Gloria Grahame Movies

Want to know the best Gloria Grahame movies?  How about the worst Gloria Grahame movies?  Curious about Gloria Grahame box office grosses or which Gloria Grahame movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Gloria Grahame movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.   This page comes from a request from Flora, FilmNoirFan and Mike.

Gloria Grahame (1923-1981) is an Oscar®-winning American actress.  Grahame received a Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actress nomination for 1947’s Crossfire, and would later win the award for her work in 1952’s The Bad and the Beautiful. She achieved her highest profile with 1952’s Sudden Fear , 1953’s Human Desire , 1953’s The Big Heat, and 1955’s Oklahoma!.  Gloria Graham’s IMDb page shows 64 acting credits from 1944-1981. This page will rank 37 Gloria Grahame movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Television roles and movies not released in North America were not included in the rankings.

Gloria Graham in 1953’s The Big Heat

Gloria Grahame 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 Gloria Grahame movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Gloria Grahame movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Gloria Grahame movies by domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort Gloria Grahame 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 Gloria Grahame movie received.
  • Sort Gloria Grahame 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

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Gloria Grahame Table

  1. Eight Gloria Grahame movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 21.62% of her movies listed.  The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) was her biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Gloria Grahame movie grosses $82.80 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  20 Gloria Grahame movies are rated as good movies…or 54.05% of her movies.  It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) is her highest rated movie while The Losers (1972) is her lowest rated movie.
  4. Eight Gloria Grahame movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 21.62% of her movies.
  5. Four Gloria Grahame movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 10.81% of her movies.
  6. An average “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00.  21 Gloria Grahame movie scored higher that average….or 56.75% of her movies. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) got the the highest UMR Score while The Losers (1972) got the lowest UMR Score.
Gloria Graham in 1955’s Oklahoma!

Possibly Interesting Facts About Gloria Graham

  1. Gloria Grahame Hallward was born in Los Angeles, California in 1923.

2.  Gloria Grahame was descended from royalty. Her father’s family descended from King Edward III through John of Gaunt; her mother’s, from the Scottish Kings of the Hebrides.

3.  Gloria Graham was taught acting by her mother Jean Grahame.  Jean Grahame was an English actress.  Gloria attended Hollywood High School before dropping out to pursue acting.

4.   Louis B. Mayer of MGM spotted Gloria Graham when she was performing on Broadway.  He signed her to a movie contract but eventually sold her contract to RKO.

5.  Gloria Grahame was unhappy with the tilt of her upper lip, she often stuffed cotton along her gumline to straighten it out. The effect was cosmetically less than flattering and made it difficult for her to speak. A leading man, after kissing her, ended up with a mouth full of cotton.

6.  Ray Hagen and Laura Wagner picked Gloria Grahame as one of the toughest film actresses in their book “Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames” (2004).

7.  Gloria Grahame was married four times.   She had four children.

8.  Gloria Grahame’s first marriage was to actor Stanley Clements.  Her second marriage was to director Nicolas Ray.  Her third marriage was to write Cy Howard.  Her final marriage was to Anthony Ray.  Anthony was the son of Nicholas.  She had one child with Nicolas and two children with Anthony.  I imagine those kids had many “Chinatown” moments when introducing their family.

9.  Columbia wanted to borrow Marilyn Monroe from 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Debby Marsh in 1953’s The Big Heat, but Fox’s asking price was too high. Gloria Grahame was cast instead.

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

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29 thoughts on “Gloria Grahame Movies

  1. I have seen 17 Gloria Grahame movies.

    The highest ranked film I have seen is It’s A Wonderful Life.

    The highest ranked film I have NOT seen is Sudden Fear.

    The lowest ranked film I have seen is A Woman’s Secret.

    My favourite Gloria Grahame movies are:

    The Big Heat
    The Bad and the Beautiful
    Oklahoma!
    In a Lonely Place
    Human Desire

    The other movies I have seen:

    The Greatest Show on Earth
    Crossfire
    Without Love
    Not as a Stranger
    Song of the Thin Man
    It Happened in Brooklyn
    The Cobweb – goofy and over the top
    Odds Against Tomorrow
    Macao
    The Glass Wall

    1. Hey Flora….thanks for the Gloria Grahame comment. On the tally count you have the lead….as your 17 tops my 10 and Steve’s 8. My highest miss is #3 Oklahoma….and my last hit was #26 A Woman’s Secret. Of your favorites….I really like The Big Heat and Bad and the Beautiful. I have seen In A Lonely Place…..but it did not really impress me….but it is probably time for a second viewing.

      As for the other ones you have seen….I liked Crossfire, Song of the Thin Man and Odds Against Tomorrow. The Cobweb was supposed to be James Dean’s 4th movie…..but he of course was unable to make it. Good stuff as always.

  2. Hello Bruce,
    A very interresting actress who is really good when she play bad part.
    The best years of her carrier was in the 40 and the 50;
    I remembered to watch a TV movie about her during the 90 and it was something like
    Looking for Gloria Grahame and why she disappeared of the screen.
    A story with a detective to find where she was hidden, of course we saw her two minutes at the end of the film…
    I never thought that she descended from royalty but i know the story about her weddings with Ray Nicolas and Antony;
    Bonne page et à bientot sur UMR
    Pierre

    1. Hey Pierre
      1. Thanks for checking out our Gloria Grahame page.
      2. I agree she was very good in “good bad girl” roles…with The Big Heat immediately jumping into my head.
      3. I think her career faltered due to age and bad off screen press…….but she kept working….just not in big budget movies.
      4. Queen Gloria …lots of royal blood there.
      5. Thanks for the kind words.
      🙂

    2. Hey Pierre
      1. Thanks for checking out our Gloria Grahame page.
      2. I agree 100%. She was great in her “bad good girl” roles with The Big Heat coming to mind quickly.
      3. I think her career faltered as she got older and had lots of bad press off screen….but she kept working…..though low budget movies replaced the big budget movies she appeared in at the start and peak of her career.
      4. Lots of royal blood in her veins….Princess Gloria has a nice ring to it.
      Good stuff.

  3. 1 New page given precedence to answering viewers’ comments!

    2 On behalf of viewers generally I will quote Lee J Cobb’s gangland boss Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront when he thought not enough attention was being paid to his power/instructions “Pretty soon I’ll just be another guy around here!”

    1. Hey Bob…..gotta keep the website fresh with new information….you gotta understand…..lol. Heck this Gloria page is already an “old page”…..with John Mahoney being the “new page” now. Good quote from On The Waterfront….I think Bruce Willis won an Oscar for that performance….lol.

  4. I’ve seen just 8 of the 37 films listed, not impressive. Favorite film here is the Frank Capra classic – It’s a Wonderful Life, other favorites – The Greatest Show on Earth, The Beautiful the Bad and the Ugly and The Big Heat.

    I still haven’t seen the recent film starring Annette Bening as Grahame.

    Nice work Bruce. Vote Up!

    1. Hey Steve
      1. Thanks for the thoughts on Gloria Grahame.
      2. Tally count…I have seen 10 of these movies…..so I barely exceed your total.
      3. I have seen all of your favorites….with The Big Heat and The Bad and The Beautiful being among my favorites too.
      4. That Annette Bening movie looks interesting…but like you I have not seen it either.
      Good stuff.

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