Errol Flynn Movies

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

Even though I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable movie buff, I knew very little about Errol Flynn before researching and writing this page. I basically knew two facts about Errol Flynn. One, he is the most famous Robin Hood of all-time and two, he made some pirate movies.

After a month of reading numerous books, checking out websites and watching a few documentaries on him, I am now much more familiar with the life and career of Errol Flynn. I would highly recommend checking out the Errol Flynn Blog for even more information on the life and times of Errol Flynn….just follow this link….The Errol Flynn Blog.

Errol Flynn (1909-1959) was born in Tasmania. As a child he used to play with a wooden sword that his parents told him had belonged to Fletcher Christian. Many times he would play on his grandfather’s boat…acting out Douglas Fairbanks pirate movies. This training would come in handy when he turned his attention to acting. He would appear in his first film when he was 24. By the time he was 26 he had already secured his first starring role in a big budget movie, Captain Blood. Captain Blood was a huge success and turned Flynn into a star. At 28 he turned into a superstar with his performance as Robin Hood in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood.

From 1935 to 1950 Flynn was one of the most successful actors in Hollywood. However his “playboy lifestyle” began to catch up with him. Starting around 1950 his movie career started to stall as his off screen lifestyle started to impact his health. He would regularly smoke at least a pack of cigarettes a day and drank heavily. Problems with his liver and heart eventually led to a fatal heart attack in 1959.  Errol Flynn has 64 acting credits from 1933-1959. In the table below Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 50 of his movies in 7 different sortable columns.  Television roles, cameos, and shorts were not included in the rankings.

Errol Flynn in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood
Errol Flynn in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood

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

Errol Flynn 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 Errol Flynn movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Errol Flynn movies by adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Errol Flynn movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)… **** If the domestic totals are the same as the worldwide totals…then worldwide totals are unknown
  • Sort Errol Flynn movies by 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 Errol Flynn movie received.
  • Sort Errol Flynn movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
Henry Daniell and Errol Flynn in 1940's The Sea Hawk
Henry Daniell and Errol Flynn in 1940’s The Sea Hawk

10 Possibly Interesting Facts About Errol Flynn

1. Errol Flynn was the first actor to play Fletcher Christian in a film that had sound. He played Christian in 1933’s The Wake of the Bounty…..later Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson would play the same part.

2. Errol Flynn and the Perry Mason connection. One of his first Hollywood movies was The Case of the Curious Bride…which was one of the first ever Perry Mason movies. Flynn got to play the corpse. Later Flynn would co-star with Raymond Burr in Mara Maru….Burr would later go on to fame playing Perry Mason on the television series.

3. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland were one of the screen’s most popular couples. They would appear in 9 movies together from 1935 to 1943. Olivia de Havilland is still very much alive as she approaches the century mark.

4. Errol Flynn was married 3 times in his life. His first marriage to Lila Damita produced a son named Sean. His second marriage to Nora Eddington produced two daughters named Deirdre and Rory. His final marriage to Patrice Wymore produced one daughter named Arnella.

5. His son Sean, followed in his dad’s footsteps and has 10 IMDB credits to his name. His most famous movie role was in The Son Of Captain Blood (1962). The Son of Captain Blood was a sequel to the movie that made Errol Flynn famous, Captain Blood(1935). Later Sean Flynn turned towards a career as a freelance photojournalist. Sadly, Sean Flynn went missing while on assignment in Cambodia in 1970.

6. The saying …”In Like Flynn” became popular when Flynn was tried for statutory rape in 1942 but was acquitted….during the very high profile case, comedians of the day started to use the saying and it caught on.

7. His drinking was legendary.…he would inject oranges with vodka and eat them during his breaks so no one would know he was drinking on the set….during a play in the late 1950s his assistant would stage alcohol throughout the set, so Flynn could drink while performing.

8. Errol Flynn and Alan Hale Sr. (one of my favorite character actors) appeared in 11 movies together. Alan Hale Sr. was the father of Alan Hale Jr….better known as The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.

9. The movie My Favorite Year is based on Mel Brooks’ encounter with Flynn on a television show in the 1950s….in that movie Peter O’Toole played the Flynn character. Also Jude Law portrayed Errol Flynn in The Aviator.

10. Check out Errol Flynn’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Steve’s Epic Errol Flynn You Tube Video

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143 thoughts on “Errol Flynn Movies”

  1. Errol Flynn’s finest films have truly stood the test of time. He certainly

    deserved one or more Oscars. He truly shined on the screen as no other

    male star I have ever seen. Olivia De Havilland is the consumate film

    actress. She is the finest actress I have ever seen.

    Errol Flynn did not need all the blood and guts which are poured-out

    so heavily in so many movies today and in the recent past. He was convincing…period! John Kinsey

    Reply

    1. Good points John. I have yet to do a Olivia De Havilland page but she is on my short list of people to do. Thanks for the visit.

      Reply

  2. I don’t think Errol Flynn was a great actor or maybe he was never given the chance or the roles to stretch himself but he was definitely a great movie star. At his peak, he was arguably the best looking male star in Hollywood. But sadly from the late 40s on, his decline was evident in looks and in choice of material.

    It was interesting to see the box office figures for Robin Hood. Would be curious to know what ticket sales that would equate to.

    Reply

    1. Hey Chris….ticket sales for Robin Hood would have been around 20 million tickets sold. Thanks for the visit and the comment.

      Reply

  3. Thanks, Cogerson! I enjoyed your comments a lot. That’s interesting about your box office searches and sources. It does seem to be an inexact science. I am somewhat hesitant to rely on Wikipedia too much, as you read criticisms of its accuracy, so I hope their rankings for Flynn’s films are correct. It would be better to have some other sources for that, too. Flynn was very popular around the world, as most Hollywood stars were/are, and it would be interesting to see how he did internationally. I know he was very well-liked in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and of course Australia, too. I guess record keeping wasn’t so exact in those days.

    I agree with your comment about him being the first rock star. I’ve often thought the same thing myself. Along those lines, I read somewhere that Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones is a Flynn fan, and at one time wanted to buy Flynn’s yacht– the Zaca, I assume. This may be urban myth, but it makes a good story. If anyone knows about excessive lifestyles, it’s Keith! I wonder if Flynn might have played guitar, if he’d come along at a later period of history. 🙂 Keith and Errol partying together! That would be one for the books.

    Reply

    1. Hey pitcairn89…I agree with you about Flynn and Richards. I still have not gotten my hands on the Warner Brothers Ledgers…that would really clear up the questions about his box office numbers.

      Reply

  4. I also want to add some comments about Flynn’s personal life. It’s true he became a serious alcoholic, as in those injected oranges, but I think this was later in his life. After he became a big star in 1935, he kept himself in pretty good shape, worked out, and played lots of sports. As is evident from his films, he was a great athlete. For example, he was close to being the tennis champ of Hollywood, and often took part in matches with professional players. You can see film of him playing tennis in those documentaries about him. He like partying and drinking, but I don’t think it was excessive then.

    He really went on the downslide after 1942, probably the worst year of his life. He was divorced from his first wife Lili Damita about that time (the mother of his son Sean); he was rejected by the U.S. military for war service because of health problems- he was classified “4-F” because of a bad heart, recurrent malaria picked up from when he lived in New Guinea, and some tuberculosis; and he was charged with Statutory Rape, which led to a widely-covered trial. Flynn was acquitted of the rape charges, but that, combined with his frustration at not being able to serve in WWII, and the decrease in the quality of his films, led him into some serious depression. He admitted in his autobiography that he contemplated suicide after the trial, and his self-image seems to have taken a real beating. He began drinking and smoking more, and started in with drug use. He really went downhill, and sort of committed long-term suicide. In the 1950s, things got worse. He lost most of his money on a failed film project about William Tell; his business manager stole more of his money; his health really went south; and his films weren’t so great. He had an uptick near the end with some good films, then finished with “Cuban Rebel Girls.” He was his own worst enemy, I think, and caused lots of his own problems, but many bad things happened to him, too, that he couldn’t control.

    He was a very intelligent guy, read a lot, wrote books, loved great art, was witty and charming, but somehow lost it all. His father, biology professor Theodore Flynn, who taught in Tasmania and Belfast, Northern Ireland, said Errol could have been an excellent scholar if he’d wanted. He took a different path, however, and left us some great movies. They don’t make movie stars like him anymore! Thanks again for your excellent site!

    Reply

    1. Hey pitcairn89 ..comment 2. Thanks for sharing all of this interesting and informative information on the personal life of Errol Flynn. I agree with you about his horrible 1942….I agree that is something he never really recovered from.

      I normally try not to include negative stuff in my hubs….but it was really hard not to include a little something about his drinking and the court case.

      One of the books I read that talked about his health….pretty much said the doctors told him the end was coming….and it would come quickly if he did not change his ways….and that he pretty much continued to live his hard living ways….it reminded of Steve McQueen and his early departure….after getting to know Flynn better…I have begun to wonder if McQueen was a Errol Flynn fan….and tried to follow in his footsteps.

      Well I am glad that Flynn became a movie actor versus a teacher….but as you wrote in your comment he probably would have made an excellent teacher as well.

      I appreciate both comments….and I can say that I have enjoyed getting to know Errol Flynn and his movies better over the last two months…and I agree they do not make stars like him anymore….I think he was the first ever “Rock Star”.

      Reply

  5. Hi, I enjoy your movie page about Errol Flynn. I’ve seen just about all his films, and you pick out the great ones, for sure. Your ranking of his top box office films is interesting. “Robin Hood” comes in #4! I’ve seen “San Antonio,” and it’s an OK western, but far from being a great film. Ditto for “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” #3. Flynn is good in that, but the film isn’t that hot. Interesting that they made so much money. Wikipedia ranks Flynn’s films to other films made the same year, which is also very interesting. For example, in 1935, “Mutiny on the Bounty,” with Clark Gable was the #1 box office film, “Captain Blood” #8. 1936- #1 “San Francisco,” with Gable, #9 “The Charge of the Light Brigade;” 1937- #1 “Snow White,” #7 “The Prince and the Pauper;” 1938- #1 “You Can’t Take It With You,” with Jimmy Stewart, #2 “Robin Hood,” #7 “Four’s a Crowd;” 1939- #1 “Gone With The Wind,” #2 “The Wizard of Oz,” #4 “Dodge City;” 1940- #1 “Fantasia,” #5 “The Santa Fe Trail,” #8 “Virginia City,” #11 “The Sea Hawk;” 1941- #1 “Sergeant York,” with Gary Cooper, #2 “They Died With Their Boots On;” 1942- #1 “Mrs. Miniver,” #2 “Desperate Journey,” #5 “Gentleman Jim;” 1948- #1- “The Red Shoes,” #9 “The Adventures of Don Juan.”

    This is according to Wikipedia, and it seems pretty accurate. It shows how Flynn’s films stacked up against other movies made the same year. It also shows that he had films in the Top Ten Box Office for 8 years in a row, from 1935 to 1942. Not many other stars had such a run of box office champs. Flynn also made the Top Ten list of Box Office Stars for 1939, at #8. This poll was the Quigley Annual Box Office Champions list. 1939 was Flynn’s only year on that list. Stars like Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney were often #1 on that list in the 1930s. I’ve read that Flynn made European Top Ten Lists for more years, and that he was very popular there. Anyway, maybe this is interesting to some readers.

    Reply

    1. Hey pitcairn89 ….thanks for stopping by and checking out my Flynn hub. I also found it interesting that San Antonio was his top box office movie….I would have bet that Robin Hood would have topped all three tables….but two of three is still pretty good.

      Sadly box office numbers during Flynn’s career are weak at best….over the years I have found many different sources….and no two sources ever seem to agree….the ones I use the most are Variety…with the February 24th 1992 being an excellent source, as well as Variety’s year end reviews….I have all of them from 1937 to 1980. Wiki provides sometimes offers some information….also including another site that I use a lot as well.

      http://filmindex.0catch.com/boxoffice.htm

      I have gotten my hands on the Eddie Mannix(MGM) and CJ Tevlin(RKO) ledgers….but sadly for Flynn fans….the William Schaefer(Warner Brothers) ledger continues to avoid me…….if I can ever find that ledger it will provide North America and Worldwide Box Office…the search continues.

      Trying to find international numbers is even more difficult….I have calculated a rough formula that estimates worldwide box office….but it uses the average % for movies that I do have both numbers for….and it is 61.25% for domestic and 38.75% for international….so based on those calculations….Robin Hood would have a worldwide box office of 275 million in inflated box office dollars…..it will interesting to see how close these educated guesses are whenever I get to see the Warner Brothers ledgers.

      I appreciate the input and information that you have shared in your comment.

      Reply

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