15 Best Cary Grant Movies, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

Cary Grant was one of the world's first major movie stars and cultural icons who is recognized for his improvisational skills, impeccable style, and distinct mid-Atlantic accent. Born Archibald Leach in 1904 in England, Grant was drawn to the theater at a young age and, at the age of 16, he joined the Pender Troupe for their United States tour. After the group's tour, Grant stayed in the States where he established himself on the American Vaudeville circuit. The actor soon moved to Hollywood where he started out in crime films before gaining popularity in screwball comedies like His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby.

Grant consistently captured audiences with his eccentric charm and boyish humor and was the definitive leading man for several decades on the silver screen. Despite never winning an Oscar out of his two nominations, Grant was named by the American Film Institute as the second-greatest actor of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1999 and continues to reign as a one-of-a-kind performer that has yet to be topped. Out of the actor's extensive career with films such as Mr. Lucky, North by Northwest, In Name Only, and The Philadelphia Story, some of Cary Grant's best movies manage to get high scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

15 'Topper' (1937)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Grant and Constance Bennett star in the classic film Topper as a young married couple, George and Marion Kerby, who, after being involved in a car accident, realize they didn't survive and are now ghosts. In order to ascend into heaven, the couple must make up for the lack of good deeds they did while alive and decide to help their uptight boss, Cosmo Topper (Roland Young), to live a little and enjoy life to the fullest.

Topper is a slightly dark supernatural comedy adapted from Thorne Smith's 1926 novel and one of Grant's first major comedic roles. The movie was a major success, with both audiences and critics who equally praised Grant and Bennett's performances as the happy-go-lucky couple. Topper essentially boosted Grant's career and had an immense influence on the actor's transition into the comedy genre and starring in a series of screwball comedies.

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14 'The Awful Truth' (1937)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Grant stars alongside Irene Dunne in the classic screwball comedy, The Awful Truth, as a distrusting husband and wife, Jerry and Lucy, who both believe the other is having a secret affair. After they file for divorce, they both rush into new relationships, but when they realize they both still love each other, they try to spoil their newfound romances with a series of schemes and gags.

Grant and Dunne are an absolute riot in The Awful Truth, effortlessly matching each other's spark of energy and clever wit, making them a highly entertaining comedic duo. The movie was a massive hit at the box office and earned several Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor for Ralph Bellamy, and winning for Best Director for Leo McCarey. The Awful Truth is an essential flick for any classic comedy fans and is also credited as one of Grant's finest comedic performances.

13 'To Catch a Thief' (1955)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Grant takes on the role of a notorious jewel thief, John Robie, who has long since retired from his crime caper days and now tends to the vineyards of the French Riviera. When a series of robberies are committed resembling Robie's former style, the local authorities eye him as the main suspect. In an attempt to clear his name, Robie makes a list of people in the area who own expensive jewels. When he meets the first name on his list, Frances Stevens (Grace Kelly), they begin to fall for one another, but after Stevens' jewels are stolen, she begins to question her new love interest.

Alfred Hitchcock's iconic romantic drama To Catch a Thief is a quintessential Grant film and one of four films the actor made with The Master of Suspense. Grant and Kelly are the ideal romantic leads who both bring a sense of boldness and beauty to the film with magnetic chemistry. Initially, some critics panned the film, noting it did not have the high level of suspense audiences would expect from Hitchcock, but in recent years, To Catch a Thief has been reevaluated as not only one of the director's most daring and visually stunning films, but also one of Grant's all-time best.

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12 'Penny Serenade' (1941)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Grant and Dunne take a more dramatic approach together in George Stevens' melodrama, Penny Serenade, as a young married couple, Roger and Julie Adams, who are trying to start a family together. When Julie suffers a miscarriage and can no longer have children of her own, they decide to adopt a little girl, Trina. Just as they adjust to their new lives, another tragedy strikes after Roger's newspaper goes out of business, leading the couple to have to fight to maintain custody of Trina as they also try to keep their marriage together.

While Grant and Dunne are a notable comedic pair, they're also a heartfelt couple in Penny Serenade, which helped Grant keep one foot in serious films while continuing to succeed with screwball comedies without being typecast. The film was both a commercial and critical success, earning Grant his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Penny Serenade is a perfect example of Grant's immense range and versatility as a performer and is credited as one of the actor's best dramatic performances.

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11 'Charade' (1963)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

While on vacation in the French Alps, Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is preparing to divorce her husband when she meets and falls for the dashing Peter Joshua (Grant). When Lampert returns home, she's horrified to discover that her husband has been murdered, leading her and Joshua on the hunt for three of her husband's World War II buddies who are all in search of a million dollars they hid while behind enemy lines. As Joshua and Lampert work together, Lampert soon becomes suspicious of her new love interest and why he keeps changing his name.

Credited as the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made, Charade is a romantic comedy and thrilling mystery which also stars George Kennedy, James Coburn, and Walter Matthau. The film features a series of unexpected twists and turns plus a perfect balance of comedy to light some of the more intense, violent moments. Grant gives a showstopping performance that is both charming and intriguing as audiences relentlessly wonder about his character's genuine intentions. Charade is sometimes overshadowed by Grant's and Hepburn's other work, but it is one film that deserves more credit than it usually receives.

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10 'Notorious' (1946)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

After World War II, Agent T.R. Devlin (Grant) is part of a group of American agents who are assigned to track down Nazi soldiers and officials who escaped prosecution for their heinous crimes against humanity. Devlin decides to recruit the daughter of a convicted German war criminal, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), as a spy and instructs her to win over Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains) who is a Nazi hiding out in South America. While the plan initially goes accordingly, Devlin begins to fall for Huberman and when her safety is jeopardized, Devlin must choose between his heart and completing the mission.

Notorious is a thrilling spy noir and romance film directed by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and marked the second collaboration between the director and Grant. Grant, who was well known for his comedies, delivers a perfect blend of drama and charm in the classic Hitchcock film and has excellent chemistry with Bergman who also starred with Grant in the 1958 romantic comedy, Indiscreet. Notorious was one of the highest-grossing films of the year and earned Rains an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as well as screenwriter, Ben Hecht, for Best Original Screenplay. Decades later, film critic Roger Ebert added Notorious to his Great Movies list, noting it as "the most elegant expression of the master's visual style."

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9 'Suspicion' (1941)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) is a wealthy, eligible bride who is effortlessly wooed by a charming crook, Johnnie Aysgarth (Grant) and, despite her father's stern warning, the two eventually elope together. After a picture-perfect honeymoon, McLaidlaw discovers that her new husband has no job or any serious financial means, causing her to become worried about their potential future. As Aysgarth takes major money risks, McLaidlaw's concerns mount, but after the sudden death of Aysgarth's friend and business partner, she starts to think that he's plotting to kill her for her inheritance.

Between the 1940s and 1950s, Grant had a close working relationship with Hitchcock, who cast the actor in four of his movies, including North By Northwest and To Catch a Thief with Grace Kelly. Their first film together, Suspicion, is based on the novel, Before the Fact by Francis Iles. Hitchcock wanted to keep the book's original ending, but RKO Pictures didn't want Grant portraying a murderer, thinking it would've hurt the star's good-guy image. Aysgarth's intentions are the sole source of the film's endless guessing game and while it would have been interesting to see the film honor the book's original ending, leaving the interpretation up to the audience is what makes this an essential Grant film.

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8 'North by Northwest' (1959)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

In one of the most rewatchable Hitchcock films, New York City advertising executive, Roger Thornhill (Grant) becomes mixed up in a case of mistaken identity and is fiercely pursued across the country by several agents of an unknown organization. Along the way, Thornhill meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), a mysterious and alluring beautiful woman who joins him on his cross-country journey to uncover the truth, but as the henchmen close in on them, Thornhill starts to realize that he's being used as a fall guy for the United States government.

North by Northwest is ranked as one of the greatest movies of all time and marked the fourth and final collaboration between Grant and Hitchcock. For several years, Hitchcock had joked with reporters about developing a story about Grant hiding from the bad guys in Abraham Lincoln's nose on Mount Rushmore. According to Screenwriters on Screen-Writing by Joel Engel, Hitchcock shelved the idea until he met screenwriter, Ernest Lehman, who he felt was the perfect screenwriter to bring the concept to fruition. North by Northwest held the number one spot at the box office for several weeks, earning three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction but, unfortunately, lost to Charlton Heston's Ben-Hur and Pillow Talk starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

North By Northwest

Action

Adventure

Mystery

Where to Watch

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Release Date

December 18, 1959

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Cast

Cary Grant , Eva Marie Saint , James Mason , Jessie Royce Landis , Leo G. Carroll , Josephine Hutchinson

Runtime

136 minutes

7 'His Girl Friday' (1940)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

Hard-hitting news editor, Walter Burns (Grant), finds out that his best reporter and ex-wife, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is planning to remarry and exchange her career for a more conventional life. Unconvinced that Johnson's through with her job, he tries to persuade her to stay by offering her the opportunity to cover the upcoming execution of a convicted murderer, Earl Williams (John Qualen). Initially, Johnson stands her ground, but when she catches wind that Williams might be innocent, her reporting instincts suddenly kick back in and the idea of matrimony becomes a thing of the past.

His Girl Friday is one of the greatest screwball comedies of all time directed by genre-hopping filmmaker, Howard Hawks, and an adaptation of the popular 1928 play, The Front Page, written by famed screenwriters, Ben Hect and Charles MacArthur. Hawks was one of few directors who allowed his cast the creative freedom to ad-lib and improvise in scenes, which led to some of the film's funniest lines, including Grant's subtle knock at his co-star, Ralph Bellamy, and also became one of the first films to feature performers speaking over one another.

His Girl Friday

NR

Comedy

Drama

Romance

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Release Date

January 18, 1940

Director

Howard Hawks

Cast

Cary Grant , Rosalind Russell , Ralph Bellamy , Gene Lockhart

Runtime

92 minutes

6 'Mr. Lucky' (1943)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Set during World War II, a captain of a gambling ship, Joe Adams (Grant), avoids being drafted by assuming the identity of a deceased employee who was deemed unfit to serve, but Adams is quickly faced with another issue; money. In an attempt to bankroll his ship, he tries to convince the head of the local War Relief, Captain Veronica Steadman (Gladys Cooper), to host a casino "charity" event to help raise funds for the war. While Steadman and all the other women trust Adam's intentions, one of them, a wealthy socialite, Dorothy Bryant (Laraine Day), is suspicious of him, but as she and Adams begin to fall in love, he starts to reconsider his original scam.

Mr. Lucky is a romantic war film directed by H.C. Potter who, several years later, reunited with Grant for the 1948 romantic comedy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Home. The movie features Grant as a persuasive cad who goes as far as learning how to knit to convince the women of the War Relief that he has honorable intentions, but his character's devious side is soon softened by an inevitable romance, which reveals a genuine and selfless character that only someone with Grant's talent could successfully pull off without a hitch.

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5 'Only Angels Have Wings' (1939)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Rough around the edges airman, Geoff Carter (Grant) is the head pilot and owner of a small airline in South America who runs a tight schedule and refuses to miss any flights, even if it could cost him his life. When an attractive piano player, Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) starts to fall in love with Carter, she becomes concerned about his strict protocol and as he's preparing to fly in rough weather, she goes to various extreme lengths to ensure that he misses his flight.

The romantic adventure film, Only Angels Have Wings marked the second collaboration between Grant and Hawks, who made a total of five films together, including Bringing Up Baby and Monkey Business. The film is based on a story written by Hawks and, according to Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood by Todd McCarthy, Only Angels Have Wings is considered to be one of Hawks' finest films. While the movie is one of Grant's best movies, it's also noted for featuring Rita Hayworth in her first major film role, which ended up being the actress' breakthrough performance and earned her a spot on the cover of Look Magazine.

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4 'Holiday' (1938)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Edward Seton (Henry Kolker) thinks self-made man, Jonathan "Johnny" Case (Grant), is a suitable match for his daughter, Julia (Doris Nolan) to marry, but when Case starts to show more interest in traveling than business, Seton starts to have his doubts about the match. While Seton wonders if he made the right choice for his daughter, Case begins to rethink the arrangement himself after meeting Julia's older vivacious sister, Linda (played by Katharine Hepburn in one of her best roles), who he thinks is a much better fit for him than the younger Seton sister.

Shortly after working together on the iconic screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby, Grant and Hepburn teamed up again for George Cukor's romance, Holiday, which is a remake of the 1930 film by the same name. Grant first worked with Hepburn on the 1935 rom-com, Sylvia Scarlett, and throughout their careers, the duo starred together in a total of four romantic comedies. While the movie wasn't a massive hit at the box office, Holiday still received positive reviews from critics and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction. In 2020, The Los Angeles Times deemed Holiday to be the best Grant and Hepburn collaboration, even surpassing The Philadelphia Story.

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3 'Indiscreet' (1958)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Anna Kalman (Bergman) is a prominent stage star who believes that she missed any chance of finding love and accepts being single forever. When she returns home to London, she reluctantly attends a banquet with her sister (Phyllis Calvert) and diplomat brother-in-law (Cecil Parker) where she meets a friend of the couple's, Philip Adams (Grant). As sparks start to fly between the two, Kalman thinks she's finally found her knight in shining armor, but her hopes are quickly dashed after she discovers that Adams is already married.

Grant was interested in starring in the romantic comedy, Indiscreet, but only under the condition that his former on-screen love interest, Bergman, be cast alongside him. Compared to their first film together, Notorious, Grant and Bergman let loose in Indiscreet and the stars' authentic affection and fondness for one another demonstrated in the film explains why Grant requested Bergman for the role. While the movie marked the second movie starring Grant and Bergman, it was also the first to popularize the use of split screens and became a major hit at the British box office.

Indiscreet

Comedy

Romance

Where to Watch

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Release Date

July 26, 1958

Director

Stanley Donen

Cast

Cary Grant , Ingrid Bergman , Cecil Parker , Phyllis Calvert , David Kossoff , Megs Jenkins

Runtime

100 minutes

2 'The Philadelphia Story' (1940)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

After separating from her first husband, Dexter Haven (Grant) for reasons unknown, Philadelphia socialite, Tracy Lord (Hepburn) is planning to marry a wealthy bachelor, George Kittredge (John Howard). As the big day approaches, Lord meets a curious tabloid-type reporter, Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) who has been assigned to write about the upcoming nuptials and, after Lord crosses paths with Haven, old and new feelings begin to emerge, forcing her to figure out her true feelings towards all three of the men before she can even think about walking down the aisle.

The Philadelphia Story is a romantic comedy based on the hit 1939 Broadway show by the same name in which Hepburn originally starred as Lord. After being deemed as "box office poison," Hepburn purchased the rights to the play, and it became her comeback performance on the silver screen. Surprisingly, Hepburn originally wanted The King of Hollywood, Clark Gable, for the role of Haven, but due to other commitments, Gable couldn't take on the role, so Hepburn turned to Grant who agreed as long as he received top billing and a salary of $137,000, which he donated to the British War Relief Society.

The Philadelphia Story

Not Rated

Comedy

Romance

Where to Watch

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Release Date

January 17, 1941

Director

George Cukor

Cast

Cary Grant , Katharine Hepburn , James Stewart , Ruth Hussey , John Howard , Roland Young , John Halliday , Mary Nash

Runtime

112 Minutes

1 'In Name Only' (1939)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

The wealthy Alec Walker (Grant) puts up with his loveless marriage to his heartless excuse of a wife, Maida (Kay Francis) who admits that she only married him for his money. When Walker meets a widowed young mother, Julie Eden (Carole Lombard), the two fall in love, but when Maida learns about their relationship, she doesn't ask for a divorce, but instead, decides to use the information to negotiate her selfish terms, forcing Walker into a corner that could destroy he and Eden's relationship forever.

Grant and Lombard were popular screwball comedy stars who surprised audiences with their profound range as dramatic actors in the 1939 film, In Name Only. According to Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard by Larry Swindell, Lombard had wanted to work with Grant for quite some time, so when she heard about the script for In Name Only and the actor's involvement, she negotiated with RKO Radio Pictures for the part. While it would have been a major moment in movie history to see Grant and Lombard in a screwball comedy, In Name Only gives audiences a glimpse at their comedic potential together, as both stars deliver an equal balance of humor and melodrama, emerging as a highly impressive on-screen pair.

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