Want to know the best Montgomery Clift movies? How about the worst Montgomery Clift movies? Curious about Montgomery Clift’s box office grosses or which Montgomery Clift movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Montgomery Clift movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
When I recently got a request to do a Montgomery Clift (1920-1966) Ultimate Movie Rankings page I was somewhat surprised that he had not appeared in that many movies in his career. He might not have made many movies….but many of the ones he made have become all time great movies. From 1948’s Red River to 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg….Montgomery Clift left a legacy of great screen performances.
His IMDb page only shows 18 acting credits from 1948-1966. This page will rank 17 Montgomery Clift movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. His television movie Hay Fever was not included in the rankings.
Montgomery Clift Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Montgomery Clift 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 Montgomery Clift’s co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Montgomery Clift movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort Montgomery Clift movies by their yearly box office rank
- Sort Montgomery Clift 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 Montgomery Clift movie received.
- Sort Montgomery Clift 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 Montgomery Clift Table
- Nine Montgomery Clift movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 52.94% of his movies listed. From Here To Eternity (1953) was his biggest hit.
- An average Montgomery Clift movie earned $138.10 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 12 of Montgomery Clift’s movies are rated as good movies…or 70.58% of his movies. Red River (1948) was his highest rated movie while The Defector (1966) was his lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Montgomery Clift movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 64.70% of his movies.
- Five Montgomery Clift’s movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 29.41% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 12 Montgomery Clift movies scored higher that average….or 70.58% of his movies. From Here To Eternity (1953) got the the highest UMR Score while The Defector (1966) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Montgomery Clift
1. Edward Montgomery Clift was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He was born minutes after his twin sister. He went by the nickname “Monty” his entire life.
2. Montgomery Clift’s path to stardom. Clift appeared on Broadway at the age of 13. Despite some Hollywood interest, Clift decided to stick with the theater and hone his acting skills. In 1947 he decided to give Hollywood a chance.
3. Montgomery Clift first movie was the classic John Wayne western Red River (1948). When Red River was delayed….Clift’s The Search (1948) actually hit theaters first. He would earn a Best Actor Oscar® nomination for that role.
4. Montgomery Clift was nominated for 4 acting Oscar® nominations. 1948’s The Search, 1951’s A Place in the Sun, 1953’s From Here To Eternity and 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg.
5. Montgomery Clift turned down these movies: Sunset Blvd (1950), East of Eden (1955), The Trouble With Harry (1955), Friendly Persuasion (1956), and Moby Dick (1956).
6. Montgomery Clift was great friends with Elizabeth Taylor. They made three movies together….1951’s A Place In The Sun, 1957’s Raintree Country and 1959’s Suddenly, Last Summer. During the filming of Raintree Country, he ran his Chevrolet into a tree after leaving a party at Taylor’s house; it was she who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in his throat. Clift was about to appear opposite Taylor for a 4th time in 1967’s Reflections in a Golden Eye but he passed away before filming started.
7. Even though Montgmory Clift’s career was during an era when many movies were filmed in color, fourteen of his movies were filmed in black and white. That gives Clift and James Dean the same number of color movies (three). That could explain why Dean is more of a modern icon than Clift. These astute observations come from a comment from John.
8. Montgomery Clift movies earned a total of 57 Oscar® nominations. That is an average of 3.35 Oscar® nominations per movie. Of the 100s of actors and actresses that I have done pages on…that is the highest average I have come across. Actually in my entire database….only directors Steven Spielberg and James Cameron have better Oscar® nominations per movie averages.
9. Marilyn Monroe said of Montgomery Clift…..”the only person I know who is in worse shape than I am.” Monroe and Clift appeared together in The Misfits (1961).
10. In 1966 Montgomery Clift passed away at the age of 45. The official cause of death was a heart attack. On the night of his death The Misfits was playing on television. His companion/aide asked if he wanted to watch it….Clift responded….”absolutely not”….those were his last words spoken. I think those words can answer this question….Will Montgomery Clift will be forgotten?…..”absolutely not”.
10A. I found this Monty Clift hub from Hub Pages’ Discovery2020….an interesting read. Just follow this link to Montgomery Clift the Actors’ Actor
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
I love all of Monty’s movies . I find something new and exciting in his movies everytime I watch them and I’ve watched all of his movies many times! His appeal as an actor is difficult to describe you just have to experience it. I’m a true fan of Monty and I always will be.
Hey Linda….glad to see a huge Montgomery Clift fan found my Clift tribute page. Hopefully you found lots of interesting information in the page/table. Not matter which way you sort the information….there is lots of good stuff for each of his movies.
I read that Monty was in such demand in the 50s that dozens of hopeful producers used to leave scripts outside his apartment when they couldn’t contact him. It is said that one night he came home and had to fight his way into the apartment because of the scripts piled high on the doorsteps.
That is an interesting story. Almost sounds like the way Bill Murray is today. Seems only a few people contact Murray….and that they leave scripts in strange places….like Office Max and Office Depot…..as he does not have an agent and does not stay home very much. The man is walking Nomad.
I love all of Monty’s movies. I find something that I hadn’t noticed thats new and exciting every time I watch one of his movies again. I’m a true Monty fan and always will be.
Great comment. Linda….thanks for stopping by.
Hi, Bruce.
I decided to write next about Montgomery Clift from the names you gave me from before.
I have also looked up your other categories and have added directors Howard Hawkes, Stanley Kubrick, George Roy Hill as well as Roger Ebert’s favourites as past pages for me to check out.
I’ve seen all of Clift’s films which he did with best friend Elizabeth Taylor.
I have also seen all 4 of Clift’s films for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
The highest ranking film I have seen is #1 From Here to Eternity.
The lowest ranking film I have seen is #13: Freud.
However, in terms of your ranking:
I have seen all of his top 5.
I have seen all of his top 10.
I have seen 12 of his films overall.
The highest ranking film I have *not* seen is Wild River.
My top 5 Clift films are;
From Here to Eternity
A Place in the Sun
I Confess
The Heiress
The Misfits
Of the films I have not seen, I am most interested in Lonelyhearts because of Myra loy and Lonely River because of Lee Remick.
Cheers,
Flora
Hey Flora….first let’s see the tally count…Flora 12…me 8….and Steve 6….surprised I have Steve beat…not surprised that I do not have you beat. I have seen 8 of his Top 10…with The Search (I want to see) and Raintree Country being the missing ones. Freud is another one I want to see….as I like John Huston as well.
I like your Top 5 with the exception of the Misfits….despite the cast, the screenwriter and the director…I was very disappointed in this movie. Maybe a second viewing will be better….but currently I really did not like that movie. Red River would easily bump The Misfits out my Top 5. Elizabeth Taylor never looked prettier than she did in A Place In The Sun. I found their (Taylor/Clift) Suddenly Last Summer….a very long and a very boring movie experience.
Thanks for continuing to catch up. When I left HubPages….I really slowed up when it comes to producing new pages….but with this new website….putting these pages together is much easier….so I find myself producing movie pages at a pretty good clip.
Bruce;
TCM is airing a day of Clift films, so I am recording a couple of his that I haven’t seen to watch later – 14 and 16.
Regarding my top 5:
There are two ways to look at a film when trying to list your favourites of a particular actor among the films you have seen. You can look at the actor himself or at the overall film. Disregarding what type of movie you personally enjoy, there are some films there are important to see at least once-Judgement at Nuremberg is a perfect example of what I mean. It is not an enjoyable film.
I found when trying to pick five movies of the Clift films I had seen, picking a fifth was difficult. A lot of his films made after his accident are difficult to watch because of his accident and how much he believed no one would love him because he was no longer beautiful.
Although I have seen Raintree Countee and is an important film to see, I’m sad the whole time I watch it.
Red River is one of the rather large number of John Wayne westerns I have seen in the last two years because of his costars. Ultimately I chose The Misfits because there was a bigger number of his costars I admired in The Misfits than Red River.
Flora Breen Robison
Hey Flora….thanks for TCM update on the Clift day. Those two movies are hard to find…..I should figure out how to use my DVR so I can see them too. I agree with you about Judgement at Nuremberg…..it is kind of like Schlinder’s List…..which was a one and done movie for me. It needs to be seen….but it is not a fun movie to watch.
The Misfits without a doubt has a cast of legends compared to Red River. Poor Eli Wallach….he barely gets mentioned when that Misfits comes up….but his part in that movie is pretty big. Thanks for clarifications on how you pick your Top 5.
Why do I always spell County as Countee when I type for Raintree County? Arrr. I know it is because I have just written Rain TREE and I am just repeating myself but I keep doing it.
I saw another Clift film new to me last night: Indiscretion of An American Wife with Jennifer Jones. Well, I can see why it was listed down at the bottom but it was new to me. Not sure when I will see The Big Lift, but I have a copy of it recorded.
Flora
You can spell it anyway you want. Sorry An American Wife was not very good. Maybe one of the few Clift movies that is actually not very good….those are hard to find.
Of all the post war stars, I think Monty was one of the best. I loved him in A Place in the Sun and The Misfits. In fact I enjoyed him more than Brando. I think he would have been great in Sunset Boulevard, sad that he died so young but he left a fantastic body of work.
Hey Chris… I think he was better than Brando….Brando’s Top 3 are Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront and The Godfather. Ok I love the Godfather….he is good in On The Waterfront….but I really do not like him in Streetcar. Monty’s Top 3 are Red River, From Here To Eternity and Place In The Sun…..while none of his Top 3 take out The Godfather…..they are a better collection than Brando’s Top 3. Then if you compare them when they appeared in the same movie…The Young Lions…..Clift outshines Brando in that one too! 45 is way too young to pass away…I can only imagine the roles he would have gotten if he could have lived longer.
I met Monty years ago while studying with Sanford Mesiner where his brother Brooks did as well.
It was at a bar on Third Avenue and he was so funny, getting behind the bar and being the bartender. Joking and fun to know – briefly. This was shortly after Place In The Sun opened. But no one made a big deal over him, just enjoyed his company.
I loved The Search, Place in the Sun, I Confess and The Heiress. Loved the others as well but these four are my favorites.
Hey Guil F. Thanks for sharing your Monty memory. That sounds like it was a very memorable experience. Glad to hear Monty was having fun….it seems that those moments were not too plentiful in his life. It seems that whenever I do one of these pages….that at least one movie hits my “must watch” list. In this case The Search is that movie. I have heard his performance is one of his best…and the Academy even gave the kid in the movie a Special Oscar. Thanks for stopping by and for checking out my Monty page.
For me, all of his movies are worth watching, just because he’s in them, but I agree with your top choices. I especially like The Search. Saw it when it came out, when I didn’t know who he was. He was so natural & guileless, I thought at first he was a real soldier. He should have won the Academy Award for that!
Hey Harriet….thanks for stopping by and commenting. I still have not been able to track down The Search….but it is very high on my list of movies to watch. I have seen the rest of your Top 4….and those three are excelllent movies….which makes me want to see The Search even more.