Want to know the best Lauren Bacall movies? How about the worst Lauren Bacall movies? Curious about Lauren Bacall’s box office grosses or which Lauren Bacall movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Lauren Bacall movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which ones got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.
Lauren Bacall (1924-2014) was an American actress, who the American Film Institute ranked as one of the Top 50 Screen Legends of all time. Bacall is ranked as the 20th best actress, right behind #19 Rita Hayworth and right before #21 Sophia Loren. One of our goals is to do a movie page on all 50 Screen Legends. After completing this page we have now written movie pages on 43 (or 86%) of those performers……leaving only 5 actresses and 2 actors that still need movie pages.
Personal drivel part: Recently the family and I went on vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. While staying at our way over priced hotel, I figured I would use their printer and their ink to print up all the IMDb pages on the remaining AFI stars that still needed pages. As I went through their IMDb pages I started to realize that doing a Lauren Bacall page was going to actually be pretty easy to do. Of the 36 movies I was going to have to research….31 were already in my database….or 86.11% of her movies. All I had to do was assign the movies to Lauren Bacall. So when we got home, I quickly researched the final movies and the Bacall page was ready to be published. FYI Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish are going to be a serious pain in the ass to do.
Her IMDb page shows 71 acting credits from 1944-2012. This page will rank 36 Lauren Bacall movies from Best to Worst in seven different sortable columns of information. Uncredited roles, bit parts, shorts, television appearances and movies not released in theaters in North America were not included in the rankings.
Lauren Bacall Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Lauren Bacall 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 Lauren Bacall movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Lauren Bacall movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort Lauren Bacall movies by domestic yearly box office rank
- Sort Lauren Bacall movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and Oscar® wins each Lauren Bacall movie received.
- Sort Lauren Bacall movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the sort and search buttons to make this table very interactive. For example…if you type in “Humphrey Bogart” in the search box….the 4 Bogart/Bacall movies will pop right up.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Lauren Bacall Table
- Eleven Lauren Bacall movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 30.55% of her movies listed. How To Marry A Millionaire (1953) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Lauren Bacall movie grosses $81.50 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 23 of Lauren Bacall’s movies are rated as good movies…or 63.88% of her movies. The Big Sleep (1946) was her highest rated movie while Ready to Wear (1994) was her lowest rated movie.
- Ten Lauren Bacall movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 27.77% of her movies.
- Five Lauren Bacall movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 13.88% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 39.86. 19 Lauren Bacall movies scored higher that average….or 54.28% of her movies. To Have and Have Not (1944) got the the highest UMR Movie Score while Diamonds (1999) got the lowest UMR Movie Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Lauren Bacall
1. Betty Joan Perske was born on September 16, 1924, in The Bronx, New York
2. In the early 1940s…. legendary director, Howard Hawks, signed her to a seven-year contract and began to manage her career. Hawks changed her first name to Lauren, and she chose “Bacall”, a variant of her mother’s maiden name.
3. “If you want me just whistle. You know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”..Bacall’s line from 1944’s To Have and Have Not is one of the greatest movie quotes of all-time.
4. Lauren Bacall was married two times in her life. Her first marriage was to actor Humphrey Bogart from 1945 to his death in 1957. Her second marriage was to actor Jason Robards from 1961-1969. She and Bogart had boy and a girl…..she and Robards had a boy.
5. All three of Lauren Bacall’s children became actors. Sam Robards appeared in American Beauty, Fandango (one of my favorite forgotten movies) and many televison series. Stephen Bogart has 14 IMDb credits and Leslie Bogart has 2 IMDb credits.
6. Lauren Bacall put a whistle in Humphrey Bogart’s coffin. It was a reference to the famous line she says to him in their first film together To Have and Have Not (1944): “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.”. She was Bogart’s widow for an incredible 57 years!
7. According to the American Film Institute, Lauren Bacall is the 20th greatest female star of all-time.
8. Lauren Bacall was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar® in 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces. She won the Golden Globe® Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces. In 2010, Bacall received a Honorary Oscar®…”In recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures”.
9. Along with Veronica Lake, Julie London and Rita Hayworth, Bacall was one of four inspirations that helped compose the character Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
10. Check out Lauren Bacall’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Hi
Her debut in To Have and Have Not, was incredible. She looked absolutely stunning. There’s no doubt she had wonderful chemistry with Bogart. Although she made good films apart from Bogart, none of them were really incredible. However she was an outstanding actress winning 2 Tony Awards. Her autobiography was one of the best I’ve ever read. She wrote about her relationship with Katharine Hepburn, it seemed to be a real genuine friendship. She wrote when she took Alzheimer’s and she used to go see her in the home and sit with her.
I think on a personal level she was a very strong individual who didn’t suffer fools, but she would have been a very loyal friend.
When she died last year, her death got massive coverage in the British Media. There was an incredible picture taken of her on her 90th birthday, no make up, just that incredible wonderful face.
Hey Chris….Her debut is one of the greatest of all-time. Off the top of my head I can not think of a better debut….especially since she had 0 IMDb credits for that movie. I agree with you about her post Bogart career…..all of her classics are the Bogart movies. She and Hepburn were friends for almost 50 years….glad to hear she was there for her at the end for the Great Kate. Hepburn was the godmother to Bacall’s third child…Sam Robards. It sounds like she get more press in Great Britain than she did in America. Thanks for the comment and the visit.
Hello, Bruce.
As you known, I am a Lauren Bacall fan. My favourite films of hers I watch repeatedly. There are other films I have seen only once. As such, some titles come readily to mind, and others don’t.
I note in your discussion with Steve, that you have seen 19 of her movies and Steve has seen 12. Very good, Bruce. Without checking on ranking or memorability, I quickly scanned the titles of her movies and we have a tie. I have also seen 19 of her movies.
No doubt the reason you thought that you would have seen more of her movies than I have are because of the large number of titles she did during my lifetime. I have seen some of these. I had forgotten she was in Misery, because all I can remember is Kathy Bates. I saw My Fellow Americans for the cast. To give a couple of examples.
Of her movies with Bogart, I’ve seen all and prefer them in this order:
To Have and Have Not
Key Largo
The Big Sleep
Dark Passage
Now to go backwards and discuss rankings the way I usually do.
The highest ranking film I have seen is The Big Sleep at Number 1.
The lowest ranking film I have seen is My Fellow Americans at Number 29.
The highest ranking film I have not seen is Howl’s Movie Castle, a voice role at Number 4. I note too that a second top 10 movie is voice only and I have not seen that either. Nor have I heard of them.
By ranking:
I have seen 4 of her top 5
I have seen 7 of her top 10
I have seen 11 of her top 15
I have seen 13 of her top 20
I have seen 16 of her top 25
I have seen 19 of her movies overall.
My favourite five of her films are:
To Have and Have Not
Key Largo
The Big Sleep
Designing Woman
How to Marry a Millionaire
Other favourites of mine are Murder on the Orient Express, Harper, Appointment with Death, and Sex and the Single Girl.
I barely remember Bright Leaf.
The Cobweb did not live up to its cast and its inspiration-Spellbound.
I should see The Mirror Has Two Faces because she was nominated for an Oscar.
Other titles on my to see list are related to costars/era:
Woman’s World
The Gift of Love
Hmmm. Next AFI legend easy to find would likely be Rita…..
Cheers,
Flora
Hey Flora….thanks for checking out my Bacall page.
1. I will take a tie. Flora and Bruce at 19….Steve at 12. When I look at my tally count I have seen 7 of her movies after 1981….and only 12 before 1981….so the reason my tally count is so high is because of her current non classic movies.
2. Both of her voice roles got Oscar nominations for Best Animated Movies….so they are both quality movies….Howl’s Moving Castle is easily the best of the 2 and I highly recommend…..awesome awesome art work.
3. I would say Key Largo is my favorite Bogart/Bacall movie….with To Have And Have Not being a close 2nd….the only film of theirs that I am not a huge fan of is Dark Passage…..just not enough Bogie in that one.
4. I am surprised that The Cobweb did not make your Top 5…pretty sure Richard Widmark is in that one…..which should get it a Top 5 spot….lol….especially since another one of your favorites….Mr. Peck got Designing Woman in the Top 5. Sorry The Cobweb was disappointing.
5. Your %….80% to 70% to 73.3% to 65% to 64%of the Top 25…..then only 27% of the bottom 11……seems like the better movies are indeed near the top. I have seen her Top 12….I am happy with that.
6. Rita seems like the easiest one left…..Colbert and Lombard will be difficult….with Gish and Pickford being almost impossible. On the actor side….Orson Welles has a ton of horrible movies that earned very little at the box office….which makes doing a page on him very hard too.
7. As always…..it is fun talking movies with you.
The Cobweb had a great cast. The storyline got quite bogged down by a focus on the characters’ problems with the wallpaper…
Flora
Thanks for the mini-review Flora.
The picture you included of How To Marry A Millionaire seem like the original Charlie’s Angels
This is such a great film, they were all three beautiful ladies
Hey Marilyn R…..thanks for stopping by. Without a doubt that is 3 pretty ladies.
Hey Antonio M….an interesting point.
Good to see you haven’t run out of movie legends yet Bruce. Bacall was iconic especially her looks and her voice. I’m sort of sad a pretty young girl like that ended up marrying an old guy like Bogart, but it became the stuff movie legends are made of, to paraphrase a famous movie quote from Bogie.
I’ve seen just 12 of the films you’ve listed here. I have all the movies she made with Bogart on DVD. The Big Sleep tops the critics chart and should have topped the moviescore too, oh well, To Have and Have Not was their first movie together and contains the famous ‘whistle’ quote.
I own How to Marry a Millionaire on blu-ray, not a great movie but it looks good in Cinemascope and also stars Marilyn Monroe.
Another top job Bruce. Voted Up!
Hey Steve….happily I am running out of AFI Screen Legends….as that project is now going on 4 years. She and Bogart were Hollywood royalty….so I think that made up for the fact that Bogie was so much older. Her marriage to Jason Robards almost seems forgotten. She is the only Oscar winner to have been married to 2 Oscar winners….that was a trivia fact that did not make the cut.
I have seen 19 of her movies. I think that should give Flora a run for the money. I think the Big Sleep is still well represented in the UMR score…To Have and Have Not was just a bigger box office hit…..which gave it the edge….plus it is her most famous role.
As always….thanks for stopping by.
I have always liked the fact that she voiced her political opinions even way back in the 1940s and 1950s. That was not done by women back then but she did. Earned my respect. A great woman.
Hey Candice…..I like your comment…I will have to do some more research into her political life…..this page pretty much just looked at her movie career….but sounds like she was a woman ahead of her time….pretty impressive stuff. Thanks for stopping by.