Robert Taylor Movies

Robert Taylor in 1951's Quo Vadis
Robert Taylor in 1951’s Quo Vadis

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

Robert Taylor (1911-1969) was an American film and television actor who was one of the most popular leading men of his time. His IMDb page shows 79 acting credits from 1934 to 1969. This page will rank 68 Robert Taylor movies.  Movies will be ranked from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters in North America were not included in the rankings.

Drivel part of the page:  Recently Marcel G. sent us a wonderful comment, saying….(1) he had been coming to our website for years (2) how amazing our website was and (3) that it was lacking a Robert Taylor page.  So after reading his comment….we did a quick check on Mr. Taylor’s career and realized that we not only had domestic box office numbers (thank you MGM) on most of his movies….but also we had worldwide box office numbers on 60 of his movies.  Amazingly we were able to put together, write and publish this page in less than 90 minutes.  For comparison…please know we spent almost two months working (because Paramount kept horrible records) on our Bing Crosby page.  So Marcel….here is your requested Robert Taylor page.

Robert Taylor and Irene Dunne in 1935's Magnificent Obsession
Robert Taylor and Irene Dunne in 1935’s Magnificent Obsession

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

Robert Taylor 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 Robert Taylor movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Robert Taylor movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Robert Taylor movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Robert Taylor 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 Robert Taylor movie received.
  • Sort Robert Taylor 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 Robert Taylor Table

  1. Thirty-two Robert Taylor movie crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 47.06% of his movies listed. Quo Vadis (1951) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average Robert Taylor movie grosses $106.000 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  36 of Robert Taylor’s movies are rated as good movies…or 52.94% of his movies.  Camille (1936) was his highest rated movie while Valley Of The Kings (1954) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Fifteen Robert Taylor movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 22.05% of his movies.
  5. Two Robert Taylor movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 2.94% of his movies.
  6. An good Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00.  44 Robert Taylor movie scored higher that average….or 64.70% of his movies. Quo Vadis (1951) got the the highest UMR Score while Savage Pampas (1966) got the lowest UMR Score.
Ava Gardner & Robert Taylor in 1953's Knights of the Round Table
Ava Gardner & Robert Taylor in 1953’s Knights of the Round Table

Possibly Interesting Facts About Robert Taylor

1.Spangler Arlington Brugh was born in Filley, Nebraska in 1911.  After signing a 7 year contract with MGM…they give him Robert Taylor as his screen name.

2. Robert Taylor was a track star and played the cello in his high school orchestra.  Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona College.  In 1932 he was spotted by a MGM scout while appearing in a play at Pomona.  By 1935 he was a movie star.

3. During World War II, Robert Taylor was a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps.  He also directed 17 United States Navy training films during World War II.

4. Robert Taylor and Clark Gable were great friends. Taylor was one of the pallbearers at Gable’s funeral in November 1960.

5. Robert Taylor never received a Oscar® or Golden Globe nomination during his entire career.

6. Robert Taylor’s favorite movie he starred in was 1940’s Waterloo Bridge….with 1936’s Camille being his second favorite.  Greta Garbo was his favorite co-star.

7. Robert Taylor’s nicknames included: The Man with the Perfect Profile”, Arly, Bob and The New King.  He was called the New King when Clark Gable left MGM in 1953.

8.  Robert Taylor was married two times. His first marriage was to actress Barbara Stanwyck.  They were married from 1939 to 1951.  His second marriage was to actress Ursula Thiess from 1954 to his death in 1969.  They had two children.

9. Robert Taylor owned a house in Mandeville Canyon, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.  That in itself is not so interesting…however the house known as the Robert Taylor Ranch is a 34-room home situated on 112 acres.  At one point it was on sell for only $45 million!

10.  Check out Robert Taylor‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.  His 30 $100 Million Dollar Movies is one of the best totals of all-time.

Steve’s Robert Taylor You Tube Video

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76 thoughts on “Robert Taylor Movies”

  1. I remember seeing Three Comrades and A Yank at Oxford together in 1979 at the Regency Theater, a revival house on 67th and Broadway in Manhattan. They were doing a salute to MGM for a couple of months. Also saw Waterloo Bridge then. My favorite Robert Taylor film is Quo Vadis

    Reply

    1. Hey Dan. Very cool. Seeing old movies on the big screen is awesome. Glad you got to see some of Taylor’s best movies that way. Glad that your favorite RT movie top our rankings.

      Reply

  2. Robert Taylor, Hollywood Legend. Nice tribute Bruce.

    I’ve seen 22 of the 68, these are the titles I recognize but I must have seen more over the decades.

    Unlike Flora I liked Taylor’s historical films, particularly Ivanhoe and Quo Vadis, but I also enjoyed Knights of the Round Table and Quentin Durward.

    I watched two of his best westerns again recently on TCM HD – The Last Hunt (with that shocking ending) and The Law and Jake Wade.

    I haven’t seen Personal Property, the film that had Flora rolling on the floor with laughter, it is now on my ‘must see’ list alongside a few others.

    Quo Vadis tops the UMR chart, yay! Hmm Camille, Waterloo Bridge and Three Comrades top the critics charts, I have not seen these. [Flora gasps] I’m sorry I just don’t recognize Bob Taylor when he’s not wearing a cowboy hat or when he’s leaping majestically around in a toga. [snort]

    Another winner Bruce. The Vote has to be Up.

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve.
      1. Tally count….Flora 29…you 22….and me…an embarrassing 4.
      2. I have seen 2 of your favorites….so I at least feel good about that…as I also enjoyed Quo Vadis and The Law And Jake Wade.
      3. You have me interested in seeing The Last Hunt….as I like shocking endings….was he dead all along? was he a split personality? did the entire movie take place on Earth?
      4. Personal Property is now on my list of movies to watch as well.
      5. Thanks for the comment and the visit.

      Reply

  3. Great Robert Taylor page Bruce. The worldwide grosses were a bonus. With the exception of D Durbin you have now covered every classical action in whom I am personally interested; so |I can have no complaints about your selections!!

    Reply

    1. Hey Robert Roy…..I wish all the classic stars were this easy to do. After striking out with his first two movies using my sources….I thought I was in for a long hard process….but then I found box office information on every single one of his movies from 1934 until the 1960s. MGM always included Worldwide Box Office in their ledgers. I love when I do a page on a MGM performer.

      One day Ms. Durbin will have a page here at UMR. Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

      1. Bruce you have given to someone like me, who is particularly interested in the box office performance of stars from the classic era, a goldmine of information to interpret. And clearly some interpretation of the statistics you provide IS necessary to place them within a proper context. For example:

        (1) Samuel L Jackson is generally credited with the highest overall gross of any actor, at least before inflation adjustments. However in many of the films concerned his role is secondary/cameo. On the other hand virtually all of Robert Taylor’s films are ‘ROBERT TAYLOR’ films. Same with Ty Power etc.

        (2) If one great star makes twice the number of films or more than the other [eg Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe respectively] clearly the great star with the higher number of films will normally have the advantage of a greater overall gross without necessarily being a bigger box office draw. This can be clearly seen in the Taylor/Burton peak era of 1963-1969 where Burton made almost twice the number of films as Liz and therefore overall out-grossed her, yet Liz was still considered the bigger star and normally received top billing and more money for the Burton/Taylor films of that time.

        (3) Consistency is always an important factor and you are right to point to Bob Taylor’s thirty 100 million dollar+ hits as a great achievement. As a Bob Taylor fan that pleases me. However a careful analysis of your figures shows that Bob’s thirty 100 million dollars+ films come to just under 5 billion if my own maths are good. At the same time however Brando for example has just sixteen 100 million dollar+ hits [almost half of Bob’s total] but despite that his top 30 films have grossed slightly more than 5 billion!

        Regarding (1) above further research by your readers would normally be necessary in order to determine what significance is to be placed on the overall gross in relation to an actor’s PERSONAL contribution to that gross.. [Thankfully you give some help there by separating for example ‘voice’ roles from solid appearances. I’m not sure what box office weight one can place for him personally on Eddie Murphy’s talking donkey outings in the Shrek franchise as compared with for example John Wayne’s direct potent presence in The Searchers or Ladd’s ever-nostalgic domination of Shane -“Get me the right actor and I’ll build a film around him.” – George Stevens ]

        Regarding (2) and (3) you have repeatedly drawn attention to the distinction between overall grosses and average grosses; and indeed in your tail-end summaries you have always provided a ‘ready reckoner’ of averages. In short whilst your figures do need to be carefully interpreted they are so comprehensive that the interpretation is for the most part normally a great deal of fun.

        Reply

        1. Hey Robert Roy.
          1. First of all thanks for a great detailed comment….it was enjoyable to read.
          2. Good point about Samuel L. Jackson. Currently on my $100 million dollar page…he is currently 3rd….behind Clark Gable and Harrison Ford. But while they were the stars in all of their movies….Jackson’s are almost entirely supporting roles…..if I only did his “lead roles”…the numbers would drop through the floor. https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/100-million-movies-1930-2015/
          3. Yet another good point about Crawford and Monroe….I am thinking I should include the average per movie number as well.
          4. Brando’s average gross per movie is a stout $144.50 versus Taylor’s average of $100.40 per movie.
          5. I think once I finally update all the actors….that $100 million dollar table will be very interesting. I am now up to about 50% …so I am starting to get there.
          6. We have looked at a way to figure out a way to give “the star” more credit than the “the supporting actor”…so far we have not figured out a good way.
          7. The same way with voice roles….part of me finds it irritating that Cars is one of Paul Newman’s biggest hits
          8. Glad to see somebody is looking at the “ready reckoner” page….many times I have thought….is anybody even looking at this part of the page. I know when I look at one of the pages…I go right to the table.
          Thanks again for the very kind words.

          Reply

          1. 1 Bruce you have been very even-handed in recognising on the one hand the achievement of a star who churns out movie after movie and that way generates an impressive overall gross (you praised Dean Martin for that feat); and on the other hand a performer who does only a limited number of films but makes most of them count to the extend that the average gross is very healthy (you have cited Streisand for this latter achievement). So please don’t drop your averages ‘ready reckoner’; it beautifully compliments your information about total grosses

            2 You are correct to say that it would be difficult to devise a formula that would be capable of identifying the magnitude of the personal contribution that each actor makes to movie grosses. William Holden is undoubtedly one of the all-time greats; and in the 50s he was nicknamed .’Golden Holden’ because of the earning capacity of both his films and himself. However it struck me that, whilst he was not in the Samuel L situation, in many of the hits credited to Holden, he was not the main star or indeed at times even the second star. For example in Country Girl he played third fiddle to Crosby & Grace Kelly and was billed behind them; in Sabrina he was billed after Bogie & A Hepburn; In Horse Soldiers he was in effect the foil for the Duke and was billed below him; and in Towering Inferno he was billed after Newman/McQueen. Apparently he asked to be billed before the latter two but Fox refused him.

            3 So a while ago using the figures in your existing Holden page and production information provided in IMDB and Wikipedia I did an exercise that took account of the grosses of only those films in which Holden was the leading star and the result was that his overall gross dropped dramatically. For openers exclusion of the four films just mentioned shaved off a whopping near 1.1 billion [that could rise to around 1.3 billion when you do your updated Holden page].

            4 Conversely in the late 50s/early 60s Spencer Tracy opined in an interview that in contemporary Hollywood Sinatra was more powerful than were most of the great studio moguls of Hollywood’s Golden Era. His interviewer replied that Tracy should therefore be flattered that Sinatra, who was to co-star with Tracy in The Devil at 4 O’Clock, over which Frank had a degree of production control, had ceded top nilling to Tracy in that movie. Spence apparently growled in reply”Yeah – but it’s still a Sinatra picture.” !

            5. I’ll sign off Bruce by again expressing my delight with your very comprehensive Robert Taylor page. I can say without any hyperbole that it will be treated as a collector’s item by me. I may wish to contact you again if and when you ever do that D Durbin page. Best regards and keep up the good work

            BOB ROY

          2. Hey Rob Roy.
            1. I will keep including the “ready reckoner”…I like that name. The wife name the “drivel part of the page”…now we have a name for that part too.
            2. You comment talking Holden got me motivated to update that page….after the update…Holden is sitting in 12th place when looking at career box office….thinking he will stay in the Top 25 even after all the pages are updated.
            3. That is interesting comparison of Holden movies with other stars….and stand alone Holden movies….I think some stars never even got a chance to have stand alone movies…Grace Kelly comes to mind right away.
            4. Good quotes from Spencer Tracy about Frank Sinatra (both of those pages still need to be updated).
            5. Thanks for the kind words….and D. Durbin is now officially on the request page….somehow I had not already put her on the page.

  4. Congratulations, Bruce!

    You are on fire!

    And to think that it took you 5 months from start to finish to do a Henry Fonda page, this is even more impressive!

    I’ve mentioned before that when I was on yahoogroups years ago someone mentioned an R.Taylor and I thought the person was ROD Taylor because I’m a Hitchcock fan and I first think of Rod when I see R.Taylor .

    Boy, was this woman angry.

    Anyway…..

    I’ve become much more familiar with Robert Taylor thanks to TCM, although my favourite movie of his continues to be The law and Jake Wade with Richard Widmark and Deforest Kelley and will likely always remain my favourite.

    But a very close second movie is the screwball comedy Personal Property opposite Jean Harlow. I nearly hyperventilated I laughed so hard through that movie. Tragic that Jean and Robert did not get to make another movie before she died.

    All this I write before looking at the rankings.

    The highest ranked film I have seen is Number 1: Quo Vidas – not my favourite film, but full of my favourites.

    There is something about Robert in period costumes that does not work for many people. There was a running joke on TCM forums that suitable punishment for bad behaviour was to be forced to watch Knights of the Round table over and over for a 24 hour period. Horrible punishment. Noooooooo!

    LOL!

    The highest ranking film I have not seen is Number 8: Three Comrades.

    The lowest raking film I have seen is…..wait for it…..

    THE LAW AND JAKE WADE…..my favourite Robert Taylor film. LOL!

    Guess that shows why I got Rod and Robert mixed up all the time. I’ve been loving one of Robert’s worst films?????????

    Rankings:

    I’ve seen all 5 of the top 5.
    9 of the top 10
    13 of the top 15
    16 of the top 20
    20 of the top 30
    23 of the top 40
    25 of the top 50
    29 films overall.

    All of my favourites are ranked rather low. I think my highest raking favourite is Personal Property.

    My 5 favourites are:

    The law and Jake Wade
    Personal Property
    Her Cardboard lover
    When ladies Meet
    Where angels Go, trouble Follows.

    LOL!

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora.
      1. Not thinking I have ever published so many new pages in such a short amount of time….and many were big pages…70 movies, 68 movies, 48 movies, 62 movies…and 27 movies (ok the Bening one was not so big.
      2. I can see you getting Rob and Rob mixed…..until writing this page I was always getting Taylor and Montgomery mixed up.
      3. I almost included a picture of Jake and the Law…but I could not find a decent one….but I tried.
      4. Not sure why Jake and the Law got such bad reviews…I liked it a lot. And then on the box office side..it was not a big hit of Widmark or Taylor.
      5. Your %s 100%, 90%, 86%, 80%,66%, 57%, 50% and 43%…..make sense the worst the movies get the further the % drops.
      6. My tally is small….it is at 4….I have seen Stand By For Action, Jake and The Law, Quo Vadis and Saddle the Wind….only 25 movies behind you…..I feel pretty comfortable that Steve will top my tally.
      7. I have only seen Jake and the Law…of your Top 5….but I will add Personal Property to my list of movies to watch….thanks for stopping by and sharing your R. Taylor knowledge.

      Reply

  5. Patting myself on the back. Knocked this page out in 90 minutes from when I decided to do a Taylor page until I hit the publish button. And we feel very very good about the box office numbers listed here. Plus this is now 5 pages since May 31st. Our database is starting to get scary! Ok my arm is hurting from all of this patting myself.

    Reply

    1. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back. I think you deserve. As for this page. I have heard of him but have not seen too many of his movies.

      Reply

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