Marlon Brando Movies

Want to know the best Marlon Brando movies?  How about the worst Marlon Brando movies?  Curious about Marlon Brando’s box office grosses or which Marlon Brando movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Marlon Brando movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which one got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Marlon Brando (1924-2004) owned the 1950s as an actor. He received 5 Oscar® nominations for Best Actor between 1952 and 1958. He had it all…. blockbusters, critical acclaim, and an Oscar® win. His movies generated over 200 million ticket sales in the 1950s. Unfortunately the 1960s were not so kind to him. One could argue, that every movie he made in the 1960s was a box office failure. By the early 1970s he was considered box office poison. It was during this time that movie magic would happen again. That of course, was his role in The Godfather.

The Godfather was a blockbuster hit that won Oscars® for Best Picture and Best Actor. The following year he earned another Oscar® nomination for Last Tango in Paris. Then he pretty much stop making movies. Over the last 30 years of his life he only made 10 more movies and they were pretty much supporting parts.

His IMDb page shows 47 acting credits from 1949-2006. This page will rank 37 Marlon Brando movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  Television appearances, shorts, cameos, video game roles and direct to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.

Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire
Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire

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

Marlon Brando 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 by Marlon Brando’s co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Marlon Brando movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort Marlon Brando movies by their yearly box office rank
  • Sort Marlon Brando 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 Marlon Brando movie received.
  • Sort Marlon Brando 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 Marlon Brando Table

  1. Sixteen Marlon Brando movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 43.24% of his movies listed. The Godfather (1972) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Marlon Brando movie earned $144.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  28 of Marlon Brando’s movies are rated as good movies…or 75.67% of his movies.  The Godfather (1972)  was his highest rated movie while Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Eighteen Marlon Brando movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 48.64% of his movies.
  5. Seven Marlon Brando’s movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 18.91% of his movies.
  6. A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) is 60.00 or above.  24 Marlon Brando movies scored higher that average….or 64.86% of his movies.  The Godfather (1972) got the the highest UMR Score while Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) got the lowest UMR Score.
Marlon Brando in 1955's Guys and Dolls
Marlon Brando in 1955’s Guys and Dolls

Adjusted box office grosses are used to make it easier, to figure out how successful a movie was when it was originally released and compare that to our current box office numbers. For example: The classic On the Waterfront grossed $9,240,000 in 1954. In 2014, $9,240,000 million would have ranked 134th for the year….right behind Mom’s Night Out. However its adjusted box office gross of $163,200,000 million would have finished 19th for the year right behind 18th place Gone Girl. 

And finally….just found this page from Luna B. on HubPages….a very interesting read.  Marlon Brando’s Top Ten Movies….highly recommend checking it out.

Steve’s Expanded Marlon Brando You Tube Video

If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.

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193 thoughts on “Marlon Brando Movies”

    1. HI CALLING ME: Thanks for sharing that video with me. My comments are as follows:

      1/It obviously took place around 1969 because he had just pulled out of the movie The Arrangement released that year and was replaced by his friend Kirk Douglas

      2/I had heard and read that Mr Mumbles had withdrawn from The Arrangement and also from Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid because of the death of Martin Luther King; but Brando’s confirmation in that video was the first time I had ever heard HIM say so. If he had starred in Butch Cassidy he was going to be Butch and Paul would have been Sundance. Paul had production control over Butch & Sundance and claimed to have offered MB a lead role in every movie where Paul was able to exercise such control.

      3/The Great Mumbler claimed in the interview to be contributing 10% of his income to give financial support to the cause of the African American community. Assuming that WAS so it doesn’t sit nicely with Joel’s suggestion that all MB cared about was money. I wonder how many of the people whom Hirsch drooled over in that book of his would have given up 10% of their income for ANYBODY.

      4/I thought that Johnny Carson looked a bit like George W Bush. DAN LIKE LINK -Carson called MB the greatest actor ever and George W was President when MB died and Bush paid public tribute to the actor as one “who will ALWAYS BE MISSED”.

      5/Wasn’t The Great Mumbler’s diction crystal clear throughout; which was particularly impressive considering the complex subject Carson and he were discussing?

      Reply

  2. ANCHOR MAN – A TV major personality known for pro-Government of the day sympathies and lenient in his interviews with other powerful interests:
    “I blame your Opposition party for most of which has happened.”

    OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN: “You would say that, otherwise you would have to blame the Government and the shipping company.”

    ANCHORMAN [Highly indignantly being a highly-excitable figure at times] “Are you saying that I’m biased and self-edit?

    OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN: No, I regard you as a thoroughly honest and decent man who genuinely believes in what he thinks and says; it’s just that if you didn’t think and say those things you wouldn’t’ be sitting where you are now.”

    Reply

  3. In Hollywood a “king” like Gable, going from one meaningless picture to another, performing the rituals of manly toughness, embracing the studio stable, is revered because he was the company actor who never gave anybody any trouble.

    Columnists don’t attack that kind of king on his papier-mache throne; critics don’t prod him to return to the stage; purists don’t chide him about the money he is earning; the public doesn’t turn against him.

    PAULINE KAEL 1966

    Reply

  4. In his 1983 book Joel Hirschhorn complained that Marlon Brando was a “liability” in Guys and Dolls because he “couldn’t sing and dance”. Accordingly in that book Joel gave Brando just 2 stars for his performance in Guys and Dolls; but awarded Deb Kerr the full 4 stars for The King and I. The following obituary appeared on 21 July 2016

    “Marni Nixon, a singer whose voice appeared in Hollywood films like The King and I died of breast cancer on Sunday in Manhattan, the New York Times confirmed. She was 86. Nixon most notably sang Deborah Kerr’s part 1956’s The King and I.”

    When he wrote that 1983 book Joel, admittedly a little-known and inexperienced movie critic, appears to have thought that an arguably arbitrary star system was a clever way of measuring contrasting performances and that it could be applied to even those special ones that historically were deemed to have changed the style of acting!

    Certainly as I have mentioned previously the great David Shipman opined that “Somehow Brando overshadowed Sinatra in Guys and Dolls”. Also Barbra Streisand said in an interview that she had such a strong desire to sing with Brando on screen that she made a video superimposing herself in the Jean Simmons role in Guys and Dolls so that it creates the illusion in the video that Streisand and Brando are singing a duet with each other. That interview and the video can be easily turned up on U Tube

    Reply

    1. As for Joel Hirschhorn, the double standards that he seems to have used in assessing the performances of Brando and Kerr in musicals [he warmly describes Deborah as “ladylike”] give one the impression that, really, he was maybe looking for excuses to mark down Brando whereas if the fact that it wasn’t Deb’s voice that we heard in The King and I bothered Joel at all, he doesn’t mention it anywhere that I’ve seen

      It was of course, fashionable among some in Hollywood along with certain critics and many in the press to ‘demonize’ Brando in the decades following his refusal to accept an Oscar because he felt that Hollywood movies and certain sections of America generally were unfair to the Indian population. He was even attacked by politicians on the benches of the British Parliament for his high earnings in Hollywood – a place awash with millionaires, multi-millionaires and even [certainly today] billionaires!

      So in a way Brando was a soft target if you “ran with the pack”and indeed on page 57 of his 1983 book Joel even gets in on the rather boring act of accusing Brando of mumbling in Guys and Dolls- an untruth at least in relation to THAT movie. Ironically it was Deborah Kerr who confessed in an interview that Marlon was the only other actor whom she had ever sent a fan letter, which he received on the set of 1957’s Sayonara.

      However sometimes justice in the long run has a way of happily surprising us. Joel gets the occasional mention for his song-writing though he is no Jerome Kern or Cole Porter and a lot of his success might possibly be down to the massive box office of the Hollywood mega blockbusters Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno – SOMEBODY has to get the Oscar in the category concerned and the massive hype connected with BIG Hollywood movies has a way of breeding spinoff secondary success.

      Even Joel’s early days as a rock artist and nightclub singer are sometimes mentioned along with his stint as an opera critic [which he was in fact quite good at in my opinion] and his wife’s work as an adventuring archaeologist along with the fact that he shared in some of her physical adventures – maybe he should have been an action hero rather than a critic! Away from this site though I have seen only one reference -in one of his obituaries- to Joel the film critic and that reference amounts to just a mention of the title of the 1983 book he wrote and did not attempt to analyse the merits of the book as a work relating to the movies or even say what it is specifically actually about.

      Reply

      1. Conversely Brando is listed by AFI as the 4th greatest male movie Legend in cinema history well above many people whom Joel drooled over; Variety included Brando in the Top 10 Greatest Entertainers [in all fields] of the 20th Century; Time Magazine included him in its Top 100 Greatest People of the 20th Century, the only performer to be included in the entire 100 in the artistic capacity of an ACTOR; and one of the very latest ranking lists of ACTING Greats rates him 4th of all time behind just K Hepburn, Bette Davis and Charles Chaplin.

        Moreover powerful modern movie mogul George Lucas joined forces with esteemed director Martin Scorsese to expend time and money on restoring the only film Brando directed, One Eyed jacks starring himself; and Jack Nicholson has said of Brando “When he died we all move up one.”

        Come writers and critics
        Who rule with your pen
        And keep your eyes wide
        The chance won’t come again
        And don’t speak too soon
        For the wheel’s still in spin
        And there’s no tellin’ who
        That it’s namin’
        For the loser now
        Will be later to win
        And the first one now
        Will later be last
        For the times they are a-changin’ [Bob Dylan]

        FOOTNOTE -WIKIPEDIA: “Guys and Dolls opened on November 3, 1955, to mostly positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% out of 29 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 77%. Casting Marlon Brando has long been somewhat controversial, although Variety wrote “The casting is good all the way.”]

        Reply

        1. Well thought out comments Bob. I am guessing you must have accidently run across the Brando page in the book….lol. You make good points….and Joel gives Marlon some kudos in the write up…and he ranked many of Brando’s performances with his 4 star rating. As for Guys and Dolls….many did not think Brando’s greatest strength was his singing vocals. I thought he was fine in the movie….but compared to Frank it was no contest. Great comments…educational and entertaining.

          Reply

  5. Bob, I thought you might find this story interesting being a huge fan of the great Mumbler.

    “Marlon Brando’s “Holy Relic” Rolex Hitting the Auction Block.

    Since 2014, Brando’s watch has been categorized as among 12 missing timepieces sought by collectors, alongside a Patek Philippe of John Lennon’s and the Omega Speedmaster that Buzz Aldrin wore to the moon.”

    Full story here –

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rambling-reporter/marlon-brandos-holy-relic-rolex-hitting-auction-block-1254254

    Reply

    1. HI STEVE: Tomorrow will be my final posts for a week or so as I’m going to London to stay with my son for a brief holiday – wall-to-wall Laddie movies will of course be on offer when we are relaxing in the evenings! I’m side copying this post to WH because though he mightn’t give a hoot whether I go or stay, and whilst he feels free to come and go as he pleases, he might sulk in principle if other regular didn’t keep him informed about their absences.

      Thanks for the link; I didn’t know the watch story and that’s interesting information about Paul Newman as well. So ole Mumbles can still pull in the money even if it is just via memorabilia. I mentioned some time ago that portraits of Mr M had been auctioned off for record sums that almost equalled that fetched by visuals of Elvis.

      Such is the enormous popularity and massive cult following of the King of Rock n Roll that any performer who comes even close to him in memorabilia sales has quite a feather in his/her cap; though I’m sure that the King wouldn’t have minded Mr Mumbles coming in second to him in an auction sale as Mr M was one of Elvis’ own idols.

      I’ve mentioned how Clint Eastwood has publicly opined that the longevity of Tom Cruise in the public’s affections will outstrip that of any other movie performer present or past. Maybe Clint would consider paraphrasing his comments about Cruise to read something like the following: “`100 years from now when Joel Hirschhorn’s 1983 book has gone out of print and has been long-forgotten by the public, auction sales will still be brisk for memorabilia related to Tom, Marlon Brando, Elvis and Asta Charles.”

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob
        1. Shocked you did not know this already…..I imagine this is like finding a hidden treasure in an attic…glad you enjoy Steve’s attached link.
        2. So you are headed to London….very cool. Too bad Steve no longer lives there…or you two could do a face to face.
        3. Hope you enjoy your time there…sounds like a fun trip.
        4. As for Joel’s book…..pretty sure it is already out of print….I just requested a new copy for Christmas….my current book has some life left in it….but you always have to have a back up plan….maybe I will send Flora my duct taped Joel book this time…lol.
        Good comment…safe travels.

        Reply

        1. HI BRUCE

          Re your “back up plan It is said that taking precautions like keeping copies of something in case of mishap to the existing copy represents a subconscious psychological desire to live forever!

          Thanks for your kind wishes for my holiday. I leave on Tuesday. I will of course keep in touch with the site and play catch-up with comments when I return

          Reply

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