James Coburn played Derek Flint in two Flint movies
Want to know the best James Coburn movies? How about the worst James Coburn movies? Curious about James Coburn box office grosses or which James Coburn movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which James Coburn movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
One of my father’s all-time favorite movie scenes occurred in 1963’s The Great Escape. In that movie James Coburn (1928-2002) played an escaped POW during World War II who is hiding in plain sight at a French cafe. Since YouTube is so awesome I was able to locate and attach my dad’s favorite The Great Escape scene at the bottom of this page. This attached scene is why Coburn became one of my favorite actors. When I started writing these movie pages….Coburn was one of the first people I wrote down on a list of actors/actresses that I wanted to write about.
Since writing that original list, 4 and a half years have passed and I have written over 250 movie pages….yet I never did a Coburn movie page. But why?Although Coburn appeared in many classic movies….The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Charade, Our Man Flint and Duck You Sucker….he has also appeared in his fair share of clunkers. When going through his IMDb credits I counted over 20 movies (many turned out to be straight to VHS movies) that I had not even heard of before…. and I consider myself a James Coburn fan. So the other day when I was looking at my Michael Caine (another favorite of mine) page….I saw all of his clunkers ….and thought why am I holding the clunkers against Coburn and nobody else? At that point I decided to give Mr. Coburn some Ultimate Movie Rankings love. His IMDb page shows 174 acting credits from 1957-2002. This page will rank James Coburn movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, cameos, movies not released in North America and straight to home entertainment movies were not included in the rankings.
Mel Gibson and James Coburn in 1994’s Maverick
James Coburn Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
James Coburn 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 James Coburn movies by co-stars
Sort James Coburn movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
Sort James Coburn movies by yearly domestic box office rank
Sort James Coburn 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 James Coburn movie received and how many Oscar® wins each James Coburn movie won.
Sort James Coburn 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.
1. James Harrison Coburn III was born on August 31, 1928 in Laurel, Nebraska. Coburn was raised in California. 2. James Coburn’s rise to stardom…Cliff Notes style. While in the Army he narrated Army training films. Studied acting at Los Angeles City College. Made stage debut in Billy Budd. Selected for a Remington Products razor television commercial. Starting getting television role work in 1957. First movie role was in 1959’s Ride Lonesome. From 1960 to 1965 appeared in supporting roles in many popular movies. In 1966, Coburn became a genuine star following the release of Our Man Flint. In 1967, he was voted the twelfth biggest star in Hollywood. 3. Even though James Coburn was one of The Magnificent Seven (1960)….he only had 11 lines in the entire movie. Coburn was a big fan of Seven Samurai (1954) and his favorite role in that film was the character that he ended up playing in the Americanized version. 4. In 1979, James Coburn started suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis, which left him debilitated at times. In 1998, a holistic healer started him on a dietary supplement, which resulted in a drastic improvement in his condition. This is why he has so few IMDb credits in the 1980s. 5. James Coburn received 1 Oscar® and 0 Golden Globe® nominations…..but he made that 1 nomination count as he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar® for 1997’s Affliction. 6. James Coburn’s passions in life included martial arts, card playing and enjoying fine Cuban cigars! Coburn and Steve McQueen were a pallbearers at the funeral of Bruce Lee. 7. James Coburn starred in 3 Sam Peckinpah directed movies. 1965’s Major Dundee, 1973’s Pat Garret & Billy The Kid and 1977’s The Cross of Iron. 8. James Coburn was married twice; first to Beverly Kelly from 1959 to 1979..they had two children, James Coburn IV and Lisa Coburn. James Coburn IV is a sound mixer with over 40 IMDb credits. His second marriage was to actress Paula O’Hara from 1993 until his death in 2002. 9. James Coburn was offered the role in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars….but he turned it down. That was good news for Clint Eastwood. Later Coburn would make a Sergio Leone western…1971’s Duck You Sucker…which is also known as A Fistful of Dynamite. 10. James Coburn’s last acting role was on the HBO series….Arli$$. The name of the episode was The Immortal….seems like a fitting way for Coburn to end his acting career. Check out James Coburn’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page. Another page worth checking out is this James Coburn Movie Posters page written by Steve Lensman. Lots of great art work on Coburn’s movies.
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46 thoughts on “James Coburn Movies”
1 Nice birthday tribute to James Coburn, giving one the excuse to revisit his stats and the other information on this page. As indicated in Possibly Interesting Facts James Bond via Derek Flint made Coburn a serious star but the elevation was well earned by an almost decade long apprenticeship since 1957 on television and in supporting film roles. It is estimated that he made around 100 television appearances in his 45 year career on top of which he churned out hosts of movies 53 of which are credited to him on this page
2 From those early days I most remember him for his first movie, Randy Scott’s Ride Lonesome in 1959 and the Grant/A. Hepburn thriller Charade (1963) in which as thief Tex Panthallow he ended up as one of the murderous Walter Matthau’s victims.
3 Away from the cameras Jim will always come to my mind as the only performer of whom I know who spoke out publicly about what he called “Hollywood’s creative accounting practices” – ie artificially inflating the cost of a movie so that those entitled to a profits share could be denied such. He apparently had to sue for a promised half % of the profits from Candy (1968)
4 Coburn was truly an interesting and charismatic character in my book with movie historians describing him as cultivating the same “cool” image that Bronson, Marvin and McQueen possessed and the historians regarding Jim as having the same “tough guy” persona as those three.
Hey Bob….I figured since Mr. Coburn was one of my favorite actors (my dad’s influence on me again)…I could at least give him a shout out once a year on his birthday. I love his role in Charade….of all the rogues…in that movie…he is the one I hoped would survive…..even if he flicked lite matches at poor Audrey. I think “cool’ is the way to think of Coburn. One of his last brief roles was in Payback….one of the few characters that survives that movie. I can easily see him saying…”No, no, it’s all right, he’s just killing my alligator bags and shooting holes in my suits. Man, that’s just MEAN. That’s MEAN, man.” and “$70,000? Hell, my suits are worth more than that!”. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Mr. Coburn.
Hi Steve,
As I suspected, you are in a phase of covering off the cast of The Great Escape (or at least the American cast), a project I can fully support! James Coburn is another actor I very much like, though I have not seen quite as many of his films as Garner’s, Bronson’s or McQueen’s, so I will not go into a detailed critique of the ratings this time. In the first half of the 60s, Coburn shined in well-typed character roles in a number of big hits and quality productions. Unfortunately, after he became a major star with Our Man Flint, he was often given rather average material to work with (though there are some notable exceptions). It’s indeed a testament to his unique personality (to refer to the opening quote of your video) and instantly recognizable physique that he remained popular as long as he did. Coburn could go from playing relatively grim, quiet and menacing characters (Magnificent Seven, Pat Garrett) to lively fast-talking con men (Hard Times, Americanization of Emily) and pretty much every-thing else in between, while always staying cool. Your well-orchestrated video once again does honor to a long-standing star, so congratulations once again.
For me, Coburn’s most memorable role and film as a star is Sergio Leone’s Duck You Sucker/A Fistful of Dynamite (or A Fistful of Suckers?), which I see in your response to Bob is not quite one of your top favorites. I just love that movie, the music and the perfomances of Coburn as a former Irish revolutionary and ultra-cool dynamiter and Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit turned revolutionary. I watched it again with my son a few years ago when he 8 – he temporarily became a James Coburn fan and wrote a movie report about it in Grade 3!
The only film that could be argued to have been missed in your video (sorry to do this again) is Coburn’s first film, Ride Lonesome, a little western that has become increasingly well regarded over the years, as shown by Bruce’s rating (though I just found it good). While he was virtually unknown at the time, Coburn does have a substantial part in it.
Aside from that, another great piece! I look forward to seeing the one of that fellow who shares your first name 😉
Sorry I left out Ride Lonesome. When I was compiling the video I looked at the cast list saw Coburn was billed last and that was enough for me to not include it. Can’t quite remember where Ride Lonesome was ranked on my Randolph Scott video, I’m sure it was in the top 5.
Where did you get the impression I didn’t like Fistful of Dynamite? I’m not crazy about it but I’ve watched it many times over the years and I bought it on DVD too.
If you’re referring to the scoresheet I mention in my reply to Bob, those 10 out of 10 scores are from various critics and movie sites I use to calculate a ratings average. The score is not set in stone and can change in future videos as I add in other sources.
My dad was a big Coburn fan too. The whole family was. McQueen too.
Hey Steve….glad to share the links….your videos are bring some of older videos more traffic…..thanks for that. Good to know my family was not the only one not talking Coburn.
Come on Steve…leaving off movies…you are better than that…..as I throw rocks from my glass house…..lol.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, comment, info, trivia, observation, comparison, appraisal and evaluation, always appreciated.
Happy you liked the pictorial aspects of the presentation.
I saw The Last Hard Men at the cinema 4 decades ago, I was easier to please then so I must have enjoyed it. Watching it again a couple of years ago I thought it was a nasty piece of work. Surprised those two super actors agreed to appear in it. But I would have included it on the video if the rating was a bit higher – 5.5 from my sources, that’s even lower than Bruces.
Maybe next year I’ll start a new series of videos on the films that missed the charts in this series, a sort of Bottom 30 if you will. [Bob punches the air] thats one way of using up all my posters and stills I suppose.
I haven’t seen The Last of Sheila, reading about it, it does look interesting.
Five of Coburn’s films scored 10 out of 10 on my scoresheet – The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Charade, Monsters Inc and The President’s Analyst. And two scored 9 – The Americanization of Emily and The Last of Sheila.
1 STEVE James was the first actor whom I noticed protesting in public about what he called the “creative bookkeeping” of the Hollywood producers and moneymen – ie artificially inflating the official cost of making a movie so that they could falsely claim that the movie had not turned a profit and thus avoid a share-out to those actors etc who were legally entitled to a cut. Coburn himself had to sue the producers of the 1968 Candy for the mere half% that he had been promised from that movie’s profits. DAN-LIKE LINK Mr Mumbles was also in Candy and HE had to legally take on the Salkinds and Coppola a decade later when they tried to use the “creative bookkeeping” to deny him his promised share of the Superman/Apocalypse Now booty.
2 Coburn started his career as a supporting actor and indeed was initially more confined to TV but your video faithfully reflects the many leading movie roles that he was given once Derek Flint catapulted him to stardom. Among the POSTERS that most pleased me were Hard Contract, Internecine Project, Waterhole 3, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, The President’s Analyst and of course the Flint ones. The best of the STILLS to my eyes were (1) the bedroom scene from Americanisation of Emily (2) James and Charlie in Hard Times (3) Our Man Flint kickboxing (4) the “bevy of beautiful [scantily clad] girls” who seemed obligatory in the spy movies of those days (5) and Pat Garrett again.
3 The Derek Flint movies were delicious spy spoofs and of course I loved that wonderful knife/gun contest with character actor Robert J Wilke in The Magnificent Seven. Other roles in which I thoroughly enjoyed James were his short but sweet uncredited cameo in Mel Gibson’s 1999 Payback [a loose remake of Marvin’s 1967 Point Blank] and A High Wind in Jamaica with Tony Quinn. Surprise omission from your selections: The Last Hard Men with Chuck though I see WH too spits on it with just a 56% rating. The Work Horse agrees with 4 of your Top 5 and substitutes in his 5 The Last of Shelia for your selection of Cross of Iron. Afraid I have to agree with HIM there, though overall the video was a 95.5% treat in my eyes. I see that WH has again stolen a tiny bit of your thunder by giving us a beautifully coloured miniature of James and Mel from Maverick. I was oblivious to that when I first saw Work Horse’s Cogerson page so I have to thank you for “training” me to appreciate photography as well as stats !
1 Nice birthday tribute to James Coburn, giving one the excuse to revisit his stats and the other information on this page. As indicated in Possibly Interesting Facts James Bond via Derek Flint made Coburn a serious star but the elevation was well earned by an almost decade long apprenticeship since 1957 on television and in supporting film roles. It is estimated that he made around 100 television appearances in his 45 year career on top of which he churned out hosts of movies 53 of which are credited to him on this page
2 From those early days I most remember him for his first movie, Randy Scott’s Ride Lonesome in 1959 and the Grant/A. Hepburn thriller Charade (1963) in which as thief Tex Panthallow he ended up as one of the murderous Walter Matthau’s victims.
3 Away from the cameras Jim will always come to my mind as the only performer of whom I know who spoke out publicly about what he called “Hollywood’s creative accounting practices” – ie artificially inflating the cost of a movie so that those entitled to a profits share could be denied such. He apparently had to sue for a promised half % of the profits from Candy (1968)
4 Coburn was truly an interesting and charismatic character in my book with movie historians describing him as cultivating the same “cool” image that Bronson, Marvin and McQueen possessed and the historians regarding Jim as having the same “tough guy” persona as those three.
Hey Bob….I figured since Mr. Coburn was one of my favorite actors (my dad’s influence on me again)…I could at least give him a shout out once a year on his birthday. I love his role in Charade….of all the rogues…in that movie…he is the one I hoped would survive…..even if he flicked lite matches at poor Audrey. I think “cool’ is the way to think of Coburn. One of his last brief roles was in Payback….one of the few characters that survives that movie. I can easily see him saying…”No, no, it’s all right, he’s just killing my alligator bags and shooting holes in my suits. Man, that’s just MEAN. That’s MEAN, man.” and “$70,000? Hell, my suits are worth more than that!”. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Mr. Coburn.
FYI….I actually wrote a HubPage on James Coburn…years after leaving HubPages…it barely got noticed….but I was looking at it the other day. You might find it interesting. https://hubpages.com/entertainment/James-Coburn-Top-10-Movie-Trivia
Hi Steve,
As I suspected, you are in a phase of covering off the cast of The Great Escape (or at least the American cast), a project I can fully support! James Coburn is another actor I very much like, though I have not seen quite as many of his films as Garner’s, Bronson’s or McQueen’s, so I will not go into a detailed critique of the ratings this time. In the first half of the 60s, Coburn shined in well-typed character roles in a number of big hits and quality productions. Unfortunately, after he became a major star with Our Man Flint, he was often given rather average material to work with (though there are some notable exceptions). It’s indeed a testament to his unique personality (to refer to the opening quote of your video) and instantly recognizable physique that he remained popular as long as he did. Coburn could go from playing relatively grim, quiet and menacing characters (Magnificent Seven, Pat Garrett) to lively fast-talking con men (Hard Times, Americanization of Emily) and pretty much every-thing else in between, while always staying cool. Your well-orchestrated video once again does honor to a long-standing star, so congratulations once again.
For me, Coburn’s most memorable role and film as a star is Sergio Leone’s Duck You Sucker/A Fistful of Dynamite (or A Fistful of Suckers?), which I see in your response to Bob is not quite one of your top favorites. I just love that movie, the music and the perfomances of Coburn as a former Irish revolutionary and ultra-cool dynamiter and Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit turned revolutionary. I watched it again with my son a few years ago when he 8 – he temporarily became a James Coburn fan and wrote a movie report about it in Grade 3!
The only film that could be argued to have been missed in your video (sorry to do this again) is Coburn’s first film, Ride Lonesome, a little western that has become increasingly well regarded over the years, as shown by Bruce’s rating (though I just found it good). While he was virtually unknown at the time, Coburn does have a substantial part in it.
Aside from that, another great piece! I look forward to seeing the one of that fellow who shares your first name 😉
Hi Phil, thanks again for reviewing my videos.
Sorry I left out Ride Lonesome. When I was compiling the video I looked at the cast list saw Coburn was billed last and that was enough for me to not include it. Can’t quite remember where Ride Lonesome was ranked on my Randolph Scott video, I’m sure it was in the top 5.
Where did you get the impression I didn’t like Fistful of Dynamite? I’m not crazy about it but I’ve watched it many times over the years and I bought it on DVD too.
If you’re referring to the scoresheet I mention in my reply to Bob, those 10 out of 10 scores are from various critics and movie sites I use to calculate a ratings average. The score is not set in stone and can change in future videos as I add in other sources.
Ah, thanks for the clarifications. If you like A Fistful of Dynamite, we’re okay then 😉
A link to Steve’s James Coburn page. https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/christopher-nolan-movies/
Lots of great Coburn talk….that is a subject my dad and I used to talk about regularly…James Coburn movies….miss those talks.
Thanks for the link Bruce, it is appreciated.
My dad was a big Coburn fan too. The whole family was. McQueen too.
Hey Steve….glad to share the links….your videos are bring some of older videos more traffic…..thanks for that. Good to know my family was not the only one not talking Coburn.
Come on Steve…leaving off movies…you are better than that…..as I throw rocks from my glass house…..lol.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, comment, info, trivia, observation, comparison, appraisal and evaluation, always appreciated.
Happy you liked the pictorial aspects of the presentation.
I saw The Last Hard Men at the cinema 4 decades ago, I was easier to please then so I must have enjoyed it. Watching it again a couple of years ago I thought it was a nasty piece of work. Surprised those two super actors agreed to appear in it. But I would have included it on the video if the rating was a bit higher – 5.5 from my sources, that’s even lower than Bruces.
Maybe next year I’ll start a new series of videos on the films that missed the charts in this series, a sort of Bottom 30 if you will. [Bob punches the air] thats one way of using up all my posters and stills I suppose.
I haven’t seen The Last of Sheila, reading about it, it does look interesting.
Five of Coburn’s films scored 10 out of 10 on my scoresheet – The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Charade, Monsters Inc and The President’s Analyst. And two scored 9 – The Americanization of Emily and The Last of Sheila.
The Cooler King up next.
1 STEVE James was the first actor whom I noticed protesting in public about what he called the “creative bookkeeping” of the Hollywood producers and moneymen – ie artificially inflating the official cost of making a movie so that they could falsely claim that the movie had not turned a profit and thus avoid a share-out to those actors etc who were legally entitled to a cut. Coburn himself had to sue the producers of the 1968 Candy for the mere half% that he had been promised from that movie’s profits. DAN-LIKE LINK Mr Mumbles was also in Candy and HE had to legally take on the Salkinds and Coppola a decade later when they tried to use the “creative bookkeeping” to deny him his promised share of the Superman/Apocalypse Now booty.
2 Coburn started his career as a supporting actor and indeed was initially more confined to TV but your video faithfully reflects the many leading movie roles that he was given once Derek Flint catapulted him to stardom. Among the POSTERS that most pleased me were Hard Contract, Internecine Project, Waterhole 3, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, The President’s Analyst and of course the Flint ones. The best of the STILLS to my eyes were (1) the bedroom scene from Americanisation of Emily (2) James and Charlie in Hard Times (3) Our Man Flint kickboxing (4) the “bevy of beautiful [scantily clad] girls” who seemed obligatory in the spy movies of those days (5) and Pat Garrett again.
3 The Derek Flint movies were delicious spy spoofs and of course I loved that wonderful knife/gun contest with character actor Robert J Wilke in The Magnificent Seven. Other roles in which I thoroughly enjoyed James were his short but sweet uncredited cameo in Mel Gibson’s 1999 Payback [a loose remake of Marvin’s 1967 Point Blank] and A High Wind in Jamaica with Tony Quinn. Surprise omission from your selections: The Last Hard Men with Chuck though I see WH too spits on it with just a 56% rating. The Work Horse agrees with 4 of your Top 5 and substitutes in his 5 The Last of Shelia for your selection of Cross of Iron. Afraid I have to agree with HIM there, though overall the video was a 95.5% treat in my eyes. I see that WH has again stolen a tiny bit of your thunder by giving us a beautifully coloured miniature of James and Mel from Maverick. I was oblivious to that when I first saw Work Horse’s Cogerson page so I have to thank you for “training” me to appreciate photography as well as stats !
Hey Bob….glad you like that photo….thanks for the review on Steve’s video and the Coburn trivia…good stuff as always.
Oh I love Sister Act 2! He plays a great part in this film.
Hey Coffeequeen….he was one of my favorites. He made very movie better.