John Wayne Movies

Jump To John Wayne Links: 1. Box Office 2. Oscar Movies 3. Reviews 4. Trailers 5. Trivia 6. UMR Table

John Wayne made 88 movies before becoming a star in 1939’s Stagecoach. From Stagecoach to 1976’s The Shootist, Wayne made another 82 movies. That is a grand total of 170 movies in his career. John Wayne was the first movie star that I became aware of as a child. I still remember the shock of watching him die in The Alamo (my older brother had told me he was going to survive…he obviously lied to me). For nearly forty years, Wayne was one of the most popular stars making movies.

John Wayne’s IMDb page shows 180 acting credits from 1926-1976.  The following table only lists about half of John Wayne’s movies.  Cameos, television appearances, and almost all of his B westerns from the 1930s were not included in the rankings.  His remaining 94 movies are ranked by 6 different columns of sortable information.

Dean Martin, Walter Brennan & John Wayne in 1959's Rio Bravo
Dean Martin, Walter Brennan & John Wayne in 1959’s Rio Bravo

John Wayne Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

John Wayne 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.

  • If movie title is a blue, then there is a John Wayne movie trailer attached to the page link
  • Sort John Wayne movies by co-stars or in some cases directors
  • Sort John Wayne movies by adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort John Wayne movies by box office rank in the year of release
  • Sort John Wayne movies by how the movie was 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 Wayne movie received.
  • Sort John Wayne 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 buttons to make this table very interactive.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above John Wayne Table

1.  51 John Wayne movies crossed the magical $100 million mark.  That is a percentage of 54.26% of his movies listed.  His top domestic box office hit was The Longest Day (1963).

2.  An average John Wayne movie grosses $124.30 million in adjusted box office gross.

3.  Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  55 John Wayne movies are rated as good movies…or 65.47% of his movies.  His highest rated movie is 1959’s Rio Bravo.  His lowest rated movie is The Conqueror (1956).

4.  24 John Wayne movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 28.23% of his movies.

5.  9 John Wayne movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 10.71% of his movies.

6.  A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00 or higher.  61 John Wayne movies scored higher that average….or 71.76% of his movies.  True Grit (1969) got the highest UMR Score.  Brannigan (1975) got the lowest UMR Score.

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Jump To John Wayne Links: 1. Box Office 2. Oscar Movies 3. Reviews 4. Trailers 5. Trivia 6. UMR Table

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284 thoughts on “John Wayne Movies”

  1. 1 HI STEVE: THE DUKE PART ONE I am a stats buff whereas you are not but we are both great posters admirers. The latter keen interest actually has a cross-over with another of my movies passions – billing.

    2 I was always fascinated with the comparative status of movie stars as reflected for the most part by the order of billing [sorry again John] and from the age of about 13 to see who got top billing in the newest flicks I used to gleefully pour over the droves of miniature posters in our Sunday newspapers and in the process got hooked on posters for their own sake as well. Which is my long-winded way of articulating the pleasure it has been for me to pour over 100 posters involving one of my very top idols who after 1948 almost invariably was billed first.

    THE WAYNE VIDEO ENTRIES 100-66 INCLUSIVE
    3 This part of the video naturally includes Wayne’s lowest rated flicks and his routine early cowboy B movies form the bulk of those. Nevertheless those films largely went out of circulation in Belfast before my time and anyway we had loads of the Duke’s later career A movies to keep us entertained so the posters for the early Bs are all a new exciting experience for me and I thought the best were Ride Him Cowboy, Man from Utah, Blue Steel, Telegraph Trail, Somewhere in Sonora, and Lucky Texan. I must also highlight Born of the West because it co-starred one of my B movies 1950s heroes Johnny Mack Brown. I never before knew that Johnny and the Duke had teamed up. Johnny Mack’s oaters were shown so frequently at our local cinema that the standing joke was the he kept his horse in the restroom!

    4 Part One also includes some of the Duke’s later movies as a big star and although I agree with your low ratings for them that does not detract form the excellence of some of the posters. My favourites are Legend of the Lost, Hellfighters, Jet Pilot, the “Reds your Dead” one Big Jim McLain and best of all your very lowest The Conqueror [“My blood cries out for this woman!” Says it all and they don’t make ‘em like that anymore as the saying goes!].

    NB It is well known that Howard Hughes repeatedly watched The Conqueror in his reclining years. He apparently at that time was also obsessed with viewing Rock Hudson’s Ice Station Zebra co-starring this site’s recent focus of attention Ernest Borgnine However Hughes it seems was largely on his own because for example one Joel-type critic wrote of The Conqueror “If there was ever a movie that makes the viewer stare at the screen in disbelief then this is it!”

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing the first third of my 22min John Wayne poster fest, appreciate the comment and info. Glad you liked the posters.

      I liked that last quote in your post, makes one wonder what were they thinking when they were casting that film – John Wayne as Genghis Khan – really? Gluttons for punishment. Was Jack Palance too busy? Peter Lorre as Genghis might have been more daring… 🙂

      Btw I shaved a second off each countdown number to reduce the overall length, and some of the b movie posters are on display a couple of seconds less then is usual. I suppose you can always pause the video if you want to look more closely at a poster. I also didn’t include stills this time around. Some of the posters include photo art so its not all drawings and paintings. The Japanese in particular love using photo montage in their movie posters and they’re pretty good at it.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE

        1 My notes have already picked up the absence of stills but with a photoplay of the length involved one can’t have everything. Mr Mumbles’ one directorial outing One Eyed Jacks was supposed to originally run for 6 hours but studio “suits” cut it down to more than half which some historians suggest sickened him so much that he never directed again. Your own editing down seems to have been quite canny.

        2 As I’ve said I’m pacing myself to enjoy the “mammoth” all the more and that strategy has worked because the video has been fun for me so far. Part Two from me tomorrow and ratings etc will be left until Part 3. Great treat for any lover of Wayne and/or posters.

        Reply

    2. Hey Steve… I checked out your massive John Wayne page on Monday before work….seriously misjudged my time…and ended up getting to work late.

      Hey Bob….good to know that if we ever have a massive data issue that causes our database to crash….that you have many of the numbers on your files.

      Good stuff on Mr. John Wayne…..fun to read…..hopefully Steve’s video will have the same success this page has experienced.

      Reply

  2. HI STEVE

    1 “Oh day worthy to be marked by a great white stone!” At last the Wayne marathon has arrived.

    2 Whilst it is greatly to your credit that you could tackle such a mammoth task in the one presentation I think I would consider it safer to respond in 3 stages – eg Part 1 the first 30 entries and so on starting tomorrow. Also of course that way I will be able to savour matters all the longer !!

    3 I should add that when WH provides new pages with massive stats tables I transcribe the figures to my own database in several stages. Have a good weekend.

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob, I’m just glad I’ve finished it and it’s out there in the netverse. I’m pleasantly surprised it’s had over 200 views I thought the lengthy running time might put viewers off. Even Flora, bless her, sat thru all 22mins of it and she can’t stand John Wayne! 🙂

      Reply

      1. Hey Steve….very cool that you finished your John Wayne page…..I highly suggest sharing the video at the many Wayne fan pages on Facebook….they are a pretty active group and love new Wayne content. I will do the sharing when we get back home….as well as watching, commenting and sharing the video here. For some reason I have issues logging into my You Tube account when I am away from home. Good job.

        Reply

        1. Thanks Bruce. When I upload a video I use the share links on the channel page – Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit etc – whether they make much difference to the viewcount I’m not sure. There’s no way of telling where the majority of views are coming from, or is there?

          Reply

          1. Hey Steve….you are the You Tube expert…..but when I have looked at the stats on my tiny You Tube page…..acquistion stats are pretty weak there. My Wayne page which is the third most popular on our website gets about a third of it’s views from FaceBook…..even coming close to Google Search (in USA). I will share the video their either late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Just put it in my “notebook”…of things to do. Right there with “Steve’s Ernie Video”. FYI Seeing Thor 3 today. Looking very forward to it.

      2. HI STEVE

        1 I’m unashamedly biased and it wouldn’t take a genius to spot that in my own posts I work in a Duke plug on every opportunity that arises though that’s because he’s one of my idols who is such a larger than life figure about whom there is much information/trivia in the public domain -like Sinatra and ole Mumbles -whereas I have a slight personal preference for Peck, Widmark and Laddie over everybody else but one never reads much i exciting controversy about them that would make for interesting chit chat.

        2 Indeed the last thing of any note that I read about my Greg was that he appeared as a character witness for Frankie in some situation or other which shows you how well a behaved respected stable figure Greg was perceived to have been. Unfortunately it is the “hellraisers” about whom many people want to read. “Give us Barabbas!”

        3 I have never of course conducted a scientific poll but In my personal experience going by word of mouth anyone who loves the movies for their own sake especially westerns, war and general adventure films will like Wayne and those that dislike the Duke fall into 3 broad categories (1) Those who do not like the genres that I have just mentioned and they are entitled to their own taste (2) those who dislike John’s politics and they are entitled to their own politics (3) Joel Hirschhorn and his Committee who I unfortunately regard as being entitled to very little.

        4 A historian once observed “You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your OWN facts” Thus in my view for a professional critic to rubbish The Duke OR Mr Mumbles that can be put down to the critic exercising his own opinions. However for the same professional to minimise the achievements of Big John AND Mr M, two contrasting personas, is to display a serious lack of grasp of part of what has been admirable and diverse in the cinema

        5 Anyway will catch up with you tomorrow with The Duke Part 1. Meanwhile well done!

        Reply

        1. Thanks Bob and cheers Bruce. I’ve always been a John Wayne fan, since I was a wee lad, I liked westerns and he was the king of the cowboys as far as I was concerned, Randolph Scott fans might not agree.

          I did read the Playboy interview with him which was a real eyeopener, I won’t repeat what he said here but it wasn’t very flattering towards blacks or native Americans, and he hated Henry Fonda’s daughter. It didn’t make me like his films less and he still stands as one of Hollywoods most popular and iconic actors.

          Reply

          1. HI STEVE 1 Good feedback from you as always giving me food for further thought. The British political commentator and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge opined that The Duke was actually sincere but quite naive about politics and was “used” because of his fame by more cynical professional political manipulators.

            2 My own feeling was that John was unwise to take onto himself the role of protector of the political ideology in which he believed and he shouldn’t have taken so personally the opposing views of others. However away from politics you apparently couldn’t have met a more gregarious guy nor a more self-depreciating one. For example when asked by an interviewer what in The Duke’s opinion placed him apart from the run of the mill cowboy hero he answered without hesitation “John Ford.”

            3 Personally I love The Duke’s flicks as is well known but I also admire George Clooney perceived I think as a Liberal and I have a lot of time for Sean Penn whom many seem to regard as “hard left” so I cannot be accused of letting my political views [and I will not of course say here what they are] get in the way of my enjoyment of the movies of actors deemed to be poles apart in the political spectrum.

            4 However I don’t believe in discrimination on grounds of race, religion and gender and I think that it is only but fair that anyone with genuine medical problems whether physical or psychological should get all the support and help that society can give, But I see those as largely humanitarian issues that can cut across tribal political loyalties with for example self-styled “THE Man of the Right” Heston finding common cause in Civil Rights marches with Paul Newman who was listed in the infamous Nixon Black Book of Political Enemies as “Dangerous trendy Liberal – needs watching.”

            5 In fairness to my own idol the Duke I should record that some historians have asserted that in his final years Wayne tried to backtrack on some of his previous hawkish pronouncements and indeed in a video interview that I saw about a year ago I did detect at least a softening of his attitude on certain issues

    1. Thank you George. We now have 353 UMR pages….not too bad considering we only really started a few days ago. Glad you like the updates.

      Reply

  4. Hello Bruce,
    For the worldwide box office I do not find the Spoilers , Pittsburg and Seven sinners..
    Lol …
    It seems there were big success in Europe specially Seven ..
    My favourite of Wayne films stay Rio Bravo…
    Good day
    Pierre

    Reply

    1. Hey Pierre….sorry I struck out when it comes to Marlene Dietrich/John Wayne worldwide grosses. Good to know Seven Sinners was so popular…..by the end of the day…I will get Dietrich’s worldwide grosses that we have….listed at the bottom of her page…..but I think the list will sadly be short. I love Rio Bravo as well….thanks for the feedback.

      Reply

  5. Hi, I just watched some more trailers – on Big Jake there was music but no words. Brought back memories of the movie. Thanks Again.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bern1960….You Tube is awesome….but sometimes they do not have the “official trailer” …..so I have use another video…which was the case in Big Jake. Glad you are enjoying our “Vandross” movie trailer update.

      Reply

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