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.
Outstanding article on one of the last great actors from a different era.
Thanks for the compliment Victor Briggs, I am glad you liked the page.
I have enjoyed James Garner movies for years, when I was a teenager my favorite show was Maverick. But as I got older he turned to movies, and movies they were. From Cash McCall to Support Your Local Gunfighter, I believe I saw all of those movies at the theater.
As for your list, The Children’s Hour has to be in his Top 5, 13th seems to low. Mister Buddwing also seems to be higher at least in the Top 20. Great tribute to a great man.
To Gigi Garner, your father brought great joy to my life, I hope all is well for your father and his family. I am looking forward to viewing your tribute hub as well.
Hey Steven Hawode. Thanks for checking out my James Garner hub. That sounds awesome that you were able to see all of his movies from the 1960s at the theater. I imagine if you liked an actor you would have to see it at the theater…because it is not like 3 months later the DVD would be out…or Netflix would offer an internet feed.
As for Children’s Hour….it’s book office total was not very impressive…but it ranked 3rd according to critics and audiences…and picked up 5 Oscar(TM) nominations as well….Variety lists the movie as its 51st highest box office movie for 1962….
As for Mister Buddwing… I have not seen Mister Buddwing yet…but I am efforting trying to find the movie….so I will have to agree that maybe it should be ranked higher. And finally nice words to the Garner family….and thanks for commenting.
Thanks for doing a page on Duke from The Notebook, just thinking about that movie gets me teary eyed. I have actually seen some of his older movies. I love the Doris Day movies and the Julia Andrews movies he made. I thought he was very funny in the movie about the ex-presidents. Another winner voted up and awesome.
Hey AlabamaGirl86, his romantic comedies are all very good movies….I even think you can include Murphy’s Romance in the discussion of romantic comedies as well. Garner actually worked with Andrews in three projects….The Americanization of Emily, Victor/Victoria and a tv movie called One Special Night in 1999. The ex-Presidents movie you mention was called My Fellow Americans with another great actor, Jack Lemmon, as always thanks for your comments
Another great movie page Cogerson, and checking out your comments even more impressive about the fact that you did not include in your interesting facts….it is good to know that Mr. Garner is a great dad as well.
My top five James Garner movies
#1 The Great Escape – a classic movie, and I agree with you, everytime I see the movie I think Garner is going to get away once they get the plane off the ground
#2 The Americanization of Emily – great comedy, love Garner and Coburn in the movie
#3 Marlowe – I think without Marlowe maybe would not have seen Jim Rockford
#4 Space Cowboys – so glad this was such a hit
#5 Hour of the Gun – along with Tombstone my favorite retelling of the famous gunfight
Voted up and interesting. You are the man Cogerson.
Hey Yankees Rule….nice Top 5 list….glad to see The Great Escape at #1….as for Hour of the Gun….it is on my list of movies to watch…..the second time he played Wyatt Earp(Sunset) did not turn out to well.
As for interesting facts….that might be the best one ever for my movie pages…thanks for stopping by.
Here is one more interesting fact about James Garner…
He is the best Father in the whole world!
Please join me in honoring him on my
“MAVERICK’S DAUGHTER” Tribute to him at
http://mavrock1.tumblr.com/
Hey Gigi Garner….well that is a great fact to know about James Garner ….thanks very much for reading this tribute to your father….I am on my way to the Maverick’s Daughter tribute page….thanks for the comment.
Gigi Garner….Thank you so much for sharing that special fact with James Garners fans. We already figured that your father is an amazing husband so he must be the BEST father in the world to you. Your tribute site to your dad is FANtastic! Thanks again!! 🙂
Hey Sunshine625….this would have been a great hub for one of your letters to the stars comments you had done in the past for Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz…and this time in would have had a greater chance of making it to the star.
Good Morning Gigi Garner. So glad you like my son’s tribute to your father James Garner. I have enjoyed all his movies – so many good ones. I looked up Maverick’s daughter and enjoyed that so much. You should check Cogerson’s HUB Remembering My Dad and His Top Five Movies of All Time – a tear jerker for sure. We lost my husband and Cogerson’s father in June and he wrote a wonderful page. THANKS FOR SHARING GIGI.
Hey BERN1960…thanks for sending her a comment…and thanks for checking out her tribute page