The 46 Greatest James Garner Movies Ranked Worst To Best

Whether in film or television, you always knew you were in for a treat whenever James Garner appeared on screen. For more than 50 years the strikingly handsome actor leant his easy going charm to a wide variety of roles, continuing to act until his death in 2014 at the age of 86.

Born in 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma, Garner found his greatest success on the small screen — first as gambler Bret Maverick on the Western series "Maverick," then as private investigator Jim Rockford on "The Rockford Files." He earned 15 Emmy nominations throughout his career, winning once as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for "The Rockford Files" and again as a producer on the TV movie "Promise."

But he also had a rich career in movies as well, starring in such acclaimed titles as "The Great Escape," "The Americanization of Emily," "Grand Prix," and "Victor/Victoria." Surprisingly, he only earned one Oscar nomination throughout his lifetime, a Best Actor bid for "Murphy's Romance." Even though he might not have received the awards and accolades he so richly deserved, he nevertheless left behind a wealth of great film and television roles to remember him by.

Let's take a look back at Garner's 46 greatest movies, ranked worst to best.

"The Girl He Left Behind" was one of Garner's earliest screen roles, and one of his less memorable. Tab Hunter stars in this teenage comedy as a spoiled college student who relies on his high society mother (Jessie Royce Landis) for everything. While his girlfriend (Natalie Wood) works hard in school, Tab flunks out and is drafted into the Army. With the help of his commanding officers (Jim Backus, Murray Hamilton, David Janssen), he learns to grow up and be a better man.

Garner has a small role as a fellow Army recruit, and it's for the best that he's barely in this soapy slog. It was only his second film (one of many he popped up in while under contract for Warner Bros.), and as he stated in his memoir "The Garner Files," "It was awful and I was awful, but it was the best I could do at the time." It wouldn't take long for him to become a leading man, thanks to the one-two punch of a ripe supporting role in "Sayonara" and the lead on "Maverick," both of which premiered a year after "The Girl He Left Behind."

Garner made his final on-screen appearance in "The Ultimate Gift" (he gave a couple of animated voiceover performances before his death in 2014), and it's a shame his career couldn't have ended on more of a high note. It's a faith based drama about a spoiled brat (Drew Fuller) who expects a sizable inheritance after his wealthy grandfather (Garner) dies. Instead, his grandfather leaves him a series of odd tasks that will lead him to "the ultimate gift." On his journey, he befriends a dying girl (Abigail Breslin) and her mother (Ali Hillis), and finally learns to grow up. 

Critical reception for this well-intentioned film was hardly a gift, as evidenced by its 33% Rotten Tomatoes score. As Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" put it, "Director Michael O. Sajbel too often succumbs to movie-of-the-week sentimentality and starchy pacing." The film's box office wasn't much better, netting a paltry $3.4 million gross. However, home video sales were strong enough to justify two sequels, "The Ultimate Life" and "The Ultimate Legacy."

Another in the long tradition of "man suffers from amnesia and can't remember his true identity" movies, Delbert Mann's "Mister Buddwing" stars Garner as a man who wakes up in Central Park with no memory of who he really is. He spends the day wandering through the city in search of his identity, encountering several women (including Angela Lansbury, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, and Katherine Ross) who help piece together the puzzle of his life, although the details remain a little fuzzy to viewers. 

While it was far from the best reviewed film ever made, it did manage to earn Oscar nominations for its art direction and costume design (back when those categories were divided between color and black-and-white movies). Garner himself hated the movie, stating in his candid memoir "The Garner Files," "Worst picture I ever made. What were they thinking? What was I thinking?" If only he could've had a Mister Buddwing moment and forgotten all about this movie, as most audiences already have.

Garner starred in a handful of live action films for Walt Disney Studios (and even leant his voice to an animated one, "Atlantis: The Lost Empire"), but you wouldn't say his batting average for the House of Mouse was exactly stellar. In "One Little Indian," he plays a Cavalry deserter on the run with a pair of camels and a runaway boy (Clay O'Brien). While wandering through the desert he encounters a widow (Vera Miles) and her daughter (10-year-old Jodie Foster), who threaten to turn him in. 

This was one of only six films Garner appeared in during the 1970s, and one of the last released before he returned to television with his iconic starring role in "The Rockford Files." (He returned to movie theaters in 1980 with Robert Altman's "H.E.A.L.T.H.") Garner himself was no fan, candidly stating in his memoir "The Garner Files," "I've done some things I'm not proud of. This is one of them."

"Tank" certainly lived up to its title, at least as far as critics and audiences were concerned. Garner stars as CSM Zack Carey, a decorated military sergeant who arrives at a new post with his wife LaDonna (Shirley Jones), his teenage son Billy (C. Thomas Howell), and his vintage Sherman tank. When Zack stops a local deputy from beating up a girl, the sheriff (G.D. Spradlin) enacts his revenge by framing Billy for drug charges. Zack jumps in his trusty tank to break the kid out of jail, further escalating the situation. 

Although it's fun watching the tank crash into things, there isn't much else to write home about here. For Garner, who spent much of the 1980s earning Emmy nominations for the TV movies "Heartsounds," "Promises," and "My Name Is Bill W.," as well as the revival series "Bret Maverick," "Tank" did little to help his movie career. Thankfully, the very next year he earned his first (and only) Oscar bid for "Murphy's Romance," so the lull didn't last too long.

Garner spent most of the 1970s back on TV screens with "The Rockford Files," and this Disney live action adventure was the last film he appeared in for six years. In "The Castaway Cowboy," he plays a 19th century Texas buckaroo who gets shanghaied (i.e. kidnapped and taken aboard a ship) in San Francisco and washes ashore a Hawaiian island, where he's taken in by a kindly widow (Vera Miles) and her son (Eric Shea). He stays on and helps them out with their farm, herding the wild animals who keep trampling their crops, and soon has to fend off an unscrupulous banker (Robert Culp) who has his eyes on the widow and her land.

It's easy to see why Garner would leap at the role of ex-con turned private eye Jim Rockford on "The Rockford Files," given "The Castaway Cowboy" is indicative of how softened his onscreen persona had become. Coming shortly after another Disney production, "One Little Indian," it was clear he needed to shake things up before getting relegated to the dregs of kids movie stardom. As he stated in his memoir, "The best thing in it is the Hawaiian scenery." Luckily, a shot of adrenaline in the form of an Emmy-winning hit series was soon to come.

"Up Periscope" was one of Garner's first starring vehicles, though it wasn't exactly the "a star is born" moment he would've hoped for. Directed by B-movie maestro Gordon Douglas ("Them!," "In Like Flint"), it's a World War II action drama about a newly trained Navy frogman (Garner) sent to photograph secret Japanese documents on the island of Kosrae (formerly Kusai). Edmund O'Brien plays the submarine commander transporting Garner on his mission, while Andra Martin is Garner's new girlfriend, a navy intelligence officer who sets him off on his journey. 

Garner didn't appear in many films between 1957 and 1960, since he was working full time as the star of TV's "Maverick." Reviews for this rare starring vehicle during those years weren't exactly glowing, with A.H. Weiler of "The New York Times" writing, "It seems to run a familiar yet somewhat undramatic course." Garner himself was no fan, bluntly citing it in his memoir "The Garner Files" as "another piece of crap that Warner Bros. stuck me in while I was under contract." Luckily for him, there was nowhere to go but, well, "up" from here.

Critics such as Roger Ebert have likened "How Sweet It Is!" to a moderately entertaining sitcom episode, which shouldn't be surprising considering it was directed by comedy TV veteran Jerry Paris ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") and co-written by legendary television producer Garry Marshall ("Happy Days"). Garner plays Grif Henderson, a professional photographer on assignment in Paris. He decides to take his wife, Jenny (Debbie Reynolds), and their hippie son, Davey (Donald Losby), along for the trip, and the buttoned-up couple finds it difficult to stay faithful to each other while traipsing around the City of Lights. Along the way they encounter several colorful characters, including Terry-Thomas as a swindling travel agent and Paul Lynde as "the Purser." 

There are lots of jokes about free love and the counterculture which weren't particularly funny in 1968 and are even less so today. As Ebert further stated in his review, "Hollywood has yet to put a convincing hippie onscreen: They're always too clean or too dirty, depending on whether they're supposed to be good or bad characters, and in either case they're always too square." Ebert even found fault with Garner's performance, saying he was "almost too smooth, too much like a leading man" for the role. As Garner wrote in his memoir, "Loved Debbie Reynolds. Loved Paul Lynde. Loved Terry-Thomas. Hated the movie." It's a feeling shared by most viewers.

One of many spy spoofs released in the wake of the James Bond franchise becoming an international sensation, "A Man Could Get Killed" casts Garner as an American businessman who's mistaken for a British secret agent while in Lisbon. Suspected by a pair of smugglers (Tony Franciosa and Melina Mercouri) of possessing a cache of valuable diamonds, he traipses around the Mediterranean with the aid of a beautiful American girl (Sandra Dee). 

While the European locales are certainly a sight for sore eyes, the film barely has enough laughs or excitement to hold our attention for a scant 97 minutes. The production itself was an unhappy experience for Garner, who later admitted in his memoir to punching Franciosa during a fight scene when he observed his co-star abusing stunt people. The film did win the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for its tune "Strangers in the Night," penned by German composer Bert Kaempfert with lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder.

There's not much to write home about when it comes to "Cash McCall," although Garner and Natalie Wood make a charming on-screen match. The film casts Garner as the titular Cash McCall, a wealthy entrepreneur who makes his money through buying failing businesses, getting them back on their feet, and then selling them for a huge profit. He sets his sights on a struggling plastics company, but things get complicated when he learns that the owner, Grant Austen (Dean Jagger), is the father of his old girlfriend, Lori (Wood). 

"Cash McCall" was one of the few films Garner appeared in while he was under contract for Warner Bros. and starring on the TV Western "Maverick" for the studio. He left the studio that same year following a contentious lawsuit, wherein Warners suspended him during a Writers Guild strike and Garner declared his contract void (per The Hollywood Reporter). Thankfully, this did nothing to stall his film career, which continued onwards and upwards despite the lukewarm reception awarded this starring vehicle.

It's safe to say "Boys' Night Out" was more of a passion project for Kim Novak than it was for Garner, who does his level best despite a lackluster script. Produced through Novak's company Kimco, it's a bawdy comedy about four work friends (Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, and Howard Morris) who decide to get a bachelor pad after seeing their boss fooling around with his mistress. Garner, the only actual bachelor in the group, finds the apartment and hires a blonde bombshell (Novak) to work as their "housekeeper." But while all the men think they have a shot at sleeping with her, Novak is actually just there to research her sociology paper.

The movie earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy Film, although that was the extent of its awards buzz. The film came out at a time when Garner was trying to find his footing as a movie star following three years on "Maverick." He tried his hand at a number of different things during this period, including romantic comedies ("The Thrill of It All"), serious dramas ("The Children's Hour"), and action films ("The Great Escape"), proving he was capable of doing anything. Although "Boys' Night Out" is only passable at best, it did help propel Garner into becoming a leading man.

Garner's first starring role was as real life military hero William Orlando Darby in this passable World War II docudrama. Directed by William Wellman, "Darby's Rangers" focuses on the lives of the Army's First Ranger Battalion, an elite strike force that's meant to mirror the British Commandos. The young Major Darby (Garner) looks after his men, who find time for romance and shenanigans in between the rigorous training. 

Although the movie itself isn't particularly memorable, it did the job of proving Garner was more than capable of carrying a film on his own after a couple of standout supporting turns. He actually got the opportunity through happenstance: originally slated to play a smaller part, he landed the role of Darby when Charlton Heston left the project due to a dispute over gross percentage points. Already a TV star thanks to "Maverick," Warner Bros. President Jack L. Warner decided to bump his contract player up to leading man, with the movie's poster proclaiming, "'Maverick' himself in his first starring big screen role!"

While its satire was never particularly biting to begin with, "My Fellow Americans" feels downright quaint given our current political landscape. Garner and Jack Lemmon star as two ex-presidents -– Democrat Matt Douglas and Republican Russell Kramer, respectively -– who have feuded for decades about more than just policy. They set their differences aside when the current president, Kramer's former VP William Haney (Dan Aykroyd), tries to frame them for a series of kickbacks he received from defense contractors. If only bipartisanship was this easy in real life! 

It seems inevitable Garner would eventually make a film centered on politics, given his history. A self-described "bleeding heart liberal" who professed admiration for Adlai Stevenson and Barack Obama, Garner engaged in activism throughout his entire life, helping organize and attending the 1963 March on Washington and even flirting with a California gubernatorial run in 1990. So even though he never got to be President, he at least got to play one. Reviews for the film were decidedly mixed, resulting in a 47% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Still, it's great fun watching Lemmon and Garner spar in what Roger Ebert described as "Grumpy Old Presidents" (a play on the Lemmon/Walter Matthau hit "Grumpy Old Men"). Ebert said of the movie, "This is not a great comedy and will be soon forgotten, but it has nice moments."

A variety of performers have played Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe, including Humphrey Bogart ("The Big Sleep"), Elliott Gould ("The Long Goodbye"), and Robert Mitchum ("Farewell, My Lovely"). Garner stepped into the famous gumshoe's shoes in this adaptation of Chandler's 1949 novel "The Little Sister." The easy-going private detective is hired by a mysterious Kansas woman named Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell) to find her brother Orrin, who has gone missing in Los Angeles. As per usual with Marlowe, what seems like a simple enough case is complicated by a variety of eccentric characters, including an exotic dancer (Rita Moreno), a gangster (H.M. Wynant), and a blackmailed TV star (Gayle Hunnicutt).

Although reviews weren't exactly glowing, the film was met with a generally positive response from critics, earning a 63% Rotten Tomatoes score. Among the notable detractors was Roger Ebert, who was generally a Garner fan but found him an ill fit for Marlowe, calling him "a little too inclined to play for light, wry, James Bond-style laughs." Ultimately, he found the film "enjoyable only on a basic level: it's fun to watch the action sequences." Roger Greenspun of "The New York Times" agreed, saying, "Stirling Silliphant's screenplay follows too many styles, and Paul Bogart's direction follows too few, to make a make a more than casually entertaining movie."

A year before he played a New York professional suffering from amnesia in "Mister Buddwing," Garner portrayed an American military officer with memory loss issues in George Seaton's WWII espionage thriller (you could say he briefly had a type). Adapted from the Roald Dahl short story "Beware of the Dog," "36 Hours" opens with Major Jefferson Pike (Garner) waking up in an Army hospital in occupied Germany with no recollection of the last five years. With the help of a military psychiatrist (Rod Taylor) and a nurse (Eva Marie Saint), Jefferson starts to draw out his lost memories, which include General Eisenhower's briefing on the Normandy invasion. Turns out the doctor and nurse are actually German spies trying to obtain useful information from him. 

Reviews for the film were generally favorable, resulting in an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score. Contemporary assessment has been strong as well, with Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy calling it "a crackerjack thriller," while Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past praised it as "a taut war drama" that enthralls thanks to the three lead performances.  

Garner and co-star Sidney Poitier elevate "Duel at Diablo" from the dregs of B-movie Western into something far more interesting and challenging. Directed by Ralph Nelson, it stars Garner as Jess Remsberg, a frontier scout searching for the people who murdered his Comanche wife. On his journey he rescues settler Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson) from Apaches and returns her to her husband, Willard (Dennis Weaver), only to discover she's had the child of the tribe's chief. He agrees to act as cavalry scout for a wagon train headed to Fort Concho, traveling with the couple and former Buffalo Soldier turned horse trader Toller (Poitier). The group is hunted by the tribe that kidnapped Ellen, and during their fight for survival Jess learns a stunning secret about his wife's killer.

Reviews for the film were generally positive, with Robert Alden of The New York Times calling it "a brutal film and a brilliant one." He added, "Much of it is raw and ugly, yet it is a film that will grip you, a film that will have a shattering effect by the time you go back out into the street." A contemporary assessment by Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com praised the star power of Garner and Poitier, "who deliver leathery performances."

Garner's big break came with this Academy Award-winning Korean War drama, released the same year he landed the lead role on the TV western "Maverick." Directed by Joshua Logan, "Sayonara" stars Marlon Brando as U.S. Air Force Major Lloyd "Ace" Gruver, who falls in love with a Japanese actress, Hana-ogi (Miiko Taka). He's hesitant to pursue the relationship, however, having witnessed firsthand the prejudice endured by Airman Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) and his Japanese wife, Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki). Garner plays Ace's pal, Captain Mike Bailey, who tries his best to help. 

The critically acclaimed film earned 10 Oscar nominations and four wins, including a history-making Best Supporting Actress victory for Japanese-American star Umeki (via The New York Times). Although it was Buttons who earned the Best Supporting Actor trophy, Garner did win the Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer, which was certainly an aptly-named victory. "Sayonara," coupled with the success of "Maverick," proved he had the chops to carry a project on his broad shoulders.

If you thought "Armageddon" was stretching credulity sending oil drillers into space, wait 'til you get a load of "Space Cowboys." Still, Clint Eastwood's action comedy about geriatric astronauts succeeds in spite of its ludicrous premise (or maybe because of it). Eastwood stars as Frank Corvin, a retired USAF pilot whose dreams of going into space were derailed by a chimpanzee. Now in his 70s, NASA calls on Frank to prevent a decaying Soviet satellite from falling out of orbit and crashing into Earth. To do this, he recruits his former Team Daedalus crew: stunt pilot Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), roller coaster designer Jerry O'Neill (Donald Sutherland), and Reverend Tank Sullivan (Garner). 

Critics and audiences were charmed by this story of codgers in space, and for good reason. As Roger Ebert aptly pointed out in his three-star review, "There is a reason Eastwood, Garner, Sutherland, and Jones have remained stars for so long, and the movie gives them all characteristic scenes." While the plot may be preposterous, the film is nevertheless a terrific showcase for four legendary actors whose craggy faces can always make an audience crack a smile. This even extended to Oscar voters, who threw it a nomination for Best Sound Editing. (Also, who can forget NSYNC's catchy original song?)

While its critical reception was largely mixed, "The Notebook" was among the most financially successful films Garner appeared in. Directed by Nick Cassavetes, it's the very best of countless Nicholas Sparks adaptations, an unabashedly sentimental weepy about an old man named Duke (Garner) who reads to his Alzheimers-stricken wife, Allie (played by Cassavetes' mother, Gena Rowlands), from a notebook detailing their passionate romance (with the younger couple played in flashbacks by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams). Duke holds strong as Allie slips further and further away from him, leading to a devastating finale.

Even if critics weren't universally moved, Garner rated it as one of his two favorite films that he starred in (along with the one that tops this list). He came close to earning an Oscar nomination for his performance after reaping a SAG bid as Best Supporting Actor, and it certainly would've been deserving. As Roger Ebert said in his glowing review, "Garner is an actor so confident and sure that he makes the difficult look easy, and loses credit for his skill. Look how simply and sincerely he tells their children: 'Look guys, that's my sweetheart in there.'" And for a film dripping with as much syrup as this one, that's high praise.

Garner teamed up with Doris Day for this sparkling domestic comedy, assuming the role that would usually go to Day's frequent co-star, Rock Hudson. Directed by Norman Jewison from a script by Carl Reiner, "The Thrill of It All" stars Day as suburban housewife Beverly Boyer, who devotes her life to her husband, Gerald (Garner). But the Boyer household is upended when Beverly is offered a job as a TV spokeswoman for her favorite household product, Happy Soap. Gerald becomes increasingly jealous as his wife's fame soars, and he starts hatching a scheme to get her back in the household. 

Although its gender politics are horribly dated, the film retains a certified fresh 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times stipulated it wasn't "a great film," but he did say it was "loaded with good, clean American laughs." Variety agreed, writing that the script "is peppered with digs at various institution of American life," adding, "Ultimately, it is in the design and engineering of cumulative sight gag situations that 'Thrill of It All' excels." But you really have to award the lion's share of praise to Garner and Day, who have an easy chemistry that almost matches that between Day and Hudson.

John Frankenheimer's "Grand Prix" is epic in every way, from its three-hour runtime to its riveting racing sequences. Garner headlines the international ensemble as Pete Aron, an American race car driver competing in the 1966 Formula One championship. Pete loses his sponsorship after a spectacular crash in the first series, eventually joining the Japanese team so he can still race. Off the track, he's having an affair with a competitor's wife (Jessica Walter), which threatens to put the brakes on his career. 

You can certainly understand why the film would appeal to Garner, a real-life race car driver who drove the pace car at the Indianapolis 500 in 1975, 1977, and 1985. It's perhaps for this reason that "Grand Prix" feels so realistic whenever it's on the racetrack, where so many previous auto racing films felt inauthentic and tame. The film earned critical raves for its dazzling use of split screens during the racing montages, with Bowsley Crowther of The New York Times calling it "a smashing and thundering compilation of racing footage shot superbly at the scenes of the big meets around the circuit, jazzed up with some great photographic trickery." It also won Oscars for Best Sound, Best Sound Effects, and Best Film Editing.

Garner was the only member of the leading "Victor/Victoria" cast to not earn an Oscar nomination (Julie Andrews, Robert Preston, and Lesley Ann Warren all earned bids), and that's a shame, because his measured performance keeps Blake Edwards' high-wire farce from going completely off the rails. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it stars Andrews as Victoria Grant, an out of work British soprano who, with the help of cabaret performer Toddy (Preston) lands a job as a male female impersonator named Victor. Garner plays King Marchand, a Chicago mobster who falls in love with Victor's onstage persona, much to the ire of his blonde bombshell girlfriend, Norma (Warren). 

Reviews were rapturous, with critics rewarding it with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating. As Roger Ebert wrote, Garner had one of the film's "most difficult roles" because he "must walk a tightrope of uncertain sexual identity without even appearing to condescend to the material." The result, he said, was "not only a funny movie, but, unexpectedly, a warm and friendly one." Todd McCarthy of Variety called Garner "quizzically sober as the story's straight man, in more ways than one," adding that the film was "a sparkling, ultra-sophisticated entertainment." Academy Awards voters agreed, and the rewarded the film seven nominations and a victory for Best Song/Score Music Adaptation. Even if one of those bids wasn't for the leading man, the success of "Victor/Victoria" nevertheless proved Garner was still capable of headlining a film after six years starring on "The Rockford Files."

Garner often called "The Americanization of Emily" his favorite film among the many he starred in (per The Orlando Sentinel), and that's saying a lot considering how openly critical he could be of his own work. Written by legendary wordsmith Paddy Chayefsky ("Network"), it's a pitch black satire of war glorification and military hagiography. Garner plays Lt. Commander Charles Madison, a cynical American soldier stationed in London during WWII. He does his best to avoid combat, opting instead for an easygoing life that's interrupted by his romance with Emily Barham (Julie Andrews), an Englishwoman who lost her family in the war. When his superior, Admiral William Jessup (Melvyn Douglas), becomes determined to have a sailor be the first man to die on D-Day, Madison gets sent on a dangerous and senseless mission. 

Though "The Americanization of Emily" earned rave reviews at the time and even wracked up Oscar nominations for its cinematography and art direction, its anti-war message wasn't exactly well received at a time when America was ramping up its involvement in Vietnam. As Garner stated in his memoir "The Garner Files," "Audiences have come around to it, and it's now a cult favorite and a minor classic. Unfortunately, it hasn't put war out of style." As Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times, Garner's performance is integral to its success, saying, "What Mr. Garner is expressing in this sharply outspoken film, which conceals the deadly point of its thesis within some mischievously nimble farce, is that the philosophy of pacifism is the highest morality and that wars will be abolished only when people stop thinking it is noble to fight." It's that message that keeps the film relevant to this day.