Cary Grant Movies

Want to know the best Cary Grant movies?  How about the worst Cary Grant movies?  Curious about Cary Grant’s box office grosses or which Cary Grant movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Cary Grant movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place.

I would say my favorite three actors of all-time are Sir Michael Caine, Mr. Bruce Willis, and Archibald Leach….better known as Cary Grant (1904-1986). I discovered Cary Grant when I was in high school. During a sick day, I was stuck at home and bored out of my mind while watching television. As I flipped through the channels I came across a black and white movie. Back then I extremely disliked black and white movies. But I started to watch the movie that was on television. It took about 5 minutes before I realized I was enjoying the movie and another 45 minutes to realize I needed to see the beginning of the movie. That movie was called Bringing Up Baby and it opened the wonderful doors of Cary Grant movies.

Cary Grant made 73 full length movies from 1932-1966. When I wrote the page the first time I was able to find all the required information on 50 of the movies. Since then I have found box office information on the rest of the 23 movies.   In the table below Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 73 of his movies in 5 different sortable columns.  Television roles, shorts and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.

I have seen 51 of the 73 movies listed in the following tables. So I figure I would add my personal Top Ten Cary Grant movies…..located at the bottom of the page

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

Cary Grant 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 Cary Grant movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Cary Grant movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Cary Grant movies by domestic yearly box office rank or trivia
  • Sort Cary Grant 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 Cary Grant movie received.
  • Sort Cary Grant 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 sort and search buttons to make this a very interactive table.
Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in 1955's To Catch A Thief
Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in 1955’s To Catch A Thief

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Cary Grant Table

1.  41 of Cary Grant’s movies crossed the magical $100 million mark.  That is a percentage of 64.06% of his movies listed.  His top box office hit was Operation Petticoat (1959).

2.  An average Cary Grant movie grosses $147.10 million in adjusted box office gross.

3.  Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  49 of Cary Grant’s movies are rated as good movies…or 77.77% of his movies.  His highest rated movie is 1959’s North by Northwest.  His lowest rated movie is The Last Outpost (1935).

4.  28 of Cary Grant’s movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 44.44% of his movies.

5.  8 of Cary Grant’s movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 12.63% of his movies.

6.  A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00.  48 of Cary Grant’s movies scored higher that average….or 76.19% of his movies.  The Philadelphia Story (1940) got the highest UMR Score.  Born To Be Bad (1934) got the lowest UMR Score.

7.  Cary Grant starred in 6 movies that were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar® nomination.  She Done Him Wrong (1933), The Awful Truth (1937), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Suspicion (1941), The Talk Of The Town (1942), and The Bishop’s Wife (1947).

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Cary Grant Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

67c47ca87efd161407f941275ce01c98Cary Grant made many great movies….so picking a personal Top Ten for him is very very tough…but here goes my list in alphabetical order.

1. The Awful Truth (1937)….Cary Grant and Irene Dunne made a great screen couple, this was their first of three movies together. Grant is hilarious in the movie. Movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar® and won the director, Leo McCarey an Oscar® for Best Director.

2. Charade (1963)…..Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn team up in this almost Hitchcock like movie. Is Grant the good guy or the bad guy? A great supporting cast in James Coburn, George Kennedy and Walter Matthau.

3. Gunga Din (1939)…Gunga Din was one of my father’s favorite Cary Grant movies….so this story of soldiers in 19th century India makes my list….great action, great fun and a terrific ending.

4. Father Goose (1964)…Father Goose is a movie can I watch again and again. Grant is stuck on an island with a school teacher(Leslie Caron) and her 7 students(all girls) during World War II. Great lines throughout this movie.

5. His Girl Friday (1940)….one of the few times that Cary Grant got to be instigator of the comedy mayhem….versus being the one that had to react to all the craziness. A fast pace, fast talking comedy classic.

6. My Favorite Wife (1940)….his second movie with Irene Dunne and another classic. Dunne is assumed to have perished in a boat sinking seven years ago, she is rescued and returns home just as Grant remarries….and then the fun begins.

7. North by Northwest (1959) ….Grant’s fourth and final film with Alfred Hitchcock…. great scenes throughout the movie like the crop dusting plane, the auction scene and of course the Mount Rushmore finale.

8. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)….one of his lesser known classics from the great movie year of 1939…Howard Hawks directed this story about pilots that risk their lives flying in South America…a great supporting cast of Rita Hayworth, Jean Arthur and Thomas Mitchell.

9. The Philadelphia Story (1940)….Grant and Katharine Hepburn made 4 movies together…this by far is their best movie together….and yet James Stewart is the one that won the Oscar® for this movie…..this movie gets better every year.

10. To Catch A Thief (1955)…Grant thought his movie career was over….and then Hitchcock talked him out of semi-retirement to play a cat burglar nicknamed “The Cat”. This movie gives you a Cary Grant and Grace Kelly falling in love on screen and off screen…direction by the great Alfred Hitchcock….with the French Riviera as a backdrop…what more could you want?

Other great movies that just missed my Top Ten cut….Notorious, Operation Petticoat, Arsenic and Old Lace, An Affair To Remember and Bringing Up Baby.

Our brand new Cary Grant You Tube Video.

If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.

Want more Cary Grant information? Then I highly recommend http://www.carygrant.net/articles/i%20cary.htm

My Cary Grant letterbox.com reviews.  Highly recommend Letterboxd.com.  It is free and great way to keep track of the movies you have watched.

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225 thoughts on “Cary Grant Movies”

  1. Hello Bruce, Hello Steve
    The holidays are behind me, and everything Was perfect, sun, sea and etc…
    I Was too lazy to wrote in english but i read the comments and there were so Many good comments to read in the mean Time with bad News…
    I saw videos s Steve and i should like to write something but it did not work because i am not on Facebook, i suppose..Bruce what about Carroll Baker…? Is it ok?
    Anyway m’y Grant favorite film with out any questions Is NOrth by Nortwest, simply perfect..after that so Many are comings, i like very much Arsenic or Bringing up Baby.
    One of my favorite Is Blonde Venus with a spécial price for the Gorille and the show of Hot Voodo with Marlene…
    He Is a very great Star ,he Is on my top even if i prefer Gary Cooper and i saw so Many films with Grant but i Will not Count the films because i am Still lazy.
    Steve, i read a comment where you write you see a film which Is called Théâtre of Blood.
    I saw it too, i think it Was At the beginning of the 70 and in that film we got Two Diana for the price of one ticket, Doors and Rigg.
    I Was a little disapointed by Diana Rigg because She Was so far from Miss Emmma Peel from the Arvengers, one of my favorite série in those days.
    And to Day, i am a great fan of Games of Thrones but again,if i did not read the générique i never recognize her in the part of “la reine des Épines”.
    Where are you Miss M Appeal….???but i know that She Is a very great actress on the stage ….
    Bruce, very great page for 1936, i think it Is one of the Best of the décade with 39 …
    I Was ont the Dietrich page and no worlwide box office, do you think you Can get some informations???
    See you and take care
    Pierre

    Reply

    1. Hi Pierre, I’m a big fan of Theater of Blood, Vincent Price and Diana Rigg, especially as the gorgeous Mrs. Peel in The Avengers. I have a blu-ray box set of the colour episodes featuring Mrs. Peel and it looks fantastic. It was upsetting to see her looking so old and wrinkled in Game of Thrones.

      Reply

      1. Hello Steve,
        So Sorry , my memory again, it Was not Miss But Mrs Peel, that Was the fun and romance point with John Steed.
        I remembered an épisode where She Was in bad situation with a chastity Belt…
        In théâter of Blood there Was an another great english actor, i dont remembered the name but he Was very well known anyway he Was obliged to eat his own dogs….and you know what happen…

        Reply

  2. He was so talented and I had no idea he had starred in so many films. I loved Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace and in Father Goose and so many others that I saw in the movie theater. He was one of my Dad’s favorite actors too.

    Reply

    1. Hey Peg..thanks for checking out my Cary Grant page. This is my second most popular page. Which makes me very happy as he is one of my personal favorites. Father Goose is the one I watch over and over….I even have my 6 year old interested in that one. Arsenic and Old Lace is my wife’s favorite Grant movie….my dad loved the Hitchcock/Grant movies….with North by Northwest easily being his favorite.

      Reply

  3. Tonight I have crossed another movie off my list. I’ve just finished watching #36 on the list: People Will Talk. I saw it on Silver Screen Classics-a Canadian run channel similar to TCM only not with a great Robert Osbourne type of host and no themes like TCM beyond the artists (i.e. no “apartment life” theme like TCM is airing this Sataurday but weeks devoted to actors or directors)

    At #36 out of 55, it is high enough that it intrigued me to be a film which is never mentioned when listing Grant movies off the top of one’s head. There are plenty of films I have yet to see which I can name off the top of my head. This was not one of them.

    That brings my total of the films you have listed here to 31 out of 55-or 56% overall.

    I quite enjoyed this film. It had some great actors in it in supporting roles -Hume Cronyn and Walter Slezack, both of whom were shown in lifeboat the night before on the same channel. I’m not sure which one of them is the featured actor this week.

    It’s quite bold for 1951. The idea that Crain is pregnant by her dead lover who died in the war before getting married to her and allowing Grant to fall in love with her and maybe fix her problems that way. An unmarried pregnant woman with a dead father to her baby would not be a popular message at that time.

    Interesting courtroom scene. I was quite interested in finding out who Sunderson was.

    I don’t want to give away the ending.

    It is quite possible that with other actors, this script would not have been very strong. But the actors were all talented.

    Not my favourite by any means, but I would certainly watch it again when/if it came on TV again. I think it should be a lot better known than it

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora….glad you got the chance to see People Will Talk. I have seen the movie once…and checking my handy dandy movie notebook I see I watched it in 1987(wow 25 years ago) and I gave it a 3 out of 4…so I liked it as well. I need to rewatch the movie, as I can barely remember the courtroom scenes you mention. People Will Talk was not received too well for Grant back then and even helped him retire for a short time before Hitch brought him back.

      Thanks for the Grant update….I will keep an eye out for this movie.

      Reply

  4. Just came across this and had to comment again…one of my favorite Cary Grant movies is Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer…my daughters and I memorized the little “joke” between Shirley Temple and Grant – “You remind me of a man – What man – The man with the power – What power – The power of whodo – Who Do – You do – Do what – Remind me of a man…” As you can see – it is still a favorite few lines, even though my girls are grown with kids of their own…

    Reply

    1. Hey justateacher…..I loved that line from the movie as well…that movie is one of the Cary Grant movies that I watch on a regular basis….Charade, North by Northwest, Bachelor and Bobby Soxer, Father Goose and My Favorite Wife. Thanks for sharing your memories of your little ones that somewhat bigger now.

      Just the other day I was having a phone conversation with my 24 year old….he had just taken his daughter to The Lorax the movie….and was remembering how I used to read The Lorax the book to him as a kid….he said it amazed him that he was taken his kid to a movie that I read to him as a kid….I told him…think about how I feel about that….The Lorax from my son to my granddaughter….where does the time go?

      Reply

  5. Cary grant is one of my favorite actors …Jimmy Stewart is the other one …Philadelphia Story has to be the best movie ever made!

    Reply

    1. Hey Justateacher…Cary Grant is one of my favorites as well. I actually was disappointed in The Philadelphia Story the first time I watched it…but it has gotten better with each additional viewing. It is now one of my Top 5 Cary Grant movies….and it gave James Stewart his only Oscar win as well….thanks for the comment.

      Reply

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