Gene Hackman Movies

Gene Hackman in 1986's Hoosiers
Gene Hackman in 1986’s Hoosiers

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

Do you realize that it has been sixteen years since we last saw a new Gene Hackman movie? Growing up it seemed like every movie either starred Hackman or Michael Caine. I find it sad that we might have seen the last new Gene Hackman movie. This page will look at all of Hackman’s 76 movies that he made over a forty year span….1964-2004.

Gene Hackman (1930-) he was nominated for five Oscars® for acting (winning twice) and eight Golden Globe® awards (winning three times). He first came to fame in 1967 with his Oscar® nominated performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde. He received his second Oscar® nomination for 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father. His role as Popeye Doyle, in The French Connection, won him his first Oscar® and solidified his status as a movie star. The rest of the 1970s would see him appear in the blockbuster hits…. The Poseidon Adventure, Young Frankenstein, A Bridge Too Far, and Superman. The 1980’s saw him return to his Lex Luthor role in Superman II, star in one of the best sports movie ever….. Hoosiers.  He earned his 4th Oscar® nomination for Mississippi Burning and play the bad guy in No Way Out.

By 1990 Hackman started appearing mostly in supporting roles. In 1992 he won his 2nd Oscar® for his role in Unforgiven. The rest of the 1990’s would see many box office hits for him, movies like…..The Firm, Crimson Tide, Get Shorty, The Birdcage and Enemy of the State. In 2001 he appeared in The Royal Tenenbaums which looks like his last great role. He won the Golden Globe® award for Best Actor for the role, yet somehow did not get an Oscar® nomination. To date his last performance was 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport.

His IMDb page shows 101 acting credits from 1961-2004. This page will rank 76 Gene Hackman 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.

Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in 1995's Crimson Tide
Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in 1995’s Crimson Tide

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

Gene Hackman 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 Gene Hackman movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Gene Hackman movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Gene Hackman movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Gene Hackman 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 Gene Hackman movie received.
  • Sort Gene Hackman movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

 

Gene Hackman in 1971's The French Connection
Gene Hackman in 1971’s The French Connection

The Best of Gene Hackman:

Young Frankenstein (1974) Mel Brooks was on a roll in 1974, as he had two movies finish in the Top 3 in box office grosses. Young Frankenstein finished 3rd for the year, while Blazing Saddles finished 2nd for the year. Young Frankenstein was a parody of classic horror films. Gene Wilder played Dr. Frankenstein and Peter Boyle played the monster.  The highlight of the film has to be Hackman’s blind hermit interacting with Boyle’s monster. Young Frankenstein ranks No. 28 on Total Film magazine’s “List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time”.

Superman (1978) Gene Hackman would play super criminal Lex Luther in three Superman movies. Superman 1 is his biggest box office hit with over 600 million in adjusted for inflation dollars. Superman 2 (best movie of the franchise) is his third biggest box office hit.  He would not appear in the third Superman movie, but he did come back for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Superman IV is probably the worst superhero movie ever made. But going back to Superman 1, it is also ranked as Hackman’s 6th highest rated movie according to critics and audiences.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Bonnie and Clyde was actually the second time Hackman worked with Warren Beatty. They first appeared in the 1964 movie Lilith. Bonnie and Clyde was a game changing movie. Its success motivated other filmmakers to be more forward about presenting sex and violence in their films. Bonnie and Clyde is Hackman’s 5th biggest box office hit, and earned him his first ever Oscar® nomination. Trivia….all five of the main actors in the movie would receive Oscar® nominations for their parts.  Those five were Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard and Estelle Parsons (she won).

Unforgiven (1992) Unforgiven is ranked #97 on IMDB’s greatest movie poll. Hackman won his second Oscar® for playing Sheriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s classic western. Unforgiven was nominated for nine Oscars®, winning four times, including the Best Picture Oscar®.  Unforgiven is Hackman’s 10th biggest box office hit, but it is his highest rated film according to critics and audiences. Trivia…Hackman initially refused the part because he felt his character was too violent….Eastwood eventually talked him into playing the role, which turned out to be one of his best parts.  Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood would work together again when they both starred in Absolute Power (1997).  Absolute Power was not as successful as Unforgiven but it is still a pretty good movie.

The French Connection (1971)  Gene Hackman won the Oscar® for Best Actor in The French Connection. His role as Popeye Doyle is one of his most memorable roles. The movie was also nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning 5 Oscars®, including the Best Picture Oscar®.  It is Hackman’s 7th biggest box office hit with over 248 million in adjusted for inflation dollars. The movie is well known for one of the most spectacular car chase scenes to ever be filmed. Hackman would return as Popeye Doyle in the very disappointing sequel, The French Connection 2.

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

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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.

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64 thoughts on “Gene Hackman Movies”

    1. Thanks for sharing this information, Flora. I would have made this the “post of the day” if I would have realized it last night when I was putting that together. Just updated the page somewhat. Still shocked it has been so long since his last movies. Sixteen years! Happy Birthday to Gene Hackman.

      Reply

  3. great page. I never realized that Hackman only played the lead in 5 of his top 30 umr . great actor . great in any role. only 2 of his top 30 umr were below 69% on review, they were in 1966 and 1975 after that all were very well received. he can really pick his scripts. thanks, Cogerson for your great work and love for movies

    Reply

    1. Hey Anonymous. Great point. I had not noticed that about his top rated UMR movies. Lots of supporting roles at the top…..but the top rated movie is a Hackman lead role. I miss Hackman not being in movies…he always made a movie better….you are 100% correct, the man knew how to pick a script. Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

  4. 1 HI STEVE Hackman is the only actor whom I know of who argued for NO billing. Tom Cruise had it in his contract that his own name would be billed alone above the title on the release posters for any movie in which he appeared and when he and Gene made The Firm together Cruise insisted on the contract being honored and when Gene’s protests about the matter were rejected rather than suffer the indignity of being billed below the title with the also-rans Gene asked for his name to be kept off the release posters as your own poster demonstrates. The above long list of 76 movies would suggest that Hackman was never short of work and on the face of it there was no good reason for him to make The Firm on Cruise’s terms given that he was unhappy with them.

    2 Your Hackman video has an equally fine run of both posters and stills with the best posters in my opinion being the ones for Narrow Margin, Uncommon Valor, Prime Cut, Bite the Bullet, Night Moves, Under Fire Young Frankenstein, and French Connection. The stills that most appealed to me were those from Quick and the Dead, Runaway Jury, Scarecrow, Poseidon Adventure, No Way Out, Get Shorty, Hoosiers [aka Best Shot- my favorite Hackman flick] and the 1978 Superman.

    3 Bruce and you agree on just 2 of Hackman’s Top 5, the Conversation and Young Frankenstein. Anyway I greatly enjoyed your profile of one of my most own admired actors and have rated it overall a 97.5% for its excellence.

    4 I am on holiday for the next 8 days and will catch up again when return

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, comment, billing info and comparison, always appreciated. Happy you liked the visual presentation.

      I keep forgetting to add ‘Best Shot’ as the alternative title to Hoosiers, sorry about that. A photo from the movie did get on the video cover. I was going to use a shot from Mississippi Burning but decided the burning cross in the background was not a cheery image, especially these days.

      Great actor, I’ve been a Hackman fan since Poseidon Adventure. Always watchable, never boring. Can play good or evil with ease.

      This could easily have been a top 40 or even a top 50 video.

      8 Hackman movies scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Bite the Bullet, Royal Tenenbaums, Unforgiven, Superman, Young Frankenstein, The Conversation, Bonnie and Clyde and The French Connection. 2 scored 9 – Night Moves and Under Fire.

      Highest ranking Hackman movie at the IMDB is Unforgiven, scoring 8.7, and it’s no.1 on Bruce’s chart too. But it didn’t crack the top 5 on my chart. It’s good to be different. 🙂

      Enjoy your holiday Bob, I’ll have some more videos up when you get back. I’m planning a mega video for John Wayne fans, it will be my longest video so far. 100 movies. But it will take time.

      Reply

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