Want to know the best Richard Lester movies? How about the worst Richard Lester movies? Curious about Richard Lester box office grosses or which Richard Lester movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Richard Lester movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Richard Lester (1932-) is an American director. Born Richard Lester Liebman, he is known for his work with the Beatles in the 1960s, his 1970s Musketeer movies and his work on the Superman movie franchise. His IMDB page shows 33 directing credits from 1954 to 1991. This page will rank Richard Lester movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles, and movies that were not released in North American were not included in the rankings.
Richard Lester Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
| Year | Movie (Year) | Rating | S |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Movie (Year) | Rating | S |
| 1964 | A Hard Day's Night (1964) Director |
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| 1980 | Superman II (1980) | |
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| 1973 | The Three Musketeers (1973) |  |
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| 1965 | Help! (1965) | |
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| 1974 | The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) | |
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| 1983 | Superman III (1983) |  |
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| 1966 | A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) | |
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| 1968 | Petulia (1968) |  |
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| 1965 | The Knack... and How to Get It (1965) |  |
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| 1976 | Robin and Marian (1976) | |
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| 1976 | The Ritz (1976) | |
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| 1975 | Royal Flash (1975) | |
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| 1974 | Juggernaut (1974) |  |
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| 1989 | The Return of the Musketeers (1989) | |
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| 1963 | The Mouse on the Moon (1963) | |
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| 1979 | Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) | |
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| 1969 | The Bed Sitting Room (1969) | |
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| 1962 | Ring-A-Ding Rhythm!/It's A Trad Dad (1962) | |
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| 1967 | How I Won the War (1967) |  |
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| 1984 | Finders Keepers (1984) | |
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| 1979 | Cuba (1979) |  |
Richard Lester 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 any way you want.
- Sort Richard Lester movies by his co-stars
- Sort Richard Lester movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Richard Lester movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Richard Lester 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 Richard Lester movie received.
- Sort Richard Lester movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
| R | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) | Review | Oscar Nom / Win | UMR Score | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | Movie (Year) | UMR Co-Star Links | Actual B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Domestic (mil) | Adj. B.O. Worldwide (mil) | B.O. Rank by Year | Review | Oscar Nom / Win | UMR Score | S |
| 2 | A Hard Day's Night (1964) Director |
The Beatles | 16.20 | 185.3 | 185.30 | 9 | 89 | 02 / 00 | 98.5 | |
| 1 | Superman II (1980) | Gene Hackman & Christopher Reeve |
111.20 | 461.1 | 965.00 | 3 | 86 | 00 / 00 | 98.4 | |
| 3 | The Three Musketeers (1973) | Charlton Heston & Faye Dunaway |
34.60 | 211.0 | 211.00 | 10 | 78 | 00 / 00 | 97.0 | |
| 4 | Help! (1965) | The Beatles | 16.20 | 171.4 | 171.40 | 14 | 79 | 00 / 00 | 95.0 | |
| 5 | The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) | Michael York & Raquel Welch |
26.60 | 153.1 | 153.10 | 24 | 74 | 01 / 00 | 92.3 | |
| 7 | Superman III (1983) | Christopher Reeve & Richard Pryor |
60.00 | 205.2 | 379.60 | 13 | 39 | 00 / 00 | 84.9 | |
| 6 | A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) | Zero Mostel & Phil Silvers |
8.50 | 83.3 | 83.30 | 36 | 74 | 01 / 01 | 84.7 | |
| 8 | Petulia (1968) | Julie Christie & George C. Scott |
4.30 | 35.3 | 35.30 | 73 | 78 | 00 / 00 | 76.8 | |
| 9 | The Knack... and How to Get It (1965) | Rita Tushingham | 4.20 | 44.3 | 44.30 | 62 | 67 | 00 / 00 | 68.0 | |
| 10 | Robin and Marian (1976) | Sean Connery & Audrey Hepburn |
8.80 | 44.5 | 44.50 | 63 | 60 | 00 / 00 | 58.6 | |
| 12 | The Ritz (1976) | Jack Weston & Rita Moreno |
7.60 | 38.3 | 38.30 | 68 | 58 | 00 / 00 | 51.9 | |
| 11 | Royal Flash (1975) | Malcolm McDowell & Oliver Reed |
1.60 | 8.4 | 8.40 | 125 | 68 | 00 / 00 | 51.7 | |
| 14 | Juggernaut (1974) | Richard Harris & Omar Sharif |
4.50 | 26.2 | 26.20 | 66 | 56 | 00 / 00 | 39.4 | |
| 13 | The Return of the Musketeers (1989) | Oliver Reed & Christopher Lee |
0.00 | 0.1 | 0.10 | 234 | 64 | 00 / 00 | 37.5 | |
| 15 | The Mouse on the Moon (1963) | Margaret Rutherford | 0.40 | 5.4 | 5.40 | 129 | 62 | 00 / 00 | 37.0 | |
| 17 | Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) | William Katt & Tom Berenger |
5.10 | 22.1 | 22.10 | 81 | 56 | 00 / 00 | 34.8 | |
| 16 | The Bed Sitting Room (1969) | Ralph Richardson & Dudley Moore |
0.70 | 5.0 | 5.00 | 151 | 61 | 00 / 00 | 34.3 | |
| 18 | Ring-A-Ding Rhythm!/It's A Trad Dad (1962) | John Leyton | 0.30 | 5.0 | 5.00 | 136 | 59 | 00 / 00 | 30.1 | |
| 19 | How I Won the War (1967) | John Lennon | 1.20 | 11.1 | 11.10 | 130 | 55 | 00 / 00 | 27.2 | |
| 20 | Finders Keepers (1984) | Louis Gossett Jr. | 1.50 | 4.7 | 4.70 | 148 | 56 | 00 / 00 | 24.2 | |
| 21 | Cuba (1979) | Sean Connery & Brooke Adams |
5.30 | 22.6 | 22.60 | 79 | 43 | 00 / 00 | 12.7 |
Check out Richard Lester’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
the Gimme More’s should read the Gimme Mores
Zivago is wrong and Zhivago is correct.
Apologies – and regrets as I don’t like a keen teaching-scholar [indeed our own Scholar Gipsy] such as WH seeing me make spelling, punctuation or grammar mistake
Hey Bob…sorry that I have yet fixed the “edit” box on the comments….working on it….sadly during a recent run, I screwed my knee up….so I am limited with things I can do….so being on a computer…is one of the things I can still do….so maybe I can figure out what is wrong with that widget and get it back up and running.
“sadly during a recent run, I screwed my knee up.”
Sorry to hear about that WH so I hope you get well soon. Meanwhile maybe this wee old-time classic song this will cheer you up:
Knees up Mother Brown!
Knees up Mother Brown!
Under the table you must go
Ye I Ye I Ye I Yo!
Oh dear isn’t it a shame
To think that mother Brown
Will never dance again!
As I get older and older….the more I think about Bette Davis line about getting older….“Getting old ain’t for sissies.”…lol. Thanks for the good wishes.
Unlike guys such as the Work Horse [who probably sent the Gimme More’s flowers on their wedding day and then Get Well Soon cards when they divorced] I don’t buy into EVERYTHING connected with those that I idolise/admire. Accordingly whilst I liked and indeed collected the music of The Beatles I didn’t consider them movie stars so I have never watched the famous Hard Day’s Night movie.
Indeed, I have seen only 3 of the movies that WH lists above: Juggernaut which I love and have watched several times and his two Superman movies. Superman 2 was OK and I enjoyed it when I took my 5-year-old son to see it all those years ago; but Supe 3 was for me a huge bore which probably needed Brando to come back and liven it up – for another exorbitant fee of course.
Both Hard Day’s Night and The Knack are classed as “Kitchen Sink” dramas along with Burton’s Look Back in Anger/Tom Courtenay’s Billy Liar/Sir Maurice Micklewhite’s Alfie/and probably Lester’s lesser-know The Bed Sitting Room.
Kitchen Sink dramas formed a cultural wave of movies/stage plays/novels/TV presentations that swept Britain in the late 1950s and the 1960s and for a while were the whole rage over here.
The Knack’s Rita Tushingham was a Kitchen Sink Queen who also starred in A Taste of Honey which too is considered a Kitchen Sink classic [banned in some countries] and Lester’s The Bed Sitting Room which is also depressing Kitchen Sink stuff.***
Still Rita achieved stardom over here for a while on the strength of her Kitchen Sink exploits and even landed a role with star-billing in the epic classic Dr Zivago along with her Kitchen Sink soulmate Tom Courtenay.
The stories were called “Kitchen Sink” because they were bleak tales set in English town and cities where the women stayed at home and “slaved over a hot stove and a kitchen sink all day”. Richard Lester was a big part of the Kitchen Sink era.
***How’s this for a feelgood plot for our own Coronovirus times ? “The Bed Sitting Room is set in post-nuclear-holocaust England, where a handful of bizarre characters struggle on with their lives in the ruins, amongst endless heaps of ash, piles of broken crockery and brick, muddy plains, and heaps of dentures and old boots. Patriotically singing ‘God Save the Queen’, they wander through this surrealistic landscape.”
Hey Bob. Good feedback on our Richard Lester page. Tally count: Dan destroys everybody with a perfect 21, Steve has seen 13 of his movies, I have seen 8, Flora sits at 7…while our 3 rounds out the tallies. A couple parts of your comment surprise me…..not seeing the Beatle movies and even more shocking….avoiding not one but two Chuck Heston movies? I would have thought for sure Lester’s two 1970s Musketeer movies would have been watched by you. Good information on the Kitchen Sink dramas…and their meaning…I had not heard of that before. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
HI BIG BOY: As always comprehensive feedback and advice from you are valued.
The chief male protagonist of the Kitchen Sink dramas was the Angry Young Man and he became almost an obligatory character in British plays in the late-1950s and 1960s. Burton’s Jimmy Porter was an Angry Young Man; hence the title of Richard’s 1959 film Look Back in Anger from the 1956 play of the same name by John Osborne. Perhaps though Richard at even just 34 was a shade too old to play the type of character that Osborne’s play had in mind and Al Leach or Randolph Scott should have been given the role
I see from your charts that whilst the Beatles’ phenomenal popularity worldwide at the time made big hits in US/Canada out of Hard Day’s Night and Help Lester’s other Kitchen Sink dramas such as The Knack and Bed Sitting Room did poorly.
That does not surprise me because the Kitchen Sink films are full of “losers” and as one film historian over here has remarked Americans don’t like losers.” That tag often confuses UK/Irish audiences as we find it difficult over here to understand how a man/woman – whatever his/her profession – who satisfactorily supports and successfully brings up often a large family can be seen as a “loser”.
That many Americans do not feel that way is evidenced by the fact that Steptoe and Son was a popular and later cult long-running TV series whose central character were two impoverished guys who collected around the streets and sold rags, scrap metal even horse droppings. The series was so successful that the Yanks bought the rights – but made the two characters a stockbroker and his son!
However nevertheless I can emphasise with my American fellow-moviegoers any dislike they had of the kitchen sink movies because for me they were an unbearably bleak lot and the only one classed as Kitchen Sink that I did like was Alfie 1966.
Sir Maurice’s Angry Young Man Alfie was probably unique in its day. Instead of getting drunk in pubs and making a perpetual loud nuisance of himself via arguments, violence etc Alfie [or so the cultural experts tell us] shields himself against his working-class imprisonment as he saw it by becoming a cynical and sarcastic sexual predator who preyed romantically on middle-aged housewives and very young girls alike.
“There was this young-lady I used to visit when her young man was away at his body-building classes,” we are wryly told by Alfie who is seen in the movie running AWAY from a fight! Incidentally and coincidentally within the Richard Lester context one of Alfie’s conquests in the movie was the then 20-year-old actress Jane Asher who had a 5-year relationship with Beatle Paul McCartney.
That tour-de-force by Sir Maurice along with Zulu and Ipcress File established not just his versatility as an actor but probably cemented his position as the biggest British star of post classic era films alongside Sir Sean Connery. Accordingly Sir M will have been the biggest star to have emerged from a Kitchen Sink movie.
Hey Bob….thanks for the further detailed information on the Kitchen Sink genre…as well as a fresh look at Sir Mike. I just added his Twist to the database…..that will not go down as one of the great Caine movies. His Best Sellers will be coming to theaters soon. He is like the Energizer Bunny…he just keeps going and going.
I have seen 7 Richard Lester movies.
The HIGHEST rated movie I have seen is A Hard Day’s Night.
The highest rated movie I have NOT seen is Superman II.
The LOWEST rated movie I have seen is The Ritz.
Favourite Richard Lester Movies:
A Hard Day’s Night
The Three Musketeers
The Four Musketeers
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Other Richard Lester Movies I Have Seen:
Petulia
Robin and Marion
The Ritz
Hey Flora….thanks for the feedback on our Richard Lester page. Tally count: Dan in the lead with 21…as he has seen every single Lester movie, Steve in 2nd place with 13 and then me at 8 and you at 7. I have seen 3 of your 4 favorites…I have not seen Forum. I have seen 2 of your “others”…I have not even heard of The Ritz. Petulia is considered a cult classic….but I did not like that one at all. Good stuff as always.
I had to google – Richard Lester’s still alive! And let’s hope he remains among the living after you’ve started a UMR tribute to him. I remember what happened to Charles Grodin and Ned Beatty. I’m kidding! 🙂
I’ve seen 13 of the 21 films on the chart, favorites are – Superman II & III, Three Musketeers I & II, A Hard Day’s Night, Help! and… that’s about it.
Superman II tops the UMR and box office chart, Hard Day’s Night no.1 on the critics chart. No probs with that.
Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!
Hey Steve…..alive and well…currently…Richard Roundtree is still around and he got an UMR page after our Beatty/Grodin bad luck run. Your tally has me beat 13 to 8. I have seen A Hard Day’s Night….but not Help!. But I have seen all of your other favorites. Superman 2 is awesome, I love his first two Musketeer movies…not thinking I was even aware of the last one…maybe I should check that one out. Superman 3 is not very good in my book. I love Richard Pryor….but not in that movie. Thanks for the feedback.
When Richard Donner died about a week ago….I remembered how I got Donner and Richard Lester mixed up when I was younger (Superman 2 did not help that confusion at all). I would have guess Lester was the older of the two….but in fact…Donner was two years older. I was happy to see that Lester was still around (though he has not made a movie in 30 years)….so I figured I should get an UMR page on him as well. My tally count? 8 movies for me.