Terry Gilliam Movies

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

This was a horrible weekend at the Cogerson household.  Almost everybody was sick, the weather was horrible and the Denver Broncos lost.  One of the few bright spots was an early Christmas gift from one of my children.  That gift was a new book called Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir.  It almost made being in bed all weekend bearable.  So now that the household is back up and running around singing Disney songs…I figured I should do a movie page on one of my favorite directors…Mr. Terry Gilliam.

Gilliam’s IMDb page shows over 100 credits since 1968. This page will rank Terry Gilliam movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, cameos and movies not released in North America were not included in the rankings.  The movies that are ranked are mainly ones Gilliam directed movies and a few Monty Python projects that he helped write and appeared in as a performer.

Terry Gilliam co-directed one of the funniest movies ever....1974's Monty Python and the Holy grail
Terry Gilliam co-directed one of the funniest movies ever….1974’s Monty Python and the Holy grail

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

Terry Gilliam 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 Terry Gilliam movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Terry Gilliam movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Terry Gilliam movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Terry Gilliam 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 Terry Gilliam movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Terry Gilliam movie won.
  • Sort Terry Gilliam 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.

Terry Gilliam directed one of the best time travel movies ever....1994's Twelve Monkeys....or was it a movie about a mentally disturbed patient?
Terry Gilliam directed one of the best time travel movies ever….1995’s Twelve Monkeys….or was it a movie about a mentally disturbed patient?

Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Terry Gilliam

1. Terry Gilliam was born in Minnesota in 1940.

2. Terry Gilliam was a part of Monty Python’s Flying Circus from its outset, at first credited as an animator (his name was listed separately after the other five in the closing credits), later as a full member.

3. Terry Gilliam has directed three actors in Oscar®-nominated roles; Brad Pitt (Twelve Monkeys (1995)), Robin Williams, and Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King (1991)). Ruehl won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

4.  Terry Gilliam has been married to British make-up and costume designer Maggie Weston since 1973.  They have three children.

5.  Terry Gilliam was J.K. Rowlings’ first choice to direct Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001).  Warner Brothers went with Chris Columbus.

6.  Terry Gilliam also turned down the opportunity to direct Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Enemy Mine (1985), and Forrest Gump (1994) and Alien: Resurrection (1997).

7. Terry Gilliam has been nominated for one Oscar®.  He was nominated for Best Screenplay for 1985’s Brazil

8. There are two excellent documentaries that cover how Terry Gilliam directs his movies.  The first is called The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys which shows how Twelve Monkeys was made and the second is called Lost in La Mancha which is about Terry Gilliam’s unfinished film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.  Both are highly recommended viewings.

Check out Terry Gilliam’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 of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

 

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8 thoughts on “Terry Gilliam Movies

  1. “A witch a witch!”, “Burn her!”, “How do you know she is a witch?”, “She looks like one!” One of my favorites Bruce. I was a big Monty Python fan back in my youth. I’ve watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail so many times on VHS back in the 80’s and 90’s. Now I have those films on DVD and Blu-ray.

    But my favorite Terry Gilliam film has to be Brazil. One of the few films I’ve watched twice in one evening. Disappointed to see it so low on your moviescore chart. 12 Monkeys was a good sci-fi thriller, I’ve always had a weakness for time travel tales and it was one of Gilliams most successful films too.

    The only film from your list I have yet to see is Tideland. Harry Potter would have been a lot different, and weirder, if he had directed it. Not that crazy about his newest film, The Zero Theorem, I’ll have to watch it again.

    Excellent fact-filled page on a unique talent. Voted Up.

    1. Hey Steve….writting this page has me motivated to watch the Holy Grail again. Brazil and 12 Monkeys are my favorite two Gilliam pages. Brazil did nothing at the box office….then it got ignored by the Oscar people…that only left one category for Brazil to shine in….and it tops the critic/audience ratings. I always think if the studio had gotten behind the movie it would have been a bigger hit and gotten more Oscar love. I am missing two Gilliam movies…Tideland (the quietest Gilliam release ever) and Zero Theorem…which is high on my list of movies to watch. Thanks for checking out my latest.

    1. Hey Scotty. I actually think Gilliam had an issue with Gene Siskel versus Roger Ebert… but I should mention how Gilliam has some of the best DVD commentaries out there….thanks for the suggestion!

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