James Stewart Movies

James Stewart in 1946's It's A Wonderful Life
James Stewart in 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life
Want to know the best James Stewart movies?  How about the worst James Stewart movies?  Curious about James Stewart’s box office grosses or which James Stewart movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which James Stewart 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.
James “Jimmy” Stewart (1908-1997) is considered one of the greatest actors to ever exist. He was named the third Greatest Male Star of All-Time by the American Film Institute.  He made almost 80 movies in his acting career that lasted over seven decades.  Stewart received five Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor. He won an Oscar® for The Philadelphia Story.
Shortly after winning his Academy Award®, James Stewart enlisted in the Air Force. His accomplishments in World War II outshine his movie career in my opinion. Stewart started as a private, but moved up the ranks rapidly. Stewart was assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group and flew combat missions. He flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on numerous missions deep into Germany. At the end of the war, Stewart had earned the rank of Colonel.
James Stewart’s first movie after the war was one of the great all time classics…. It’s A Wonderful Life. From 1946 until 1971 Stewart starred in 45 movies, including classic movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, Rear Window and Vertigo. His last starring role was Fools’ Parade with a very young Kurt Russell.
His IMDb page shows 98 acting credits from 1934-1991. This page will rank 67 James Stewart movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, cameos and some of his very early 1930s movies were not included in the rankings.
James Stewart in 1954's Rear Window
James Stewart in 1954’s Rear Window

James Stewart 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 James Stewart movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort James Stewart movies by actual domestic box office grosses
  • Sort James Stewart movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort James Stewart 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 James Stewart movie received.
  • Sort James Stewart 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 James Stewart Table

  1. Twenty-two James Stewart movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 30.10% of his movies listed. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) was his biggest box office hit.
  2. An average James Stewart movie grosses $98.40 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  56 James Stewart movies are rated as good movies…or 76.71% of his movies.  Rear Window (1954) is his highest rated movie while Airport ’77 (1977) is his lowest rated movie.
  4. Twenty-five James Stewart movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 34.24% of his movies.
  5. Nine James Stewart movie won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 12.32% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 39.86.  37 James Stewart movies scored higher that average….or 50.68% of his movies.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) got the the highest UMR Score while The Big Sleep (1978) got the lowest UMR Score.
James Stewart in 1950's Harvey....Harvey was Stewart's favorite role
James Stewart in 1950’s Harvey….Harvey was Stewart’s favorite role

Possibly Interesting Facts About James Stewart

1. James Stewart’s father ran a hardware store. Three generations of his family had run the store. Stewart was supposed to take over for his father….it did not work out that way. When Stewart won his Oscar® in 1941, he gave the Oscar® to his dad who place the Oscar® in the hardware store front window….I am sure many people went to that hardware store just see that Oscar® statue.
2. James Stewart got married for the first and only time in 1949. He was married to Gloria McClean from 1949 to 1994. Stewart adopted McClean’s two sons, Ronald and Michael, from her previous marriage and in 1951 they had twin girls, Judy and Kelly.
3. During Stewart’s long career he worked with many directors numerous times. His two most famous collaborations were with Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann. Stewart appeared in 4 Hitchcock movies and 8 Anthony Mann movies.
4. Speaking of Alfred Hitchcock….James Stewart really wanted to play Roger Thornhill in 1959’s North by Northwest. Hitchcock felt that Cary Grant would be better for the role and delayed making North by Northwest until Stewart had started filming Bell, Book and Candle.
5. James Stewart was nominated 5 times for a Best Actor Oscar®. Those movies were Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It’s A Wonderful Life, Harvey and Anatomy of a Murder. He won for The Philadlephia Story in 1941.
6. James Stewart was the first major star to negotiate a percentage of the his movies grosses. Stewart decided it was worth the gamble to lower his salary and get a percentage. The first two movies he tried this approach on were 1950’s Winchester 73 and Broken Arrow. Both movies became very big hits and Stewart changed the way stars negotiated their contracts.
7. James Stewart’s best friend was Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda arrived in Hollywood first and convinced Stewart to follow his footsteps. One time the two friends got into a fist fight over politics. They decided to never discuss politics ever again amongst themselves.
8. In 1985 James Stewart was presented an Honorary Oscar®. During his acceptance speech he said “This was the greatest award I received, to know that, after all these years, I haven’t been forgotten.”…..26 years later and he is still not forgotten.
9. Famous roles James Stewart turned down or was seriously considered for: The Wild Bunch, The Seven Year Itch, On Golden Pond, North by Northwest, My Darling Clementine, The Last Picture Show, and I Confess.
10. Check out James Stewart‘ career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Still searching for box office grosses for 3 James Stewart movies.  1936’s Speed, 1936’s Born To Dance and 1938’s Of Human Hearts.

AFI’s Top 25 Screen Legend Actors….with links to my movie pages on the Screen Legend

2.   Cary Grant
3.   James Stewart
4.   Marlon Brando
5.   Fred Astaire
6.   Henry Fonda
7.   Clark Gable
8.   James Cagney
9.   Spencer Tracy
21. Buster Keaton
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.  Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press. 
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4 thoughts on “James Stewart Movies”

  2. Hi Bruce, an excellent tribute to one of the Hollywood greats and one of my favorite actors. So many great films and plenty of facts and figures to play around with here. Being a big Hitchcock fan, Rear Window is my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie and wished it was higher on the moviescore chart, the top 3 here are not surprising, highly acclaimed classics. 
    The Greatest Show on Earth isn’t one of Stewarts best performances and is rated a little too high in my opinion, I know it was a Best Picture winner. I’ve seen 42 of the 67 films you’ve listed. 10 from the moviescore top 10, 10 from the critics top 10 and 9 from the box office top 10. I don’t think I’ve seen The Stratton Story. 
    Every 10 years Sight & Sound magazine lists the top 10 greatest films of all time, voted by critics and filmmakers, Vertigo is currently no.1, knocking Citizen Kane of the top!
    Reply
    1. Hey Steve…..thanks for the return visit. Sorry your Rear Window did not score better on my overall score…but Top 5 is pretty good. If you look at the critic audience rating…you will see it sits in first place…even ahead of Vertigo. If Rear Window would have gotten a Best Picture Oscar nomination….it would be at the top of the rankings. 
      Do you know the 5 movies that got a nomination that year? On The Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, The Country Girl, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Three Coins In A Fountain. I am thinking if they re-voted today….that Rear Window would bump one of those movies.
      42 Stewart movies watched….let’s see I am at…..34 movies watched….I actually think it is a little higher but some of his 1950s seem to run together in head…..so I only included the ones I knew for sure.
      As for The Greatest Show On Earth….it is one of the biggest hits of all-time…..won the Best Picture Oscar….so that helped it score well….but if you look at the Critic Audience Rating…it is all the way down in 44th place….so I think more than a few people agree with your thinking.
      Thanks for the links from Sight & Sound….Citizen Kane seems like a more likely #1….but Vertigo seems to get better and better with each passing year.
      Reply