Want to know the best Jennifer Jones movies? How about the worst Jennifer Jones movies? Curious about Jennifer Jones box office grosses or which Jennifer Jones movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jennifer Jones movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Jennifer Jones (1919-2009) was an Oscar® winning American actress during the Hollywood golden years. Jones was nominated for 5 Best Actress Oscars®….winning for 1943’s The Song of Bernadette. Jones starred in 23 films over a 30-year career. Two of her movies are still in the Top 100 Box Office Hits of All-Time when looking at adjusted totals: 1974’s The Towering Inferno is currently in 57th place and 1946’s Duel in The Sun is in 97th place. She went into semi-retirement following the death of her second husband, famed movie producer David O. Selznick, in 1965.
Her IMDb page shows 27 acting credits from 1939-1974. This page will rank 23 Jennifer Jones movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles, her early serials, shorts and movies not released in North America were not included in the rankings.
Jennifer Jones Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Jennifer Jones 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 Jennifer Jones movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by yearly domestic box office rank (in millions) or trivia about the movie
- Sort Jennifer Jones 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 Oscar® wins each Jennifer Jones movie received.
- Sort Jennifer Jones movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (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 table very interactive. For example…if you type in “Gregory Peck” in the search box….the 2 Peck/Jones movies will pop right up.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Jennifer Jones Table
- Eight Jennifer Jones movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 34.78% of her movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Jennifer Jones movie grosses $143.97 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 18 of Jennifer Jones’s movies are rated as good movies…or 78.26% of her movies. Portrait of Jennie (1948) was her highest rated movie while Angel Angel, Down We Go (1969) was her lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Jennifer Jones movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 47.82% of her movies.
- Five Jennifer Jones movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 21.73% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 13 Jennifer Jones movies scored higher that average….or 56.52% of her movies. The Song of Bernadette (1943) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while The Idol (1966) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jennifer Jones
1. Phylis Lee Isley was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her first three IMDb credits are under the name of Phylis Isley.
2. David O. Selznick changed her screen name to Jennifer Jones after signing her to seven year contract. Selznick took control of her movie career from 1943 to his death in 1965.
3. Jennifer Jones co-starred with Joseph Cotten in 4 movies: 1944’s Since You Went Away, 1945’s Love Letters, 1946’s Duel in the Sun, and 1948’s Portrait of Jennie. Cotten also narrated The Wild Heart (1952), in which Jones played the lead.
4. Jennifer Jones was married three times….and had three children. Her first marriage was to Robert “Strangers On A Train” Walker. Her 2nd second marriage was to David O. Selznick. Her third marriage was to Norton Simon. She had 7 grand children.
5. In 1981, Jones bought the rights to Larry McMurtry’s novel, “Terms of Endearment“, with the intention of starring in the film but director James Brooks told her that she was too old for the part. The role eventually went to Shirley MacLaine, who won an Oscar®.
6. Jennifer Jones’ first Oscar® nomination for The Song of Bernadette (1943) marked her first of 4 consecutive nominations, a feat she shares with Thelma Ritter (1950-1953), Marlon Brando (1951-1954) Elizabeth Taylor (1957-1960) and Al Pacino (1972-1975). (Pacino and Brando’s 4 consecutive nominations are the record for male actors. The female record is 5 in a row by Bette Davis (1938-1942) and Greer Garson (1941-1945).
7. Jennifer Jones turned 25 on the day she won the Best Actress Oscar® for 1943’s The Song of Bernadette
8. Jennifer Jones’ career adjusted box office gross was over $3.35 billion….while her movies earned 50 Oscar® nominations….winning 12 Oscars®. Four of her movies earned a Best Picture Oscar® nomination.
Check out Jennifer Jones’ movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
1 Jennifer didn’t make many movies and her box office career effectively ended with A Farewell to Arms in 1957 with no more hits for her until Towering Inferno in 1974 in which she was just a supporting star.
2 VIDEO (1) I thought that Jennifer was one of the most strikingly beautiful actresses ever to hit the screen and your video amply brings that out (2) Duel in the Sun aside she was never more seductive than in Ruby Gentry with Chuck which you have showcased with a fine poster (3) A Farewell to Arms, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing and Gone to Earth were for me the pick of the rest of the posters and there was a super black and white still of Greg and Jen from Duel in the Sun and another impressive one of Olivier and Jones from Carrie. (4) You and Bruce agree on 4 of the Top 5, with your own pick being slightly more daring by including Madam Bovary (5) Both of you are to be congratulated though for including in your 5 the excellent but probably not too well know Portrait of Jennie in which Jennifer co-starred with the man whom Orson Welles thought was the greatest actor of all time, Joseph Cotton. (6) A short presentation but that’s not your fault and the array of posters and stills and Jen’s beauty make it a 9.1/10
3 Also I think your posters reinforce my arguments about the importance of billing within the film industry as in Duel in the Sun (1946) when Jones was the bigger star she was billed before Peck but jump 10 years to Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and the now–established Peck was first named. No “ladies first” there or sentimentally keeping to the ‘traditional’ pecking order [no pun intended] that John was talking about in an earlier post!
NB: We recently discussed Power and Gardner in The Sun also Rises and Hemmingway initially pressed Zanuck to cast Greg and Jennifer in those lead roles but Daryl dug in Cogerson style and would not be moved.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating and billing info, much appreciated. Count me in as a fan of Portrait of Jennie, a slightly creepy ghostly romance, filmed in B/W but the climactic storm was tinted green if I remember correctly.
Bruce the completist includes a few more of her films on his chart but I thought 20 was a nice round number. She wasn’t as busy as other actresses of her time.
Her highest rated movie on my video was The Song of Bernadette just managing to score 8, none of her films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources. By comparison Katharine Hepburn has 7 films scoring 10, Bette Davis 4, Myrna Loy 4, Joan Crawford 3, Marilyn Monroe 3 and Lauren Bacall 2.
1 What ! Myrna Loy scoring just 4 against Katie Hepburn’s 7 and I thought that M-s Loy was the John Wayne or Elvis of the actresses in terms of being the greatest thing since sliced bread. And my Joan despite ploughing a lone furrow for years whilst Myrna basked in the glow of a whole raft of major co-stars is just one behind “the most successful actress who ever lived.”
2 Pity we don’t have an editing facility at our end or I would delete your post before Bruce sees it as it could be argued that your stunning figures give his reputation as this site’s greatest Loy cheerleader quite a knock.
Hohoho Bob! (it’s Xmas!) on the other hand Bruce might be impressed that his beloved Myrna did score 10 out of 10 on 4 movies which btw were – The Best Years of Our Lives, Libeled Lady, Love Me Tonight and The Thin Man. How many of the 4 was she top-billed? [cue Bob grinning]
FWIW (For What It’s Worth) Joan Crawford’s three 10 out of 10’s were – Grand Hotel, Baby Jane and Mildred Pierce. I think she had top billing on just one of those?
1 If I were Bruce I would want a pair of rose coloured glasses to see the joy in a 7/4 scoreline between Katie Hepburn and Myrna Loy or even four 10s for Loy when in terms of stardom Myrna was immaterial to one of the films concerned.
2 In the films you mention films Loy and Crawford each gets top billed only once BUT (a) even where Joan was not top billed she got equal billing to the other star/s (b) Love Me Tonight was a Maurice Chevalier/Jeanette MacDonald vehicle in which both of them were billed alone above the title and Loy was not even mentioned in most of the posters that I’ve seen such as those currently on IMDB and Wikipedia. Your own poster puts Maurice above the title alone with Jeanette immediately below in large letters and Myrna in very small letters among the supporting cast.
3 You crediting to Loy Love Me Tonight like Bruce’s site ceding over $200 million to an actress for an uncredited cameo role is OK in itself but for me such movies don’t enter the equation when making comparisons between the actresses concerned and a star of the magnitude of Crawford who is an AFI Top 10 legend and who in the first 30 years of the talkies was the top billed star who carried 48 of the 51 movies that she made
Hey Bob
1. I am always wearing rose colored glasses…lol.
2. Without Loy’s presence in Love Me Tonight it would not have been as successful. Her performance as Countess Valentine was 5th billed….so it was a supporting role…..but it had to help.
3. As for Joan ….she is without a doubt one of the greatest actresses ever….not thinking anybody has ever said anything to contradict that…..and yes she is a greater actress than Loy……but….Loy has an outstanding box office resume.
Hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday….as we get really close to Xmas your time.
Good points as usual Bob and there’s no denying Joan Crawford’s legendary status.
As an experiment I totted up the scores of the top 10 movies from 7 famous Hollywood actresses from my videos, the results were interesting –
Katharine Hepburn – Top 10 score – 85.94 – Average rating 8.59
Bette Davis – Top 10 score – 83.82 – Average rating 8.38
Lauren Bacall – Top 10 score – 79.81 – Average rating 7.98
Myrna Loy – Top 10 score – 79.54 – Average rating 7.95
Joan Crawford – Top 10 score – 79.40 – Average rating 7.94
Marilyn Monroe – Top 10 score – 79.32 – Average rating 7.93
Elizabeth Taylor – Top 10 score – 78.34 – Average rating 7.83
I know Myrna wasn’t the lead actress in Love Me Tonight, but it wasn’t exactly a cameo either.
I wonder how different the top 10 scores would be using Bruce’s critics chart for each actress.
Hey Steve….good stats….so your top are Katharine Hepburn 85.94, Bette Davis 83.82, Lauren Bacall 79.81, Myrna Loy 79.54, Joan Crawford 79.40, Marilyn Monroe 79.32
Elizabeth Taylor 78.34 Top 10
From our database….here are the numbers….granted this is all of their movies and not just their Top 10
K. Hepburn 69.2% 43 movies, B. Davis 64.9% 79 movies, L. Bacall 68.3% 36 movies, M. Loy 65.2% 70 movies, J. Crawford 58.3% 78 movies, M. Monroe 70.9% 25 movies & E. Taylor 58.4% 47 movies
So Hepburn is 2nd…..but has 18 more movies than Monroe.
Thanks for sharing these stats.
1 Thanks for list of Top 10 scores. Loy deserves some credi as you was undoubtedly in my opinion a genuine box office star if not the greatest among women but Bacall aschews the comparisons and she would never make ANYy list that I extracted from my own database.
2 I know Loy’s role in Love Me Tonight was not a cameo but in my view you have to compare apples with apples in drawing up these competitive lists.and whilst Joan had a starring role in all of the movies that you mentioned for her that was not the case with Myrna. If you had put me in 21 movies top-lined by Clark Gable or William Powell and in one instance both of them and had also placed me in a string of movies with the likes of Tyrone Power, Spencer Tracy, Carole Lombard, Frederic March, Shirley Temple, Doris Day, Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds. Dana Andrews,Jean Harlow and Jeanette MacDonald I could probably have called myself “the greatest Irish box office star times.”
3 As the managers of your respective sites you and Bruce are naturally entitled to set whatever selection criteria you feel is right and most of the time both of you do a great job in demonstrating who are the true star performers and I for one am immensely grateful to both of you; but for those of us who depend on feedback from both of you to fine tune matters it does not help if you credit the likes of Loy with a movie she had no responsibility for carrying and in which she was not a star and Bruce allocates a potential quarter of a million dollars to the grosses an unbilled bit player whose name can be found in the cast list only if one laboriously reads down to the 82nd place. Apart from maybe John, Dan and me few people would have the patience for that sort of scrutiny. I know that it’s difficult to determine the share-out of credit when there are two or more stars in a movie but surely there is a common-sense cut off point?
4 From my immediate recollection here are selected players with the best top-billing record over a sustained continuous period in a sufficiently large output of movies (excluding cameos and ensembles).
Number of times in which the performer was NOT billed first in the period:
Paul Muni – None out of 22 movies
Elvis Presley – Once out of 33 films
Marlon Brando – Twice out of 30 films
Danny Kaye-Twice out of 17 films
Bing Crosby – Thrice out of 47 films
Joan Crawford – 4 times of of 54 films
NB: Grant, Tracy, Gable etc also had long periods of Top billing but in their early days even as prominent stars they were often billed less than 1st whereas the people mentioned above never endured a long run of 2nd billed movies once they became stars.
5 A final question. You cited 7 films featuring Loy and Crawford and in those 7 Loy was top billed only once and so was Crawford. Within that 7 which actress won the Oscar for her Top Billed film and which one didn’t and indeed was not even nominated and saw her male co-star walk off with the Oscar?
From our database….here are the numbers….granted this is all of their movies and not just their Top 10
K. Hepburn 69.2% 43 movies, B. Davis 64.9% 79 movies, L. Bacall 68.3% 36 movies, M. Loy 65.2% 70 movies, J. Crawford 58.3% 78 movies, M. Monroe 70.9% 25 movies & E. Taylor 58.4% 47 movies
So Hepburn is 2nd…..but has 18 more movies than Monroe. I actually think Crawford’s beginning and ending of her career really hurt %.
Good stats on the top billed stars.
CORRECTION
Joan Crawford is mentioned twice in the billings list in my last post. And indeed why not? but please ignore the “4 times out of 50” stat and accept my apologies.
Fixed that for you.
Hey Steve…it is Christmas Eve here…..heck it is almost Christmas there……which remains me to say…Merry Christmas.
Hey Bob….I never said she was the Queen of Reviews…..yet her 4 is right there with Davis and tops Crawford…..one day you will see the light….lol. Sorry no edit box…..besides the one I have….oh….to have the power….lol.
1 I don’t think she tops Crawford in anything that’s put in proper context but if she IS a Great it is surprising that AFI and Oscar BOTH totally ignored her and indeed she was never even nominated for an Oscar and had to be content with a consolation honorary one. Heck she didn’t even win the Golden Apple Award for least co-operative Hollywood star which Bud scooped up in 1961.
2 Anyway as you know I’ve been a big fan of this site for 5 years now but have only been more directly active since I think May this year and I’ve found it a very rewarding experience and of course my database has many more stats in it than it did this time last year.for which you have my sincere thanks along with my gratitude for (a) all of the additional information and links that you’ve shared with me (b) through you getting in contact with Steve’s absorbing video library.
3 I see that you have been unwell and I hope that you recover sufficiently to enjoy your Xmas. Please pass on my seasons greetings to W o C and convey to her my appreciation of all that she has done to keep the technical wheels of the site humming on; and if you are in touch with Flora tell her I wish her a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.
Hey Bob….she had to be in the running for that final spot. How Ava Gardner beat her out is amazing in my mind. Glad you came out of the shadows and started commenting here. We are coming up on 6 years now…which I find incredible….but when I see all the pages done on the website….I can see it took awhile. Today was a much better day….good Christmas Eve….just did the Santa thing….so tomorrow will be an even better day. I hope you and your family have a great holiday as well. Thanks for all the comments.
It’s past midnight over here… it’s Christmas Day!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Bruce, Debbie and family and all the regulars at UMR!! Cheers!
Hey Steve….and a very Merry Christmas to you. I know I am getting some 3D movies for Christmas. Hope your DVD collection grows as well. Thanks for the good holiday wishes.
🙂
Hey Bob….I agree her streak of hits stopped after 1957. The success of Towering Inferno had much more to do with the fire than it did her. Plus I think Newman and McQueen helped out a little as well. Good posters for sure.
Hey Bruce, Interesting score totals on those actresses from your database, Monroe is no.1, Hepburn no.2 and Bob ain’t going to be pleased, Crawford last. He’ll think there’s a conspiracy afoot. 🙂 What’s funny is Monroe beating all those great actresses. Who would have thought? But she did make fewer films and some of them had high scores.
Hey Steve….in fairness to Joan….her 78 movies is one of the highest for any actress in my database…where as Monroe’s 25 barely meets the mininum requirement I set when running the numbers. Her peak was awesome….but the beginning and especially the end produced some pretty bad movies. Thanks for the return visit.
My favorite is Portrait of Jennie. Jennifer was in a Three Mesquiteers B Western, “New Frontier” when John Wayne was one of the trio. This I believe makes it the only B western with 2 future Oscar winners in it. She was also in the serial “Dick Tracy’s G-Men”. I know the Duke was in 3 serials. There may be another future Oscar winner in some serial but they don’t come to mind at the moment.
Hey Dan….I actually saw Portrait of Jennie for the first time just last year…..when watching it…I thought it was ok….yet it has stuck with me ever since….so I am thinking it is better than my original thoughts. That is some good movie trivia about Jones and Wayne being is a B Western…and then winning Oscars. New Frontier did not get highly ranked here……I need to add that movie to my John Wayne page. I saw her Dick Tracy serial….but finding box office numbers on serials is about impossible….though I once did find box office grosses for one of Wayne’s serials. Thanks for checking out our Jennifer Jones page.
Best Jennifer Jones movie- Song of Bernadette, Worst cluny brown!!!
Hey Kathy G. in our ranking system….Song of Bernadette finished first…..so we agree with you 100%.
I am surprised that you think “Cluny Brown” was bad. I think it is one of her best. She was very good in comedy but sadly, only played in two (the one and “Beat the Devil”). “Cluny Brown” was directed by Ernst Lubitch, the master of comedic manners.
Hey Phillip….if you sort by critic audience reviews…Cluny Brown….jumps up to the 2nd spot….so I am thinking there are many people that agree with you about Cluny Brown. Now I am curious to see this movie……going on my list of movies to watch. Thanks for the suggestion.
The Song of Bernadette is probably Jennifer Jones most famous movie but I have a feeling most film buffs would rather remember her as the beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez in King Vidor’s western epic Duel in the Sun, which was dubbed ‘Lust in the Dust’ by critics on release.
It doesn’t look like she has made that many movies. I’ve only seen 7 of the 23 films listed here, I expected more. My favorites are The Towering Inferno (my favorite disaster movie), Portrait of Jennie and Duel in the Sun.
Movies I’ve missed include – Since You Went Away, Cluny Brown, The Wild Heart, Carrie and A Farewell to Arms.
Good to see the haunting Portrait of Jennie topping the critics chart, a romantic ghost story co-starring Joseph Cotten. It was filmed in black and white but some prints have the storm sequence at the climax tinted green.
Another winner Bruce. Voted Up!
Hey Steve.
1. I think you are correct….Duel In The Sun gets more mentions than Song of Bernadette these days.
2. Tally count…Flora 13, me 12 (oh so close) and you 7.
3. Since You Went Away is an excellent time stamp of how life was back during World War 2….at least here in the states….not sure how good the movie is…..but it is like looking at a time capsule.
4. Carrie has an excellent performance from Sir Laurence Olivier…..worth checking out …if only for his performance.
5. I enjoyed Portrait of Jennie….I thought she did a good job of playing all the different ages of the Jennie.
Thanks as always for checking out our latest….it is of course greatly appreciated.
Drawing a blank on her part in The Towering Inferno. Good but not great actress.
She was the character who fell in love with Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire was hoping to be with her and thought that she had escaped. She went back into the building.
Hey June. I think Flora describes Jennifer Jones’ part in Towering Inferno very well. Having two screen legends like Jones and Astaire worked out great. Astaire almost won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (nominated and the sentimental pick) while Jones got her last acting kudos…as she picked up a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Thank you Flora.