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. Since you lost your comments on Cary Grant from the earlier websites and since he won your tournament I thought I’d revisit Mr. Grant and his page since my comments no longer exist for him.

    I see you have been able to add more movies to the list from being able to find box office information on them.

    My Grant total now stands at 48 movies listed here. I recently added two he made with Betsy Drake.

    I attempted to get through Pride and the Passion during December’s Star of the Moth look at Frank Sinatra but abandoned it part way through. Very boring. That is the first time I have not been able to finish a movie that either Grant or Sinatra made for at least one viewing.

    Mr. Lucky will be airing on TCM in the wee hours of the morning – depending upon where you live –as part of the final look at William Cameron Menzies movies. Personally, I find it very depressing. It is quite unlike most of the movies he made. In this way the movie reminds me of Penny Serenade… very sad topic.

    My top ten Cary Grant movies listed alphabetically as they stand now:

    The Awful Truth
    Bringing Up Baby
    Charade
    Gunga Din
    His Girl Friday
    My Favorite Wife
    Notorious
    North By Northwest
    Operation Petticoat
    To Catch a Thief

    Cheers,

    Flora

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora.
      1. Thanks for commenting again. Pretty sure one of the first pages to go from HubPages to my 2nd website was this one. I remember I moved it over and deleted the hub. About three days later it occurred to me that maybe I should have moved the comments as well….but it was too late as that page and the comments were gone forever.
      2. I have found a few more of his movies….but there are still 14 left to research.
      3. We are tied at 48 Cary Grant movies watched. Recently I have been going back and re-watching some of the Grant movies I did not like much on the first viewings….most with the exception of The Howards of Virginia have been better.
      4. Not thinking Frank can blame you for not finishing Pride and the Passion….he did not even bother to finish filming all of his scenes in that one. Not one of my favorite Grant movies at all….though I did finish it…lol.
      5. I have seen Mr. Lucky once….but that was many years ago. I do not remember it being as sad as Penny Serenade….which is my least favorite Dunne/Grant movie.
      6. Our Top 10 favorite Grant movies….have 7 matches…..surprised Philadelphia Story did not make your Top 10…..Notorious, Operation Petticoat and Bringing Up Baby made my honorable mentions….so I agree with you that they are good movies.
      Thanks again for sharing your thoughts on one of my favorite actors….Cary Grant.

      Reply

  2. Many thanks for these fascinating facts about the work of my favourite actor. He was superb in so many films. I remember particularly watching ‘Bringing Up Baby’ in Paris in 2005, at a little art cinema on the Left Bank. The film was ‘version originelle’ that is, in English with French subtitles, so there was a slight time lag in me understanding the dialogue, and the French people around me. I’d also seen the movie before. I couldn’t help laughing time and time again before the audience in the cinema – couldn’t help it, it is so amazingly funny. Never mind the critical/audience response at the time is came out – it is one of the most memorable films of the 20th century !

    Reply

    1. Hey Pippa R. Thanks for stopping by and commenting….both are greatly appreciated. He is one of my favorites actors as well. That sounds very cool….”watching Bringing Up Baby on the Left Bank” and how you got to respond first. Classic stuff. Bringing Up Baby is the movie that introduced me to Cary Grant. I was at home sick…..and flipping through the channels and ran across a black and white film. At first I had no interest….but after about 15 minutes…I was a newly converted Cary Grant fan. So I agree that Baby is one of the most memorable films of the 20th century.

      Reply

    1. Hey Susan it just depends on which column you look at. If you look at the box office column….Operation Petticoat was Grant’s biggest hit of his career….while Bringing Up Baby was one of his biggest flops…coming in at 43rd of 55 movies…..But if you look at what critics and audiences say…Bringing Up Baby comes in at 5th….and Operation Petticoat still cracks the Top 20 coming in at 19th. Plus Grant got one of his Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor for Operation Petticoat. Then the Oscar voters gave Petticoat 1 nomination…while Baby got shut out. My rankings are looking at the Grant movies that performed the best by stats. I read that Operation Petticoat always draws big ratings whenever it gets re-broadcast. If you were the producer of Operation Petticoat…you laughed all the way to the bank….if you were the producer of Baby you would have to re-mortgage your house….plus it almost ended the career of one of the greats of all-time …Katharine Hepburn. That being said…the reason I am a huge Grant fan is because of Bringing Up Baby. Thanks for reading and commenting….it is greatly appreciated.

      Reply

  4. Thank you so much for this. I’ve recently (past three months) started to see his movies. I do enjoy black n white films. But, I considered him like just a typical light romantic comedy type of actor. But, now that I’ve seen several of his movies I’m hooked. Yes, in many he does play a light romantic comedy character….but, he is so good in it. I was surprised at how much I loved Arsenic and old lace, the Philadelphia story, Holiday, His girl Friday, the awful truth, and I already had the Hitchcock films he was in cause I love Hitchcock. Can’t wait to see Bringing Up Baby since I hear his great it is. Plus I will see the others you recommend.

    Reply

    1. Hey Victor…..glad to see you have joined the Cary Grant Fan Club….there is lots of room. Father Goose would be another one to check out soon. Thanks for checking out my Grant page and thanks for the nice words.

      Reply

  5. How the heck can you rate them…I LOVE THEM ALL…..I have favorites but that doesn’t matter…THEY ARE ALL GREAT.

    Reply

    1. Hey Leslie….the way the page is set up…..it ranks his movies many different ways. If you think box office totals are the way to go…his Top 3 are Operation Petticoat, Bachelor & Bobby-Soxer and Notorious. If you want what critics and audiences think…then North by Northwest, Pha.Story and Notorious are the Top 3….while my system takes all that into account and the Top 3 are North by Northwest, Notorious and Pha. Story as the Top 3.

      Reply

      1. thanks for the info Bruce. I LOVED FATHER GOOSE AND I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE, AND MR. BLANDINGS TOO…..I LOVED GUNGA DIN AND NOTORIOUS AND SUSPICION….Can’t make up my mind

        Reply

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