Want to know the best Joan Fontaine movies? How about the worst Joan Fontaine movies? Curious about Joan Fontaine box office grosses or which Joan Fontaine movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joan Fontaine movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Joan Fontaine (1917-2013) was a British-American Oscar® winning actress. Fontaine is probably best remembered for being a very frightened lady in back to back Alfred Hitchcock movies: 1940’s Rebecca and 1941’s Suspicion. Her IMDb page shows 71 acting credits from 1935-1994. This page will rank 39 Joan Fontaine movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, uncredited roles and 5 of her very early movies were not included in the rankings. To do well in our overall rankings a movie has to do well at the box office, get good reviews by critics, be liked by audiences and get some award recognition.
Drivel part of the page: After not writing about an actress for 18 straight movie pages…this Joan Fontaine marks the second straight actress we have written about. This Fontaine page comes from a request by Søren and Flora. The main sources used when it comes to finding the box office information came from end of the year Variety magazines, MGM ledgers, RKO ledgers and the books Joan Fontaine A Bio-Bibliograpy and No Bed Of Roses: An Autobiography (by Fontaine).
Joan Fontaine 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 Joan Fontaine movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Joan Fontaine movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Joan Fontaine movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Joan Fontaine 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 Fontaine movie received.
- Sort Joan Fontaine 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Joan Fontaine Table
- Seventeen Joan Fontaine movie crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 43.59% of her movies listed. Frenchman’s Creek (1944) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Joan Fontaine movie grosses $107.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 29 of Joan Fontaine’s movies are rated as good movies…or 74.35% of her movies. Rebecca (1940) is her highest rated movie while Flight to Tangier (1953) is her lowest rated movie.
- Thirteen Joan Fontaine movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 33.33% of her movies.
- Five Joan Fontaine movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 12.82% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 39.86. 22 Joan Fontaine movie scored higher that average….or 37.28% of her movies. Rebecca (1940) got the the highest UMR Score while In Decameron Nights (1953) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Joan Fontaine
1. Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1917 to English parents. She took her stage name from her step-father, George Fontaine.
2. Joan Fontaine older sister is two time Best Actress Oscar® winner, Olivia de Havilland. Joan and Olivia are the first sisters to win Oscars® and the first ones to be Oscar®-nominated in the same year.Apparently Joan and Olivia had a lifelong feud. You can read more about that here.
3. Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland never worked together….but they came close once. They briefly thought about starring in a little movie called A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Olivia was going to play the Vivien Leigh role and Joan was going to play the Kim Hunter roe.
4. Joan Fontaine was nominated for 3 Oscars®. Her first nomination was for 1940’s Rebecca, 2nd nomination and only win was for 1941’s Suspicion, and her third nomination was for 1943’s The Constant Nymph. Fontaine never received a Golden Globe® nomination.
5. Joan Fontaine had lots of interests away from Hollywood. She was a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, expert horse rider, prize-winning tuna fisherman, a hole-in-one golfer, Cordon Bleu chef and licensed interior decorator.
6. Joan Fontaine was the last surviving cast member of George Cukor’s The Women (1939) until she passed away in December 2013. The Women had over 130 roles in this movie, all played by women.
7. Joan Fontaine was married four times and had one child….Debbie Dozier.
8. Joan Fontaine was one of Fred Astaire’s many dance partners. She however thought her movie with Astaire, A Damsel in Distress (1937) set her career back four years. At the premiere, a woman sitting behind her loudly exclaimed, “Isn’t she awful!” during Fontaine’s onscreen attempt at dancing.
9. Joel Hirschhorn’s Rating The Movie Stars book (the inspiration for this website) rated every single Joan Fontaine performance on a 1 to 4 star basis. These 8 Fontaine movies were deemed her very best performances. Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), The Constant Nymph (1943), The Affairs of Susan (1945), Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948), Something To Live For (1952), Until They Sail (1957) and Tender Is The Night (1962)
10. Check out Joan Fontaine‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
The FIVE Fontaine movies that escaped us….1937’s A Million To One, 1937 The Man Who Found Himself, 1938’s Maid’s Night Out, 1938’s Blond Cheat and 1938’s The Duke of West Point. Will keep searching for those box office numbers…but not thinking they will ever be found.
Want more stats? Coming right up…15 Joan Fontaine Adjusted Worldwide Box Office Grosses
- Born To Be Bad (1950) $71.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Certain Smile, A (1958) $67.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Constant Nymph, The (1943) $282.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Damsel in Distress, A (1937) $190.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- From This Day Forward (1946) $152.10 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Gunga Din (1939) $510.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Ivanhoe (1952) $483.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- No More Ladies (1935) $163.10 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Quality Street (1937) $42.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Serenade (1956) $120.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Sky Giant (1938) $65.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Suspicion (1941) $244.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Tender Is The Night (1962) $76.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Until They Sail (1957) $61.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Women, The (1939) $282.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
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For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
It is hard for me to understand how the beautiful “Letter from an unknown woman” could have failed at the boxoffice. Along with Rebecca it’s my favorite Joan Fontaine movie, with Fontaine giving the better performance in “Letter” in my opinion.
Hey Lupino….Letter From An Unknown Woman might have only been a modest box office earner….but when you sort the table by critic/audience rating….it jumps all the up to the 2nd highest spot….so based on that…I am thinking many people agree with your assessment of that movie…..only your favorite Joan movie…Rebecca…..tops it there. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Joan Fontaine….it is greatly appreciated.
FONTAINE
1 Remember Arthur Kennedy’s playful little remark in Bend of the River? It depends on mood –sometimes the tall slim ones but on other days the more ‘pocket rocket’ types. As the musician Kenny Ball sang “I Love you all’. However I probably don’t have the overview of you or Bruce but in the films that I’ve seen I GENERALLY found Fontaine the sexier and often given us the Crawford hard-woman interpretation of her roles. Olivia though when she was young and especially in those Errol Flynn films was to me the more beautiful and even angelic of the sisters and Deanna Durbin had she been a better actress might well have done some of her roles.
2 Thanks for you rationalisation of the inclusion of Joan in Gunga Din [there’s hope for Superman Returns yet!] In 1962 Sinatra did a ‘clan’ second remake of that film and as you know the immortal Kipling line “You’re a better man than I—– “ was spoken to Gunga Din by someone else. However in the early 60s a columnist wondering how the then forthcoming Sinatra film was going to compare with the Grant original opined that Frankie who seemed at times to consider himself one of the immortals and who was to play FIRST (naturally) Sgt Mike Merry in the film would probably rework the script so that Sammy Davis Jr said “Your’re a better man than I am Sgt Merry.” Mr Mumbles once said publicly “If Frankie gets to Heaven he’ll scold God for daring to let him go bald.”
TONY QUINN
3 Again I appreciate the feedback. Was just curious because I loved Tony. My favourite recollection of him was in City beneath the Sea (1953) in which he and Robert Ryan are walking down the gangway of a ship to go ashore when a self-important businessman in white suit and with briefcase tries to push past them saying “Excuse me but I’m in a hurry to get off,” and Tony repulses him retorting “What a coincidence so are we.” Few could better Tony in the delivery of those kind of lines. Anyway I can see that I’m in for an exciting few days – you’re bringing forward Heddy and Bruce has just given us Gail, another angelic young lady of bygone times.
I agree, Olivia was the angelic one, but that cuteness started to fade by the mid 40s, she was still attractive but I wouldn’t say beautiful.
Even when Joan Fontaine was playing shy and virginal as in Rebecca she was still sexy, beautiful and adorable. I had a crush on her when I first saw that film as a teenager. But I have to admit I’ve only seen a handful of her films. Olivia’s films with Flynn I’ve watched over and over again. I like the photo of Fontaine in uniform from the film This Above All on the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tKvOfNebTk
1 I agree with you about Olivia and indeed I thought Myrna Loy was another early lovely whose features hardened somewhat. Katie Hepburn and Bette Davis were so successful into their old age that you forgot how attractive they were when they were young. Audrey Hepburn’s loss of her gamine appearance was most noticeable though I thought that Crawford’s looks actually improved for a while as she aged though all the glamour had gone by the time your pal Trog became her love-life. However so that people don’t think I’m one of those ‘locker room’ boys who have been in the news lately I should (a) stress that I still continued to adore all of these ladies for their talent (b) move on to the men.
2 I thought Jimmy Stewart’s appearance deteriorated within a relative short space of time after Bend of the River, Burton put on a lot of weight, and the less said the better about Mr Mumbles after Godpop and Last Tango ensured he didn’t really have to work for a living any more. Less money for the good life might have given us a better career-end Brando. To me Fred Astaire NEVER looked young whereas I though Lee Marvin’s looks mellowed as he aged aged whereas when he was young he looked exceptionally mean-faced especially with that mouth and the roles they gave him. Grant used to be referred to as the “aged charmer”
but although some of the older generations and Bruce might have bought that the young girls of my generation who swooned over Elvis and Greg Peck and Dean never seemed to have any interest in Cary.
3 Anyway I’ll sign off now so that I don’t keep you away any longer from Hedy. bOB
Hi Bob, thanks for the review and rating, always appreciated. tut tut Joan Fontaine was the leading lady in Gunga Din and therefore has to be included, ditto her sister in Charge of the Light Brigade and They Died With Their Slippers On. They might not be that important to the plot but it’s good to have some pretty women in those macho movies.
So who was prettier Joan or Olivia? I’ll go with Joan but I prefer Olivia’s filmography. Rebecca is my favorite film here, one of Hitch’s best.
1 Please see my previous post today about your excellent new Joan Fontaine video.
I’ve been looking over your views figures again and see that for the last two dozen or so new offerings that you’ve given us whereas Anthony Quinn who was a supporting actor has gotten by far the most views at the other end of the scale Dean whose supposed to be a legend has accumulated the least not even reaching treble figures when I last looked.
2 A renowned film historian once said that although Quinn had greater acting range than Gable if the two were together on screen you would not be able to keep your eyes off the King. If Quinn were Tweedie I would swear you had been putting in the hard sell on his behalf! Anyway any thoughts on why Tony’s doing so well and Dean so relatively poorly? Best wishes BOB
Looking at my channel, hmmm Anthony Quinn’s video did take off whoa, plenty of Quinn fans out there. Maybe people are bored of Dean’s legend? Was he overrated? Would he have had a long career if he hadn’t died so young? My feelings – no, and there would be no legend.
Rameses has overtaken Moses, my oh my. Didn’t see that coming. But Flynn is still way out in front.
Bob, Hedy is late but she’s on her way.
“LAST NIGHT I DREAMT I WENT TO MANDERLEY AGAIN”
1 Film historians see this opening voice-over line from Joan Fontaine in Rebecca as one of the most memorable in movie history but Rebecca almost didn’t go to her as apparently Larry wanted Vivien for the part but fortunately Hitch wanted Joan.
2 VIDEO COMMENTS (1) Because of GWTW I always had the impression Olivia was the bigger star but your video and Bruce’s stats profiles seem to illustrate Joan Fontaine had more stand-alone movies than her sister who was constantly in the shadow of Flynn and Bette Davis (2) one of your most provocative posters yet is Born to Be Bad followed by Decameron Nights and at the more circumspect level I also liked those for Island in the Sun, Jane Eyre and Emperor Waltz (3) simply spellbinding black and white stills of the young Joan and Joan & Mrs Danvers in Rebecca – “I am Mrs DeWinter now!”(4) I am pleased that you included two of my ‘little gems’ of the 1950s The Bigamist and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. The latter was on a double bill here with British comedian Frankie Howerd’s The Runaway Bus – ever hear of Frankie? (5) you and Bruce agree on 4 of the Top 5 (6) I think for me the excellent content this makes one your best yet except for one flaw – I can forgive Bruce because of Cary Grant but Gunga Din a ‘Joan Fontaine’ film? – as John McEnroe used to say “C’mon man you cannot be serious!” Nevertheless a definite 9.5/10
——–AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS MANDERLEY!