Ranking All Of Director Arthur Penn’s Movies
“What are Arthur Penn’s Best Movies?” We looked at all of Penn’s directed filmography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the movies directed by Arthur Penn and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked in our list below based on which movies have the highest overall score between all 6 review sites in comparison with all of the other movies by the same director. The process is all very scientific with no flaws at all.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.
Happy Viewing!
The Top Film’s Of Arthur Penn
17 ) The Portrait (1993)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- IMDB User Review Score: 15
- Letterboxd User Score: 16
Artist Margaret Church returns to her parents home to create a portrait of them. Margaret is shocked to discover that her parents have decided to sell their home, and she has trouble accepting the loss of her childhood home. Margaret finishes her portrait, only to believe that her parents dislike it. Eventually she realizes that her parents do not dislike her portrait, and Margaret becomes closer to them once more.
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16 ) Target (1985)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 13
- IMDB User Review Score: 16
- Letterboxd User Score: 14
A Texan with a secret past (Gene Hackman) searches Europe with his son (Matt Dillon) after the KGB kidnaps his wife (Gayle Hunnicutt).
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15 ) Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 11
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 8
- IMDB User Review Score: 17
- Letterboxd User Score: 14
Penn & Teller enjoy playing jokes on each other. When Penn says on an interview show that he wishes he has someone threatening his life so that he “wouldn’t sweat the small stuff,” each of them begins a series of pranks on the other to suggest a real threat. Then they find that a real psychopath is interested in them.
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14 ) Alice’s Restaurant (1969)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 10
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 7
- IMDB User Review Score: 13
- Letterboxd User Score: 12
Alice’s Restaurant is a 1969 movie adapted from a song by Arlo Guthrie. The song is Arlo Guthrie’s most famous work, a talking blues based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965. The movie reproduces the events of the song, in addition to other scenes.
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11 ) Dead of Winter (1987)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 4
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 12
- IMDB User Review Score: 13
- Letterboxd User Score: 12
A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.
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11 ) Inside (1996)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 3
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 16
An emotional and thrilling tale of life and death behind the walls of a maximum security prison. From the acclaimed director of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, and featuring a powerful international cast.
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11 ) Lumière and Company (1995)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- IMDB User Review Score: 7
- Letterboxd User Score: 8
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou’s convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch’s bizarre miniature epic.
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10 ) Mickey One (1965)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 7
A former comic is on the run from the mob.
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9 ) Visions of Eight (1973)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- IMDB User Review Score: 7
- Letterboxd User Score: 5
1973 documentary film offering a stylized look at the 1972 Summer Olympics, directed by eight different directors
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7 ) Little Big Man (1970)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 12
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 14
- IMDB User Review Score: 3
- Letterboxd User Score: 4
Jack Crabb, looking back from extreme old age, tells of his life being raised by Indians and fighting with General Custer.
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7 ) The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 7
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 8
- IMDB User Review Score: 9
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
Tom Logan is a horse thief. Rancher David Braxton has horses, and a daughter, worth stealing. But Braxton has just hired Lee Clayton, an infamous “regulator”, to hunt down the horse thieves; one at a time.
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6 ) The Left Handed Gun (1958)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 3
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 10
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
When a crooked sheriff murder his employer, William “Billy the Kid” Bonney decides to avenge the death by killing the man responsible, throwing the lives of everyone around him into turmoil, and endangering the General Amnesty set up by Governor Wallace to bring peace to the New Mexico Territory.
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5 ) Four Friends (1981)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- IMDB User Review Score: 6
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
Also known as Moritorium and Georgia’s Friends, Four Friends follows the titular quartet from high school to young adulthood. The film is set during the tumultuous 1960s, an era when everyone’s values were turned inside out, shaken around, and reassembled. The central character is first-generation American Craig Wasson, who confounds his Yugoslavian father (Miklos Simon) by pursuing his own let-it-all-hang-out lifestyle. Wasson’s best friends are athlete Jim Metzler and chubby Michael Huddleston; all pursue the affections of bewitching Jodi Thelan. Though they are obviously deeply in love with one another, Wasson and Thelan continue to foolishly avoid a long-term commitment as the sixties unfold around them. Four Friends calls for a fresher approach than the one offered by director Arthur Penn, whose handling of the material is much too pat and old-fashioned.
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4 ) The Chase (1966)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 6
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 4
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 5
Most everyone in town thinks that Sheriff Calder is merely a puppet of rich oil-man Val Rogers. When it is learned that local baddie Bubber Reeves has escaped prison, Rogers’ son is concerned because he is having an affair with Reeves’ wife. It seems many others in town feel they may have reasons to fear Reeves. Calder’s aim is to bring Reeves in alive, unharmed. Calder will have to oppose the powerful Rogers on one hand and mob violence on the other, in his quest for justice.
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3 ) Night Moves (1975)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 5
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- IMDB User Review Score: 5
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
When Los Angeles private detective, Harry Moseby is hired by a client to find her runaway teenage daughter, he stumbles upon a case of murder and artifact smuggling.
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2 ) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 2
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 2
- Letterboxd User Score: 1
Bonnie and Clyde is based on the true stories of the gangster pair Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow who in the 1930s began robbing banks in U.S. cities until they were eventually killed. The film is a major landmark in the aesthetic movement known as the New Hollywood.
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1 ) The Miracle Worker (1962)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 1
- Letterboxd User Score: 2
The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother’s voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.
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Arthur Penn’s Best Movies
Arthur Penn Review Website Filmography Rankings
| Film | RT Critic | RT User | IMDB | Letterboxd | Overal Rank |
| The Miracle Worker (1962) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Bonnie and Clyde (1967) | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Night Moves (1975) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| The Chase (1966) | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| Four Friends (1981) | 8 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 5 |
| The Left Handed Gun (1958) | 3 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 6 |
| Little Big Man (1970) | 12 | 14 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| The Missouri Breaks (1976) | 7 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 7 |
| Visions of Eight (1973) | 12 | 14 | 7 | 5 | 9 |
| Mickey One (1965) | 12 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 10 |
| Dead of Winter (1987) | 4 | 12 | 13 | 12 | 11 |
| Inside (1996) | 12 | 3 | 10 | 16 | 11 |
| Lumière and Company (1995) | 12 | 14 | 7 | 8 | 11 |
| Alice’s Restaurant (1969) | 10 | 7 | 13 | 12 | 14 |
| Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989) | 11 | 8 | 17 | 14 | 15 |
| Target (1985) | 8 | 13 | 16 | 14 | 16 |
| The Portrait (1993) | 12 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
