Elvis Presley Movies

Elvis Presley in 1961's Blue Hawaii
Elvis Presley in 1961’s Blue Hawaii

Want to know the best Elvis Presley movies?  How about the worst Elvis Presley movies?  Curious about Elvis Presley box office grosses or which Elvis Presley movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Elvis Presley movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences…and which Elvis movie got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place …. because we have all of that information.

Elvis Presley (1935-1977) the singer was the “King of Rock and Roll”.  The “King” has sold over 2.5 billion in worldwide records.  Following in the footsteps of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Presley went from singing to acting in movies.  Elvis Presley’s first number one song, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956.  By the end of 1957 he had appeared in three movies (Love Me Tender, Loving You, and Jailhouse Rock) and they were all box office hits.  After Presley finished filming King Creole he was drafted.  He would return to movies with G.I. Blues in 1960.  For the rest of the 1960s he averaged nearly three movies a year.

When looking at his IMDb page you find some pretty interesting Elvis Presley credits.  Presley has 31 acting credits.  His music has been featured in 397 movies and television shows.  And he appeared as himself in 23 projects…including many documentaries.  This page will rank 31 Elvis Presley movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings….I did include two of his most famous documentaries in the rankings.

Elvis Presley in 1957's Jailhouse Rock
Elvis Presley in 1957’s Jailhouse Rock

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

Elvis Presley 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 by Elvis Presley movie titles…link takes you to that movie’s trailer
  • Sort by Elvis Presley’s co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Elvis Presley movies by actual domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Elvis Presley movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Elvis Presley movies by movie’s domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort Elvis Presley movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort Elvis Presley 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.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Elvis Presley Table

  1. Seven Elvis Presley movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 21.21% of his movies listed. Love Me Tender (1956) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Elvis Presley movie grosses $68.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  14 of Elvis Presley’s movies are rated as good movies…or 42.42% of his movies.  King Creole (1958) is his highest rated movie* while Change of Habit (1969) was his lowest rated movie.  *Documentaries excluded.
  4. Zero Elvis Presley movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 0.00% of his movies.
  5. A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.  12 Elvis Presley movies scored higher that average….or 36.36% of his movies.  Jailhouse Rock (1957) got the the highest UMR Score while Change of Habit (1969) got the lowest UMR Score.
Elvis Presley in 1958's King Creole
Elvis Presley in 1958’s King Creole

Check out Elvis Presley‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

If you are interested in Elvis’ Top 40 Billboard Hits…..we have 107 Elvis Songs Ranked Best To Worst as well.  Elvis Top 40 Hits.

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

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142 thoughts on “Elvis Presley Movies”

  2. BRUCE

    CRAWFORD
    1 Thanks for the extra link on Joan’s profit/loss. I will have fun with it. As regards you sharing some of my comments I told you before that I regard as your property and no longer the sender’s ANY post that is committed to your site.

    ELVIS
    2 Glad you saw Elvis and Nixon. I think that when we had previous exchanges there was some uncertainty about how literal to take some of the plot but after researching the internet I concluded that whilst the interface between the two was not verbatim it was broadly accurate.
    However I would be interested in your own thoughts.

    Reply

  3. 1 In some of the extracts that I saw Elvis complained bitterly about not being given more demanding roles, but we’ve got to be realistic. The likes of Blue Hawaii and G I Blues were up at the adjusted $150 million whereas King Creole and Flaming Star did not get into even the $70 million bracket and Col Tom Parker was not going to exchange a goldmine for an art house!
    You and Bruce are to be congratulated for making King Creole your top artistic non documentary Elvis movie. I can’t remember what you gave Wild in the Country though Bruce didn’t think a lot of it; but nevertheless I enjoyed it, IMDB classes it as pure drama, but unfortunately it was another Elvis film that couldn’t get into the $70 mil bracket

    2 As a movie buff billing like Bruce’s stats are important to me because they are the only means I have of obtaining an objective idea of the status of stars of yesteryear in comparison with one and other. If you look at the poster on Wikipedia for example for Boeing Boeing
    you will see the ridiculous lengths 2 stars went to rather than concede the very top spot. The arrangement demonstrated there was one the compromises that Katie Hepburn says she put to Bogie and Tracy to try to get them in a movie together but Tracy at least rejected it. I have no doubt that Mother Theresa would have felt those people were very lucky to have nothing more serious to worry about.
    than

    Reply

  4. Thanks Bob, nice story about Brando meeting The King, much appreciated. I knew that Elvis idolised Brando, all the youngsters did back then, great to know they actually met. Brando was a huge influence on young actors. Elvis also emulated Tony Curtis hair style.

    That concert movie – Elvis That’s The Way it is – is highly regarded by us Elvis fans, the critics liked it too. Edited together from several concerts in Las Vegas along with stage rehearsals.

    King Creole, Jailhouse Rock and Flaming Star are generally regarded as his best ‘acting’ jobs. Blue Hawaii was a huge worldwide success and was the template for all of Elvis subsequent 60s ‘fun and frolic’ musicals. Best of those 60s films for me was Viva Las Vegas, co-starring the gorgeous Ann-Margret.

    It’ll be nice if Bruce can find some worldwide grosses for these films but most of them are Paramount and it might not be easy.

    Cheers,
    Steve.

    Reply

    1. 1 Just like Jan Speppard in the interview Walter Matthau who played the villain in King Creole is on record as saying that Elvis was an excellent actor. One would like to think that Lemmon’s old buddy knew a thing or two about acting !

      2 In Flaming Star Elvis took over the role first offered to Brando and in King Creole the lead was first offered to Brando and then Newman. So Elvis following in good ‘dramatic’ footsteps in tackling those movies.

      3 What impressed me about his career that his first movie apart he carried all his films on his own with no other major star backing him up.

      4 Elvis also rates 2nd best in the list of all those stars with whose top billing record I am FAMILIAR for example-

      (1) Paul Muni – Never billed other than TOP in the 22 movies he made
      (2) Elvis Presley – billed third in his first movie but then always billed TOP thereafter.
      (3) Marlon Brando – billed second in only two movies in his top star years
      (4) James Dean- billed top only once in 3 movies – even in East of Eden Dean billed 2nd.
      (5) Gregory Peck – billed less than TOP only 4 times in his top star years.

      5 If you have been following recent exchanges you will know that Bruce and John tend to minimise the importance of the considerations i paras 3 and 4 but in my perception they are very reliable indicators of considerable status within the film community and the general public

      Reply

      1. Good info thanks Bob. Is Paul Muni’s top billing in all his films a record?

        From the exchanges I’ve had with John, we both seem to have been bitten by the ‘marquee billing’ bug thanks to you. I for one never cared a jot about who was billed first or second until I saw all your posts, now I’m looking at my posters and wonder why certain actors are billed below other actors. 🙂

        Elvis was an underrated actor IMO, if it wasn’t for all the fluff musicals he made during the 60s he might have gained more respect from his peers and critics.

        Reply

  5. BRUCE – Can these sums be added into their Cogerson grosses? BOB
    Warhol portraits of Elvis and Brando go under the hammer for £96 MILLION in New York
    TWO iconic Andy Warhol paintings of Elvis Presley and Marlon Brando have sold for more than £96million at a blockbuster art auction in New York.
    The extremely rare portraits were among the highlights at a record-breaking auction of post-war and contemporary art which topped £541million.
    The pair rate among Warhol’s most famous portraits
    Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) sold for £52million and Four Marlons brought in £44.1million at Christie’s sale of post-war and contemporary art.
    The pair rate among Warhol’s most famous portraits.
    The nearly 7ft-high portraits were acquired by German casino company WestSpiel in the 1970s for one of its casinos.
    The Elvis, executed in ink and silver paint in 1963, depicts the rock ‘n’ roll heartthrob as a cowboy, who is armed and shooting from the hip.
    The Brando silkscreen, created three years later, shows the actor on a motorcycle in a leather jacket. The image is repeated four times.

    Reply

    1. 1 Elvis always had plenty of “chicks” in his movies and your posters certainly reflect that
      2 My favourites among your posters were those for Stay Away Joe, Live a Little Love a Little, Blue Hawaii, and Girls. Girls, Girls, from which there is a classy coloured still
      3 Slightly surprised that Blue Hawaii was not a bit further up as I always considered it Elvis’ best movie. However Bruce like you has it at just 10 for critic/audience
      4 Bruce [critic/audience] and you agree on the Top 5 and the 4 with which I am familiar are excellent choices. You both have a documentary as No 1 but I’ve never seen it
      5 Overall your presentation well captures the carefree and feel-good qualities of Elvis’ movies 9.1/10

      Apparently Presley’s own favourite movie stars were Eastwood, Dean, McQueen the Duke and Brando. As a ‘companion piece’ to this post another will shortly follow with an internet extract about a meeting between Elvis and Marlon which hopefully will be of passing interest to you

      Reply

        1. EXTRACT FROM A LONG INTERVIEW BY JOURNALIST JOE KREIN ON 13 APRIL 2014 WITH M-s JAN SHEPARD WHO SUPPORTED ELVIS [AS HIS SCREEN SISTER] IN KING CREOLE WHEN SHE WAS 30.
          “JOE KREIN: Was Elvis a good actor?
          Wonderful! Oh, just marvelous! I will never forget. You know every person that sings is a good actor. Because they have the sense of timing, the sense of rhythm, a sense of what words mean. He was a brilliant actor because he didn’t need any advice. He knew automatically what to do and act, as the show was going on. I kept saying to him, ‘Oh, Elvis, for God sake, you’re doing such a great job’.

          So one day we went for lunch. We were sitting there at a table and in walks Marlon Brando. Elvis was sitting with his back towards him. There was a table right behind Elvis that was empty, so Brando saw Elvis as soon as he walked in. So Brando got into the chair right behind Elvis. I said to Elvis, ‘Marlon Brando is sitting behind you’. Elvis said, ‘Oh, my God’ and his head sunk into his sandwich. I said, ‘Look, he wants to meet you, I saw him looking at you, just say hi to him’.

          Well, that’s exactly what happened. He got up and bumped his chair. Marlon stood up and the two of them shook hands. They did a little small talking. Elvis was very cool. Elvis then walked out of the café very cool. But the minute we got outside he leaped up. He couldn’t believe he met Marlon Brando. He was so excited, we just danced all the way back to the studio.

          Then one day after the show had been released, someone sent me the review of ‘King Creole’. The title was ‘Bourbon Street Brando’. I raced over to Paramount and I grabbed Elvis and I said, ‘Look at this’. I showed him the ‘Bourbon Street Brando’, he just couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘See, I told you, you were going to be great in this! JOE, Elvis was!”

          Reply

          1. Hey Bob…..sorry your previous Elvis comment escaped me while in Alaska…..sorry we won’t be able to include those totals in Elvis’ totals.

            When we returned last night I saw that Elvis & Nixon is sitting on my DVD player…I will be watching that in the next day or two…I remember you had high marks for that movie.

            Good story on Brando and Elvis. That would have been fun to see happen as it played out.

            Thanks for the Steve video comments….good stuff throughout.

            🙂

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