Joan Crawford Movies

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

Even though Joan Crawford (1904-1977) was voted by the American Film Institute as the 10th greatest film actress, I have to admit that I have not seen many of her movies (fourteen to be exact). So how did I write a movie page that ranked all of her movies from 1st to 78th? Lots and lots of research is the answer.

Well the first place I started was IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and saw she had lots of acting credits.  Then I read two of her biographies….Not The Girl Next Door by Charlotte Chandler and Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto. Next I was lucky enough to find this Best of Everything Joan Crawford tribute page on the internet which was jam packed with tons of hard to find box office information from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Using the information that I had collected from these sources I was able to finally write this page.

Her IMDb page shows 103 acting credits from 1925-1972. This page ranks 78 Joan Crawford movies from Best to Worst in seven different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in North American theaters were not included in the rankings.

Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in 1934's Chained...her 9th biggest box office hit.
Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in 1934’s Chained…her 9th biggest box office hit.

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

78 Joan Crawford 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.

  • The highlighted movie links take you to that movie’s trailer or a small clip of the Joan movie.
  • Sort Joan Crawford movies by co-stars of her movies
  • Sort Joan Crawford movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Joan Crawford movies by yearly domestic box office gross
  • Sort Joan Crawford 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 how many Oscar® wins each Joan Crawford movie received.
  • Sort Joan Crawford 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.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Joan Crawford Table

  1. Twenty-seven Joan Crawford movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 34.61% of her movies listed. Mildred Pierce (1945) was her biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Joan Crawford movie grosses $80.50 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  36 of Joan Crawford’s movies are rated as good movies…or 46.15% of her movies.  Johnny Guitar (1954) is her highest rated movie while Trog (1970) was her lowest rated movie.
  4. Fifteen Joan Crawford movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 19.23% of her movies.
  5. Three Joan Crawford movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 3.84% of her movies.
  6. A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00.  47 Joan Crawford movies scored higher than that average….or 60.25% of her movies.  Mildred Pierce (1945) got the the highest UMR Score while Trog  (1970) got the lowest UMR Score.
Joan Crawford in 1954's Johnny Guitar
Joan Crawford in 1954’s Johnny Guitar

Possibly Interesting Facts About Joan Crawford

1. Joan Crawford’s birth name was Lucille Fay LeSueur. The only movie that lists her birth name is Pretty Ladies (1925).  How she got the Joan Crawford name comes from Bob Kale.  “Her name was voted on by the public in a movie magazine.  The public’s first choice was Joan Arden.  Since there was already a Joan Arden already making movies….they had to go with the second choice…..Joan Crawford.  She initially hated the name because she thought it was to close to “crawfish”.

2. Joan Crawford was nominated for 3 Oscars® during her career….winning one time for 1945’s Mildred Pierce. Her other two nominated performances were for 1947’s Possessed and 1952’s Sudden Fear. She amazingly was never nominated for a Golden Globe®.

3. Speaking of Possessed….she is one of the few actresses to appear in two movies with the same name that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Possessed (1931) was about a factory worker and was a romantic movie…while Possessed (1947) was about a woman that is obsessed with a man and how that obsession leads to murder.

4. Joan Crawford was married 4 times in her life. Marriage one was to actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (an actor), marriage two was to Franchot Tone (they appeared in 8 movies together), marriage three was to Phillip Terry (an actor) and finally she was married to Alfred Steele (CEO of Pepsi-Cola). Many of her movies at her request/demand had Pepsi placement in them.  Joan Crawford adopted five children. The three girls were Christina, Cathy and Cynthia. The two boys were both called Christopher …although one of the two boys was reclaimed by his birth mother. Christina authored the book…Mommie Dearest….which was turned into a movie starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford.

5.  Joan Crawford appeared in two all-star movies….1929’s Hollywood Revue and 1944’s Hollywood Canteen.  Both roles were cameos and were not included in the rankings.  It should be noted that Hollywood Revue was the first time Crawford’s voice was heard in movies….while Hollywood Canteen was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1940s.

6.  One of Joan Crawford’s last project was one of Steven Spielberg’s first projects. She appeared in the TV movie Night Gallery, which had 3 segments (she starred in the 2nd segment, directed by Spielberg) and aired in November of 1969. The actual TV show did not premiere until over a year later, in December of 1970.

7. According to Quigley Publications…..Joan Crawford was a Top Ten Movie Star from 1930 to 1936. She was ranked #1 in 1930, #3 in 1931 and 1932, #10 in 1933, #6 in 1934, #5 in 1935 and #7 in 1936. By the end of 1937 she was considered “box office poison”….without a doubt a case of …”what have you done for me lately”.

8. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis simply hated each other. Their feud lasted for decades and is legendary in the history of Hollywood. Somehow they managed to actually act in a movie together….1962’s Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?. Then again I guess the fact that their two characters in the movie hated each other as well…made the acting pretty easy for them.

9. Joan Crawford was Fred Astaire‘s first on screen dance partner. The two appeared in 1933’s Dancing Lady. Others in the cast….Clark Gable, Franchot Tone (her 2nd husband) and the Three Stooges.

10. One of the best collection of Joan Crawford fans can be found on Facebook at Joan Crawford Chat Room.  If you are a Joan Crawford you have to join this group….it is easily the best movie group on Facebook that I have come across….and I am in many Facebook movie groups.

Check out Joan Crawford‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

This is the 3rd home for my Joan Crawford movie page….but this is a brand new You Tube video…made especially for my new and hopefully final home for my Joan Crawford page.

But Wait…We Have More Joan Crawford Movie Stats…How About Adjusted Worldwide Grosses on 59 Joan Crawford Movies

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225 thoughts on “Joan Crawford Movies”

  1. Your site is so GREAT I can’t imagine it being even better! EVERYONE should definitely check it out!!! I’ll have to really look at it and see if I have any suggestions and get back

    Reply

    2. I’m curious to know the history of your site and what you had to do to gather all the info-or really anything you want to tell us about it! It’s the most comprehensive site I’ve seen in regards to all the statistics you have.

      Reply

      1. @Ricoh…My goal is to gather as much statistics as possible on a movie. Box office info is by far the hardest to find for older movies…but I have collected that information for years. I have about 70 years of Variety box office numbers, ledgers from MGM, RKO, Warner Brothers and 20th Century. Current performers do not take long to collect all of this information….but older actors can take a very long time….sometimes it is like finding a needle in a haystack. I still have budget and worldwide box office numbers for most of Joan Crawford’s movies….I plan on including those two sets of information on my Crawford facelift.

        Reply

        1. On my website Joan Crawford is the 10th most popular page (out of 200+ pages). She is holding off #11 Marilyn Monroe….but trails Bette Davis who is in 5th place. As competitive as she was I bet she would not be happy to be trailing Davis in anything…lol.

          Reply

          1. It sounds like you’ve put a LOT of effort into. Kudos for all your hard work Bruce. I was fascinated to see how big of a hit Hollywood Canteen was-I would have never guessed! There is tons of interesting trivia!!

          2. @Ricoh….yep Hollywood Canteen was a Top Ten box office hit for films made in 1944…..and that was when almost 1 in 4 people went to the movies every single week. So you know it should a ton of tickets….plus it was for a good cause.

  2. Love it. I’ve seen 68, all of the top 60, and I mostly agree with the ranking except for Hollywood Canteen. I guess I just don’t understand how its relevant to Joan. She’s not in it that much, doesn’t sing, etc … meanwhile The Hollywood Revue of 1929 isn’t even mentioned in which she did sing and was surely a bigger hit than some of her silents.

    Reply

    1. @TonyBlass…this was my response to why Hollywood Canteen made the rankings….Coley asked the same question….Hey Coley….you are right. I originally wrote this page at HubPages.com. When I first wrote it I had the Hollywood Canteen in t.

      Reply

    1. @Jeffrey….at the bottom of the page….I do list the missing 8 movies….there was not enough information to calculate my score but I did list the box office total and critic audience score on most of the 8 movies

      Reply

  4. Very surprising results here – who would have thought that “The Gorgeous Hussy” would rate so high and “Thank Your Lucky Stars”

    Reply

    1. @Michael McHugh….The Gorgeous Hussy did so well in the rankings because it was a big box office hit…..although critics and audiences gave it a huge thumbs down. Kinda of like the Transformers movies today….they make a ton of money but you can not find anybody that says they like the movie.

      Reply

      1. @Michael McHugh…here are the stats for Thank Your Lucky Stars….movie grossed 6.16 million in 1943 which is $162.45 million in 2015 box office dollars….it picked up one Oscar nomination (best song…”Your Either Too Young or Too Old”…has a 58% critical/audience rating….all this translates to a “score” of 53.42…which would have been 5th on my chart if I would have included it.

        Reply

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