Lionel Barrymore Movies

lionel_barrymoreWant to know the best Lionel Barrymore movies?  How about the worst Lionel Barrymore movies?  Curious about Lionel Barrymore box office grosses or which Lionel Barrymore movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which Lionel Barrymore 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.

Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954) was an Oscar® winning American actor and director of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award® for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931).   He and remains best known to modern audiences for the role of the villainous Mr. Potter character in 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life and that he is the great uncle to Drew Barrymore.  His IMDb page shows 221 acting credits from 1908-1956. This page will take a statistical look at Lionel Barrymore movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.

Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart in the all-time great movie It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart in the all-time great movie It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

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

Lionel Barrymore 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 Lionel Barrymore movies by his co-star in the move
  • Sort Lionel Barrymore movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Lionel Barrymore movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Lionel Barrymore movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Lionel Barrymore movie received and
  • Sort by many Oscar® wins each Lionel Barrymore movie won.
  • Sort Lionel Barrymore 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.
  • Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
 
Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore in 1931's A Free Soul....he won an Oscar for this movie
Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore in 1931’s A Free Soul….he won an Oscar for this movie

Possibly Interesting Facts About Lionel Barrymore

1. Lionel Herbert Blythe was born in Philadelphia Pennsyvania in 1878.  He is the second generation of the Barrymore acting family.

2. Lionel Barrymore was the son of actors Georgiana Drew Barrymore and Maurice Barrymore. He was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore and the great-uncle of Drew Barrymore.

3. Lionel Barrymore and his sister Ethel Barrymore were the first Oscar-winning brother and sister in acting categories.

4.  Lionel Barrymore had extreme problems with his income taxes, and during the last 15 years of his life routinely turned over all of his paycheck to the Internal Revenue Service except for a small sum to maintain his living expenses. The IRS also took the proceeds from a sale of his artwork after his death.

5.  By the late 1930s, severe arthritis had led Lionel Barrymore to be confined to a wheelchair.  From 1938, his screen roles were written to accommodate his disability.

6.  Lionel Barrymore received two Oscar® nominations.  He was nominated as Best Director for 1929’s Madame X and he won the Best Actor Oscar for 1931’s A Free Soul.  His climatic court room speech in A Free Soul is one of the longest takes in a commercial film…using more than one camera it lasts 14 minutes.

7.  Lionel Barrymore was married two times in his life. He had 2 children.

8.  Lionel Barrymore spent most of his screen career under contract to MGM (1926-52).  I for one was very happy for that..because MGM is the best studio when searching for old box office numbers.

9.  Lionel Barrymore convinced James Stewart to take the role of George in 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life, despite Stewart’s feeling that he was not up to it so soon after World War II.

10. Check out Lionel Barrymore’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.

Steve’s Lionel Barrymore YouTube Video

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