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.
He is not of this planet. He is a superior being.
Hey Tanis…..the man was larger than life….and left behind so many great movies.
Hello Bruce.
Thanks for the info on Man in the Wilderness. John Huston co-stars as Captain Henry who leaves tracker Richard Harris behind to die after a Grizzly bear attack. Harris doesn’t die but slowly recovers and tracks Captain Henry with an idea of revenge and that’s the plot. John Huston has the second larges role in the film. It’s basically a survial in the wilderness tale based on fact of a real beaver fur trapping expedition in the 1850’s I believe. It’s an interesting film that was rejected by film critics at the because it was thought to be too violent. Which is interesting as well because the same critics admired Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” which is a much more violent film. Thanks, Bruce.
Hey Lyle….Man in the Wilderness has been added to the page. It’s critic/audience rating was a surprising 76.0% which puts it in his Top 20 in that category. I am thinking you are not alone in your thinking that movie was pretty good. Actually your plot summary sounds like the plot of the new Leonard DiCaprio movie The Revenant which is due in January of 2016.
My new tables are so easy to work with now….that adding in Man in the Wilderness only took about 1 minute to include….on my old website….I would have taken 30 minutes to add a movie…..so if you see anymore that need to be included….just let me know.
John Huston was another great filmmaker. The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957), The Misfits (1961), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Man Who Would Be King(1975) and Prizzi’s Honor (1985) are all favorites of mine. I also liked him as an actor, especially in China Town (1974). I’m curious Bruce and I was wonder if you might have and box office information on the 1971 western, “Man in the Wilderness” in which Huston co-starred with star Richard Harris who followed with this film after the successful 1970 western “A Man Called Horse”, which had domestic rentals of $6.5m. I suspect “Man in the Wilderness flopped at the box office even though I personally consider it superior to “A Man Called Horse”.
Hey Lyle…..thanks for checking out my John Huston movie page. I like all the ones you listed. The Red Badge of Courage has a running time of just over one hour….I have always wanted to see the longer version of that one. If memory serves me correctly…the studio made Huston edit the heck out of that movie. I agree with you about Chinatown…..how he did not get an Oscar nomination I will never ever know.
Man in the Wilderness…let me check….I was not familiar with this movie so I did not include it….so is his part bigger than a cameo….if it is…I will add it to the page. Variety Jan 3, 1973 has Wilderness with box office rentals of 2.75 million which would be about $6.05 in domestic gross in 1971/1972 and $30.0 million in adjusted domestic gross in 2015. In my ranking system it would be ranked 33rd of his 54 movies…so should it be included? Let me know. As always thanks for stopping by.
Hi
Houston was a real character. I once read that he was at a big Hollywood party and ended up having a fight with Errol Flynn out in the garden. Both of them fell on their back and they just ended up laughing and from that they became really good friends.
He left such an incredible body of work, it’s hard to say what is best. He said in an interview that he seen each film as his child. If that’s the case, he had a great family.
My favourites would be Maltese Falcon and Key Largo. The script, the cast were just so good. Another particular favourite would be The Misfits. Despite all the trouble they had on set with Monroe’s breakdown and Gable’s health, he produced a real gem. In the 70s, there was The Mackintosh Man, a spy thriller with Paul Newman and James Mason playing the villain ( Mason would have made a great Bond villain.)
But his last movie was one of his best, The Dead. It’s set in turn of the century Dublin on a family get together. On paper it doesn’t sound very exciting but it’s so well written and acted, that it’s worth checking out.
Hey Chris….thanks for checking out my latest classic page. I think Huston is the definition of “larger than life”. Maltese Falcon is a classic….I actually bought on Blu-Ray a few months ago and have not re-watched it….this page has me thinking I should watch it soon. My one viewing of The Misfits was not a fun one….I had always wanted to see the movie….but when I finally watched it…I had a vasectomy earlier that day….I was not a happy camper while watching it….and found the movie pretty dark and pretty depressing. Maybe the next time I watch it….I will not be hanging out with a bag of frozen peas….I know too much information….lol. It has been years since I watched The Mackintosh Man….but I remember enjoying it. I have actually seen The Dead…an interesting movie….that never seemed to fit in with the rest of the Huston movies. As always thanks for stopping and talking movies.
Haha I think the moral of that story is to not watch ANY movie after having a vasectomy. Just lie down and take it easy… But don’t forget about the frozen peas.
Hey Chris….maybe next time I will enjoy it more….that recently happened on my second viewing of Humphrey Bogart’s We’re No Angels….so maybe it will happen with The Misfits….plus I do not have any surgeries scheduled any time soon.
Hi, Bruce.
The Wind and the lion is still yet to be seen. So my total does not change.
If I had seen The Man Who Would be King earlier in my life, I may have enjoyed it more the first time. I think the performances are excellent. Now that I have seen it once I could view it again for the film itself on it’s own.
I have to laugh about your comment about the bronze knowing what you will find about power and Dean.
Flora Breen Robison
Hey Flora….Yep I saw that you came in 3rd place with Tyrone Power too….it is just shocking……lol. I guess every once in awhile it is good to come down from the top of the mountain and see the view I normally see at the bottom of the mountain…..lol. Movies always stay the same…..the viewer is the one constantly changing….so I agree with you 100% about your “timing” of seeing T.M.W.W.B.K. That probably explains why I used to think Disney’s Gus was the best movie in the world.