Want to know the best John Frankenheimer movies? How about the worst John Frankenheimer movies? Curious about John Frankenheimer box office grosses or which John Frankenheimer movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which John Frankenheimer 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.
John Frankenheimer (1930-2002) was an American director. He was known for social dramas and action/suspense films. His better known movies include Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Seconds and Grand Prix. His IMDb page shows 52 directing credits from 1952 to 2000. This page will rank John Frankenheimer movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles and movies that were not released in North American were not included in the rankings.
John Frankenheimer Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Year
Movie (Year)
Rating
S
Year Movie (Year) Rating S
1966
Grand Prix (1966)
1977
Black Sunday (1977)
1964
Seven Days in May (1964)
1962
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
1964
The Train (1964)
1962
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
1998
Ronin (1998)
1975
French Connection II (1975)
1966
Seconds (1966)
1973
The Iceman Cometh (1973)
1961
The Young Savages (1961)
1979
Prophecy (1979)
1962
All Fall Down (1962)
2002
Path To War (2002)
HBO Movie
1968
The Fixer (1968)
1989
Dead Bang (1989)
1971
The Horsemen (1971)
1982
The Challenge (1982)
1986
52 Pick-Up (1986)
1969
The Gypsy Moths (1969)
1974
99 and 44/100% Dead! (1974)
1991
Year of the Gun (1991)
1990
The Fourth War (1990)
2000
Reindeer Games (2000)
1996
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
1970
I Walk The Line (1970)
1985
The Holcroft Covenant (1985)
1969
The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)
John Frankenheimer 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 Frankenheimer movies by his co-stars
- Sort John Frankenheimer movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort John Frankenheimer movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort John Frankenheimer 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 John Frankenheimer movie received.
- Sort John Frankenheimer movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
| R | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) | Review | Oscar Nom / Win | UMR Score | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Actual B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) | B.O. Rank by Year | Review | Oscar Nom / Win | UMR Score | S |
| 1 | Grand Prix (1966) | James Garner & Eva Marie Saint |
23.80 | 232.8 | 232.80 | 8 | 75 | 03 / 03 | 97.7 | |
| 3 | Black Sunday (1977) | Robert Shaw & Bruce Dern |
36.00 | 174.1 | 174.10 | 23 | 71 | 00 / 00 | 93.1 | |
| 2 | Seven Days in May (1964) | Burt Lancaster & Kirk Douglas |
10.20 | 117.1 | 117.10 | 26 | 86 | 02 / 00 | 92.9 | |
| 4 | The Manchurian Candidate (1962) | Frank Sinatra & Janet Leigh |
6.10 | 88.3 | 88.30 | 43 | 93 | 02 / 00 | 92.1 | |
| 5 | The Train (1964) | Burt Lancaster & Paul Scofield |
10.60 | 121.2 | 121.20 | 25 | 81 | 01 / 00 | 91.3 | |
| 6 | Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) | Burt Lancaster & Karl Malden |
7.60 | 108.8 | 108.80 | 33 | 80 | 04 / 00 | 90.4 | |
| 7 | Ronin (1998) | Robert DeNiro & Jean Reno |
41.60 | 95.7 | 162.50 | 47 | 73 | 00 / 00 | 85.1 | |
| 8 | French Connection II (1975) | Gene Hackman & Fernando Rey |
17.00 | 89.5 | 89.50 | 41 | 71 | 00 / 00 | 83.4 | |
| 9 | Seconds (1966) | Rock Hudson & Frank Campanella |
3.10 | 30.6 | 30.60 | 75 | 81 | 01 / 00 | 78.9 | |
| 10 | The Iceman Cometh (1973) | Lee Marvin & Jeff Bridges |
2.50 | 15.2 | 15.20 | 108 | 81 | 00 / 00 | 74.1 | |
| 11 | The Young Savages (1961) | Burt Lancaster & Dina Merrill |
5.00 | 72.8 | 72.80 | 47 | 59 | 00 / 00 | 70.2 | |
| 12 | Prophecy (1979) | Talia Shire & Robert Foxworth |
18.40 | 79.0 | 79.00 | 50 | 54 | 00 / 00 | 65.5 | |
| 13 | All Fall Down (1962) | Eva Marie Saint & Warren Beatty |
2.30 | 32.9 | 32.90 | 93 | 63 | 00 / 00 | 56.8 | |
| 14 | Path To War (2002) HBO Movie |
Donald Sutherland | 0.10 | 0.1 | 0.10 | 314 | 70 | 00 / 00 | 51.4 | |
| 14 | The Fixer (1968) | Alan Bates & Dirk Bogarde |
0.60 | 5.3 | 5.30 | 161 | 67 | 01 / 00 | 50.3 | |
| 16 | Dead Bang (1989) | Don Johnson & Penelope Ann Miller |
8.10 | 22.1 | 22.10 | 91 | 61 | 00 / 00 | 46.4 | |
| 15 | The Horsemen (1971) | Omar Sharif | 1.00 | 6.4 | 6.40 | 159 | 66 | 00 / 00 | 45.9 | |
| 17 | The Challenge (1982) | Scott Glenn & Toshirô Mifune |
3.00 | 10.9 | 10.90 | 106 | 64 | 00 / 00 | 45.2 | |
| 18 | 52 Pick-Up (1986) | Roy Scheider & Ann-Margret |
5.20 | 15.1 | 15.10 | 100 | 55 | 00 / 00 | 28.6 | |
| 19 | The Gypsy Moths (1969) | Burt Lancaster & Deborah Kerr |
1.60 | 11.9 | 11.90 | 119 | 55 | 00 / 00 | 26.9 | |
| 20 | 99 and 44/100% Dead! (1974) | Richard Harris | 0.10 | 0.3 | 0.30 | 163 | 58 | 00 / 00 | 25.6 | |
| 22 | Year of the Gun (1991) | Andrew McCarthy & Sharon Stone |
1.20 | 3.0 | 3.00 | 164 | 57 | 00 / 00 | 24.9 | |
| 22 | The Fourth War (1990) | Roy Scheider & Jürgen Prochnow |
1.30 | 3.3 | 3.30 | 176 | 56 | 00 / 00 | 24.4 | |
| 23 | Reindeer Games (2000) | Ben Affleck & Gary Sinise |
23.40 | 50.9 | 70.10 | 90 | 41 | 00 / 00 | 23.4 | |
| 25 | The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) | David Thewlis & Marlon Brando |
27.70 | 67.5 | 67.50 | 54 | 30 | 00 / 00 | 16.0 | |
| 24 | I Walk The Line (1970) | Gregory Peck & Tuesday Weld |
1.00 | 7.0 | 7.00 | 145 | 50 | 00 / 00 | 15.4 | |
| 26 | The Holcroft Covenant (1985) | Michael Caine & Anthony Andrews |
0.40 | 1.2 | 1.20 | 170 | 49 | 00 / 00 | 12.4 | |
| 27 | The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) | David Niven & Faye Dunaway |
0.90 | 6.5 | 6.50 | 144 | 24 | 00 / 00 | 0.4 |
Check out John Frankenheimer’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Steve’s John Frankenheimer You Tube Video
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. Emmy® is a registered trademark.
IMDB credits John with 18 movie awards and 40 nominations. His reported net worth at the time of his death was relatively low in comparison with the fortunes suggested for many other movie makers: John’s was $1.2 million in today’s money.
Despite it not being one of your ‘epics’ there was some magical material in your video so I rated it 98%. Here are my pick of the best entries. FL=foreign language poster.
POSTERS 1/2nd one for Island of Dr Moreau 2/Wild Christmas [was this another John McClane festive offering?] 3/Power Play 4/Year of the Gun 5/Young Stranger 6/The Work Horsemen 7/FL one for The Gypsy Moths 8/The Challenge 9/The Fixer 10/the set for Grand Prix 11/Burning Season 12/FL one for Black Sunday 13/three FL stunners for Birdman 14/FL one for Manchurian Candidate 15/Seconds. As mentioned in Part One, WH gives the latter movie an 81% Review rating and I see you just shade him with 81.2%
A glut of classy STILLS: 1/Reindeer Games bedroom scene 2/The Great Mumbler in weird garb 3/Prophecy 4/Year of the Gun 5/Young Savages 6/Warren and Eva Marie 7/Against the Wall 8/Ronin 9/two for Black Sunday 10/The Birdman 11/ two for Seconds 12/The Train 13/The Old Firm: Burt & Kirk 14/Laurence Harvey 15/Harvey & Frankie 16/still and lobby card for Grand Prix. During the filming of the latter Garner lost his temper one of the movie’s crew and floored him with a punch. Jim claimed that it was his bad temper which got worse when he drank that made him give up booze entirely.
ADDITIONAL TRIVIA: You and I have had recent detailed discussions about stars’ heights; Frankenheimer was apparently 6ft 3 ins tall.
HI BRUCE: Thanks for deleting the 5 offending posts. No doubt my work warrants wider circulation on this site, but not on the incorrect pages! Your follow-up to Steve’s video was commendably quick and the two offerings make fine companion pieces, so well done.
You never pass up an opportunity to startle me though: billing David Thewlis above Brando indeed! You are half-right though because though Brando was the top billed star David had more screen time if I recall correctly. Possibly Mr mumbles had decided to annoy Joel again by simply turning up for the money without doing over-much to earn it!
Not that it matters because Island of Dr Moreau was an awful film. I recall being out jogging way back in 1996 when a friend caught up with me and told me a Brando film [ie Island of Dr M] had again topped the US charts that week. That was true enough; but bad word-of-mouth ensured that its grosses quickly dropped away sharply in subsequent weeks.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and trivia, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
I think I included Reindeer Games aka Wild Christmas on my Top 75 Xmas movies video. [Bob winces]
At 6ft 3ins John Frankenheimer was tall, and quite young when he directed those classic thrillers. Just 32 years old when he filmed Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate in 1962.
I added a few high rated TV movies which were award nominated.
Seven Days in May is my favorite of his films. Seconds was good but not a favorite. I also liked The Train, Black Sunday, Ronin and The Manchurian Candidate.
Three films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – The Train, Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate. One scored 9 out of 10 – Seconds. And 6 films scored 8 out of 10.
The Mancunian Candidate tops both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
Frankenheimer on Hitchcock – “Any American director who says he hasn’t been influenced by him is out of his mind.”
Frankenheimer on Kirk Douglas – “He’s wanted to be Burt Lancaster all his life. Jiggs Casey (Seven Days in May) no matter how you look at it, is kind of a despicable human being, he does rat on his friend.”
“There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn’t enough money in the world.”
BRUCE:I have been copying material from Steve’s U tube page to this one but have mistakenly copied the following posts all marked today-
6.30 pm begins “Thanks for the review
6.34 pm begins “Dean was an actor”
6.35 pm begins “I agree that James Dean”
6.36 pm “Thanks for your further thoughts”
6.38 pm “I’ve been 6ft since my teens”
When you find the time I would be grateful if you would delete those 5 posts from this page. The 5 are in continuous sequence.Apologies for the inconvenience.
Many thanks.
Hey Bob…those 5 comments have been sent to the trash pile. Thanks for transferring the comments here….they will last a lot longer on this page.
HI STEVE:
Excellent recall of that conversation. I remember it well in general terms [no pun intended!] but the only line I could specifically recall is “Yes, I know who Judas was.” So thanks for refreshing my memory on the entirety of the exchange.
I am glad we agree that Jiggs wasn’t the villain of the piece. Indeed if I found out that Brexit was secretly a plot to overthrow the monarchy I would insist that Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson be locked up in the Tower!