Want to know the best Harold Russell movies? How about the worst Harold Russell movies? Curious about Harold Russell box office grosses or which Harold Russell movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Harold Russell movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Harold Russell (1914-2002) was a Canadian-born American World War II veteran and Oscar® winning actor. He only appeared in only three movies. He won his Oscar® for 1946’s The Best Years Of Our Lives. His IMDb page shows 5 acting credits from 1946 to 1997. This page will rank Harold Russell movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. To do well in our overall rankings a movie has to do well at the box office, get good reviews by critics, be liked by audiences and get some award recognition. This is the smallest amount of movies that we ranked on one page, tying James Dean’s 3 movies. This 72nd Best Supporting Actor Oscar® winner to get an UMR page.
Harold Russell Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Harold Russell 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 Harold Russell movies by his co-stars
- Sort Harold Russell movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Harold Russell movies by yearly domestic box office rank.
- Sort Harold Russell 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 Harold Russell movie received.
- Sort Harold Russell movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Best IMDb Trivia On Harold Russell
1. Harold John Avery Russell was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1914.
2. On June 6, 1944, while Harold Russell was an Army instructor, teaching demolition work with the U.S. 13th Airborne Division at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, a defective fuse detonated TNT explosives he was handling. As a result, he lost both hands and was given two hooks to serve as hands.
3. After Harold Russell’s recovery, and while attending Boston University as a full-time student, Russell was featured in Diary of a Sergeant, an Army film about rehabilitating war veterans. When film director William Wyler saw the film on Russell, he cast Russell in 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives.
4. Harold Russell was the first of only two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award® for acting (the other being Haing S. Ngor). Russell actually received two Oscars®. One for acting and an Honorary Oscar® for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives.
5. In August 1992, Harold Russell sold his supporting-actor Oscar®, saying he needed the money to pay his wife’s medical bills and other expenses. An anonymous buyer paid $60,500, including a 10 percent commission for the auctioneer. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tried to keep him from selling his award, and offered to loan him money, but he turned them down. (Several Oscars have since been auctioned off posthumously, but the Academy now makes all recipients sign an agreement forbidding them from selling their Oscars®.)
Check out Harold Russell’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Only 3 films Bruce? And he wasn’t even really an actor. Your honor, I rest my case.
He did win an Oscar though I have to give him credit for that. And looking at the trivia box the only other non-actor to win an acting Oscar was Haing S. Ngor for The Killing Fields. Interesting.
Thanks to my watching The Best Years of Our Lives for the first time recently I can proudly say that I’ve watched a third of all the films on that chart.
I think I should go thru my video files and make a list of all the actors and actresses on there that have yet to find a place in UMRs epic site index. Might be surprising. 😉
Hey Steve….only 3, but his big one is huge. Best Years of Our Lives is one of the highest rated movies in our database. A massive hit, loved by critics and audiences and won the biggest prize of all….the Best Picture Oscar. Russell got two Oscars for that movie. Haing S Ngor will get a page in the future too. I am not even sure he made more than one movies. I was glad to see you had finally seen Best Years. A good movie….but not one I want to re-watch. Good Stuff.
As she always does Flora makes some excellent points and we are grateful to her for sharing them with us. However for me Best Years seems somewhat dated because it relates to a [2nd] World war and of course we haven’t had one of those since 1945. The wars since then have been fought for other often diverse reasons and the political and military dynamics behind them have been different as have the outcomes and consequences some of which are still heavily with us today.
Thus whilst as Flora says all returning servicemen do face problems the psychological aftermaths of the recent wars have not been the same as that which followed the 2nd World War. Here are my own perceptions of just a few of the key differences.
1/The Allies and their countries in the 2nd World War were united in the need for the prosecution of the war and continued in that frame of mind after the war. Conversely the Vietnam War for example bitterly didvied countries; nearly tore America in particular apart; and in the end cost LBJ his presidency.
2/During the 2nd World War the political heads such as Churchill/Roosevelt/Stalin were united but when Britain invaded Egypt in the 1950s over the Suez Canal America wouldn’t back it and it was forced to beat a humiliating retreat that begun its relative decline as a military power in comparison with some other world powers.
3/There continues to be virtually universal praise for the victories of The Allies in the 2nd World War; as I write people all around me are celebrating VE Day for example.. However many observers and historians opine that the Iraq War under George W Bush and Tony Blair destabilized that country and its vast surrounds and that the war’s legacy continues to wreak havoc today . Moreover in Britain certainly most people feel that the iraq War was unnecessary as Iraq didn’t have Weapons of Mass destruction.
Accordingly the psychology of a soldier returning from a victorious ‘popular’ war such as World War 2 would probably be different from his counterpart who was involved in the other subsequent wars. When for example Saigon fell to the Communists in Vietnam in 1975 and Americans had to be quickly air lifted to safety soldiers who had been fighting for the USA in Vietnam for so long could be forgiven for being demoralised. That war like many other more modern wars is – unlike victory in the 2nd Workd War – not celebrated.
Hey Bob. War is horrible. My older brother lost a friend in Vietnam. One of my best friends lost a son after coming home from the Middle East. He survived some horrible situations…only to end his life about 10 months later. Sadly, I suspect it will always be happening. Even in the midst of this pandemic…it is happening….as they like to say in politics…never let a good crisis go to waste. Good stuff.
Unlike Bob, I believe that The Best Years of Our Lives has dated well. For one thing, wars continue and military men and women continue to have to deal with the aftermath and trying to cope when they come home.
The Best Years of Our Lives is the only one of Harold’s films I have seen, but I watch it whenever it is on TCM. I love it.
Regarding his disability, I knew how Russell had lost his hands and part of his arms. As Karl said, he is an inspiration. I myself have have a different disability. I have cerebral palsy in my right side.
Hey Flora. I agree, it has dated pretty well. And yes…..sadly men and women dealing with the aftermath is something still happening. Tally count….Bob and me 2, you and Steve at 1. Glad you and Karl find Harold Russell an inspiration. I do as well, but I think yours are more personal. Thanks for sharing. Good stuff as always.
I haves seen two of the 3 movies: Best Years and Inside Moves. To be honest Best Years has never been one of my own fave movies but I have watched it a couple of times because I like Dana Andrews; and although Dana was not a big enough star at the time to get top billing and although Freddie and Harold walked away with the acting honors Dana Andrews for my money actually had the lead role and was the main attraction for me when I first saw in in the 1960s
The young Teresa Wright was lovely and charming in it so that was a bonus for the eyes but from my perspective all Miss Loy had to take away from it was her usual over-value on this site [plus an onscure foreign award that even IMDB doesn’t mention among the host of minor awards that it DOES recognise]. However in a way all that’s academic because I don’t think that the film has dated well and I couldn’t see today’s audiences being over-interested in it. If there was nothing else going for me I might just watch it again to once more see Dana in his heyday.
I am delighted though that Bruce’s sources give Inside Moves a fine 77% rating because I loved it when I first saw it and have recently been on the look out for a rerun of it. Apart from my perception of the quality of the film itself it sticks in my memory because (1)on release it competed for my patronage at our 2-screen local cinema with Altered States and after much soul searching Inside Moves won though today I would be keen to see a rerun of Altered States too as I have never seen it and because it was William Hurt’s debut film (2) Inside Moves was also one of the films that I first saw [a 2nd viewing of] when I acquired a video machine in the early 1990’s so it is a big part of my nostalgic “video days”.
I liked the little still above from Inside Moves and here’s what Wikipedia has to say about
Harold and Inside Movies-
“Diana Scarwid’s performance as Louise, Roary’s girlfriend, earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The movie also marked the return to the screen by disabled veteran Harold Russell, thirty-four years after his Oscar-winning role in The Best Years of Our Lives.
Hey Bob…we are tied with 2. I have seen the same two. I do admit…I barely remember Inside Moves. I saw that one back on HBO in the early to mid 1980s. I am sure I would appreciate it more now that I am older and wiser. As for The Best Years Of Our Lives…..I will go with what Flora said about another movie….”I respect it’s quality….but it is not a favorite.” That being said…it is one of the highest rated movies…..it had it all statistically….and having the greatest female box office star of all-time certainly did not hurt it….lol. Good stuff as always.
I always assumed he lost his hands while in battle. Not that how is important. Being disable myself I have always thought of him as a hero.
Hey Karl….glad you discovered our Harold Russell page. I think he helped out lots of people during his lifetime. I greatly appreciate you stopping by.