(Photo by Untied Artists / courtesy Everett Collection)

All Kirk Douglas Movies Ranked

It wasn’t until 1946, after serving in the United States Navy during World War II and enjoying a subsequent stage career, that Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas, then 30 years old, first stepped in front of a camera for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. By 1950, he’d be a Best Actor Oscar nominee: As Midge Kelly in Champion, he set a new standard in realism in boxing movies. Though blatantly endowed with leading-man looks, Douglas’ athleticism and versatility kept him maneuvering across genres during this peak period, playing a desperate reporter in Billy Wilder’s 1951 film Ace in the Hole just as film noir began to fade, and taking on his first Western of many more to come that same year. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Lonely are the Brave, and The War Wagon (co-starring John Wayne) are among the highlights of his Westerns career.

Three years after Champion, Douglas earned his second Best Actor nomination for the inside-Hollywood romantic drama, The Bad and the Beautiful. His roaring ’50s continued as he led audiences deep beneath in one of Walt Disney’s finest live-action adventures, 1954’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and earned his third and final Oscar nomination for portraying Vincent Van Gogh in 1956’s Lust for Life. Just a year later, Douglas accomplished arguably his finest artistic achievement in Paths of Glory, one of the best World War I films ever, directed by Stanley Kubrick. He and Kubrick would then reunite for the swords-and-sandals epic Spartacus. Not only did it spawn a famous line (“I’m Spartacus!”) and represent commercial peaks for both, Spartacus ended Hollywood’s blacklisting era when Douglas revealed Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter and President John F. Kennedy publically viewed the film.

In the ’60s, Douglas turned out respectable films like Seven Days in May, The Heroes of Telemark, and Two Weeks in Another Town, though it was clear he wasn’t the same draw he was the previous decade. In the ’70s, he took on double-duty as a star and director; he put together two films in this way, including Posse, an offbeat late Western with Bruce Dern. His final notable Western also arrived this decade: The Villain, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann-Margaret. After this, Douglas jumped into sci-fi for a spell, starring in Brian De Palma’s The Fury, going to deep space in Saturn 3, and time-warping to Pearl Harbor from an ’80s aircraft carrier in The Final Countdown.

In 1996, the Academy awarded him an Honorary Oscar for his 50 years in Hollywood. In 2003, Douglas starred in his last major film: the comedy It Runs in the Family, also starring his son Michael, as well as Michael’s son Cameron. 2006 saw his final on-screen performance in Illusion as a Hollywood icon granting a final interview in the twilight of his life. Look back and celebrate a triumphant life and career as we rank Kirk Douglas’ movies by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo

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