Want to know the best John Ford movies? How about the worst John Ford movies? Curious about John Ford box office grosses or which John Ford movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which John Ford 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.
This John Ford (1894-1973) movie page comes from a request by Chris. Ford was an American film director, writer, producer and occasional actor. His career spanned more than 50 years. Ford’s films and personality were held in high regard by his colleagues, who have named him as one of the greatest directors of all time. When looking at adjusted domestic box office grosses, Ford’s movies, grossed almost $5 billion in box office dollars. His movies received 75 Oscar® nominations and won 20 Oscars®….including 1942’s How Green Was My Valley which won the Best Picture Oscar®.
His IMDb page shows 145 acting credits f rom 1917-1976. This page will rank 57 John Ford movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Shorts, documentaries and almost all of his silent films are not included in the rankings. We have ranked every John Ford movie from 1932 to 1966 as well as a few that we could find box office information from 1924-1931. Sadly reporting box office information back then was not a priority for movie studios ….and even sadder is that nearly all of his silent films, like the box office information, are lost forever.
John Ford 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 John Ford movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort John Ford movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort John Ford movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort John Ford 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 many Oscar® wins each John Ford movie received and
- Sort John Ford 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 search and sort button to make this page very interactive. For example type “Wayne” in the search box and up pop the 14 movies that John Wayne made with Ford.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above John Ford Table
- Twenty-seven John Ford movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 47.36% of his movies listed. How the West Was Won (1963) was his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average John Ford movie grosses $118.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 49 of John Ford’ movies are rated as good movies…or 85.64% of their movies. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) is his highest rated movie while Up the River (1930) was his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty John Ford movie received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 35.08% of his movies.
- Eight John Ford movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 14.03% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60. 45 John Ford movies scored higher than that average….or 78.94% of his movies. How Green Was My Valley (1941) got the the highest UMR Score while Up the River (1930) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About John Ford
1. John Martin “Jack” Feeney was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine on February 1st, 1894. Ford followed his older brother, Francis, to Hollywood and adopted Jack Ford as his professional name.
2. In 1915, John Ford appeared uncredited in D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. He appeared as a Klansman who lifts up one side of his hood so he can see clearly. The Birth of a Nation was the first ever blockbuster movie.
3. John Ford directed 62 shorts and silent movies from 1917 to 1929. He became one of the first pioneer directors of sound films. He shot Fox Studio’s first song sung on screen. He directed Fox’s first “talkie” short. His first full length talkie was 1929’s Black Watch.
4. In 1928 John Ford started using an unknown extra in his films. That unknown extra was John Wayne. Ford and Wayne would make movies together for the next 35 years. Their movies together earned over $1.4 billion in adjusted box office grosses and received 24 Oscar® nominations. That is one of the best actor/director combos of all-time.
5. John Ford received 5 Best Director Oscar® nominations. He won a record 4 times…..1935’s The Informer, 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, 1941’s How Green Was My Valley and 1952’s The Quiet Man. The only time he was nominated but did win was for 1939’s Stagecoach. Ford also two more Oscars® for his war time documentaries.
6. John Ford directed 10 different actors in Oscar®-nominated performances: Victor McLaglen, Thomas Mitchell, Edna May Oliver, Jane Darwell, Henry Fonda, Donald Crisp, Sara Allgood, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Jack Lemmon. McLaglen, Mitchell, Darwell, Crisp and Lemmon won a Oscar® for one of their roles in one of Fords movies.
7. Entertainment Weekly named John Ford as the third greatest director of all-time. Alfred Hitchcock was first and Orson Welles was second. Welles considered Ford to be the best director of all time.
8. John Ford was married one time. He married Mary Ford in 1920 and they stayed married until his death in 1973. They had two children.
9. John Ford cast the great character actor, Ward Bond, in 26 movies that Ford directed.
10. “So long, ya bastard” was the last line of 1966’s 7 Women. 7 Women was the last movie Ford directed…..so that is how John Ford’s incredible career ended.
Check out John Ford’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page. Another great read on John Ford is Print The Legend: The Life of John Ford by Scott Eyman. When I got stuck finding box office information on Ford’s films…this was an excellent resource to get outstuck….highly recommend it.
Steve Lensman’s John Ford Updated You Tube Trailer
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Hi
Thank you for doing my request on John Ford, my computer was playing up so only seeing it now.
I remember in the early 70s, the BBC did a season on John Ford, I think it was around the time he won AFI award. He made so many great movies that its hard to pick my favourite. I’ve always had a soft spot for How Green was my Valley. It always got bad press because it beat Citizen Kane in the Oscar race. And while it wouldn’t be in the same league as Citizen Kane, it’s still a very enjoyable movie.
I recently watched The Three Godfathers and I thought it was fantastic, Ford was a very complex type of man. While making They Were Expendable. he gave John Wayne an awful time, berating him because he didn’t actually serve in the forces. And yet without Ford, Wayne’s career probably wouldn’t have been as great as it was.While making Mr Robert, Ford and Fonda came to blows, it got so bad that he had to leave the film.
Ford was also a very mischievous person, while making Fortapache, he referred to Shirley Temple’s husband as Mr Temple repeatedly. He was at a film festival and people kept coming up and congratulating him on making Red River, and he just thanked them each time.
There;s no doubt he was one of the greatest directors of all time.
Hey Chris….glad you liked “your” John Ford page….my request page is starting to get a little smaller….lots more to do….but at least the number of pages to do is not so overwhelming.
I have always enjoyed How Green Was My Valley…that is the movie that made me a huge Donald Crisp fan. After I began being a Crisp fan….I started to realize that he was in almost every movie….hiding in plain sight….lol.
The Ford and Wayne relationship is a very interesting one to read about. I think “tough love” might be the best way to describe it. That is funny about him and Red River…I am sure the same thing happened to Howard Hawks. I am a huge fan buff….and even I have to stop sometimes and remember which classic Wayne western was directed by Hawks or Ford.
But as you say…he was one of the greatest directors of all time. His record 4 Best Director Oscars might stand for a very longtime. Ang Lee probably has a better chance to catch him than Spielberg does….I think those are the only two directors working that have 2 Best Director Oscars. Thanks for stopping by and talking movies.
Boy, I have seen so many of John Ford’s movies. Such great movies in all. Thanks for this site too. Some of the above movies have been seen by me many times. Always good to watch!!!
Hey BERN1960…glad you liked my John Ford page. Lots of great movies in Ford’s career. Thank for stopping by.
Hi, Bruce.
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I’m not much of a Ford fan per se, but I have increased my John Ford title in the last couple of years when i was looking for westerns and war films that I hadn’t seen yet to cover sounds of construction. I believe I more than doubled my total in just two years, I have actually seen a lot more than I would have thought.
Recently I saw The Searchers for the first time. I had forgotten when deciding which films to look up next that Vera Miles was in it. I watched it for Natalie Wood and saw Miles credited…
I thought I would see Fort Apache when TCM aired their Temple tribute, but they did not.
As for you and Steve talking about How Green Was My Valley, that was one of the first Ford films I saw, because I am a fan of Roddy McDowall. I have seen it a few times over the years.
A Ford film I saw once and was never interested in seeing again was My Darling Clemintine. I don’t think I’ve ever accepted Mature as Doc Holliday.
My total for your rankings are as follows:
I have seen all of the top 5
I have seen 9 of the top 10 (I still haven’t seen She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)
I have seen 13 of the top 15
I have seen 15 of the top 20
I have seen 16 of the top 25
I have seen 18 of the top 30
I have seen 20 of the top 40
I have seen 22 films overall.
Again, this is a much higher total than when you and Steve first “met” me.
My favourite 5 don’t necessarily fit the rankings:
How the West Was Won
Two Rode Together
Mister Roberts
Mogambo
The Quiet Man
Cheers,
Flora
Hey Flora….thanks for checking out my latest classic page.
1. Tally count…..wow…I am on top again….29 for me….24 for Steve and 22 for you…you almost caught Steve….I think he needs to watch some more classic movies…lol.
2. Glad Steve and I have been able to increase your John Ford movie watching habits…proud day….I tell ya proud day.
3. Roddy is a baby in that one….good old Maureen O’Hara still around to talk about the making of that movie. Donald Crisp is the highlight of that movie for me.
4. Your % break down…..90%, 86%, 75%, 64% and 50% and then only 14% for the bottom 27 movies….the cream rising to the top.
5. I have not see one of your Top 5….as Two Rode Together is one that I have not tracked down.
6. Speaking of Richard Widmark…I read that Widmark and Ford hit it off when Ford visited the Alamo set….and that Widmark became one of his favorites as his career winded down…too bad they did not find each other soon.
7. The Quiet Man is an all-time favorite….and How The West Was Won…is awesome on my new Blu-Ray…the video quality is incredibel.
8. Thanks for stopping by and talking movies….and congrats on getting so close to Steve in the tally count.
Hello Bruce.
John Ford was one of the greatest film makers of all time. And John Ford and John Wayne are one of the best director/actor to ever work together. I love Stagecoach,The Long Voyage Home, They Were Expendable, Fort Apache, The Quiet Man, The Searchers and The Horse Soldiers. My favorite John Ford film without John Wayne is How Green Was My Valley (1941). I was wondering if you had any box office information on 1965’s “Young Cassidy”, which was started by John Ford but finished by Jack Cardiff. Young Cassidy was one of my favorite films to star Rod Taylor. Taylor said that Young Cassidy make no money at the box office. I was wondering if you had it listed on any of Variey’s rental list. Thanks again for doing a page for one of the great filmmakers.
Hey Lyle….I will research that movie tomorrow….as well as commenting on your comment.
Hey Lyle….alright sad to say that I do not have much on Young Cassidy. Here is what I do have….the budget was around 1 million. Movie did better international than it did in North America. Young Cassidy was released in March of 1965….so it should be on Variety’s Top Grossers of 1965…it did not make the Top 85. The Top 85 were movies that earned at least 1 million in rentals. If Young Cassidy just missed that list with $999,999 in rentals it would be at $17.50 million in adjusted gross on the highest end of possibilities…if I had to guess I would have the box office at about half of that total. Ford only worked on the movie for three days before he got sick.
I would have guess How Green Was My Valley or The Quiet Man was going to be your favorite Ford movie….so I am glad I got that right. I think the only one of your Ford favorites I did not like was The Horse Soldiers…..I thought it could have been so much better. As always thanks for sharing your thoughts on John Ford….it is greatly appreciated.
I LIKE IT
Thank you cc.