Gene Kelly Movies

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

Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was an American dancer, singer, actor, director, producer, and choreographer.  Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire are considered to be the two greatest dancers to ever appear in movies.  Kelly acted in movies from 1942’s For Me and My Gal to 1980’s Xanadu.  Highlights of his career would be On The Town, Anchors Aweigh and the classic Singin’ In The Rain.

According to IMDB Gene Kelly had 47 acting credits and 13 directing credits during his distinguished career.  This page will only look at his movies that were released in theaters.  All television credits, movie shorts, documentaries and cameos were not included in the rankings.  That leaves 40 movies to rank. Most of the movies are acting roles, but there are 5 movies that Gene Kelly only directed. In the table below Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks 40 of his movies in 7 different sortable columns.

Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in 1945's Anchors Aweigh....Gene Kelly's biggest box office hit of his career.
Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in 1945’s Anchors Aweigh….Gene Kelly’s biggest box office hit of his career.

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

Gene Kelly 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 Kelly movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Gene Kelly movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Gene Kelly movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Gene Kelly 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 Gene Kelly movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Gene Kelly movie won.
  • Sort Gene Kelly 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.
  • Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.

Gene Kelly in 1952's Singin' in the Rain...Kelly's top rated movie according to critics and audiences.
Gene Kelly in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain…Kelly’s top rated movie according to critics and audiences.

Gene Kelly Adjusted World Wide Box Office Grosses 

Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly in 1944's Cover Girl.
Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly in 1944’s Cover Girl.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Gene Kelly

1.  Gene Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1912.

2.  Gene Kelly’s path to stardom:  After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh he and his family started running a dance studio.  The success of the Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance started to attract attention to Kelly and his dancing skills.  From Pittsburgh, Kelly went to New York City.  While appearing on Broadway, Kelly was noticed and signed to a film contract by David O. Selznick.  Talk about being a roll….Selznick also signed Alfred Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman to contracts around this time as well….not a bad trifecta.  Selznick eventually signed his contract over to MGM and Gene Kelly headed to Hollywood at the end of 1941.

3.  Gene Kelly’s first movie role was in 1942’s For Me and My Gal.  His co-star was Judy Garland.  They would appear together in two more movies (The Pirate and Summer Stock).  Kelly was also supposed to play opposite Garland in Easter Parade but an injury (a broken leg makes dancing somewhat difficult) forced him out of the role.  Fittingly Fred Astaire stepped into his role.

4.  Gene Kelly received his only Best Actor Oscar® nomination for 1945’s Anchors Aweigh.  He did receive two Golden Globe® nominations in his career.  One was for Best Actor in 1951’s An American In Paris and the other was Best Director for 1969’s Hello Dolly. 

5.  Gene Kelly did receive an Honorary Oscar® in 1952…..”In appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film “.

6.  Gene Kelly was married three times.  His first marriage was to actress Betsy Blair from 1941 to 1957.  They had one child, Kerry Kelly.  His second marriage was to dance choreographer Jeanne Coyne from 1960 until her death in 1973.  They had two children, Bridget and Tim.  His final marriage was to author Patricia Ward from 1990 until his death in 1996.

7.  Some things we found interesting about his classic movie Singin’ In The Rain.  Kelly had a 103 degree fever when he filmed his most famous scene….dancing and singing in the rain.  His quote about working with Debbie Reynolds on the movie….”I wasn’t nice to Debbie. It’s a wonder she still speaks to me.”  Once after Kelly insulted Reynolds for not being able to dance, Fred Astaire, who was hanging around the studio, found her crying under a piano and helped her with her dancing.

8.  Cyd Charisse worked numerous times with both dancing legends Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.  Charisse’s husband, Tony Martin, said he could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically-demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.

9.  The half-moon shaped scar on his left cheek was caused by a bicycle accident he had as a young boy.

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

One Gene Kelly movie did not make the rankings.  1958’s Something For The Girls is listed on almost all of his movie lists.  We were unable to find any information on this movie.  No reviews, no audience voting, no box office. no nothing….so if anybody has any information on this mystery movie please let us know.

I highly recommend checking out this GeneKelly site.  This is a truly impressive GeneKelly website.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

AFI’s Top 25 Screen Legend Actors….with links to my movie pages on the Screen Legend

2.   Cary Grant

Steve Lensman’s Gene Kelly You Tube Video

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

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71 thoughts on “Gene Kelly Movies”

  1. Out of the forty movies listed I have seen twenty of them. I love the three movies he did with Judy Garland which were FOR ME AND MY GAL, THE PIRATE, and SUMMER STOCK. I also like the three movies he did with Sinatra which were ON THE TOWN, TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME, and ANCHORS AWEIGH. My favorite of the movies he did with Judy was FOR ME AND MY GAL while my favorite of Gene’s collaborations with Frank was ON THE TOWN. Other Gene Kelly movies I enjoyed include SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, the underrated LES GIRLS, the underrated WHAT A WAY TO GO, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, COVER GIRL, and BRIGADOON. Some other Gene Kelly movies I have seen include XANADU, INHERIT THE WIND, MAJORIE MORNINGSTAR, CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, DEEP IN MY HEART , and THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Just my opinion but Mr. Kelly should have won the BEST ACTOR OSCAR in 1952 for SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN and the BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR OSCAR in 1964 for WHAT A WAY TO GO. In fact, Gene won an award for his performance in WHAT A WAY TO GO at The Locarno International Film Festival in 1964. I am for more familiar with movies in which Gene was a member of the cast as opposed to his solo directing efforts. However,I did see HELLO DOLLY which is okay at best and was a one and done seen movie for yours truly.

    Reply

    1. Hey Greg….great breakdown on Gene Kelly movies that you have seen. My favorites would be The Pirate, Singin’ In The Rain and Anchors Aweigh. I have not seen What A Way To Go. Nor have I seen his version of the Three Musketeers. When this page was pretty new, a member of Gene Kelly’s family corrected some of my Possibly Interesting Facts…I thought that was cool. Your comment motivated me to update the page…as it now has an extra table as well as mentions to the movies he directed. Good stuff.

      Reply

  2. 5 THOUGHTS ON “AUGUST 23RD – RANKING 40 GENE KELLY MOVIES ON HIS 107TH BIRTHDAY”

    BOB ROY to STEVE on the Great Eugene
    AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 3:53 AM
    HI STEVE: I am surprised that you did not let us have a special Kelly video today to join Bruce in the celebration of Gene’s 107th birthday. Here’s Wikipedia’s contribution to the celebration.

    “Robert Alda had originated the role of Sky Masterson on Broadway in 1950. For the movie, Gene Kelly at first seemed a serious candidate for the part, but it went to Marlon Brando, partly because MGM would not loan Kelly for the production, but mainly because Goldwyn wanted to cast Brando, the world’s biggest box office draw by a wide margin at that time. The film ended up being distributed by MGM, Kelly’s home studio. Frank Sinatra had coveted the role of Sky Masterson, and relations between him and Brando were strained. Hollywood critic James Bacon quotes Sinatra telling director Joe Mankiewicz, “When Mumbles is through rehearsing, I’ll come out.”

    So The Great Mumbler became The Great Dancer [and oh what beautiful clear singing!] and it seems too that Sinatra beat you to the Mumbles tag. As always a Dan-like link can be added to these birthday celebrations because as you no doubt know Eugene directed my Babs in Hello Dolly and my contribution to the party is to invite you to Google “U TUBE – Barbra Streisand sings with Brando in Guys and Dolls.”

    BABS: ‘Interestingly, there was a period of 27 years when I didn’t sing in public, because of stage fright, and when I finally did, I created a scenario in which I sang ‘I’ll KNOW’ with Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls. I put myself in his movie!’ She added: ‘I invited Brando to my house to see the piece, and he made me take him through my entire show. We then watched a movie together. It was wonderful: He was my idol, my biggest crush.’”

    As you know own my admiration for Brando as an actor is boundless [and probably only 2nd to my admiration of Jimmy Stewart in the acting stakes as such, and Jimmy entertains me more]. However whist Mr M was OK in the looks department I have never understood his apparently exceptional physical attraction to women because he did not to my eye have the classical good looks of say Valentino, Alexander Archibald Leach or Rock Hudson.

    Yet great and/or gorgeous celebs like Monroe, the singer Edith Piaf, Babs, my Joan and Rita Moreno have been identified as or admitted to either being his lovers, having an interest in him and/or [as Bruce puts in on the Rita Morena page] “lusting” after him. [There are opictures on the internet of his socialising with MM] It therefore seems for some reason that if Joel had been a woman maybe even HE would have been attracted to Marlon – and [who knows? ] – suddenly discovered great hidden depths to his acting techniques! Anyway to close this birthday tribute with the lightness of spirit that personified all the great happy feel-good Kelly musicals:

    Many happy returns O Great Eugene.
    I’ve missed your impish boyishness on screen.
    It shines through in every scene,
    In happy-go-lucky joviality
    And probably accounts for your immortality.
    Because on AFI’s list in place 15,
    And 4Oth in Bruce’s book you can be seen.

    REPLY
    Cogerson
    AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 8:18 AM
    Hey Bob….Steve has a Gene Kelly video….I just added it to our UMR page. Good thoughts on Brando, Moreno, Kelly and Guys and Dolls. It still remains surreal when you mention “my” book. Glad I wrote that book….never thought I would be an author. Good feedback as always.

    REPLY
    BOB ROY to BRUCE
    AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 9:13 AM
    HI BRUCE:

    Thanks for the heads up on Steve’s Gene Kelly video. I can’t recall whether I’ve already seen it as I have now watch so man of Steve’s video. However I am sure it’s worth a 2nd look anyway so I’ll check it out.

    Your book is an invaluable reference book which I consult almost daily One of the things that impresses me greatly is that unlike other sources such as AFI your criteria has rightly picked up Crosby, Sinatra, Hope and my Doris as Legends deserving to be ranked; and it excludes much hyped modern figures such as Jennifer Lawrence who can’t seem to consistently open a film that is not part of a self-selling franchise or an ensemble movie. Well done again.

    REPLY
    Steve Lensman
    AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 12:05 PM
    Hi Bob, it might have been better if you posted your comment in the main Gene Kelly page, I think Bruce discards these notifications after a week or so and you’ll lose that entire essay you wrote. [noooooo!]

    ?

    I’m not the sentimental type so I don’t wish my film heroes ‘a happy birthday’ decades after they’ve passed on to the great beyond. And I never commemorate their death dates either. Does that make me less of a fan? Probably.

    Thanks for the post. And thanks to Bruce for the video share, always appreciated.

    Now watch as our comments on this page slowly fade away forever….. [cue sad music]

    REPLY
    BOB ROY to STEVE
    AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 1:00 PM
    HI STEVE

    Thanks for response. I’ll now transfer my Kelly comment and the exchanges with WH to Eugene’s main page

    Charlie Bill Stuart, wherever he is now. might be in a position to appreciate fans still celebrating his birthday. As an actor in his previous life he was aware of for example his life as as slave on a Spanish war galleon hundred of years ago as Judah Ben Hur was on a Roman ship of war.

    Reply

    1. Good work Bob. The whole thing actually flows rather well within one post. Cheers.

      I should update and expand my old Gene Kelly video, Fred Astaire too. Add more posters, stills and lobby cards. Hopefully this year, or early next year.

      Reply

    2. He is now 110….thanks for all the thoughts Bob. And you think I do not read your comments…I do…I just let them breathe, like a good wine…lol.

      Reply

  3. 1 STEVE Great to hear from you and one of the advantage of exchanging posts with a Brit is that we are in the same time zone! Peter Lorre agreed with you in that he said that the childish arguments that went on all the time over billing made him sick of Hollywood

    2 Legend has it that when McQueen backed out of Butch Cassidy because of his billing dispute with Newman and Redford was offered the part he said “Let the older man go first!” Of course at that precise point Robert although an important star was not as big as Paul and in the mid-seventies Paul said in an interview “Redford’s THE big star now.”

    3 My own hunch is that if they had both appeared in Always there would have been the billing arrangement that McQueen & Newman and Hunter & Dreyfuss had and my only worry is that as Bruce is a big Newman fan HE might not have recognised that arrangement!

    4 Incidentally Newman said in the interview that he had production control over Butch Cassidy and that every time he got production control he offered a part to Mr Mumbles and so he offered Butch to Mr M and he Paul would then have played Sundance. However Martin Luther King had just been shot and Mr M was in mourning didn’t want to make movies for a while.

    5 Last night I watched the documentary about Mr M to which you alerted me and when he was talking direct to the camera every word was clear but when we were getting his voice indirectly from the tapes he had made some parts of those were muffled and to me inaudible. Overall though it was a fascinating but very tragic profile because of what happened to his children. One thing seemed clear is he was a big Chaplin fan but was not especially interested in the acting styles of the likes Cooper, The Duke and The King though he admitted that he Marlon was lucky that in the 50s his own acting style coincided with public taste.

    Reply

    1. Butch and Sundance starring Brando and Newman, might have been interesting… Brando riding that bicycle to the strains of ‘Raindrops keep falling on my head’. 🙂

      Dammit I forgot all about the documentary. I’ll see if it’s on BBC iplayer.

      Reply

      1. STEVE I think as you make your own videos you would probably appreciate the technicalities of the presentation more than I was capable of. BOB

        Reply

      2. Hey Steve….you forgot the Brando documentary? For shame for shame. Actually if it is the one in theaters…I have a great interest in seeing it myself. 🙂

        Reply

    2. Hey Bob….the time zone can be challenging for sure. But I am more than glad to have people around the world checking out these pages. It is hard to argue about Richard Dreyfuss being bill first when the other person is sleeping…lol.

      As always good stories about Mr. Brando…..it is too bad that Newman and Brando never made a movie….especially since they were active together for over 40 years.

      Glad you liked the Brando documentary….sounds like it was a good time. 🙂

      Reply

  4. STEVE
    1 As the saying goes first the good news. As I’ve mentioned to the Supremo I think your Ray Milland film with all those atmospheric 1930s/1940s posters and stills was one of your best yet.
    Now for the Bad news. A week of so ago you were pleased that Gene Kelly’s Singing in the Rain was regarded as “the greatest musical of all time”. However to coincide with the opening of LA Land over here a new poll has now been published which puts Sound of Music above the Kelly classic.

    2 Is there anything wrong with the Supremo? Certainly I know he works very hard but after forbidding us to get into billing arguments he has started to resolutely dispute any passing comment that I make about the order of billing. His recent posts have contested a statement that I made about the billing between Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss in the film Always .The supposed beauty of the billing arrangement for that film has always [no pun!] been its ambiguity in that fans of Holly can read from left to right and convince themselves that Holly has been billed first whereas Dreyfuss admirers like Bruce can read from top to bottom and claim Richard has top billing.

    3 It was the arrangement that Newman and McQueen used for Towering Inferno and after agreement had been reached Steve wrote to all in sundry claiming he had got the best of the bargain. Steve’s name was in the same position as Holly’s on The Always poster. Another example of it is The Formula (1980) in which Mr Mumbles gets billed first on the viewer’s left of the poster whereas George C Scott gets billed 2nd but his name is raised above that of Mr M.
    Also if you look at the posters for Pocket Money (1972) on IMDB and Wikipedia you will see that Newman and Marvin used the same arrangement for that film.

    4 Part of Bruce’s case for contending that Richard’s position on the bill was the relevant one was that he was the bigger star. That argument pleases me because for months [in for example the Loy/Crawford debates which I see are now raging on without me] people have been trying to tell me that I was only imagining the connection between billing and status whereas Bruce is now in fact conceding it.

    5 I will though agree with Bruce even though Richard’s status was reduced by the time Always got made he was still a more important star than Holly so I think that for once I will do what others have been doing and offer some conjecture without proof. As we know Spielberg initially wanted Redford and Newman for the movie and Richard just came aboard when negotiations with Paul and Robert fell through. So it could be that Holly already had a signed contract by that time and Richard was obliged to compromise which I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded as he always seemed to be a most modest and unassuming fellow. When All Night Long was made in 1981 Gene Hackman was first to sign a contract and Barbra Streisand was so keen to get the female lead that although a bigger star than Gene at that point she had to accept 2nd billing. That film was of course a disaster and Babs later sacked her agent for getting her involved with it!

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for all the fascinating billing info, actors are like children fighting over who gets chosen first. It’s mostly an ego thing. I may be wrong but I don’t think letting Holly Hunter have first place on the poster or credits would diminish Richard Dreyfuss as an actor, or affect his future earnings.

      Always isn’t a big favorite of mine and having Redford and Newman on board wouldn’t have had me rushing to buy tickets. I’m assuming Newman would have been top billed, not sure Redford would have accepted second billing especially after the success of Out of Africa.

      Reply

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