed Ginger Rogers as the 14th Greatest Screen Legend Actress
The AFI listed Ginger Rogers as the 14th Greatest Screen Legend Actress

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

Ginger Rogers (1911-1995) was an Oscar® winning American actress, singer and dancer.  On American Film Institute’s Top 50 Screen Legends list, Rogers was ranked as the 14th best actress.  Right behind #13 Grace Kelly and right before #15 Mae West.  She appeared in movies from 1929 to 1965.   Rogers appeared opposite Fred Astaire in 10 movies.  Those movies revolutionized the musical genre. She also achieved great success on her own in a variety of film roles and won a Best Actress Oscar® for 1940’s Kitty Foyle.

Her IMDb page shows 92 acting credits from 1929-1987. This page will rank Ginger Rogers movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Television appearances, shorts, documentaries and many of her B movies from 1929-1933 were not included in the rankings.

It is hard not to think of Fred Astaire when you hear the name Ginger Rogers. They made 10 movies together.
It is hard not to think of Fred Astaire when you hear the name Ginger Rogers. They made 10 movies together.

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

Ginger 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 anyway you want.

  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Ginger Rogers 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 how many Oscar® wins each Ginger Rogers movie received.
  • Sort Ginger Rogers movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the sort and search buttons to make this table very interactive.  For example…if you type in “Fred Astaire” in the search box….the 10 Rogers/Astaire movies will pop right up.
  • * Sadly Worldwide box office is not available for all of the Ginger Rogers’ movies ranked but we have added the ones we do have at the bottom of the page
Ginger Rogers in 1940's Kitty Foyle.
Ginger Rogers in 1940’s Kitty Foyle.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Ginger Rogers

1. Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri.  She became “Ginger” when a relative had a hard time saying Virginia.  She became “Rogers” when her mother remarried and became a Rogers.

2. Ginger Rogers’ road to stardom Cliff Notes style….She entered and won a Charleston dance contest which allowed her to tour and dance for six months.  When the tour got to New York City, she stayed, getting radio singing jobs and then her Broadway theater debut in a musical called 1929’s Top Speed.  Rogers was then chosen to star George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy. Her appearance in Girl Crazy made her an overnight star at the age of 19.  This lead to a 7 year movie contract with Paramount.   She appeared with Fred Astaire in supporting roles in 1933’s Flying Down To Rio.  Their dance scenes were the highlight of the movie…and was beginning of one of the greatest screen teams in the history of movies.

3.  Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire starred in 10 movies together.  During those 10 movies they had 33 partnered dance sequences.  Some of their more famous dance sequences would be “I’ll Be Hard to Handle” from 1935’s Roberta, “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” from 1936’s Follow The Fleet,   and “Pick Yourself Up” from 1936’s Swing Time and “Cheek to Cheek” from Top Hat.

4. Ginger Rogers was nominated for one Oscar® (Kitty Foyle) and one Golden Globe® (Monkey Business).  She won the Best Actress Oscar® for Kitty Foyle.

5. According to the American Film Institute, Ginger Rogers is the 14th greatest female star of all-time.

6. Ginger Rogers was married five times in her life.  Sadly all five of her marriages ended in divorce.  She did not have any children.

7. Roles Ginger Rogers turned down or was seriously considered for:  It’s A Wonderful Life (Donna Reed role), His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell role), Now, Voyager (Bette Davis role), and The Heiress and To Each His Own (Olivia de Havilland Oscar® winning roles) and Ball of Fire (Barbara Stanwyck role).

8. On our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page…Ginger Rogers’ 15 adjusted $100 million movies is tied in 4th place for most of all actresses that have a UMR page.

9.  Ginger Rogers did many paintings, sculptures and sketches in her free time but could never bring herself to sell any of them.  She was a near-champion tennis player, a topline shot and loved going fishing.

10.  Ginger Rogers was one of the celebrities whose picture Anne Frank placed on the wall of her bedroom in the “Secret Annex” while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Holland.

Ginger Rogers Adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses

America Film Institutes’ Top 25 Screen Legend Actress and UMR’s Links That Rank All Of Their Movies.

1.  Katharine Hepburn  43 Movies Ranked..On Golden Pond (1981) to Grace Quigley (1985)
2.  Bette Davis 79 Movies Ranked…from All About Eve (1950) to Wicked Stepmother (1989)
3.  Audrey Hepburn 24 Movies Ranked…from My Fair Lady (1964) to The All Laughed (1981)
4.  Ingrid Bergman  32 Movies Ranked..Gaslight(1944) to Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler(1973)
5.  Greta Garbo 24 Movies Ranked.. from Ninotchka (1939) to Torrent (1928)
6.  Marilyn Monroe 23 Movies Ranked…from Some Like It Hot (1959) to Ladies of the Chorus (1948)
7.  Elizabeth Taylor 47 Movies Ranked..Who’s Afraid of Va.Woolf?(1966) to A Little Night Music(1977)
8.  Judy Garland 31 Movies Ranked…from A Star Is Born (1954) to I Could Go On Singing (1963)
9.  Marlene Dietrich 30 Movies Ranked…from Shanghai Express (1932) to Just A Gigolo (1978)
10. Joan Crawford 72 Movies Ranked…from Mildred Pierce (1945) to The Law of the Range (1928)
11. Barbara Stanwyck 72 Movies Ranked.. Double Indemnity (1944) to The Bride Walks Out (1936)
12. Claudette Colbert 48 Movies Ranked..It Happened One Night(1934) to Royal Affairs(1954)
13. Grace Kelly 11 Movies Ranked.. from The Country Girl (1954) to Green Fire (1954)
14. Ginger Rogers 54 Movies Ranked.. from Kitty Foyle (1940) to The Groom Wore Spurs (1951)
15. Mae West 12 Movies Ranked.. from She Done Him Wrong (1933) to Sextette (1978)
16. Vivien Leigh 15 Movies Ranked.. from Gone With The Wind (1939) to Dark Journey (1937)
17. Lillian Gish 31 Movies Ranked.. from Intolerance (1916) to Hambone and Hillie (1983)
18. Shirley Temple 37 Movies Ranked.. from Since You Went Away (1944) to Honeymoon (1947)
19. Rita Hayworth 35 Movies Ranked.. from Gilda (1946) to The Naked Zoo (1970)
20. Lauren Bacall 36 Movies Ranked.. from To Have and Have Not (1944) to Diamonds (1999)
21. Sophia Loren 29 Movies Ranked.. from El Cid (1961) to Firepower (1979)
22. Jean Harlow 22 Movies Ranked.. from The Public Enemy (1931) to Riffraff (1936)
23. Carole Lombard 39 Movies Ranked from My Man Godfrey (1936) to It Pays To Advertise(1931)
24. Mary Pickford 31 Movies Ranked.. from The Little Princess (1917) to Rosita (1923)
25. Ava Gardner 40 Movies Ranked.. from The Killers (1946) to City on Fire (1979)
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.
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94 thoughts on “Ginger Rogers Movies”

  1. HI STEVE
    1 Of all the great classic era actresses who were closely associated with musicals perhaps Ginger was the most versatile. On top of her legendary outings with the great Astaire she was also comfortable in dramas such as Primrose Path and thrillers like Tight Spot and Black Widow. Indeed the first movie in which I ever saw her was the joint American/British film noir Twist of Fate in 1954 [aka Beautiful Stranger] in which she played the mistress of gangster Stanley Baker and also had an on-screen AND off-screen romance with Jacques Bergerac a heart throb back in those days who got around because he married Ginger and after they divorced he wed Dorothy Malone.

    2 I was pleased to see that all 10 of the Astaire/Rogers movies were included in your selections and their fine posters show that Flying Down to Rio was the only one of the 10 in which Ginger was billed before Fred.** Other posters that exceptionally appealed to me were those for Tom, Dick and Harry, Vivacious Lady, and Roxie Hart. The stills that I especially liked were of Ginger and Denis Morgan in Kitty Foyle, Ginger’s solo pose from Gold Diggers of 1933, the equally saucy closing solo of Ginger and Astaire/Rogers virtually taking to the air in Swing Time. Great nostalgic stuff!

    3 Bruce and you agree on 3 of the Top 5 Rogers films but I was a little surprised at him ranking Stage Door as his No 1 and above Top Hat and for me your 6th placing of Stage Door was more appropriate, but one of the beauties of having TWO sites to check out is that a broad spread of opinion is at times available in addition to one’s own opinion. I really liked this video so 9.5/10

    **I am surprised he didn’t let her go first in at least Follow the Fleet because even Old Cantankerous in effect promised that Katie Hepburn would be permitted to precede him if they ever got near lifeboats!

    Reply

    1. Thanks Bob, appreciate the comment, info, review and generous rating.

      Fred must have been surprised when Ginger started a successful solo career in the 40s, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress after their musical partnership ended in 1939, though they did pair up one more time for Barkleys of Broadway in 1949. Brings to mind Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, they made a few films together and after their divorce she started winning awards and critical acclaim.

      I’m familiar with Ginger’s films with Fred and Busby but not her other films, though I did enjoy the silliness of Hawks’ Monkey Business, the actors seemed to be having a lot of childish fun in that and got paid for it too. Nice work if you can get it. 😉

      Reply

      1. STEVE
        1 Fred kept his own solo career pretty much to musicals in his top star days though he got good critical reviews for his dramatic supporting role in Greg Peck’s On the Beach. Round about that time I can remember one critic opining that as a major star in his own right Fred “has had it.”

        2 Ginger said in an interview that she was disappointed Fred’s legend was perceived as greater than hers among film historians and certainly AFI’s legends lists rate Fred among the Top 5 males and Ginger only 14th among actresses. However like Fred’s her name always comes up today when the art of dancing is discussed so she undoubtedly has her own special niche in the history of the classic era. Also I am sure that many major female stars not included at all in those lists woulf have been happy with 14th place.

        3 I think the El Commandant mentioned somewhere that he felt that in their 2 movies together Rita Hayworth was a better Astaire dancing partner than Ginger. Personally I couldn’t judge but always found Ginger sexier than Rita although the latter has more of a reputation as a screen siren. Anyway I’ll soon be looking in on your profile of an altogether different Rogers!

        Reply

        2. It’s scandalous that Astaire is rated higher – that ranking should be reversed. That is the second most egregious blunder of the AFI list (after Hepburn).
          As far as business though, box office receipts is only the top line measure of success. What matters, is profit.

          If you look in the appendices of John Mueller’s 1985 book “Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films,” Table 1 shows the box office and profit/loss of Astaire-Rogers and their solo films at RKO. The data in the table comes from RKO records. The book is available on archive.org at https://archive.org/details/astairedancingmu0000muel_c7q5
          The point Mueller makes in the text is that Rogers widely outperformed Astaire in tickets sold and enormously outperformed him in the profit column.

          Astaire was carried at the box office by Ginger and then by Bing and Judy (I would argue that he was always carried onscreen too, except on a dance floor, but that’s another subject). From 1937-1939, the profits from Ginger’s solo films were carrying not only Astaire, but almost the entire of RKO studios; the bottom line at RKO skyrocketed after Katharine Hepburn and then Astaire were dropped from the payroll, because their films consistently lost money. It was certainly a wake-up call for those two!
          A careful study of profits shows that over his 30 musicals 1933-1957, the total of Fred Astaire films lost money. He had more flops than hits in the ’40s, but Bing and Judy carried enormous clout and those 3 movies were big hits. But in the ’50s Fred’s films lost so much money that they wiped out his career earnings. Fred was a net negative!

          From 1933-1957, the only Ginger Rogers film to lose money was ‘Having Wonderful Time,’ a #1 movie at the box office but which had to be shot twice because most people couldn’t understand the New York dialect that Fairbanks Jr. and Rogers used.
          Ginger had 18 #1 films!

          Reply

      2. Hey Steve….I love Cary Grant and Howard Hawks….but I do not have the same warm fuzzy feelings for Monkey Business….I do not think Grant was a big fan of the movie either…as started thinking about retirement around that time as well. Good comments on Ginger and your Rogers video.

        Reply

        1. Grant didn’t care much for ‘Monkey Biz’ because he and Hawks clashed over the main point of the film. Hawks wanted Monroe to be Cary’s co-star, and Grant saw plainly what that would mean – he was taking an elixir so he could be young again for the nubile young starlet.

          He didn’t want to be too old for her, and he was, and he knew he was, and he didn’t want the public to recognize it!
          Also, Grant and Rogers were romantically involved at different times from the early 1930s until the 1960s, and they were involved for several years in the 1950s. And naturally Grant wanted Ginger to play the part for personal reasons, but he also knew she would be excellent in that kind of role which she had proven several times before (and indeed she was).

          Hawks didn’t want Ginger, or anybody else, he wanted Monroe and he couldn’t overrule Cary Grant, so he sulked his way through the filming.

          Reply

    2. Hey Bob and Steve….I agree …..it was surprising to me that Stage Door did better….but unlike others (guilty will go nameless….lol) I do not change the rankings…..my rule is….it is what it is. That being said….some of my sources do see some changes as more people vote/review the movies. So I will see if that is the case here.

      Reply

  2. 1 You will have seen from my estimate of your top 80 all time highest grossers that there’s little between you and Mojo in modern era stats with the big difference being in your respective classic era figures. Mojo’s Top 80 excludes a large number of pre 1961 films that you have included -South Pacific, This is the Army, Giant, Jolson Story, Quo Vadis etc. Those films are either further down Mojo’s Top 200 or they are excluded totally from its chart.

    2 It might interest you in passing to know that if your Top 80 had been adjusted by the CPI [ie purchasing power] method instead of for ticket inflation the following would be the result:

    19 Cogerson Classic era grosses CPI method $6.7 billion [ticket inflation figure $11.9 billion]
    62 Cogerson grosses CPI method $42.18 billion [ticket inflation figure $44.2 billion]

    Note how CPI punishes the old movies but has relatively little impact on modern ones.

    3 According to Mojo’s current ticket prices chart in 2014 prices fell from an average of $$8.13 to $7.95. Currently they stand at $8.43 and Mojo is quoting an estimate of $8.61 for 2016 but as you say we won’t know for sure until next March. It is weird though to see an adjusted figure being SMALLER than an actual one and it is hard for the mind to accept that something that’s actual is not the real deal!

    4 The rental figure of $70 9 that you quoted me for National Lampoon’s Animal House brought old memories flooding back as the end of 1978 the producers were able to claim it was the 8th highest grossing film of all time as it sat at No 8 in Variety’s all time greatest domestic rentals champs chart just below Sound of Music and the following year Superman with rentals of $82.8 knocked it down to 9th. Of course once you grossed up and especially adjusted for inflation those two films whilst massive for their years were nowhere near 8th or 9th overall. Proves the old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing

    5 By coincidence I was reading on Saturday that there is talk of the movie industry going back to the good old days of playing down adjusted grosses and encouraging charts that show just actual stats as obviously that kind of presentation has better publicity value when boasting about the (albeit false) earnings prestige of current hits. So it could be that despite your best efforts Superman Returns hour is approaching as its actual figure is of course considerably greater that the one for the 1978 film but nevertheless if you are approached to downgrade all your stats – don’t give in !

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…good comment.
      1. I bet Mojo does not even include South Pacific, You’re in the Army Now, Giant, Jolson Story, Quo Vadis in their database.
      2. I see that with the CPI method.
      3. I think the 3D prices are making it hard to calculated the average ticket price.
      4. Glad my Animal House rental number brought back memories….it was a monster hit….no matter how you calculate the gross.
      5. Not thinking I will ever just post the rental number….and since there is not a boss of this website (WoC excluded…lol) I feel very comfortable that our pages will always have adjusted grosses.
      As always thanks for the great comment and movie stats.

      Reply

      1. 1 Yes the article that I read mentioned how 3D prices could askew average price calculations. Other factors cited were kids getting in for lower than average prices and higher than normal prices being charged for extra-special films You maybe do not get too much of the latter nowadays when there are so many blockbusters but back in the classic era blockbusters like Ben Hur and The Commandments were so rare that cinemas would often be able to charge ridiculous prices and still get large audiences.

        2 The article also mentioned special problems with caclulating adjusted world wide grosses under the ticket inflation method as there not a great deal of info published regarding ticket prices in foreign countries and of course under the CPI method one hits the problem of so many different exchange rates for the dollar.

        3 Still there are probably swings and roundabouts in the whole thing across the board so I wouldn’t be too worried as I still think that calculating domestic grosses by the ticket price inflation method is an excellent way of comparing the relative popularity of films and their stars with the good stab at the worldwide markets that you make being a valuable added bonus. One or two projects that I’ve seen try to adjust worldwide grosses but most, like Mojo, chicken out.

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob…..I have always said these are “estimates” as for the classic movies the actual will never be known. Hopefully my “estimates” land in the correct neighborhood. Usually my big misses are ones from errors on my part. From The Terrance is the biggest one I made….and that was from using the wrong movie’s numbers….versus my formula.

          Since changing the formula….I think it makes the classic movies’ box office numbers make more sense….but I am always willing to look at different takes on calculating these numbers. I remember when Variety was my box office bible….now after years of research…I do not trust their “yearly totals” at all. I have come to the conclusion….they polled the studios….and the ones that answered the polls provided different ways to answer….some gave Variety total worldwide box office…some gave Variety guesses, some low balled the number on purpose….and of course some gave the best possible/accurate answer possible. You just never know.

          Anyway…..hopefully….the people that are finding my box office numbers like them….I actually like when the numbers get questioned. Thanks for another great comment…hope your day goes well.

          Reply

          1. HI BRUCE

            1 Good insight for me of your thinking.

            2 In my opinion your classic era stats are always going to be as Jack Nicholson would say “As good as it gets.” Heck! we’re lucky to be getting any stats at all for movies going back up to (in Chaplin’s case for example) almost a century ago. When I did amateurish for fun exercises over the years to compile lists of all time hits the likes of Jolson Story, Giant, Samson and Delilah and South Pacific were among those whose figures I tried to track down first and they are all in your top 80 by my reckoning and are either much lower down in Mojo or totally excluded. So well done! You caught me out with only This is the Army but that one was useful to learn about.

            2 Similarly your pecking order of highest grossing stars is just what I always imagined the situation would be and I think that you have excellently captured the broad sweep of everything and I feel that if my some magic we could get exact figures there would be a swings and roundabouts effect that would iron out all the anomalies so that overall the situation would not be a lot different from that reflected in your tables. So don’t change a thing !

          2. Hey Bob…Bits and pieces are out there….it is like putting together a puzzle. I like to think I can find the corner pieces of the puzzle….so you know the boundaries at least. This Is The Army was huge…too bad Reagan could not capitalize on the success…instead he got military service. I think our top grossing stars is pretty good too….thanks for the nice words on our process.

          3. CORRECTION and APOLOGIES

            In my previous post I referred to You’re in the Army instead of This is the Army.

  3. Hey Bob….good stats. I read somewhere that it looked like the average ticket price in 2016 could actually be less than 2015…..which will really put a wrench in the works….usually it takes into March before the official average ticket cost gets determined. Personally I hope it stays roughly the same for the next year or two….because the next time it takes a major hike…I hope this site will be dynamic.

    I am right there with you about Disney….those lofty rental numbers come from in some cases 45 years of re-releases….yet it makes it look like it was a monster hit the year it was originally released.

    That is a whole lot of money in those 81 movies….good stuff as always.

    Moving my return to comment….as a stand alone comment….because it is getting confusing finding new comments on the Ginger Rogers page….which is a good problem to have…lol.

    Reply

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