Ernest Borgnine Movies

ernie 11111Want to know the best Ernest Borgnine movies?  How about the worst Ernest Borgnine movies?  Curious about Ernest Borgnine’s box office grosses or which Ernest Borgnine movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Ernest Borgnine movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012) was an American Oscar® winning actor whose career spanned over 60 years.  His IMDb page shows 207 acting credits from 1951 to 2012. This page will rank 65 Ernest Borgnine movies.  Movies will be ranked from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, movies that grossed less than $1 million in rentals and movies that were not released in theaters in North America were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part of the page:  I have not met too many Oscar® winners in my lifetime…..but I did get to meet Mr. Ernest Borgnine.  The place:  Fort Sumter ….Charleston, South Carolina.  The time:  The late 1970s. The situation:  While touring Fort Sumter (this is where the Civil War officially started)….my dad noticed that one of the other tourists was Ernest Borgnine.  My dad told me not to bother him…..well for the next 30 minutes or so….I resisted the temptation to go and talk to him…..but I never let him out of my sight.  As we left the Fort and headed to the parking lot…..I could resist no longer.  I ran up to him and said….”Aren’t you the guy on McHale’s Navy?” ….. being a kid I did not even know of the existence of Marty or From Here To Eternity. Mr. Borgnine said “Yes I am son.”  I then said…..”I love that show….Ensign Parker is my favorite character because he is so funny”….Ensign Parker was the Tim Conway role…while Borgnine played McHale.  Mr. Borgnine laughed out loud patted me on my head and said….”Yes indeed he is a very funny man….glad you like the show…..thanks for taking the time to tell me that….enjoy the rest of your day.”  He then climbed into a long white limousine and drove away.   So with over 400 UMR pages….I finally have one on somebody that I actually have had a short conversation with….sorry it took so long to do your request Steve Lensman and Flora.

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Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for his role in 1955’s Marty.

Ernest Borgnine 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 Ernest Borgnine movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Ernest Borgnine movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Ernest Borgnine movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Ernest Borgnine 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 Ernest Borgnine movie received.
  • Sort Ernest Borgnine 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 Ernest Borgnine Table

  1. Eleven Ernest Borgnine movie crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 16.92% of his movies listed. The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Ernest Borgnine movie grosses $78.30 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  33 of Ernest Borgnine’s movies are rated as good movies…or 50.76% of his movies.  The Wild Bunch (1969) is his highest rated movie while The Devil’s Rain (1975) is his lowest rated movie.
  4. Thirteen Ernest Borgnine movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 20.00% of his movies.
  5. Four Ernest Borgnine movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 6.15% of his movies.
  6. An good Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00.  29 Ernest Borgnine movie scored higher that average….or 44.61% of his movies. From Here to Eternity (1953) got the the highest UMR Score while Code Name: Wild Geese (1986) got the lowest UMR Score.
Ernest Borgnine in 1953's From Here To Eternity
Ernest Borgnine in 1953’s From Here To Eternity

Possibly Interesting Facts About Ernest Borgnine

1.Ermes Effron Borgnino was born in Hamden, Connecticut in 1917.

2. Ernest Borgnine served in the United States Navy from 1935 to 1945.  He received the Navy Good Conduct Medal, American Defense Service Medal with Fleet Clasp, American Campaign Medal with 3⁄16” bronze star, and the World War II Victory Medal for his service.

3. After the war Ernest Borgnine’s mother suggested to him that his personality would be well suited for the stage.  He took her advance and studied acting.  In 1949 he debuted in 1949’s Harvey.  By 1951 he appeared in his first movie.  60 years later he was still making movies.

4. In 1955, Ernest Borgnine, received his one and only Oscar® nomination.  But he only needed one nomination to win a Best Actor Oscar®.  He did this for his role in Marty.

5. While on location in Mexico filming 1954’s Vera Cruz, he and fellow cast member Charles Bronson found themselves with some extra time on their hands and decided to go to the nearest town to get some cigarettes. Still in full costume — including bandoliers and pistols — they mounted their horses and headed out. Along the way they were spotted by a truckful of Mexican “federales” — federal police — who mistook them for bandits and held them at gunpoint until their identities could be verified.

6. Ernest Borgnine was one of the main influences for George Lucas in creating the character Dexter Jettster for 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

7. Ernest Borgnine’s career adjusted domestic box office total is $5.08 BILLION!

8.  Ernest Borgnine was married five times. He had four children.

9. Ernest Borgnine was the very first “center square” on The Hollywood Squares (during its premiere week in October 1966).

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

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28 thoughts on “Ernest Borgnine Movies”

  2. Always enjoyed his performances. Glad to see somebody taking a look at his career. Your site is a wonderful find. Been bouncing around your site index page for hours now. Putting this on my favorite bookmarks.

    Reply

    1. Hey Caroline….glad you found our website…and glad you have been finding lots of different pages to look at….glad you bookmarked us. Hope to hear from you again. PS. We do requests….especially if your favorite star is missing from our pages. Thanks again.

      Reply

  3. HI STEVE 1. Hecht, Hill and Lancaster made box office bonanzas like Vera Cruz and Trapeze but they also gave us movies on perceived very serious subjects that may have been “before their time” and the financial losses from which historian have suggested were what ultimately made the company bankrupt. Two examples are The Bachelor Party in 1957 and Summer of the 17th Doll [1959- aka Season of Passion] starring Ernest, Brit great Sir John Mills and this site’s original Delilah, Angela Lansbury The latter film was unfortunately released in the US as just part of a double bill.

    2 An exception was the classic Marty in 1955 which made Borgnine an unlikely star in a drama about two ordinary American “losers”. Against a tiny budget of $350,000 its actual rentals at the time were according to Wiki $3.5 million worldwide which above our own Human Calculator faithfully puts in a modern context with an adjusted domestic gross of around $95 million. Therefore if Wiki’s rental ratios are anywhere near accurate the WH figure converts to a Worldwide adjusted Cogerson gross of approx. $170 million today, not bad for such a little film in black and white and given that critics have opined that traditionally American didn’t like movies about “losers” back then.

    3 Certainly Burt and his film company have always been given generous credit by Ernie for their part in making Borgie a star. Also we must not forget that Ernest although serving a prolific apprenticeship as a B “heavy was seared in the public consciousness 2 years earlier when he and Lancaster thrilled audiences by squaring off to each other as Fatso Judson and Sgt Warden respectively in that iconic knife v broken bottle confrontation in which Burt prevented Ernest from carving up an Oscar winning Frankie.

    4 Lots of magical posters in your Borgnine video and I will start by commending you for the highly original ones for From Here to Eternity. Examples of others that pleased me were Devil’s Rain, The Revengers, Willard and Ice Station Zebra. But the very best I thought were the saucy one form Hannie Caulder, the foreign language one from Bad Day at Blackrock and “towering above them all” [as Martin Sheen said about George C Scott] was for me the foreign language version of The Badlanders starring Borgnine and my Laddie.

    5 My notes have not listed as many as usual still in this presentation but those that were there were VG- the happy quartet in The Vikings, Ernie with robot in Black Hole and of course him with Betsy Blair in Marty. Also given that you had access to a large still of the knife/bottle scene described above it would have been sacrilege had you not included it.

    6 You and the Big Guy share plenty this time round as you agree on 4 of Ernie’s Top 5. Strangely though whilst he includes in his 5 Johnny Guitar in favour of From Here to Eternity my notes suggest that you have excluded the former flick entirely. Have I missed something? Otherwise since the western top-starred my Joan I’m afraid I’m gonna have to back the Great Panjandrum’s choice on this occasion. I should add that he makes From Here to Eternity his No 6 for artistic merit and includes his own impressive miniature closeup of Ernie with his pal the knife Overall your video was one of your very best earning a 97.5 % rating in my personal estimation.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for checking out my Ermes Borgnino video Bob, appreciate the review, rating, comment, info, trivia, observation and comparison!

      Happy you enjoyed the pictorial presentation.

      I decided to pick and choose from his earlier pre-Marty roles and try to keep the video down to about 30 movies, so Vera Cruz and Johnny Guitar were eliminated in the latter stages of producing the video. Both films have turned up in previous videos so no great loss.

      I had to keep Bad Day at Black Rock in because of that memorable fight scene with Mr. Tracy. I was going to say it may have been the first instance of a martial arts demonstration in American movies but just remembered Peter Lorre was doing that sort of thing in the Mr. Moto series back in the 1930s. Still it was an eyeopener seeing Tracy karate chopping Borgnine and throwing him across the room. I’ll bet audiences cheered in the cinema. 🙂

      Five of Borgies films scored 10 out of 10 from my mysterous sources – The Vikings, Marty, Bad Day at Black Rock, From Here to Eternity and The Wild Bunch. Three more scored 9 – Emperor of the North, Flight of the Phoenix and The Dirty Dozen.

      The Wild Bunch topped all the charts including Bruces. The Devil’s Rain is last on Bruce’s chart and last on my video chart too though it wasn’t last on my original list of 40 Borgnine films, When Time Ran Out claimed that position with a score of 4.5.

      I’m putting the finishing touches to the John Wayne Top 100 and it’s pretty big, around 22mins, no stills this time just posters, millions of them and some of them never before seen by the eyes of man. Actually that didn’t make any sense, ignore that last sentence. Hoping to upload it later today I hope the youtube servers can handle the load (stop exaggerating Steve!). Ladies turn from monday.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE:
        “Good people all of every sort,
        Come listen to my song.
        And if you find it over-short
        It cannot hold you long.”

        I suppose that whilst I being fully-retired can at times have all day to work on posts a busy JWH [Junior Work Horse] like yourself would be content at times with just my simply saying that I like your videos. However –

        (1) “When I like something I say WHY I like something” [Jake Houseman paraphrased – Dirty Dancing]. In the case of your Borgnine presentation the knife/bottle still for example. I also am fond of telling you about any disappointments in a video such as the lack of respect shown to my Joan by excluding from your Ernie video her Classic Johnny Guitar.

        (2) I’m a sucker for receiving and giving background facts and information and although WH gives us plenty of new stuff in that respect I don’t want the Big Guy to “get ALL the credit,” as his own idol Hans Solo said to and of Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars.

        (3) I enjoy YOUR feedback so I have to give you something about which to feed me back.

        (4) Verbiage provides a great cover for sneak attacks and writing to you at length gives me with a potential cloak for hurling barbs at The Great Panjandrum. HE needs taking down a peg or two every now and again.

        Anyway I will conclude by saying that whilst in From Here to Eternity Ernie with his knife picked on the weakling Sinatra he wasn’t afraid elsewhere to take on the very best as in the 1955 The Last Command he had a knife fight with the great Jim Bowie played by Sterling Hayden who was in fact the Johnny Guitar in the Crawford flick neglected by you.. Have a nice weekend and I will look forward to the “Valley of the Dolls” on Monday.

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob and Steve….good comments about Ernie Borgnine…..one of the few Best Actor Oscar winners that I have actually met. I will be checking out this video when I get back home.

          Reply

          1. HI BRUCE:

            1 I loved your Borgnine story and meant to say so before this so forgive the omission.

            2 It’s fascinating to meet these celebs in the flesh and I think that I told you that my father once met when walking around London the probably generally unknown character actor George Colouris who was actually a member of Welles’ famous Mercury Theatre and indeed played the small role of Walter Parks Thatcher in The Great Man’s masterpiece Citizen Kane.

            3 Anyhow Mr Father apparently grovelled to George so much that my brother chided him with “I’d hate to be with you if you encountered someone of the Wayne/Olivier status.!”

            4 Professional interviewers though have to strike the right balance of respect v idolatry when chatting to the Great and Good. I recall winching. I remember Ray Milland looking ghastly when a British interviewer handed him a bunch of flowers and said “These are from my mother who loved you when she was a little girl.” Another interviewer lost his job because it was perceived that he had been excessively deferential to Mr M. A Joel-like critic wrote of that interviewer “If he had wanted to go don any further on his knees he would have had to go under the floorboards.”

            5 My own strongest recollection is of being in the presence of Jimmy Connors in 2007 at the Oz Open when he was Andy Roddick’s coach. I didn’t get talking to Jimbo though which was probably just as well because Federer had just thrashed his protege. The Cogerson Clan DO though seem to do exceptionally well in meeting celebs as I seem to recall an account by you of your Dad’s interface with Steve McQueen. That would have been a collector’s item for any “head-hunter”

          2. Hey Bob. Glad you liked my Borgnine encounter story. Funny story about your dad, brother and George Colouris. A fine line indeed, when reporters are doing interviews. Your comment got me thinking about a video that showed the Top 10 star walkoffs while in the process of doing an interview. One was of Robert Downey, Jr, when he kept getting asked questions his problems with drugs.

            Liked your Jimmy Connors story. My tennis hero, Mats Wilander, is actually driving around the USA in a huge RV, and playing tennis with the common folk.

            Sadly these are the only “meeting celebrity stories” we have. Though my little girl just took a picture with Batman…..lol. Picture coming soon to UMR.

            Will check out your Mansfield comment later today….movie which just cost us $87 bucks….for five people, one drink and popcorn….pretty outrageous…especially since we are not in New York City.

  4. Love him as Cabbie in Escape From New York. No idea he made so many movies. Over 200? Nice job.

    Reply

    1. Hey Moody-Hinton…his part in Escape From New York was short but memorable. The man kept working for 60 plus years…that will get your credits up to 200 in the long run…thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

  5. Hello – I remember our trip to Fort Sumter and that Ernest Borgnine was there. That was a long time ago as you mentioned. That made a good story too. Brought back memories to me too. He was a good actor and had a long career. Remember I told you about Joan Crawford selling movie tickets in a both at a theater in New York City – guess I was about 15 then.- She had a lot of freckles…good site as usual- informative. He played a good role in From Her To Eternity and everyone thought he as a very bad guy – pulled off the role very well. I have seen a lot of his movies. THANKS FOR THIS INTERESTING SITE.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bern1960…glad to know my memory of that Fort Sumter trip was accurate…..in one way it seems so long ago….but in others it seems like yesterday. It would be interesting to see some photos of that trip…to (a) figure our the year and (b) see if dad figured out a way to include Borgnine in one of the photos he was taking.

      That is a good story of Joan Crawford selling tickets….I can not imagine any big stars doing that today. I think the double whammy of Borgnine playing the bad guy in From Here To Eternity and the good guy in Marty sealed his legacy in movies. He is actually one of the few actors (Christopher Lee comes to mind)…that actually did not retire from movies….just kept working until his death.

      Glad you enjoyed this Borgnine page….glad to see you back….lots of pages have been written since your last visit.

      Reply

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