Want to know the best Jean Arthur movies? How about the worst Jean Arthur movies? Curious about Jean Arthur box office grosses or which Jean Arthur movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Jean Arthur movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Jean Arthur (1900-1991) was an Oscar®-nominated American actress. From the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s, Jean Arthur was one of the most popular actors working. Between 1936 and 1944, she appeared in 15 $100 million (adjusted) box office hits and 5 movies that earned a Best Picture Oscar® nomination. Jean Arthur‘s IMDb page shows 97 acting credits from 1923-1966. This page will rank 26 Jean Arthur movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her silent films, her early 1930s movies, television appearances, uncredited roles and shorts were not included in the rankings.
Drivel Part: This page comes from a request by Lyle. Lyle made the request many many months ago. After lots of fruitless research we have waved the white flag. Her entire film career from 1923 to 1934 is not included in the page. Ok….1930’s Street of Chance was included….but that is the only one. Maybe some box office numbers on her early career are somewhere out there…..but we can not find it….and we give up! Every movie she made from 1935 to 1953 did make the rankings….and it does include her most famous movies. So we are apologizing up front for all the missing movies.
Jean Arthur 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 Jean Arthur movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Jean Arthur movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Jean Arthur movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Jean Arthur movies by 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 Jean Arthur movie received.
- Sort Jean Arthur 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.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Jean Arthur Table
- Sixteen Jean Arthur movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 61.53% of her movies listed. Shane (1953) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Jean Arthur movie grossed $127.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 20 Jean Arthur movies are rated as good movies…or 76.92% of her movies. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) is her highest rated movie while Arizona (1940) is her lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Jean Arthur movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 42.30% of her movies.
- Five Jean Arthur movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 19.23% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 21 Jean Arthur movies scored higher that average….or 80.76% of her movies. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) got the the highest UMR Score while Arizona (1940) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Jean Arthur
1. Gladys Georgianna Greene was born in Plattsburgh, New York in 1900.
2. So how did Gladys Greene become Jean Arthur? Her screen name came from two of her greatest heroes, Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc) and King Arthur.
3. Jean Arthur was cast in over twenty low budget westerns (Action Pictures) in a two-year period during the 1920s. She was paid $25 dollars per movie. Twenty movies at $25 per movie equals a total pay of $500!
4. Jean Arthur was nominated for one acting Oscar®….1943’s The More The Merrier.
5. In Danny Peary’s excellent book, Alternate Oscar®, he (Peary) makes a great case of the fact that Jean Arthur should have won the Best Actress Oscar® for 1943’s The More The Merrier.
6. Jean Arthur was married two times….but did not have children.
7. Jean Arthur’s favorite leading man?……Mr. Gary Cooper.
8. Director George Stevens famously called Jean Arthur “one of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen” while Frank Capra credited her as “my favorite actress”.
9. After retiring, Jean Arthur was teaching at Vassar at the same time that Meryl Streep was studying there in her junior year. Upon seeing the young drama major rehearsing August Strindberg’s play “Miss Julie”, Arthur remarked it was “just like watching a movie star”.
10. Check out Jean Arthur‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globe® is a registered trademark.
Pretty cool she taught where Meryl Streep studied.
Seen: 0/26 or 0%
Fav Top 10: N/A
UMR Snub (Too High or Too Low): N/A
Guilty Pleasure: N/A
Steve Lensman’s Latest You Tube video. Ms. Jean Arthur. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPMUCA11vew
Cheers amigo!
1 STEVE I remember when I was about 16 and worked in the Belfast Shipyard my boss saying one morning “Watched a movie on TV with that b****y awful woman Jean Arthur in it last night. What a terrible actress!” It just shows how opinions vary as Dalton would say because I admired Jean for the way in which she held her own with Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith and Ladd and Palance in Shane all 3 giving possibly the iconic performances of their careers.
2 Your posters and stills well capture the magnificence of Jean’s own career. I really liked The Whole Town’s Talking, More than a Secretary, Arizona and A Lady Takes a Chance with which you demonstrate that Jean was a big star early enough to be one of those actresses who were billed above the Duke before he became the colossus who is now probably one of the main contenders for the accolade Greatest Movie Star of All Time [along with Loy of course.] Although the movie itself had the joint lowest rating the saucy/creepy poster for the Canary Murder Case was my greatest favourite among the selections.
3 The saucy solo still of Jean was excellent as were the two of Cooper and Jean with her loveliness compensating me for the woodenness that I thought the young Coop often conveyed in stills and on screen before he gained confidence and learned to loosen up in front of the camera. Your black and white Laddie/Arthur still from Shane was full of nostalgia for me and I admired the foreign language poster for that movie. [By the way did you know that Mr Mumbles speaks his lines wonderfully in the dubbed versions of his movies in foreign language markets?] I also admire Bruce’s coloured miniature of Jean and Laddie and was amused by his little ‘animation’ of Jean, though by now her head must be sore! You and Bruce agree on 4 of Jean’s Top 5 with your inclination to provide slightly more variety being the difference in that you settled for just one Grant movie in the 5 whereas the Work Horse as usual went for the full Monty [or full Cary] in his 5. It’s a Bank Holiday over here and your video was a nice 9.4/10 treat. Well produced.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating and comment, always appreciated.
While I personally prefer Shane to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it had to settle for 2nd place on Jean’s chart. There are some film buffs who regard Mr. Smith as Capra’s masterpiece and the best film of 1939, a year filled with great films. I don’t. I like the film but it’s not one I watch often, ditto Mr. Deeds. I’ll stick with Gone With the Wind as my favorite from that year, Stagecoach is up there too.
Bruce has the same no.1 on his critics chart and yes it’s true he is a bit of a Cary Grant fanboy. 😉 As usual looking at the posters does get me in the mood to watch some of these movies. The Canary Murder Case might be interesting, but I’ll bet the poster is better than the film itself.
Looking at my files 6 of Jean’s films scored 10 out of 10 which is pretty impressive, most actors would be lucky to get one top scorer in their filmographies. Clark Gable has 3, Elizabeth Taylor 4, Charlton Heston 4, John Wayne 11.
🙂
bonsoir Lupino,
you are perfectly right on your vision of foreign affair, a very acid film but funny
and as LIFE wrote in that day Dietrich Stole the picture but it is truth that in the scene
of IOWA SONGS after the black market of Dietrich it was magic and that s was for Jean Arthur and surely the talent of Billy Wilder.
i saw this film on theater in Paris at the beginning of the eighties in a movie place classic;
it was a reprise and il was a big succes, it plaid during several months and critics were speaking about Billy, Marlene and Jean.and that was surprising for me because
everybody in the theater was laughing or smiling.
It was like a renaissance because this film was forgotten in comparaison with Wilder classic picture and dietrich too , in France.
have a nice day
Bonsoir Pierre,
What an interesting story about LA SCANDALEUSE DE BERLIN (french title of A Foreign Affair?)
You are right about this movie being one of Billy Wilders forgotten ones, although it has been shown on german TV a few times and it has been released to both DVD and BluRay in Europe. It also has made the famous UMR 100$ list! I love to see old movies on the big screen…unfortunately, I hardly ever get the chance. I remember that I found myself smiling a lot during the picture, it really has some funny scenes…most of them belonging to Jean Arthur, though. Remember when the soldiers threw her up into the air several times after The Iowa Song and suddenly she didn’t come back down again? I do love Marlene’s renditions of the Hollander songs a lot, especially “Want to buy some Illusions, slightly used, just like new…” How strange it must have been for Dietrich, who hated the Nazis with a vengeance, to play the part of Erika von Schluetow, former lover of Nazi leaders… As I already said, one of my favorite Dietrich parts, and unfortunately the second to last movie of the great Jean Arthur!
Agréable de vous parler à nouveau…hope this is correct, mon français est pas bon 🙂
Good thoughts.