Want to know the best James Garner movies? How about the worst James Garner movies? Curious about James Garner’s box office grosses or which James Garner movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which James Garner 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.
James Garner (1928-2014) was an American Oscar® nominated actor. Garner pretty much had two careers. On television he starred in not one but two all-time great shows…Maverick and The Rockford Files. His feature film career lasted over 50 years and included many classic films like The Great Escape, Sayonara and Grand Prix. His IMDb page shows 95 acting credits from 1956-2010. This page will rank 48 James Garner movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system and his straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
Drivel part of the page: When I originally wrote this page, my state of Virginia, had just had it’s worst earthquake in over 100 years (I lived about 100 miles away from the epi-center), Hurricane Irene was closing in on my area (I live 15 miles from Va Beach), and the Great Dismal Swamp fires (about 20 miles away) had reached “can be seen from space” status. So what was I am thinking? Safety of my family? Tape for the windows? Batteries for the flashlights? Will Irene put out the fires? Nope…..I was thinking I should do another UMR movie page before I lose power. Well it turned out the storm only knocked out the power for a few hours…and I managed to finish the page in time….and my Garner movie page quickly became one of my more popular pages. When I was much younger, James Garner was known to me for two things. I knew he was on the very popular show, The Rockford Files and that he was in the Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley. It was only after the discovery of one of my favorite movies of all-time, The Great Escape, that I realized that Garner had already had a very successful movie career.
James Garner Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
James Garner 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 Garner movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort James Garner movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort James Garner movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort James Garner movies 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 James Garner movie received.
- Sort James Garner 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 sort and search buttons to make this page very interactive….for example you just want to see the Doris Day/Garner movies….just type in “Doris Day” in the search box….and up they pop. Or if you want to see his type rated movies according to critics and audiences click the sort button in that column.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above James Garner Table
- Twelve James Garner movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 25.00% of his movies listed. Sayonara (1957) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average James Garner movie grossed $70.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 28 James Garner movies are rated as good movies…or 58.33% of his movies. The Great Escape (1963) was his highest rated movie while The Distinguished Gentleman (1992) was his lowest rated movie.
- Nine James Garner movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 18.75% of his movies.
- Three James Garner movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 6.25% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 19 James Garner movies scored higher that average….or 39.58% of his movies. Sayonara (1957) got the the highest UMR Score while Sunset (1988) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About James Garner
1. James Garner served in the Army’s 24th Infantry Division during the Korean War. He was wounded twice during his time in Korea. He received the Purple Heart for the first injury.
2. James Garner’s two most successful television shows ended prematurely. Garner quit Maverick the series in the third season because of a dispute with Warner Brothers. And he had to quit The Rockford Series for health reasons after season six.
3. James Garner’s first starring role was 1958’s Darby’s Rangers…..he got the role after Charlton Heston turned down the role.
4. James Garner was married to Lois Clarke. They married 14 days after meeting for the first time. They got married on August 17, 1956. According to Garner, “Marriage is like the Army; everyone complains, but you’d be surprised at the large number of people who re-enlist”. Garner has two daughters: Kimberly, from Clarke’s first marriage, whom he adopted when she was nine years old, and Greta “Gigi” Garner…who is an author. Gigi wrote the books…Girl Talk and The Cop Cookbook.
5. James Garner turned down the lead role in First Blood. Imagine if he had taken that role? Stallone would have probably made 13 Rocky movies instead of the 6 he did make.
6. In February 2005 James Garner received the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
7. James Garner has one Oscar® nomination to his credit…..1985’s Murphy’s Romance…Best Actor ……he also picked up two Golden Globe® nominations for his movies…Murphy’s Romance and 1963’s The Wheeler Dealers.
8. For his television career, James Garner received 9 Golden Globe® nominations…including two wins……and received 15 Emmy® nominations with two wins.
9. James Garner’s daughter, Gigi Garner, has an awesome tribute page to her father….check out that tribute here at http://mavrock1.tumblr.com/ . It should also be noted that probably one of James Garner’s greatest accomplishments…was being a great father….I got this information directly from Gigi Garner.
10. Check out James Garner‘ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
I am also glad to hear Mr Garner is still kicking! Married to his wife since 1956?!?! That’s like … hold on (had to get the calculator)…55 years! Kudos to them!! I was a fan of The Rockford Files! He also made me cry in The Notebook and he was Divine with the Ya-Ya Sisterhood!
Cogerson … creating this hub for James Garner with Mother Nature going stir crazy I commend you. I appreciate your hardwork and dedication!
Hey Sunshine625, yep they have been married for 55 years….so they survived him being a star that long…I like when I hear stories like that.
I have not seen The Notebook yet, but I know almost every woman that sees the movie thinks it is a great heart breaking movie.
Nothing better than doing hubs as Mother Nature gets all worked up…if only I could find some D batteries….lol. As always thanks for stopping by and checking out my homes.
You should have D batteries in your Hurricane Survivor Kit! Cogerson you do have your kit stocked and prepared, right ?!?! Water, non-perishables, portable radio…etc…etc. I bet you do 🙂
Hey Sunshine625…. we are covered except for D batteries….but the flashlights work…and we will make a couple more attempts to locate some before the big storm gets here…..hard to panic….when you are enjoying a beautiful day…of swimming in the pool and cutting grass….thanks for checking.
Very nicely done, I love James Garner, I had no idea he had made that many movies. I am glad he is still going strong. I know he had some health issues but he is still kicking and still has a pulse.
Hey KellyE1967…yep he is still kicking and still has a pulse….so he is a current actor….I can keep my word about classic actors and then current actors….lol. Thanks for the comments.
I like a spagetti western called a Man Called Slade. The first half of it was marvelous and the second half not that great. I liked his American westerns too.
Hey RJ…pretty sure the movie you are thinking about is #39…A Man Called Sledge…which was a Dino De Delaurentis production. Thanks for stopping by and checking out the page.
Awesome as usual. I can see there’s no information on “Support your local gunfighter” – Is that unavailable?
Hey gunnarsrud17…..you know when I was working on this hub….I reminded myself numerous times…that there were two movies…with Support Your Local……so what do I do…I forget to do both movies….but I have gone back and included Support Your Local Gunfighter….comes in at #27…good catch…I am glad you were able to spot that the movie was missing. Now…I do one of your requests has been done….lol.
James Garner is a wonderful actor – hard to believe that he was 85 in April. I believe that I have seen all or 99% of his movies. Plus his TV shows too. Thanks for the all the facts and the personal comments too. He had some great roles.
Thanks BERN1960 for the visit and the comment.