Want to know the best Meg Ryan movies? How about the worst Meg Ryan movies? Curious about Meg Ryan’s box office grosses or which Meg Ryan movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Meg Ryan movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences or which one got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Sadly the matriarch on my wife’s side of the family is currently in the hospital. The wife went back home to Alabama and is currently at the hospital with her grandmother. Well we all know how much fun it is waiting at a hospital….so to elevate boredom my wife was showing off our movie website. My wife was showing her aunt the website when they realized that we did not have a Meg Ryan page. So to correct that most egregious (yes I had to look up the spelling) error….UltimateMovieRankings.com now has a Meg Ryan page. Meg Ryan (1961-) is a 3 time Golden Globe® nominated actress. Long considered America’s Sweetheart she made many beloved romantic comedies….her movies have grossed over $2 billion when looking at adjusted box office grosses.
Her IMDb page shows 48 acting credits from 1983-2015. This page will rank 34 Meg Ryan movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances and her work in the Anastasia video game were not included in the rankings.
Meg Ryan 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 Meg Ryan’s co-stars of her movies
- Sort Meg Ryan movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Meg Ryan movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Meg Ryan 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 Meg Ryan movie received.
- Sort Meg Ryan 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 Meg Ryan Table
- Eight Meg Ryan movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 25.00% of her movies listed. Top Gun (1986) is her biggest box office hit.
- An average Meg Ryan movie grosses $75.30 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 13 of Meg Ryan’s movies are rated as good movies…or 40.62% of her movies. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) is her highest rated movie while Amityville 3-D (1983) is her lowest rated movie.
- Seven Meg Ryan movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 21.87% of her movies.
- Three Meg Ryan movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.37% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 10 Meg Ryan movies scored higher that average….or 31.25% of her movies. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) got the the highest UMR Score while Amityville 3-D (1983) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Meg Ryan
1. Margaret Mary Emily Hyra (1961-) was born in Fairfield, Connecticut. Her mom was an English teacher and her dad was a math teacher.
2. How Margaret Mary Emily Hyra became Meg Ryan. Margaret’s family nickname was Meg. Ryan is her maternal grandmother’s maiden name. When she started acting she decided to use Meg Ryan as her name. I think it worked out pretty well.
3. Meg Ryan’s path to stardom…Cliff Notes style. While working on her journalism degree at New York University she started acting to earn a little extra money. Her first screen appearance was in 1981’s Rich and Famous. She then landed a role on the soap opera….As The World Turns from 1982-1984. In 1984 she moved to Los Angeles and got a role in a small little film called Top Gun (1986). Steven Spielberg noticed her in Top Gun and cast her in his movie Innerspace (1987). She has been a star ever since.
4. Meg Ryan has been nominated for three Best Actress Golden Globes®. Those roles are 1990’s When Harry Met Sally, 1994’s Sleepless in Seattle and 1998s You’ve Got Mail.
5. Meg Ryan has been married one times. She was married to actor Dennis Quaid from 1991-2001. They have one son….actor Jack Quaid. She also has a daughter, Daisy True….not yet an actress.
6. Meg Ryan has appeared with Tom Hanks in three films. 1990’s Joe vs the Volcano, 1994’s Sleepless in Seattle and 1998’s You’ve Got Mail. She and Hanks will be appearing in a 4th movie….Ithaca. Scheduled to be released on December 31, 2015…..Ryan and Hanks play a married couple for the first time in Ithaca. This will also be the first movie to be directed by Meg Ryan.
7. Roles Meg Ryan turned down or was seriously considered for: Jennifer Jason Leigh part in Backdraft, Jodie Foster role in The Accused, Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct, Demi Moore role in Ghost, Julia Roberts role in Pretty Woman, Uma Thurman role in Pulp Fiction, Susan Sarandon role in Thelma and Louise and Robin Wright role in The Princess Bride.
8. Meg Ryan’s smartest career move? She was initially under contract to play Shelby, the Julia Roberts role in Steel Magnolias, but the producers let her out of it to play Sally in When Harry Met Sally. It turned out well for both of them….as Harry was a huge hit for Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts got an Oscar® nomination for Steel Magnolias.
9. Easily the most famous scene in Meg Ryan’s movie career is the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally. The line “I’ll have what she’s having.” from that scene was voted as the 33rd best movie quote ever by the American Film Institute. Did you know? Director Rob Reiner gave that line to his mother.
Check out Steve’s Meg Ryan You Tube Video
10. Check out Meg Ryan‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
Hi, Bob! Meg Ryan seems a fascinating actress, gal to see your blog and learn about the actress and her films.
Thanks for the visit Survey. Meg Ryan was very very popular back in the day. Good feedback.
“America’s Sweetheart…who took a small tumble when she met Russell Crowe. Always had a crush on her. I have seen 29 of these movies. Only missing #14 When A Man Loves A Woman….not sure how I have missed that one. Almost all of her better movies are light fun movies. Movies like #15 IQ, #12 Kate and Leopold, her Hanks trilogy….though I was never a huge fan of Joe Versus the Volcano. Hanks is barely in #26 Itacha…which was a remake of a 1940s Mickey Rooney movie. My favorite Meg movies would be #1 When Harry Met Sally #2 Sleepless in Seattle and #8 Innerspace…a movie that seems to be more appreciated today than when it was made in the 1980s. Good video.” Our thoughts on Steve’s latest video.
Hi Bruce, I’ll post my youtube reply here first because my comments have been disappearing from that site for some weird reason. I have to find out whats happening.
29 out of 30 is even better than your previous video tally, wow! These are the kind of films you enjoy I guess. I prefer You’ve Got Mail to Sleepless in Seattle because there is more Tom and Meg interaction throughout the film. Plus I love bookstores and they have been sadly disappearing from our highstreets thanks to the internet and Amazon.
My tally 15, Flora 5. Thanks again for the comment, vote and share.
Hey Steve….I now feel the pressure to watch Amityville 3D so I can become a Ryan completist. I feel your pain of disappearing book stores…..hopefully they best ones will remain for a very very longtime. Good feedback.
perfect, I agree on every point, every movie. boring we are.
Hey box cox….being right so much can be so boring….lol.
I am disappointed that your Meg is not that great thespian of the oceans, but Meg Ryan’s career is one that has historically interested me as a film buff and BOTH Megs are better actors than Stahtam, so I welcome your video.
Most audiences will possibly most remember Meg Ryan for the Hanks movies, Top Gun and/or When Brucie Met Myrna and certainly my own fave Ryan performances are in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail both with Hanks.
Unfortunately like Gimme More [the mercenary ex-Mrs Wills] Meg’s heyday has long gone. Her last serious commercial success was way back 21 years ago in 1998, You’ve Got Mail. Since then the 10 films credited to her have grossed around just $250 million dollars in adjusted domestic money – ie about $25 million on average per movie in the States.
Her last film was 2016’s Ithaca which she produced and directed as well as starred in. However it seems to have gone straight to video despite her pal Hanks taking a supporting role in it. IMDB gives it a 55% rating as do you. WH doesn’t seem to have caught up with it probably because no theatrical income is recorded for it in the US or elsewhere.
Meg is another of those actresses whose careers began too late to be tested in perhaps the greatest ever court of critical opinion on this planet – The Master’s [though a wiser people may exist in a parallel universe elsewhere].
Therefore for comparisons with the critical opinions of your sources I will have to ‘slum it’ this time and rely solely on The Work Horse’s ratings but “saving the best wine for the last” I will do that at the end of Part 2
Best POSTERS (1) Against the Ropes (2) Ithaca (3) The Deal (4) In the cut (5) Land of Women (6) Presido (7) DOA (8) Flesh and Bone (9) French Kiss (10 Innerspace (11) You’ve Got Mail and (12) When Brucie met Myrna
Great STILLS are (1) Promised Land (2)lobby card for JoeL v the Volcano (3) Mel with “Hell-raiser” Crowe (4) with Quaid (5) Kate & Leopold (6) Anastasia (7) French Kiss (8) Top Gun – super shot (9) The Doors (10) You’ve Got Mail (11) Sleepless in Seattle and (12) Addicted to Love with Matthew Broderick.
Matthew was in the 1990 The Freshman and arriving on set a day before Brando and discovering his dressing room was opposite that of The Great Mumbler, Matt says he drilled a hole in his door and became addicted to peeping through it to watch for Marlon’s arrival.
When the latter happened Matt was actually asleep at night and being awakened by a sound he quickly went to the peephole and was just in time to see the Legend disappear through the door opposite – like catching lightning in a bottle! A slender Dan-like link there to Meg herself is that in 1994’s IQ she mentions Brando, in what context I forget.
You and WH agree on 4 of the Top 6 best reviewed films. You include You’ve Got Mail and The Doors in your 6 but he goes instead for Anastasia and Innerspace. I agree with you Steve about your choices so you may paraphrase Paul Henried to Bogie at the end of Casablanca by saying “With you on my side, Bob, this time I know I have won!”
Overall your Ryan video is a classy up-to-date cracker with a 98.5% rating in my scores. Meg is credited by IMDB with 12 acting awards overall and 30 noms and her reported net worth is $45 million.
Hey Bob…..great thoughts on Meg Ryan….I will be looking at his new video in a little bit…and sharing it here as well. It looks like we have close Top Meg Ryan movies….but once again, I see Steve made a few mistakes…lol. I agree with you that her best movie days are long gone….but for awhile she was the Princess of Movies. Good feedback.
HI BRUCE
I agree that in her prime Meg was a lovely, and also I thought cute, woman. No wonder Oscar Wilde so much mourned in his Dorian Gray story the passing of youth in general.
I always thought that Meg had a more sympathetic and pleasing screen persona than the to me rather harsh one of Gimme More – but then Meg didn’t have to live with John McClane – not all of the Wife ofs get the right Brucie!
Hey Bob…sadly Meg and Demi have seen their movie careers either stall (Ryan) or derail to low budget fare (Moore)….but they both had pretty impressive runs. They for sure….like most of us….doing not have a painting hiding away in their houses…lol. Good stuff.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info, trivia, comments, observation and comparison, much appreciated.
Happy the photos, lobby cards and posters met with your approval.
Nice to see you take my side occasionally. My ratings are usually more generous than Bruce’s and a lot more accurate of course. Plus I don’t have JH sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear all the time. [wink]
I watched French Kiss for the first time recently and enjoyed it. Meg had great comic timing and Kevin Kline seems to be having fun with his ‘outrageous’ French accent. Depardieu was the original choice for the role but was too busy.
One movie scored 10 out of 10 from my sources and that was When Harry Met Sally, more than a little overrated methinks. You’ve Got Mail is my favorite of the Meg Ryan romcoms I’ve seen. One film scored 9 out of 10 – Courage Under Fire, good film well worth a look. Three more films scored 8 out of 10 – Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and Restoration.
According to IMDB in 2003 she made an infamous appearance on the BBC’s top talk show Parkinson to promote In the Cut (2003), and which was described by host Michael Parkinson as his “most difficult TV moment”.
Meg had this to say about it – “I don’t even know the man. That guy was like some disapproving father! It’s crazy. I don’t know what he is to you guys, but he’s a nut. I felt like he was berating me for being naked in the movie. He said something like, ‘You should go back to doing what you were doing’. And I thought, are you like a disapproving dad right now? I’m not even related to you. Back off, buddy. I was so offended by him. I realised it’s not like an American talk show where it’s seven minutes and then there’s a commercial break. I had to do 20 minutes straight with this guy, and I could either walk off – which wouldn’t be good – or try to disagree with him very respectfully.”
HI STEVE Thanks for your normal carefully thought-out feedback on my own comments. French Kiss is a great nostalgic movie for me because it came out right in the middle of the 1990s, which was the decade that began my love affair with France. My wife and I and others in my family have been going there ever since and W o Bob and I are returning again next month for our holidays. Many of the locations in French Kiss are now familiar to us
“I remember Paris in the 49s
Vodka, gin and old red wines.
In my Parisian days.”
Your interesting stuff about the spats between Meg and Parky is new to me and I found it surprising because Parky always got a derisory reputation for excessive grovelling to big celebs. For example when interviewing Guinness he visibly embarrassed the latter by laying it on thick and coming out with things like “Tell me Sir Alec when did it dawn on you that you were a Great person? Even as a boy did you realise you were a genius or did the knowledge just creep up on you gradually?”
Several decades ago a kindred spirit of Parky, radio & TV presenter the late John Timson [1928-2005] was sacked by the BBC for going unacceptably over the top in grovelling to The Great Mumbler in an interview. It was no worse than Parky’s sycophancy towards Sir Alec but then the latter was a Brit worshipping a Brit whereas to your latent Brexit chums of those days the Timson/Mumbles kowtowing was a Brit grovelling to a Yank and many of them protested to the BBC saying things like “Timson was so far down on his knees to Brando that I thought Timson was going to go under the floor-boards next!”
Take care.
Hey Bob….good followup comment.
Hey Steve……good story about Parkinson and Ryan…I had never heard of it before. As for our different ratings…I think the scale of our two different rating systems explains some of the differences….there is no perfect movie in our rating system…while many of your movies get a 10. Is one way right and one way wrong? Of course not….they are just different. Which variety is the spice of life….Joel just whispered that into my ear…lol. Good stuff.
Hi, I for one hope that all works out in Huntsville too. Be well. Hey, I really enjoyed this web site for Meg Ryan. I have seen most of her movies and I was wondering where she was the last few years. Good to know she is still working. Thanks for all the information. Keep them coming!!!
Thanks BERN1960…..thanks for the positive thoughts for Debbie’s grandmother. Glad that you liked this page. I appreciate you stopping by and checking out my latest.