Want to know the best Fredric March movies? How about the worst Fredric March movies? Curious about Fredric March box office grosses or which Fredric March movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Fredric March 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.
Fredric March (1897-1975) was an American 2-time Oscar® winning actor. March had great success in movies and on the stage. His IMDb page shows 86 acting credits from 1921-1973. This page will rank 52 Fredric March 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.
Drivel part of the page: Between 1929 and 1933 Fredric March made an incredible 26 movies. Sadly we were only able to find box office information on 7 of those movies. Which means we are missing 19 Fredric March movies. Even sadder is the fact that those numbers will probably never be known. We blame Paramount Pictures. On the good side of things we have every March movie made from 1934 to 1973 included in the page. This Fredric March page was requested by Chris and John.
Fredric March 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 Fredric March movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Fredric March movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Fredric March movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Fredric March movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Fredric March movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Fredric March movie won.
- Sort Fredric March 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 Fredric March Table
- Twenty Fredric March movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 38.46% of his movies listed. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) was easily his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Fredric March movie grosses $102.50 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 39 of Fredric March movies are rated as good movies…or 75.00% of his movies. Seven Days in May (1964) is his highest rated movie while Anthony Adverse (1936) was his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty-one Fredric March movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 40.38% of his movies.
- Six Fredric March movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 11.53% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 35 Fredric March movies scored higher than that average….or 67.30% of his movies. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) got the the highest UMR Score while It’s A Big Country (1951) got the lowest UMR Score.
Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Fredric March
1. Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel was born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1897.
2. So how did Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel become Fredric March? He took shorten versions of his own Fredrick name and his mother’s maiden name (Marcher) and put them together to make his screen name.
3. Fredric March was an artillery lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I.
4. Fredric March’s break through movie was 1931’s The Royal Family of Broadway. He received a Best Actor Oscar® nomination for that role….which was based on actor John Barrymore.
5. Fredric March received 5 Oscar® nominations and 3 Golden Globe® nominations in his career. He won 2 Oscars® and 1 Golden Globe®.
6. Fredric March is the only actor to win 2 Oscars® and 2 Tony® awards.
7. Fredric March was married twice…..he had two children.
8. Fredric March was the acting idol of both William Holden and Marlon Brando. In a 1955 poll, March was voted as the Best Film Actor by a two to one margin.
9. Fredric March spent 3 weeks in a hospital after wrapping up 1932’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The extensive makeup almost caused permanent damage.
10. Fredric March’s favorite personal film was 1946’s The Best Years Of Our Lives….and he has requested that film historian, Steve Lensman, should watch that one.
Check out Fredric March’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
And finally…..we have adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses on 10 Fredric March Movies
- The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) $199.50 adjusted worldwide box office
- Anna Karenina (1935) $230.80 adjusted worldwide box office
- Anthony Adverse (1936) $309.40 adjusted worldwide box office
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) $245.70 adjusted worldwide box office
- Executive Suite (1954) $187.40 adjusted worldwide box office
- Inherit the Wind (1960) $69.80 adjusted worldwide box office
- It’s A Big Country (1951) $31.30 adjusted worldwide box office
- Mary of Scotland (1936) $143.90 adjusted worldwide box office
- Susan and God (1940) $94.30 adjusted worldwide box office
- Trade Winds (1938) $169.10 adjusted worldwide box office
Academy Award®, Tony® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
I have seen 14 of the fims listed, almost all at the top.
My favourite is The Best Years of Our Lives.
Hey Flora….thanks for the tally count…..hopefully you are having a good time with your Xmas concerts. As for the tally results….you have knocked Steve off the top spot for the first time in 5 classic pages. You 14, me and Steve at 11…..though I am about to watch Inherit The Wind. You and Fredric…..The Best Years of Our Lives is his best movie. Thanks for the comment.
Cogerson
Fredric March appeared in nine color movies.
He made A Star is Born and Nothing Sacred in 1937 for Selznick. Despite this beginning, color appearances were rare. The British Christopher Columbus in 1949 was his only other pre-1950 color movie. March appeared in three color films in the fifties, two in the late sixties, and one in the seventies. Not many for an actor whose career stretched into the seventies.
On A Star is Born and Nothing Sacred. They were shot in three-strip Technicolor. I have read, though, that when they were released in the late forties, the prints were made in the less vivid but much cheaper Cinecolor, and that only these Cinecolor prints now survive. Don’t know for certain, but the color doesn’t seem as vibrant in these films as early Technicolor usually does.
Hey John….Thanks for the color movie breakdown. 9 is a decent total….almost 20%…which for a guy that started in the silent era is impressive. So Christopher Columbus is in color…I did not know that….actually before doing this page I did not even know that version of Columbus even existed. Interesting comparison of Cinecolor and Technicolor. I have to track down and watch A Star Is Born….I have two of the versions…but not March’s…..I will be sure to check out the color and how it looks. 🙂
Cogerson
Thanks for doing the Fredric March page. A great actor who was also a strong box office performer in his early years. My biggest surprise is that you could find critics who rate any movie over The Best Years of Our Lives among his resume. I think it is not only great, it almost defines the 1940’s. A Star is Born has been mentioned. I like the 1937 version the best of all of them. I think the music detracts from the story in 1954, and it was pretty hard to accept that no one prior to James Mason had noticed that Judy Garland could sing. Janet Gaynor as a country girl who becomes a star was more believable. I also think his Jekyll and Hyde is the best version with its main competition the Barrymore silent. The Sign of the Cross is quite a movie also, slow in spots, but well worth it for Laughton as Nero, Colbert as Poppaea taking a milk bath, and the over-the-top arena scenes.
“My biggest surprise is that you could find critics who rate any movie over The Best Years of Our Lives among his resume” ANONYMOUS
^If nobody disagrees with it product mustn’t be art” QUENTIN CRISP
Hey John….glad to knock out another of your requests….your March request was pretty recent….Chris made the March about a year ago….all of his Paramount movies scared me away. As for Seven Days In May….think that was a statistical fluke…..Seven Days in May is a good movie….but in my opinion not in the same class as Best Years Of Our Lives. Heck if I were to put Nicole Kidman’s Paddington ….a cute movie….but far from a classic movie….on this page it would be ranked as the 3rd best movie.
Good points about the 1954 and the 1937 version of A Star Is Born….discovering an actor would be much harder than discovery a singer. I loved The Sign of the Cross….I thought the gladiator scenes were more terrifying than today’s movies that show all the gore and the blood…DeMille accomplished it many “long shots” to show the terror. I agree Laughton is great in the role of Nero….especially when the city is set on fire. Good comment.
I was interested in Fredric March as a kid because he had played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and his photo was in all the monster magazines I was buying at that time. The make-up he wore as Mr. Hyde became the definitive face of that monster for decades to come, ditto Karloff’s Frankenstein monster.
I’ve seen just 11 of the 50 films listed, less than I thought. Favorites include Jekyll & Hyde, Seven Days in May, I Married a Witch, Nothing Sacred and The Desperate Hours.
It’s that movie again – I still haven’t seen Best Years of Our Lives – Bruce is there anyone left from that film that you haven’t produced a movie page on?
March did not get along with Veronica Lake during filming of I Married a Witch, he suggested it be retitled “I Married a B*tch”.
Good to see Seven Days in May topping the critics chart, starring two of my favorite actors – Burt and Kirk – it’s a film I’ve watched many times. That last big scene between March and Burt was superb and also the final brief chat between Burt and Kirk “do you know who Judas was?”
Excellente mon capitan. Vote Up!
Bruce for some reason I’ve posted as Anonymous, can you fix that?
Fixed.
Thanks Bruce, I like the new moniker though you’re the historian here. I’m just the guy who hasn’t seen The Best Years of Our Lives yet.
Btw psst [looks around whispers] …you’ve been spelling Nothing Sacred as Nothing Scared, and on other movie pages too, for quite some time now. Maybe you were typing too fast? It does happen.
Thanks Steve….fixed that error here and on the Carole Lombard page…..wow…that error has been there a very long time. One day you will be “The guy that just watched The Best Years Of Our Lives”.
Down goes Lensman…..down goes Lensman…..your 11 March movies watched is not enough this time…..and your 4 classic wins streak is over….but you will still be a champion in our eyes….lol. Tally count Flora 14, me 12 and you 11. I actually have Inherit the Wind sitting in my que of movies to watch….right behind King Jack (I have never heard of it either) and Safe Passage (Susan Sarandon movie).
As for Best Years of Our Lives…I plan to do a page on all 73 people in the credits…until one day…you will say…I have watched the movie….lol. I think Seven Days In May being first is surprising …but Best Years…is first in box office, Oscar nominations, Oscar wins and UMR score…I think it can handle 2nd in critic/audience rating.
Thanks as always for the visit…and for you sharing your thoughts on movies….I can see little Stevie Lensman studying the Mr. Hyde photo with great interest. 🙂
1. After Frederic March won the Oscar for Best Years of our Lives he became only the second male actor in the Academy’s history to win 2 Best Leading Actor Oscars, the other being Tracy and today Fred is one of only 4 male actors from the Classic era to win two Best Leading Actor Academy Awards, the other two being Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando, and of course now that foursome can never be broken up.
2 Overall only 9 male actors have one more than 1 Best Leading Actor Oscar the other 5 who are from the modern era being Daniel Day Lewis, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn
3 Overall Hanks and Tracy are the only two of the nine to win in consecutive years, Tracy in 1937/38 and Hanks in 1993/94. The only male actor to ever win a Leading Acting Oscar in BOTH the Classic Era of movies (officially defined as being from 1917-1960) and the modern era is Marlon Brando in 1954 and 1972. And the only male actor ever to win more than two Leading Actor Oscars is Daniel Day Lewis who has 3
4 My two personal favourite March films are Executive Suite and Inherit the Wind and I loved the acting duel between Fred and Tracy in that one. For me it abounded with coincidences as not only were March and Tracy in the 2 Oscars club but both had played Jekyll/Hyde. Also Gene Kelly was in the picture and I always thought that Gene look a bit like the younger March.
5 Veronica Lakes clams that when she and Freddie made I Married a Witch there was a scene in which she convalesced in bed with Fred sympathetically at her bedside and she had to halt shooting to complain to the director that March who was partially hidden from camera was becoming too fresh.
6 However that has nothing to do with Frederic’s great talent and this is a super new page worthy of one of Hollywood’s classiest actors and one of the most important stars of the early talkies. Well done Bruce and thanks for the valuable information about Variety’s Rentals Charts.
Hey Bob
1. I thought about adding all the names of the two Best Actor Oscar winners…but since Daniel Day-Lewis’ 3rd Best Actor Oscar makes Marlon and the boys’ accomplishment not so impressive anymore….lol..
2. Hanks, Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards and Luise Rainer are the only thespians to do it in back to back years.
3. Inherit the Wind is movie I have been aware of all my life…but I have not ever seen….and it did not really do that well at the box office….which I find confusing. I like March’s D & J better than Tracy’s D & J.
4. I seem how you would see a little March in Gene Kelly….but I think Kelly could dance better…lol.
5. Sounds like the set of I Married A Witch was not a fun one at all.
6. Thanks for the nice words on our latest page.
HI BRUCE
1 You know the old saying “Records are only there to be broken.” I wonder if Daniel will reach 4 and equal Katie on the female side. Wouldn’t it be lovely if George Clooney hit a golden patch and became the first male to win 4?. Anyway how is this for a bit of fun Dan-like dot joining?- Frederick March acted with Spencer Tracy who detested Marlon Brando who admired Frederic March who looked like Gene Kelly who was first considered for the Marlon Brando part in Guys and Dolls which co-starred Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra who acted with Spencer Tracy in The Actress and Devil at 4 O’Clock. I remember years ago there was a movie fan magazine which ever week did a full page of similar join-ups.
2 Thanks for the explanation about Laurel and Hardy. I remember reading somewhere that back in the very early silent movie days cinema takings would simply be jotted down on the backs of envelopes but I was never sure about how true that was.
Hey Bob….DDL might tie Katharine Hepburn…..but he is running out of time…he is shockingly already 59….which is the age of the curse for actors. Yes that would be lovely if George could do that….I will cross my fingers for him. I guess tomorrow morning…if he gets a Golden Globe for either Hail Caesar or Money Monster….that Oscar #2 could come in the next couple of months.
Well that is a nice Kevin Bacon Oracle combination there. Yep still waiting on some L & H stats to be uncovered…maybe somebody will discover a L & H movie ledger in an attic or a garage sale…lol.
HI Bruce;
1 NEVER write off the Great Ones as for example –
(1) Katie H won her 4th Oscar for Golden Pond at 74
(2) George Burns won best supporting actor for Sunshine Boys at 79
(3) For A Dry White Season at the age of 65 the great Tango exponent won an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor and was given the Best actor award for the same movie at the Tokyo Film Festival.
2 So on those precedents I reckon Daniel has another 20 years to get his 4th and Gorgeous George has a quarter of a century to rack up 4 Of course in the case of DDL it could all be academic because he might decide that returning permanently to that small Irish village to mend shoes is more fulfilling than winning more Oscars. As it stands he is ranked 5th in IMDBs “Ultimate” List of the 20 all time greatest male actors [updated j a few months ago] just behind Nicholson, Mumbles, DeNiro and the former Little Al who’s Big Al now. And what about Nicholson’s record 12 Oscar noms for a male to Bud;’s 8 ? – the pupil has leapfrogged the master. Anyway great comparing notes with you.
Hey Bob….you might be right he could have another win in him. Another factor that might hurt him is that he does not make many movies….at his current rate he might make 3 more movies in the next 15 years….which will put him near 80.
I think Nicholson is safe for awhile. Hanks got snubbed again this morning at the Golden Globes …..so I think he is safe from him. Streep will probably pick up her 20th nomination this year. I think she got her 30ish Golden Nomination today.