Want to know the best Marlene Dietrich movies? How about the worst Marlene Dietrich movies? Curious about Marlene Dietrich’s box office grosses or which Marlene Dietrich movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Marlene Dietrich 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.
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was an Oscar® nominated German-American actress and singer. On American Film Institute’s Top 50 Screen Legends list, Dietrich was ranked as the 9th best actress. Right behind #8 Judy Garland and right before #10 Joan Crawford. Her film career lasted almost 60 years. One of the main reasons for such a long successful career was her ability to re-invent herself, professionally and characteristically. So we figured it was about time to give one the silver screen’s first sex symbols her very own Ultimate Movie Rankings movie page.
Her IMDb page shows 56 acting credits from 1919-1978. This page will rank 30 Marlene Dietrich movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her German silent films, cameos, television appearances and movies not released in North America were not included in the rankings.
Marlene Dietrich Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
Marlene Dietrich 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 Marlene Dietrich movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Marlene Dietrich movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Marlene Dietrich movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort Marlene Dietrich 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 how many Oscar® wins each Marlene Dietrich movie received.
- Sort Marlene Dietrich 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Marlene Dietrich Table
- Fifteen Marlene Dietrich movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 46.88% of her movies listed. Shanghai Express (1932) was her biggest box office hit…not counting her cameo role in Around The World In 80 Days.
- An average Marlene Dietrich movie grosses $121.10 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 24 of Marlene Dietrich’s movies are rated as good movies…or 75.00% of her movies. Witness for the Prosecution (1957) is her highest rated movie while Just A Gigolo (1978) was her lowest rated movie.
- Ten Marlene Dietrich movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 31.25% of her movies.
- Three Marlene Dietrich movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.37% of her movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 26 Marlene Dietrich movies scored higher that average….or 81.25% of her movies. *Morocco (1931) got the the highest UMR Score while Just A Gigolo (1978) got the lowest UMR Score. *Around The World In 80 Days excluded.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Marlene Dietrich
1. Marlene Dietrich was born Maria Magdalene Dietrich in Berlin, Germany.
2. Marlene Dietrich’s road to stardom Cliff Notes style….she started out as a cabaret singer, then she started appearing in German silent films, next she caught the eye of director, Josef Von Sternberg. Von Sternberg cast her in the German and English versions of Blue Angel. Blue Angel was a hit and Dietrich became one of the first sex symbols in film.
3. Marlene Dietrich was nominated for one Oscar® (Morocco) and one Golden Globe® (Witness For The Prosecution).
4. According to the American Film Institute, Marlene Dietrich is the 9th greatest female star of all-time.
5. Marlene Dietrich starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright (1950)….they experienced some friction while making the movie. Hitchcock provided one of my favorite quotes while researching this page. On Dietrich…Hitchcock said….”Marlene Dietrich is a professional – a professional actress, a professional dress designer, a professional cameraman.”
6. Marlene Dietrich was married one time in her life. Her marriage to Rudolf Sieber was from 1924 to his death in 1976. They actually only lived together for five years…but they never got divorced. I wonder if they celebrated their 50th anniversary? They did have one daughter together….and four grandsons. Hey BERN1960…I have a piece of Dietrich trivia you might be interested in….I just did not want to put it in this page.
7. Roles Marlene Dietrich turned down or was seriously considered for: Pal Joey (Rita Hayworth role), All About Eve (Bette Davis role), Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (Joan Crawford role), and Stagecoach (Claire Trevor role). One role she really wanted but did not get was Irene Dunne’s role in I Remember Mama.
8. Marlene Dietrich was voted the 43rd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Dietrich was also the first German actress to be Oscar® nominated.
9. Marlene Dietrich received the U.S. War Department’s ‘Medal of Freedom‘, in 1947, for entertaining American troops in WWII and her strong stand against Naziism.
10. Check out Marlene Dietrich‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time. To check out some awesome movie posters of Marlene Dietrich’s movies check out Steve Lensman’s Marlene Dietrich Movie Posters page.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Hi Bruce
I am Sorry , i Forget to say
By the way we are with my kids just watching
The empire strikes back from star was
and that so good
Merry Christmas
Pierre
Hey excellent choice….we started watching Spaceballs….which had my little girls laughing pretty hard….they love Barf. Merry Christmas as well.
Hello Bruce
Just a little Mail for Christmas Time
It is always a pleasure to discovered your new pages’
Have a great Time for Christmas
bye bye
Pierre
Hey Pierre….and I hope you and your family have a great holiday as well.
Marlene Dietrich appeared in seven color movies.
Her first color movie was The Garden of Allah in 1936.
She appeared in Kismet in 1944.
Despite three color appearances in the fifties, including a cameo in Around the World in 80 Days, and one color appearance in the sixties and again in the seventies,
Dietrich strikes me as almost completely a black and white star. I wouldn’t consider any of her color films (certainly not the ones she starred in) classics, unlike several of her black and white films.
Hey John….based on some of the other black & white/color movies you have shared…I would have bet the under of 7 Dietrich color movies. I agree with you…all of her classics we’re in black and white. Good stats…thanks for sharing.
wonderfull work but for dietrich is it possible to get the world box office because she was a great star all over the world especially in france where she is akways call Marlene and in Brazil for intance the garden of allah where there is a park in rio because the film.
Sorry for my english i am from france and anothere think for Destry
you say it is 26 in Dietrich update But in your list of 1939 the film is 57 may be you have to do James Stewart again, for instance you change all the box office of Spoilers and Pisstburg but not for Destry;
i hope you can understand my word and can i aske you something about Linda Darnell;
she was a great star for fox and she is in very good films of that days
could you think to make a page about her, after all she was in the fourtheen at the same level of Rita Haywoorth and Lana Turner and she had a lot of box office
anyway thanks for evrything you do because it s enjoy my looking in that days where there were so many wonderfull theaters in big city in USA and so may real stars in HOLLYWOOD
Hey Pierre….thanks for the kind words. I do not have many of her worldwide box office numbers…but I will see what I have. Sadly for us…..most of her movies were produced by Paramount….Paramount is easily the worst studio when it comes to finding out box office information from the golden era.
When I first did my James Stewart page…Destry Rides Again…was the 26th biggest hit…but since then I have found many more movies….and it has fallen all the way down to 57th…..when updating a changed the box office number but not the rank….I have since got all the pages lined up with 57th biggest hit of 1939.
I can understand you perfectly….I can add Linda Darnell to my request page…..especially since I already have pages on Hayworth and Turner. Thanks for the suggestion…..and the visit.
hello Bruce
thanks for your answers and so i hope you can make DARNELL pages and some informations about DIETRICH worlwide box office because you gave one informations for KISMET in your first page.
One of the best Dietrich movies is DESIRE with COOPER because it is really funny sometimes and they were E LUBISTCH behind the production of thi film and i love STAGE FRIGHT, and all the pictures with WAYNE or directed by billy WILDER.
bye
pierre
Hey Pierre….I was actually on a book run today….and trying to find some books on Darnell. Sorry to say that the information on Dietrich is hard to find. Dietrich is due for an update….so I will see if I can find more information. I have not seen Desire…but I want to. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
1 I am please that I can now add Marlene’s updated page to my own ‘collection’.
2 Brian Donlevy who played the unscrupulous saloon owner Kent in Destry Rides Again came from Portadown in Norther Ireland where my parents grew up and I spent my own infancy. Brian was awarded several lead roles and even got billed above Ladd in the Glass Key 91942). That status did not last and he descended into supporting roles and a couple of horror films.
3 His career pattern reminded me of Wallace Ford who got lead parts in a string of B movies. He eventually dropped into character parts in minor movies [for example Randolph Scott’s A Lawless Street [1955].
4 He had arranged to be inscribed on his tombstone:’Wallace Ford (1898-1966) Top Billing at Last. One morning it was discovered that vandals had entered the graveyard and above Wallace’s name painted in large letters CLARK GABLE.
Hey Bob
1. I figured I had to update her page when I published the von Sternberg pages….they made 7 movies together…so I wanted to make sure the numbers matched on both pages.
2. I have enjoyed some Donlevy movies….I especially enjoyed his Stand By For Action. Cool that you have the same backgrounds.
3. Hmmmm…not too aware of Wallace Ford….I will have to do a IMDb search on him.
4. Funny about his tombstone….I like people that have a sense of humor about their tombstones….that is just wrong about the vandals….Clark Gable had enough top billings in his lifetime….lol.
Thanks for checking out the Dietrich update….thinking Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart are up next for an update.
BRUCE:
1 The young Wallace Ford had the lead role in Todd Browning’s Freaks [1932] It has become a notorious film and when I watched it in the 60s it literally made me physically sick
He was in Jimmy Stewart’.s The Man from Laramie and his penultimate role was in support of Hank Fonda and ‘my’ Richard in Warlock. [Tell Flora I got there first. Age does have its compensations!]
2 .Marlene Dietrich’s leading men in both The Spoilers and Pitsburg were Wayne and Scott. In those days duos were plentiful and people like John Ford often had a ‘stock company’ of character actors in their movies. However it was rare to see the same THREE big stars in more than one film. .
3 Ironically therefore Marlene did not seem to approve of the Duke (possibly because of political differences). In an interview she appeared to disparage him by saying something like “Despite being basically a cowboy actor he became as rich as Croesus.”
4 Great news about the forthcoming Bogie update. There has long been an empty space waiting for its arrival in my updates ‘collection’.
Must dash now. We’re entertaining this afternoon and guests have arrived. Need to see what the boys in the back room want..
Best wishes BOB
Bruce has now done Robert Montgomery! I have seen 32 of his films. Maybe your age will beat me in the viewing Olympics??????????????????
Thanks for the information on Wallace Ford….Freaks is a movie that I have always wanted to watch…it is listed in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies books….I have been reading about it for years….but never got my hands on a copy of it to watch. Interesting that Ford is the star of that movie. I have read that Dietrich and Wayne got along real well “off screen”…like romantic partners. I wonder that quote was after their 3 movies together and after their romantic days ended. Have fun with your guests.