Want to know the best Richard Widmark movies? How about the worst Richard Widmark movies? Curious about Richard Widmark’s box office grosses or which Richard Widmark movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Richard Widmark 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.
This Richard Widmark page comes from a request from film historian Flora Robison. Richard Widmark (1914-2008) was an American actor who was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota. His career spanned over 50 years and included work in film, radio, stage and television. Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 and his debut on Broadway in 1943’s Kiss and Tell. His work on the stage earned him a seven-year movie contract with United Artists.
His first movie role was playing a giggling sociopath, in the classic Kiss of Death (1947). His most notorious scene found Udo happily pushing a wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs to her death. The role earned Widmark his only Oscar® nomination, and won him the Golden Globe® for most promising newcomer. After the success of Kiss of Death, he would work steadily until he retired at the age of 76 in 1992, primarily as a character lead. His stardom would peak around the time he played the U.S. prosecutor in 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg, but he would continue to act for another 30 years. His final role would be in the John Cusack movie…. True Colors.
His IMDb page shows 79 acting credits from 1947-1992. This page will rank Richard Widmark movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system and his straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
Richard Widmark Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Richard Widmark 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 Richard Widmark movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort Richard Widmark movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Richard Widmark movies by yearly box office rank
- Sort Richard Widmark 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 Widmark movie received.
- Sort Richard Widmark 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 Richard WidmarkTable
- Fifteen Richard Widmark movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 24.59% of his movies listed. How the West Was Won (1963) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Richard Widmark movie grosses $74.60 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 40 Richard Widmark movies are rated as good movies…or 65.57% of his movies. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is his highest rated movie while The Swarm (1978) is his lowest rated movie.
- Fifteen Richard Widmark movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 24.59% of his movies.
- Six Richard Widmark movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.83% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR)Score is 60.00. 28 Richard Widmark movies scored higher that average….or 45.90% of his movies. How the West Was Won (1963) got the the highest UMR Score while National Lampoon’s Movie Madness (1982) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Richard Widmark
1. Richard Widmark’s daughter was married to baseball legend Sandy Koufax from 1969 to 1982.
2. Richard Widmark was married to playwright Jean Hazlewood from 1942 to her death in 1997. One of the few successful Hollywood marriages.
3. Widmark Airport is located in Green City, Missouri and was named in honor of Richard Widmark. Widmark contributed funds to the construction of the airport.
4. Richard Widmark and director Robert Totten had artistic differences during the filming of 1969’s Death of a Gunfighter. Totten was replaced by Don Siegel. When the film was completed, Siegel, saying that Totten directed more of the film than he did, refused to take screen credit for it, but Widmark didn’t want Totten’s name on it. A compromise was reached whereby the film was credited to the fictitious Alan Smithee, thereby setting a precedent for directors who, for one reason or another, did not want their name on a film they made. On IMDB, Alan Smithee has over 100 projects to his name….but the first was Death of a Gunfighter.
5. Richard Widmark made three movies with Sidney Poitier…..1950’s No Way Out, 1964’s The Long Ships and 1965’s The Bedford Incident.
6. Check out Richard Widmark‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Taking A Closer Look At Richard Widmark’s Top Five Movies
5. Kiss of Death (1947) What a start to a movie career. Victor Mature was the star of the movie, but Richard Widmark stole the show. His Tommy Udo, a fiend who delights in pushing crippled wheelchair using women down stairs, is the primary reason to see this movie. Widmark based his character on The Joker from the Batman comics. Widmark would receive an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actor (his only nomination) and would win a Golden Globe® as most promising newcomer. One of my favorite quotes about Widmark in Kiss of Death….comes from writers Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton who wrote, “one will remember that nasty little creep with the wild eyes and high-pitched laugh, neurotic to the core”. Well that nasty little creep went on to make many classic movies over the next 50 years.
4. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) Judgment at Nuremberg is a fictionalized film account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trails. Widmark played prosecuting attorney Colonel Tad Lawson and is joined by another all-star cast….Spencer Tracy (nominated Best Actor), Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell (won Oscar® for Best Actor), Judy Garland (nominated Best Supporting Actress), Montgomery Clift (nominated Best Supporting Actor), William Shatner(yep Captain Kirk), and Marlene Dietrich. Movie was nominated for 11 Oscars®, including a Best Picture nomination and 2 Oscar® wins. According to critics and audiences this is Widmark’s best movie with a 86% score. – See more at: http://cogersonmoviescore.com/richard-widmark-movies-best-to-worst.html#sthash.HQW9Chp0.dpuf
3. Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Murder on the Orient Express is based on the 1934 novel by Agatha Christie. Albert Finney stars as Hercule Poirot, who is asked by his friend Bianchi, a train company director, to investigate the murder of an American business tycoon, Mr. Ratchett aboard a train with an all-star cast of suspects. That all-star cast included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Sir John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York and Anthony Hopkins. Widmark plays the very nasty Mr. Ratchett in one of my favorite Widmark roles. Movie earned 6 Oscar® nominations, including a win for Best Supporting Actress (Ingrid Bergman) and was Widmark’s 3rd biggest box office hit.
2. The Alamo (1960) By 1945 John Wayne had decided to make a movie about the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. It took Wayne 15 years to get The Alamo to the big screen. The result was one of the biggest hits of 1961 and 7 Oscar® nominations, including one for Best Picture. Wayne originally intended that Widmark should play Davy Crockett, while Wayne himself would have taken the small role of Sam Houston so he could focus his energy on directing the picture. However, Wayne was only able to get financial backing if he played one of the main parts, so he decided to play Crockett and cast Widmark as Jim Bowie. Rumor has it that Widmark was not a happy camper about the change in his roles, as he did not really want to play Jim Bowie at all.
1. How The West Was Won (1963) Talk about a big movie….an all-star cast (Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Eli Wallach and narrated by Spencer Tracy).. 3 directors (John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall)….and 5 segments that span four generations from 1839 to 1889. This western was one of the biggest hits of the 1960s, it earned 8 Oscar® nominations, including one for Best Picture. It won three Oscars®. Widmark appears as ruthless railroad man, Mike King, who violates a treaty by building on Indian territory.
Richard who?
Kidding. Good actor. I’ve seen 7 of the films in your moviescore top 10. And unless I’m wrong he was the lead actor in only one of them, Halls of Montezuma.
I mentioned this earlier in our email, one of my favourite Widmark films is The Bedford Incident, Widmark is perfect as the strictly by the book captain of a battleship who tangles with Sidney Poitier. Shades of Crimson Tide and the climax will shock. Recommended.
When Widmark was making the Hammer horror To the Devil a Daughter, he would frequently walk off the set and make disparaging remarks about the small British studio and the crew, everyone on the set hated him.
I didn’t know he had an airport named after him, good work Cogerson.
Voted Up and Useful
Now what’s keeping that Peter Lorre page? (cue Cogerson screaming) 🙂
Hey Steve…..I think you are correct…almost his entire Top 10 is supporting or shared lead roles…..you have me beat…I have only seen 8 of his 61 movies….I feel like a slacker…lol. You have me interested in The Bedford Incident…the interesting fact I picked up about that movie….was Poitier’s part was the first movie role for him were race was not a part of the script….It sounds like Widmark have more than a few movies were he had some issues….The Alamo, Death of a Gunfighter and To The Devil A Daughter seem to be the more famous ones. Peter Lorre? interesting….I can’t wait to research German box office numbers from the late 1920s and early 1930s…..lol. Thanks for the comments.
kay cogerson I’m clueless… I have no idea who this actor is. His face looks vaguely familiar but I’ve never seen any of the movies listed. Outstanding tribute page, gotta give you credit for that. Awesome! Psssst…Flora is very pleased 🙂
Hey Sunshine625, I am even more impressed that you read my hub about somebody you have no idea about….I can tell you he was a pretty good actor….played the bad guy many many times. Don’t worry some people with pulses are picking up their bats and walking towards the batter’s box….you suggested Cameron Diaz and my mom wants a Michael Douglas Hey Sunshine625, I am even more impressed that you read my hub about somebody you have no idea about….I can tell you he was a pretty good actor….played the bad guy many many times. Don’t worry some people with pulses are picking up their bats and walking towards the batter’s box….you suggested Cameron Diaz and my mom wants a Michael Douglas page….gotta keep people happy….gotta keep people happy.
Yes, I am. 🙂
Oh, how to respoond to this, my friend!
love this. Thank you. Interestin gyou don’t talk about the worst of Widmark. According to him, his worst films are The Swarm-which he did to work with Caine-and to the Devil a Daughter. My favourite genres are mystery/suspense.thriller/crime, of which film noir fits into all of these. When my Widmark fan club sent him a book of paragraphs -one per fan-to celbrate his 90th birthday on our favourite Widmark film, I chose Panic in the Streets. It is a film noir and was one of the first movies to discuss the fact that world travel means that diseases are everyone’s business.
Regarding the top ten box office and top ten reviews lists. I’ve seen most of these. However, I haven’t seen Hell and High Water or Twilight’s Last Gleaming yet.
I am glad to see that True Colors is number 55 on the final list. I hated that film. Here he is swearing all over the place. andyet as Tommy Udo he was frightening with no bad language at all. I often think swearing is a sign that the screenwriter doesn’t know what to write.
Other notes here:
The first Widmark film I saw was undoubtedly Murder on the Orient Express. I’m a big fan of Christie-which everyone who has read my profile page should know. However, I had no idea who he was and here there were movie stars galore. It is a comment on how much of a splash this movie made that even the victim was a movie star.
I first noticed him, however, when I was watching Yellow Sky opposite Peck, my ultimate favourite. In this film, Peck’s horse ran away from him while filming and bolted towards the fence. Tragedy was averted, but it left Peck with a permanent limp when his broken ankle wasn’t allowed time to heal. You can see him limp and then walk straight with no reason to the story.
Meanwhile, here I was watching the movie for Peck and yet I kept being distracted by this guy in al lblack. Who was this guy? I looked him up on imdb and discoverd that he had made alot of film noir and other crime films-genres I love. I quickly watched as many of his movies as I could find.
As with Peeck, I can’t be a fan of Richard and not watch westerns or war films. still, they tend to not be my favourites. There are some I enjoy watching.
I had to smile about How the west Was Won doing so well. Fellow Widmark fans who aren’t fans of Peck, Stewart, or westerns in general don’t count this as one of their favourites. Widmark’s screen time is small.
Thankis again. I seem to have written an essay.
You are very welcome Flora, it probably would have taken me awhile before I would have decided to do a Widmark hub, but I enjoy doing some of the older actors I am not as familiar with…it is a great learning experience for me.
Actually when reading your comment I noticed that I had forgotten to include the box office gross for The Long Ships…which moved it from #54 to #43rd…..which moved the Swarm down another spot. So my movie score pretty much puts his personal worst movies near the bottom.
Panic in the Street surprised the studio because it did not fare as well at the box office, but it is a great film
I have to admit I have not seen Kiss of Death….but it is on my list of movies to see. That is interesting story about Widmark taking your attention away from Peck in Yellow Sky. The same thing happened to me last year in Red…I watched it for Bruce Willis….yet Karl Urban kept gaining my attention….then I IMDB Urban and was stunned by all the movies he had already made.
I agree Widmark has a small part in How the West Was Won….but he was used in the marketing of the movie….and all his biography information seems to list that movie as one of his main ones….so I left it on the list versus listing it as a cameo. Well it sounds like you enjoyed the hub….so mission accomplished. Also is sounds like you need to watch Twilight’s Last Gleaming and Hell and High Water. Thanks for commenting.
this is a great site
Thank you debbie
Richard Widmark was a very good actor. I believe that he lived to the age of 92!!! Great news that he had such a long marriage. CONGRATS TO THEM BOTH. So many of his films are classics – Broken Lance was a good movie but he was somewhat of a stinker in that one. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
Hey BERN1960….I agree with you….I will have to check out Broken Lance in the near future