Want to know the best John Huston movies? How about the worst John Huston movies? Curious about John Huston’s box office grosses or which John Huston movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which John Huston movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
I have my dad to thank for the fact that I am a huge John Huston fan. My dad loved The Man Who Would Be King, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo. All of those films were directed by Huston and they were movies that my dad talked about on a regular basis. I still remember when Huston had an interview in Playboy magazine. I might have been the only underage boy in the world trying to get my hands on a Playboy magazine….for the words in the magazine and not the pictures in the magazine.
John Huston (1906-1987) was an Oscar® winner director and screenplay writer. Huston was involved in making movies from 1930 to 1987. During that time he was involved in many classic films. His movies were nominated for a combined total of 86 Oscars®…winning 14 Oscars® in different categories. When looking at adjusted domestic box office….John Huston’s movies grossed over 4 BILLION dollars. So with all of these stellar numbers, I felt it was time for John Huston to finally have his own UltimateMovieRankings page……plus it was a requested page by RW, Timlin33, and CameroonWake.
His IMDb page shows 40 writing credits, 54 acting credits, 47 directing credits and 9 producing credits from 1930-1988. This page will rank 52 John Huston movies from Best to Worst in six 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.
John Huston 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 Huston movies by Huston stars or co-stars
- Sort John Huston movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort John Huston movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort John Huston 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 Huston movie received.
- Sort John Huston 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 John Huston Table
- Twenty-six John Huston movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 48.16% of his movies listed. Sergeant York (1941) iwas his biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average John Huston movie grosses $101.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 42 of John Huston’s movies are rated as good movies…or 77.77% of his movies. Chinatown (1974) is his highest rated movie while Tentacles (1977) was his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty-four John Huston movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 44.44% of his movies.
- Ten John Huston movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 18.51% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 36 John Huston movies scored higher than that average….or 66.66% of his movies. Sergeant York (1941) got the the highest UMR Score while Tentacles got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About John Huston
1. John Marcellus Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri.
2. John Huston was an accomplished boxer. He won the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of California and finished his boxing career with a 22-3 record.
3. John Huston was married five times. Four of the marriages ended in divorce. His fourth marriage to Enrica Soma ended when she was killed in a car accident. He had five children.
4. The Huston acting family has 280 IMDb acting credits since 1929. John’s dad Walter had 53 credits, John had 54 credits, daughter Anjelica has 84, son Danny has 60 and grandson Jack has 29. This total is of June 8th, 2015.
5. This gets us to one of my favorite pieces of movie trivia. John Huston directed his dad, Walter Huston, to an Oscar® winning performance in 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. 37 years later....John Huston directed his daughter, Anjelica Huston, to an Oscar winning performance in 1985’s Prizzi’s Honor.
6. John Huston was nominated for 15 Academy Awards®. He was nominated 5 times as Best Director, 8 times for Best Screenplay, 1 time for producing a Best Picture and 1 time as Best Supporting Actor. He won two Oscars®….both for 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. He was also nominated for 8 Golden Globes®…winning three times.
7. John Huston’s role as Noah Cross in 1974’s Chinatown was named as the 16th Greatest Villain in movie history by the American Film Institute. Somehow…Huston did not get an Oscar® nomination for that very memorable role.
8. John Huston tried for many years to make The Man Who Would Be King. In the 1950s he wanted Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart to play the two leads. Their untimely deaths ended that. In the 1960s he tried unsuccessfully to get Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole for the parts. In the 1970s he approached Paul Newman and Robert Redford for the roles. Newman suggested that Huston talk to Michael Caine and Sean Connery. It might have taken 20 plus years to make the movie but it ended up working out pretty well.
9. The African Queen is an all-time classic. The adventures of Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, John Huston and Lauren Bacall while making the movie might be even more impressive than the movie. Lots of great books are out there about the filming of The African Queen and Clint Eastwood even did a movie about it…..one of his least seen movies….White Hunter Black Heart.
10. Check out John Huston’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Steve’s John Huston You Tube Video
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
Wow, he certainly had an impressive career. I really liked a lot of his movies but I thought The Man Who Would Be King was a very good movie. It was on TV a couple of days ago but I did not watch it – I will if it comes on again. The actors played such great roles. As you said your father liked those movies. I remember seeing the movie Prizzi’s Honor with Jack Nicholson and his daughter. That was a good movie too. I have seen a lot of the movies listed above. THANK YOU.
Hey BERN1960….pretty sure we went and saw The Man Who Would Be King in theaters. The DVD copies out there are horrible…the Blu-Ray is the way to watch this movie. Prizzi’s Honor is a good one too….thanks for the visit and the comment.
I think he would have made a wonderful Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies. He provided the voice to Gandalf The Grey in cartoon The Return of the King. Which is also not in the rankings. Too bad he was not born 40 years later. Nice look at Huston’s career.
Hey Cmth…..I think you are correct….John Huston would have been an interesting Gandalf the Grey. The reason the animated The Return of the King (1980) is not on the page is because it was a made for television movie…..and did not earn any money at the box office….so it could not be included in the rankings….Thanks for your comment.
Ok I understand but still sad it did not make the page as I love that verison of Lord of the Rings.
Impressive work Bruce, John Huston has been involved with so many great movies, either as director, writer or actor. But there are a few stinkers here too. I saw Tentacles at the cinema in the 1970’s on a double bill with some horror film, it was awful.
I’ve seen 27 of the 52 films you’ve listed. 10 from the critics top 10. 8 from the box office top 10 and 8 from the moviescore top 10. I like Sergeant York but The Maltese Falcon was better. Treasure of the Sierra Madre is also a big favorite, I have it on blu-ray.
I watched Candy a few weeks ago, what a strange film! And so many stars involved too. More recent favorites include Chinatown, The Man Who Would be King and a film that’s missing from your chart, The Wind and the Lion, starring Sean Connery as the Raisuli, a great movie directed by John Milius and with an epic music score by Jerry Goldsmith.
Victory (aka Escape to Victory) is quite popular here in the UK. I haven’t seen Annie or Under the Volcano.
Hey Steve…I went ahead and added one of your favorite movies…The Wind and the Lion is now on the table and ranked 32nd in my rankings ….31st in box office….and 27th according to critics and audiences. I did not include all of his acting roles…..as most of the ones listed were either very very small parts or cameos.
I have not seen Candy….but the fact that it made so much money makes me interested in seeing it. I would agree that Maltese Falcon is better than Sgt. York…..but York performed the best when looking at all the numbers of the movie….although Sgt. York falls all the way to 13th when looking at the critic audience score.
Tally counts….me 29 (what I am normally dead last when it comes to a classic performer)….you 28 (I added in Wind and the Lion to your tally) and 24 for Flora. Grasping my trophy….”I just want to thank…..”
That is interesting that Victory is so popular in the UK. Over here it very rarely gets mentioned. As always thanks for the visit.
Thanks for adding The Wind and the Lion to the list Bruce, sad to see it so low on the charts but at least it’s higher than Tentacles. 🙂 It is a good film and well worth checking out. Btw it’s always been cut here in the UK, horse-tripping is a no-no for the British censor, animal cruelty is taboo.
You’ve watched a lot of movies these past few years, far more than I have. But I buy a lot more films than you do, I have two walls covered in DVDs and Blu-rays. Choosing a film can take ages. 🙂
Hey Steve….thanks for that information. I think almost every movie is better than Tentacles. Your DVD collection is very impressive. Sorry your movie did not do better in the rankings.
this is one awesome page on one awesome talent
without a doubt the man was larger than life
some many great movies
thanks for doing my request
You are welcome Timlin 33……glad you like my John Huston page
Hi, Bruce.
I see this is a band new page.
I decided to write about John Huston before Tyrone Power as I recently saw The Man Who Would Be King for the first time. I enjoyed it, but it not my favourite Kipling film. That would be Gunga Din. Since I’m descended from Kipling’s brother, I try to see allversions of his work.
My favourite Huston film is The Maltese Falcon. 2nd is Key Largo. 3rd is The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, 4th Chinatown, and 5th is The African Queen. There is no coincidence about the genre or the male star in that list.
Beat the Devil is an odd film that I find quite funny.
Other favourites of mine that don’t feature either Bogart or the Hustons onscreen are are The Ashphalt Jungle, and Heaven’s Knows Mr. Allison.
The Misfits is a very difficult film for me to watch though I’ve seen it several times.
As for the percentages by your ranking,
I have seen:
5 of the top 5
9 of the top 10
12 of the top 15
15 of the top 20
20 of the top 30
I have seen 24 overall.
The highest ranking I’ve seen is obviously 1. The lowest is 40.
Tops for me among my to see list is The Cardinal, as I am unfamiliar with this title.
The Unforgivin is a film I saw for the artists involved and I barely made it through it.
I’m a big fan of the Hustons.
Cheers,
Flora Breen Robison
Hey Flora….very cool you are the first one to comment….I finished this last night and was too tired to seen out links to my new page….so I was happy to see it discovered anyway this morning.
Well totals might be wrong now…as Steve has convinced me to include The Wind and The Lion…which was done after your comment.
I have a much higher regard for The Man Who Would Be King…..probably because it was one of my dad’s favorite movies. I see your Top 5 is loaded with Mr. Bogart…..80% at least. My top five would be Maltese, African Queen, Chinatown and Treasure of S.M. with Man Who Would be King bumping Key Largo out of the Top 5.
I had high hopes for Beat the Devil but on my first viewing….I was not too impressed. Maybe on the second viewing I will enjoy it more….that happened with Bogart’s We’re No Angels. I agree with you about the Misfits.
So your tally is 24…or maybe 25 if you have seen The Lion and The Winter….I am at 29….wow I am ahead of you in a classic movie tally…..as Steve would say…..my eyes are tearing up. Speaking of Steve his tally is 28…..so we have me at 29…Steve at 28 and you at 24….probably the only time you have gotten the bronze in a classic tally count.
The Cardinal is ok…..Huston is excellent in his role…..he was the front runner to win the Oscar but Melvyn Douglas pulled off the upset for his performance in Hud. Thanks for visiting my latest page and thanks for commenting.