James Caan Movies

James Caan in 1972's The Godfather
James Caan in 1972’s The Godfather

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

The other day I received a comment on my Al Pacino page talking about James Caan (1940-2022). After reading the comment it occurred to me that although James Caan was one of my favorite actors, I had yet to do a movie page on him. So this page was written to correct that horrible error I have been making for the last 10 months.

I think the first three movie stars I became aware of as a kid were, John Wayne, Michael Caine and James Caan. Four Caan movies from the 1970s really caught my attention as a kid…..Brian’s Song (one of the best television movies ever), The Godfather (I was not allowed to watch it….but all kids knew about the toll booth scene), Rollerball (I never really understood the movie as a kid, but it was a superbcool movie), and Freebie and the Bean (it seems this movie played on ABC’s Sunday night at the movies every 6 months).

As I got older I tried to watch as many of his movies that I could get my hands on….so far I have seen 45 of his movies. My favorite James Caan movies (not already mentioned) are A Bridge Too Far, Kiss Me Goodbye, Bottle Rocket and The Gambler (not the Kenny Rogers TV movie).

His IMDb page shows over 137 acting credits since 1961. This page will rank James Caan movies from Best to Worst in five different sortable columns of information.  Television appearances, shorts, cameos and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.

James Caan and Barbra Streisand in 1975's Funny Lady
James Caan and Barbra Streisand in 1975’s Funny Lady

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

James Caan 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 by James Caan’s co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort James Caan movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort James Caan movies by yearly box office rank
  • Sort James Caan movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or highis should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each James Caan movie received.
  • Sort James Caan 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.
James Caan in 1990's Misery
James Caan in 1990’s Misery

Possibly Interesting Facts About James Caan

1. 1971’s Brian’s Song was originally a made for television movie, but was such a popular hit on television that the producers actually released Brian’s Song to theaters…..it did perform well when people had to pay to watch the movie. James Caan received an Emmy® nomination for his role.

2. James Caan played football at Michigan State University back in 1956 before transferring to Hofstra University. Caan was also a rodeo performer for many years and has a black belt in karate.

3. During his long career, James Caan has only received one Oscar® nomination (The Godfather) but he has helped numerous actresses receive Oscar® nominations…Marsha Mason in 1973’s Cinderella Liberty and 1980’s Chapter Two, Bette Midler in 1991’s For The Boys, and Kathy Bates in her Oscar® winning performance in 1990’s Misery.

4. James Caan has received more love from the Golden Globe® people as he has received 4 Golden Globe® nominations. Those four movies are 1965’s The Glory Guys, 1972’s The Godfather, 1974’s The Gambler, and 1975’s Funny Lady …he has yet to win one.

5. James Caan has directed one movie in his career….1980’s Hide in Plain Sight…a forgotten gem of a movie that is based on a true story. In the movie Caan’s children go into the Witness Protection with their mom and stepfather….leaving the real father with no way to see or contact his children.

6. James Caan has been married four times. Those four marriages have given Caan a daughter named Tara, and four sons named Scott, Alexander, James, and Jacob. Caan is currently not married. His son Scott Caan is also an actor, he can be seen on the CBS show Hawaii Five-O as well as the Oceans Eleven trilogy.

7. During one of his divorces, James Caan moved into one of his good friend’s house….that friend was Hugh Hefner and the house was the Playboy Mansion.

8. James Caan has turned down some very famous roles….some of these roles include….Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs Kramer, MASH, Star Wars, Superman, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

9. From 1982 to 1987 James Caan briefly retired from the movie business, during this time frame he coached a Little League baseball team, there was one incident where his team’s weakest player hit a home run that won a game. Caan claims this is one of the greatest moments of his life.

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

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73 thoughts on “James Caan Movies”

  1. .James Caan has conceded that he had never capitalised on his success in the Godfather films to the extent that Brando, Pacino, DeNiro and even Duvall [artistically] had done.

    “After his violent, sexually riveting performance in The Godfather, James Caan was touted as Hollywood’s brightest new star. The talent still exists, but none of his later scripts matched the quality of his earlier ones.” [From The Call of Cthulhu 1983]

    Jimmy himself opined that a lot of the problem had been his habit of getting into confrontations with Hollywood producers and other bigwigs. As the saying goes “You don’t live in Rome and fight with His Holiness the Pope.” [Not even if you’re Russell Crowe!]

    Certainly it seems too late today for Caan to make up for lost time in the Big league. Leaving aside the computer animated ensemble flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs [which my grandkids love but which is not for me] his other 11 theatrical releases in the past decade – ie 2010 until 2019 – have a total domestic gross of $44 million according to Bruce’s tables. That’s a paltry average of $4 million each with in fact 10 of the 11 not grossing even $1 million individually. 3 others seem to have gone straight to DVD as Bruce doesn’t mention them.

    During the making of 1972’s Godpop Jimmy became great friends with Brando and they socialised a lot together. He tells how one time they went to a night club and an intoxicated Great Mumbler showed off to him by getting up with one of the local girls and performing the dance that he had done with Jean Simmons in Havana in 1955’s Guys and Dolls. Caan found it highly entertaining, as I am sure Steve Lensman would have done if Gene Kelly had gotten up and danced for HIM exclusively!

    I see from the excellent lead-in above that the young Work Horse was not allowed to watch The Godfather. Boy did the writ of Hirsch run large in the Cogerson household even before the 1983 Neocronomicon [aka The Book of the Dead]was written!

    In the sitcom Frasier, the latter’s father Martin has fallen out for years with his best buddy in the cops. Frasier asks him what started the feud and Martin replies “I cried during Brian’s Song and my buddy told all our other fellow policemen and they all laughed.”

    Reply

  2. HI STEVE 1. Jimmy was a Howard Hawks favorite appearing in Hawkes’ Redline 7000 (1965) and in Howard’s 1967 El Dorado which was a reworking of that director’s 1959 Rio Bravo with Jimmy playing the part that Ricky Nelson had taken in the 1959 film. The Godfather of 1972 made stars of both Caan and Pacino and observers have ever since been tempted to compare their careers Burt Reynolds claimed that HE was in line for The Godfather but Mr. Mumbles who didn’t like him vetoed him. Mr. M confirmed that in an interview but neither of them said what part Burt had been pencilled in for.

    2 This video is one of your very best and in fact I gave up trying to make comparisons between the POSTERS after I had listed the following 4 in my notes: Killer Elite, Comes a Horseman, For the Boys, and Slither. Then I just jotted at random and came up with the following additional 4: Gardens of Stone, Games, Rain People and The Gambler. Maybe if I was pressed to pick the very best of that 8 it would be The Gambler.

    3 Excellent STILLS with the best quality ones for me being Freebie and the Bean, Rollerball, Bridge too Far, Jimmy with Mr. Mumbles , and Eraser. But isn’t that Arnie in the Eraser still and no Caan?

    4 You and the Big Guy are agreed on 3 of Jimmy’s Top 5 but you both surprised me by including Brian’s Song in the main 5. I don’t know a lot about it and first heard of it when I watched the TV sitcom Frasier. In it Frasier’s dad, Martin, is an ex-cop who idolizes the Duke and Jim Rockford [James Garner on TV] and Martin sees himself as a rugged figure like them. He therefore tells his sons that he was embarrassed when one of his cop buddies told the other cops in his precinct that Martin had “cried at Brian’s Song!” The Caan video was worth a 97% rating from me because of its excellence but I’d probably have given it that anyway if you had just displayed the opening quote and nothing else !!! As you say Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for checking out my Jimmy Caaaaan video, appreciate the review, generous rating, info, trivia, comaprison and observation! Happy you liked the posters and stills.

      Usually I don’t include TV movies in my videos but I had to make an exception for Brian’s Song, it’s had great reviews and ratings plus James Caan has had some of his best reviews for this film. It also has the power to make grown men cry. I’ve only seen bits of the film on youtube, and it was not enough to turn me into a blubbering mess. I’ll bet el capitan cries buckets whenever he watches it, but than Americans always turn on the waterworks during sports movies. 🙂

      No Jimmy on the Eraser poster but he does have an important role in the film, he was the main heavy. I included the two animations just to show Caan wasn’t above such things and his voice work in those was excellent, and funny too.

      Rollerball and Freebie and the Bean are old favorites of mine, I saw them at the cinema back in the 70s. Freebie was reissued on a double bill with a Bruce Lee film, which I saw a number of times during the late 70s.

      Three of Jimmy’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – El Dorado, Godfather 1 & 2. Two scored 9 – Countdown & Cinderella Liberty but their average dropped after the other scores were added on.

      Reply

      1. “coma-prison”? Is that a new film? I meant ‘comparison’. Typing too fast. You should see what my texting is like, barely decipherable.

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      2. 1 You may have observed that I have been keeping my eye on this site recently and if that Bigfoot critter is gonna start blubbering about a TV movie he’d better not do it around me,

        2 You will recall that I savaged Cooper in public for crying in High Noon and there was a mob of vicious gunmen pursuing him in that one but I still thought that that was no excuse.

        3 The Alamo was one of the most stirring moments in our history and our heroes in that conflict are rightly renowned the world wide but it wouldn’t have been so memorable if Crockett, Bowie, Col Travis and the rest had sat around bawling their eyes out like babies.

        4 That Bawwwb fella tells me that whilst sports movies don’t set him off other things in movies like reunions do touch him. For example he was close to tears – but not quite there – when Morg Freeman and Tim Robbins reunited at the end of Shawshank Redemption.

        5 Bawwwb says that the only time that he was not able to hold back the tears at all regarding movie matters was when some dope started to put it about on this site that the Loy broad was a box office queen. However since Bawwwb doesn’t live here he is under no obligation to behave like a Real American so I guess we’ll just have to excuse him.

        6 However that doesn’t go for that Bigfoot varmint and if I hear any more talk about him gushing tears I’ll tell the American people that from now on when any grown man cries over a movie it’s to be known as “Bruce’s Song”

        Reply

        1. Funny stuff Mr. Wayne, can I call you John?
          “I don’t see why not”
          How about Duke?
          “I like the sound of that”
          Dukkums?
          “No no I’m sorry I don’t like being called Dukkums!”
          Can I call you Frank?
          “Why Frank?”
          It’s a nice name. Richard Nixon had a hedgehog named Frank.
          “What is going on here?”
          Now Frank — Frannie — little Frannie-pooh…
          “I’m gonna thump you!”
          Calm down John and tell us about your last film.
          “My last film? None of this frannie-pooh nonsense?”
          Tell us all about it Mr. Wayne.
          “Well the idea, funnily enough, is based on an idea I had when I first joined the industry in the 1920s. Of course, in those days I was only the tea boy and..”
          Oh shut up John.

          Reply

          1. HI MR POSTERS

            1 Strange the number of people who keep turning up on this site that I thought were dead. We even get quoted to us silly criticisms of movies and stars from one of the Undead..

            2 Please don’t call me Frank because many people turn that into Frankie which used to be the colloquial nickname for that Monster fella. Enough people think I’m a bit of a creep as it is. Call me Checkers as that cute little doggy saved my political career the way little Asta saved other careers.

            “RICHARD NIXON AND THE CHECKERS SPEECH
            The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made on September 23, 1952, by the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, California Senator Richard Nixon. Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to reimburse him for his political expenses. With his place on the Republican ticket in doubt, he flew to Los Angeles and delivered a half-hour television address in which he defended himself, attacked his opponents, and urged the audience to contact the Republican National Committee (RNC) to tell it whether he should remain on the ticket. During the speech, he stated that regardless of what anyone said, he intended to keep one gift: a black-and-white dog who had been named Checkers by the Nixon children, thus giving the address its popular name and forcing Eisenhower to keep him on the Presidential ticket.”

            3 I can only hope that that weepy fella Bruce who you seem to think cries bucket loads over Brian’s Song doesn’t collapse into the waterworks when he is reminded of this speech. It certainly tugged the heartstrings of many Real Americans back in 1952 but unfortunately nowadays by a thought association process turning on the waterworks always reminds people of Watergate and not my cunning Checkers speech..

            Best wishes CHECKERS

      3. Brian’s Song was so popular…it was actually released in theaters…not thinking that has happened to many times…..as for weeping….Lando Calrissian was not the only crying when Sonny Corleone died at the end of that movie.

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  3. HI BRUCE
    1 I am delighted to see this Caan update as Jimmy is an actor that I very much like.He has had a long career and as your table shows has made an enormous number of movies although the last few have been abysmal at the box office. He is though almost the only leading Godpop 1 & 2 performer who didn’t totally capitalise on the franchise, Brando reviving his stalled career, Pacino and DeNiro becoming great stars, Diane Keaton going from strength to strength and supporting actor Bobby Duvall achieving recognition as one of America’s finest modern character actors. Part of the reason for Jimmy not doing as well as he might have could be the roles he turned own that you have mentioned; but it is also said that he could be volatile and argumentative and therefore made enemies of the wrong people, and that had a lot to do with the 82-87 sabbatical that you have highlighted .

    2 In an interview he claimed that he and Bud got on very well making Godpop .and that
    (1) they socialised together and in a nightclub on one occasion when the music started Mr Mumbles jumped up and performed one of his dances from Guys and Dolls (2) he and MB formed the habit of “mooning” each other on the set and even from passing separate taxis in crowded thoroughfares. Pacino who was in Caan’s taxi on one such occasion confirmed the matter in another interview and quietly indicated his disapproval to the interviewer. Nevertheless for me Jimmy is one of the modern cinemas larger than life characters on and off the screen.characters

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob….he has always been one of my favorites….I think he had a good post Godfather career…..just not as good as some of his other co-stars. I have read that he and Brando got along….and about their mooning time. Yes his most recent movies have been forgettable….but as he approaches 80 he is still a very busy actor. Thanks for sharing your Caan thoughts.

      Reply

    2. Hey Bob….James Caan is one of my Top 10 actors. Not sure how I connected with him…but I did. I would have to bet seeing his movies on primetime television did it….movies like Rollerball, Freebie and the Bean seemed to play pretty regular back then. I think Caan did pretty well after The Godfather…maybe not as great as the others…but he has been steadily working for 45 years since that movie….yes…he made some horrible bad decisions…..but a resume that includes Misery, Alien Nation, Hide In Plain Sight, Thief, The Gambler, Cinderella Liberty, Elf and Bottle Rocket is pretty impressive. I of course will not mention his many direct to home entertainment movies that he is specializing in these days.

      Good conversation between you and Steve on Mr. James Caan. Anytime Mr. Caan makes the trending page on UMR is a good day….lol. FYI…Mr. Jerry Lewis has been king of the hill for the last 4 days…how long can he maintain that?

      Reply

  4. Hey Flora…I think you might be correct, Lillian Gish might be the hardest one I attempt…..I actually found a Joan Crawford link that has all her movies from 1925 to the 1940s…the information is from the Eddie Mannix Ledgers….check out the link and you can see how the studios kept track of their movies back …by using a ledger that showed the movie’s performance in a single line.

    http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/boxoffice.htm

    Reply

  5. Nice look at one of my all time favorites. Too bad Freebie and the Bean did notcrack the Top Ten that is one of my favorites.

    Reply

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