Cecil B. DeMille Movies

Cecil B. DeMille was the Steven Spielberg of movies from 1913 to 1956.
Cecil B. DeMille was the Steven Spielberg of movies from 1914 to 1956.

Want to know the best Cecil B. DeMille movies?  How about the worst Cecil B. DeMille movies?  Curious about Cecil B. DeMille box office grosses or which Cecil B. DeMille movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which Cecil B. DeMille 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 and much more.

“I make my pictures for people, not for critics.” – Cecil B. DeMille.

Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) was one of the most successful directors in the history of Hollywood.  The best way to realize just how successful DeMille was, is to say that Steven Spielberg is the modern day Cecil B. DeMille.  They both made many blockbuster movies, they both directed movies for almost 50 years, they both ran studios, they both remained relevant even as they got older and they both changed how movies were made.  Since we had already written a movie page on Spielberg we figured it was time to do a page on Mr. DeMille.

Drivel part:  Gotta give my wife kudos. Currently she is getting her masters degree from the College of William and Mary. Recently, my wife came home from college and gave me a book that she had checked out from the William and Mary library (which is one awesome library).  She said, “I think you will find this book interesting.”  The book she handed me was Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood by Robert S. Birchard.  This book turned out to have box office information and production costs on almost every single DeMille movie ever made.  For someone who spends a lot of time searching for long lost box office information, I can tell you that this was an awesome find by my wife.  There is no way I would have even thought about doing this page without that book.  So if you find this page interesting…then you have to thank my awesome wife…because without her there is no way I would have done this page.  Kudos to Robert S. Birchard too…as he wrote a book that is educational and interesting.

Cecil B. DeMille’s IMDb page shows 80 directing credits from 1914-1956. This page will rank 67 Cecil B. DeMille movies from Best to Worst in seven different sortable columns of information.  The remaining 13 credits were short films…..and were not included in the rankings.

Cecil B. DeMille filmed two versions of The Ten Commandments...both were monster hits.
Cecil B. DeMille filmed two versions of The Ten Commandments…both were monster hits.

Cecil B. DeMille 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 Cecil B. DeMille movies by the stars of his movies.
  • Sort Cecil B. DeMille movies by the actual box office grosse (in millions)
  • Sort Cecil B. DeMille movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Cecil B. DeMille 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 Cecil B. DeMille movie received and
  • Sort Cecil B. DeMille 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.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Cecil B. DeMille Table

  1. Thirty-two Cecil B. DeMille movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 47.76% of his movies listed. The Ten Commandments (1956) was his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
  2. An average Cecil B. DeMille movie grossed $145.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  35 of Cecil B. DeMille’ movies are rated as good movies…or 52.23% of their movies. Something To Think About (1920) is his highest rated movie while Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Thirteen Cecil B. DeMille movie received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or *68.42% of his movies. *48 of his movies were made before the birth of the Academy Awards®
  5. Six Cecil B. DeMille movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or *31.57% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Ranking  (UMR) Score is 40.00.  40 Cecil B. DeMille movies scored higher than that average….or 59.70% of his movies. The Ten Commandments (1923) got the the highest UMR Score while Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) got the lowest UMR Score.
Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth was a massive hit and won the Best Picture Oscar.
Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show On Earth was a massive hit and won the Best Picture Oscar.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Cecil B. DeMille

1. Cecil B. DeMille was born in born in Ashfield, Massachusetts in 1881.

2.  Cecil B. DeMille was one of the 36 co-founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

3. Cecil B. DeMille was nominated for 3 Oscars®.  He picked up a Best Director Oscar® nomination for The Greatest Show On Earth (1952).  He earned 2 Best Producer Oscar nominations for 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth (he won) and 1956’s The Ten Commandments.  He would have had many more nominations, but most of his movies pre-date the Oscars®.

4. Cecil B. DeMille did receive two Honorary Oscars®.  In 1953 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.  In 1950 he was given a Honorary Oscar® for “Distinguished motion picture pioneer for 37 years of brilliant showmanship.”

5.  In 1952, Cecil B. DeMille was the first person to receive the Golden Globe® Cecil B. DeMille Award.  The award is a lifetime achievement award….the list of Cecil B. DeMille Award Winners is truly impressive.

6.  Many people know that Cecil B. DeMille made The Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956) two times in his career.  How many people realize he made The Squaw Man THREE TIMES?  He made the first Squaw Man in 1914, the second in 1918 and the third in 1931.

7.  The movie line from Sunset Blvd (1950)… “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up” was voted as the #7 movie quote by the American Film Institute.  The line is spoken by Gloria Swanson.  Swanson starred in two DeMille movies.  Cecil B. DeMille agreed to do a cameo in the movie for a $10,000 fee and a brand-new Cadillac.

8.  Cecil B. DeMille was married one time.  He was married to Constance Adams from 1902 to his death in 1959.  They had four children.  Two time Oscar winner, Anthony Quinn, was DeMille’s son-in-law.

9.  Cecil B. DeMille turned Charlton Heston into a star.  DeMille signed the relatively unknown Heston to a 3 picture deal.  Their first movie together, The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), was a massive hit and won the Best Picture Oscar®.  Their second movie together, The Ten Commandments (1956), is one of the biggest box office hits ever!  It is a shame that they never made the third film.

10.  According to Cecil B. DeMille only 6 of his movies did not turn a profit. That is very impressive when you realize he made so many movies.

Check out Cecil B. DeMille’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.

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24 thoughts on “Cecil B. DeMille Movies

    1. Hey Rick…..the Spielberg of 1910, 1920, 1939, 1940 and 1950. I give Hitchcock the 1960s with Spielberg getting the batton for 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

  1. Hi

    DeMille was a brilliant showman. I think everyone who enjoys films will have time for DeMille. He was such a pioneer. Although high brow critics didn’t seem to rate him. But whatever they think, he did bring in the punters. I loved his cameo in Sunset Boulevard. I wonder if Billy Wilder intended to set him up a bit because most of the top brass hated the movie at the time of release.
    As a kid I went to see Ten Commandments. DeMille opened it with a narration at the beginning, at the time i didn’t know who he was. But he did take his biblical stories very serious, he was actually quite religious.
    One of his daughters was quite successful on Broadway and another daughter married Anthony Quinn. I’m sure you couldn’t believe your luck when your wife handed you the book, if only she could that for every subject. Wouldn’t it be great!

    1. Hey Chris. I love his quote at the top of the page…“I make my pictures for people, not for critics.” His cameo in Sunset Blvd is one of the best cameos ever. That is cool about when you saw The Ten Commandments. I should have included the fact that Anthony Quinn was his son-in-law. Actually after finishing this comment I am going back and adding that fact in….thanks.
      When the wife handed me the book….I actually quickly dismissed it….as luck would have it…I picked the one movie in the entire book that did not have either the production cost or box office gross…so I actually did not pick it back up for a few days….and then I realized the treasure that she found. She now has lots of pressure to find another book just like the DeMille book. That is the fun and frustrating part of finding old box office grosses….you never know when you are about to stumble on to a gold mine.
      As always thanks for stopping by and talking movies.

  2. Hi, Bruce.

    Most of the silent films that exist in great condition are directed by Cecil B. DeMille. He directed a lot of epics throughout his career. I’m not sure which versions of The Squaw Man I’ve seen. I know I’ve seen two, but I cannot remember which ones. I am not surprised that you were able to do a DeMille page. He always kept records of everything. Big ego he may have had, but he knew that he was going to be important and wanted to keep track of everything.

    I love all the cameos in Sunset Boulevard. When Buster Keaton made that movie, he was forgotten. He became famous again and had a renewed career after James Mason found a copy of The General when remodelling his home that Keaton had once owned. I know you do not usually include cameos, but it was such an important one Keaton made in that movie. The other card players I could not tell you their names-and I am a silent film fan.

    I have seen more of his talking pictures that his silent films. However, I’ve seen more of his silents that any other silent film director who wasn’t a director of comedies ala Keaton etc.
    Because of this I won’t talk about DeMille the same way I usually do when talking about rankings

    Instead, I will talk about the films in tens and just say now that I have seen only 10.

    I regret to say I am unfamiliar with the movie at number 1. Also, I still have not seen the second version of The Ten Commandments, despite the cast which Steve will no doubt not find impressing.

    The highest rated film I have seen is the 1927 version of The King of Kings at Number 7. That is the only one in the top 10 I have seen so far. Yes, that means I haven’t seen the silent version of The Ten Commandments either. Oh, dear. Biblical epics…

    From 11-20 I have done better. I have seen 2: Cleopatra and Union Pacific, both enjoyable.

    From 21-30, I have seen 3: The Greatest Show on Earth, Samson and Delilah, and North West Mounted Police. I am doing better the lower the ranking this time…

    From 31-40, I regret to say I have not seen any.

    From 41-50, it depends upon which The Squaw Man I’ve seen. But I’ll say 2.

    From 51-onward I have seen 2.

    Not a good showing at all…

    Cheers,

    Flora

    1. Hey Flora.
      1. You are 100% correct about DeMille….he was very careful to preserve his movies and the record keeping of those movies. Not shown in this page, but the book my wife found has another 50 or so movies that his movie company made…and it lists the production cost and grosses as well. Apparently DeMille’s long time secretary kept a notebook of all the box office information….I like her…I wish all studio heads would have done that.
      2. I have seen 0 of the Squaw Man movies…before doing this page I had never even heard of those movies….he must have really liked the story….to film it THREE times.
      3. When I do my Buster Keaton I will include his cameo in Sunset Blvd…..that is cool about Mason finding the movie in Keaton’s old house.
      4. So Steve takes this round…Steve 12, Flora 10 and me 7….at least I had Goldie…lol.
      5. You are not the only one unfamiliar with Something to Think About….you never know it might be a classic.
      6. I can see Steve shaking his head about you not seeing either version of the Ten Commandments.
      7. One of the two silent DeMille movies I have seen is the only Top 10 movie you have seen…The King of Kings….which I just watched today. This is my review of that movie. http://letterboxd.com/cogerson/film/the-king-of-kings/
      8. Only 3 of the Top 20…that is surprising….but your overall count is almost the average of the three of us.
      9. I want to see North West Mounted Police.
      10. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

  3. Wow an epic page for Mr. Epic Cecil B. DeMille. That book your wife gave you must have been a godsend, where else can you find all these facts and figures? Old issues of Variety? Excellent work.
    I’ve seen 12 of DeMille’s sound era movies and only 2 of the silent movies – King of Kings and The Ten Commandments, 14 films out of the 67 you’ve listed here. I own his 1956 magnum opus Ten Commandments on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. 🙂
    I would rather Ten Commandments won Best Picture than his circus film The Greatest Show On Earth, or that years winner, Around the World in 80 Days.
    I enjoyed his cameo in Sunset Boulevard, one of the great Billy Wilder films.
    Btw you’ve got something called ‘Something to Think About’ topping the critics chart, never heard of it and I’ve read a couple of DeMille bios. Why is it rated so high? The Volga Boatman? Whaat?
    Keep em coming Bruce.

    1. Hey Steve thanks for checking out my “epic” DeMille page. I tried to included Heston as many times as I could in the page….lol. Variety would have given me The Ten Commandments (1923) and that was it for his movies made from 1914 to 1929. So your tally count is 14….I am sitting at….counting…..7….5 sound and 2 silent films. The Greatest Show on Earth is one of the weakest Best Picture Winners…..but it still is one of the biggest box hits to win the big prize. I was surprised how well the critics and audiences liked Something to talk about and Volga Boatman. But all of my sources gave both movies great ratings. Maybe they will be worth checking out. On the other end of the ratings…his The Cheat seems to be disliked by almost everybody….yet it is one of his most famous movies. That is actually one of the 2 silent DeMille films I have seen….and I was not too impressed myself. As always thanks for stopping by.

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