Want to know the best Marilyn Monroe movies? How about the worst Marilyn Monroe movies? Curious about Marilyn Monroe’s box office grosses or which Marilyn Monroe movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Marilyn Monroe movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), started showing in movies in 1947. Most of her early films were either uncredited or very small parts. Her first major role was in the B feature Ladies of the Chorus in 1948. After Ladies of the Chorus performed weakly at the box office, she started appearing in supporting parts in bigger budget movies like The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. In early 1952, she admitted to posing for nude photos. In an interview, she said she did the photos because she was unable to pay her rent, the resulting publicity made the public curious about the struggling actress.
The rest of 1952 was a coming out party for Marilyn Monroe. Three of her movies, Monkey Business, Clash By Night and Don’t Bother To Knock were successful at the box office. All the parts were supporting parts but they were marketed as Marilyn Monroe films. By the time 1953 came around, she was a much in demand actress. During the next seven years she made classic films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry A Millionaire, The Seven Year Itch and her best film Some Like It Hot. In 1962 she started working on Something’s Got to Give, she however only showed up for work 12 out of 35 days and was dismissed from the movie. Unfortunately in August of that year she was found dead at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 36.
Her IMDb page shows 33 acting credits from 1947-1962. Ther page will rank 24 Marilyn Monroe movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.
Marilyn Monroe Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Marilyn Monroe Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In Ther Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort by Marilyn Monroe’s co-stars of her movies.
- Sort Marilyn Monroe movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Marilyn Monroe movies by box office rank by year of release
- Sort Marilyn Monroe 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 Marilyn Monroe movie received.
- Sort Marilyn Monroe 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.
Possibly interesting facts about Marilyn Monroe.
1. She was never nominated for an Oscar® in her career.
2. She received 2 Golden Globe® nominations….winning for Some Like It Hot ….and receiving a nomination for Bus Stop.
3. The American Film Institute considers her one of the Top 10 movie stars of all time.
4. She was married to legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio and later married to legendary writer Arthur Miller.
5. She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson and baptized as Norma Jeane Baker.
6. Fox talent scout Ben Lyon has gotten the credit for the name Marilyn Monroe….Marilyn was from stage actress Marilyn Miller. The last name Monroe was Marilyn’s mother’s maiden name.
7. Her crypt is located at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California.
8. Marilyn Monroes has two movies that I was unable to find any box office information….so it they were not included in th3e page….1952’s As Young as You Feel and 1951’s HomeTown Story.
9. And finally …her social security number was….563-32-0764
10. Check out Marilyn Monroe’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
Cogerson’s Marilyn Monroe You Tube Video
Steve’s Marilyn Monroe You Tube Video
America Film Institutes’ Top 25 Screen Legend Actress and UMR’s Links That Rank All Of Their Movies.
Very nice article. She has been gone way longer than I have been born. But I still like her. I loved Gentleman Prefer Blondes.
Thank you KellyE for reading and commenting
Ah Marilyn. Not a great actress but a great movie star. She achieved a status as the Hollywood Sex Goddess that has no peer today, which is interesting because she usually played the sweet, innocent girl (With some exceptionsl like “Niagara”) but she still came across as very sexy.
Her best performance was probably “Bus Stop”. I believe she made her screen debut in the Marx Brothers last film “Love happy”. She came to a tragic end, poor girl.
Hey Rob….according to IMDB her first credited role was The Shocking Miss Pilgrim…..Love Happy was her 7th film…but the first one where she received any kind of notice…. she is great in Bus Stop….but I found Don Murray(somehow got an Oscar nom) to be pretty bad in the role…thanks for commenting
Interesting Fact: Debbie Reynolds was on Ophra very recently with her daughter Carrie Fisher. Debbie Reynolds has been buying up movie items such as dresses, etc. and she showed the dress that Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch. She is selling some items as she said it is her savings for old age. Missed it as to how she is selling the items such as auction or E-Bay…the dress had faded somewhat with age but looked great…Perhaps one does not know these facts. In Las Vegas she had quite a museum at the hotel a few years ago
Very interesting BERN1960….amazing that the dress would still look amazing after all those years
I just wish she had lived more, though she wudn’t hav been d mystery she is now. Also found this beautiful piece on Monroe: http://www.leisuremartini.com/monroeism-beneath-the-makeup-and-behind-the-smile/
Worth sharing here
Hey Mehak…thanks for the visit and the link…I will be sure to check it out.
Hi there,
Being a film major and inept at math, I’m trying to figure out the ACTUAL gross of Asphalt Jungle without inflation. Its production budget and box office are proving elusive. Where did you get your numbers for the film?
Hey Mari….so for the long delay. The majority of the numbers come from old Variety issues. As for The Asphalt Jungle I was unable to find the information there. I got my number from either a Monroe or John Huston biography…leaning towards a Huston book for my number.
I have also collected film ledgers for MGM and RKO movies from the 1930’s and 1940s….Sadly the MGM ledgers stop in 1946…4 years before Asphalt got released. Hope you found what you were looking for…sorry again for the delay in my response