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.
Just love me some Montgomery Clift and out of the seventeen films listed on this page., I have seen twelve of them. Monty TRULY DESERVED all the Oscar nominations he got because THE SEARCH, A PLACE IN THE SUN, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG are all truly great movies and he was BRILLIANT in all of them. Personally, I think Mr. Clift should have WON THE OSCAR for FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. A PLACE IN THE SUN is easily the best of three films that Monty made with Liz Taylor as his co-star as far as i’m concerned. I consider RAINTREE COUNTY to be a bad knockoff of GONE WITH THE WIND while SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER was basically a piece of junk from Tennessee Williams who I consider to be rather one note playwright who is vastly overrated in my humble opinion. Personally, I would have loved to have seen Monty work with such great actresses as Doris Day, Susan Hayward, and Judy Holliday but I guess that it just wasn’t meant to be. Other Montgomery Clift movies I have enjoyed over the years include RED RIVER, I CONFESS, and THE YOUNG LIONS.
Hey Greg
1. Thanks for coming back and checking out some of your favorites on our website.
2. Only 12? I figured you might be a Clift completist….lol.
3. I agree with you that he deserved all of those nominations….which is an incredible % for the small amount of movies he made.
4. My Danny Peary book Alternative Oscar agrees with you about his performance in From Here To Eternity….as that was his selection for that year.
5. I agree with you 100% about Suddenly, Last Summer…..I am not a fan of any of the Tennessee Williams movies.
6. Clift’s career was impressive…..but it will always be attached to a “What if” label…..what if he had not had that accident…..what if he had not passed away so soon….what if he was not battling personal demons.
Good comment.
Montgomery Clift is one of my all time favorite actors. Nothing new to discover, since I’ve seen all of his movies.I like the ones of his early years most- The Search, Red River, A Place in the Sun (another Sylvia Sidney Connection, since she played the Shelley Winters Part in American Tragedy), and of course From here to Eternity, the European cut of Indescretion of an American Wife and The Heiress. That doesn’t mean I don’t like his later ones- a wonderful performance in Judgement at Nuremberg and an unforgettably poignant scene, head in Marilyn’s lap, in the Misfits. I have to revisit The Young Lions, since I can hardly remember that movie. Clift had some pretty descent box office hits in his career, and I doubt I’ve ever seen him giving a bad performance. Compared to James Dean, he does not have the cult following he would truly deserve, but then Dean died at the height of his career. One can only speculate what might have happened if Liz wouldn’t have been there to save him that night. After the accident, his youthful beauty was gone, and his already heavy use of drugs and alcohol increased…thus Marilyn’s famous quote. Thank you for this informative page of Monty and for giving me the chance to share some thoughts on him.
Hey Lupino great comments on Montgomery Clift. I have seen all the movies you mentioned with the exception of The Search…..which is very high on my list of movies to watch. The Oscar people gave the boy in that movie a special Oscar for his performance.
The Liz saving Monty story is a very famous one for sure. As for The Young Lions….it is a decent movie….though sadly Brando’s part is told apart from the Martin, Clift storyline…so they are rarely on screen together.
Glad you found another of your favorites here…future classic pages will be Clifton Webb, Donna Reed and Howard Keel. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Monty.
just something I noticed and found surprising, so I will mention it.
Clift’s career ran from 1948 to 1966. A lot of films during this time were being shot in color.
But of Clift’s 17 films, only three were in color, I think. Raintree County, Wild River, and The Defector.
Just surprised me.
James Dean had a one year career and made as many color movies. I wonder if this has something with Dean being more of a modern icon than Clift.
This never occurred to me before. Good observation John.
BOB
Hey Bob….I agree with you 100% on thinking John’s observation was so interesting.
Hey John…..excellent observations…..it is so excellent….that I am going to include it in the interesting facts part of the page….of course giving you credit.
Hey John…your comment is now possibly interesting fact #7…thanks again.
Hello Bob, how’s Bruce, has Hurricane Hillary subsided yet, or is it Hurricane Donald? I can never remember.
I was expecting A Place in the Sun to get better ratings than what I found, 8 out of 10 was the highest score and that was from our own home grown Radio Times reviewer, you would think the Yankee Americanos would think more highly of that film than we do, it barely made the top 10 on Bruce’s critics chart. It’s an American tragedy I tells ya! 🙂
I’ve only ever seen a dim soft focus copy of Raintree County, it’s not a great movie but I’d still love to get my hands on a high definition edition.
I wasn’t going to bother with James Dean, only three films, than I thought what about the bit parts he played and a couple of bios and I’ve got myself a top 10.
I think Brando’s video has more posters and stills than my previous top 30s, and it’s because I had so many images here to choose from, I was spoilt for choice.
What I do is turn the music off, ignore the ratings, sit back and just ogle the poster artwork. 🙂
Cheers,
Steve.
1 No further stirrings of of Our Leader in the Recent Comments box and last I heard he was hiding out somewhere reading some crap cyclopedia that doesn’t mention Joan Crawford. My father would insist that he had concocted the book himself as any reliable historical movie source that doesn’t mention my Joan is like a self-proclaimed definitive music anthology that ignores Elvis or the Beatles or Operatic history that ignores the Great Caruso.
2 I am glad you DID produce a Dean video as despite its brevity it still has some good stuff in it, especially those Giant graphics. Thanks for backchat.
Hey Bob….I still find it interesting that Bette made the cut and Joan did not…..and I do not have a horse in that race….as I think they are about equal…and both are legends. Just so you know…Cary Grant made it…lol.
Hey Steve….I think hurricane season is now over….especially since it is getting very cold now….and as you know hurricanes need warm water to be created.
Place In The Sun might have been penalized back in the day for being so “unlike” other movies…I mean Clift gets Shelley Winters pregnant and they were not married…..then falls in love with Elizabeth Taylor (who would not) and then tries and solve his Winters problem….not many mainstream movies had a hero like Clift in that one.
Very cool look behind the scene of your videos.
1 In the 1950s Clift, Brando and Dean were regarded as the greatest of professional soul mates so when I saw that some of your very latest videos related to that trio I watched all 3 of them in one sitting. What each video had in common was of course those tremendous iconic posters and I am always surprised at how many of them are completely new to me, in Brando’s case the most impressive fresh ones being those for Sayonara and Mutiny on the Bounty
CLIFT
2 He made only 17 movies and you’ve included them all and think you’ve got right the overall Top 10 so that whilst I might juggle a few of your individual placings the only comment that I would make is that I would have had as No 2 A Place in the Sun – “The greatest film ever made about America.” – Charles Chaplin. Our Leader’s audience/critic scores are so varied from your own ratings that it would be too protracted to list all differences so I’ll just mention that The Heiress is his No 1. However you got your revenge a few posts ago by telling him in effect that you didn’t give a hoot about what gross he had attributed to that movie ! ! I love the poster for Red River but the one for Raintree County was I thought especially stunning even by your high standards.
DEAN
3 To paraphrase Winston Churchill “Never has so much fuss been made over one person by so many people for producing so little work.” You certainly put your own creative powers into overdrive to come up with 11 entries ! I knew about the Sailor Beware cameo but most of the other stuff outside his Big 3 was unknown to me and you have provided a fine range of graphics for Giant so well done.
BRANDO
4 I’ll do a separate post on your Mumbles vid as I don’t think that any one page could sustain the power of all 3 of those guys on it ! BOB