One of the screen’s greatest actresses, Bette Davis, appeared in close to 90 feature films over her career with probably at least two thirds of them being memorable for some reason. Choosing just 15 to rank in a photo gallery will likely result in endless complaints in the comments section over a fan’s particular favorite being left out. In order not to cause too much heartache among readers the following list ranks all of Davis’ Oscar-nominated performances and throws in a few personal non-nominated favorites along the way. Her career achievements were such that we could probably run this column every year and only after about half a decade would we run out of films to list.
Davis received 10 Oscar nominations over her career, all in the Best Actress category. Meryl Streep and Katharine Hepburn are the only actresses to exceed that number. Davis won Oscars on her first two nominations for “Dangerous” in 1935 and “Jezebel” in 1938. Strangely Davis won for arguably the two least acclaimed and remembered films of her 10 nominations. The other bids were for: “Dark Victory” (1939), “The Letter” (1940), “The Little Foxes” (1941), “Now, Voyager” (1942), “Mr. Skeffington” (1944), “All About Eve” (1950), “The Star” (1952) and “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962). That’s a pretty accomplished group of films, to say the least.
Davis would also find success on television in her later years in a series of television movies. She would win an Emmy Award in 1979 for “Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter” and also receive three additional Emmy nominations.
Hers is one of the most fascinating lives both on screen and off to come out of classic Hollywood. Her list of acting accomplishments is pretty incredible and it is hard to believe this is the same women who, once when she felt her career was slowing down, took out an ad in Variety which read “Mother of three 10, 11 and 15-Divorcee. American. Thirty years’ experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. Has had Broadway. References upon request.”
Take a tour in our photo gallery of her 15 greatest film performances, ranked from worst to best.
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15. THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (1939)
Image Credit: Bert Six/Warner Bros/First National/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Michael Curtiz. Writers: Aeneas MacKenzie, Norman Reilly Raine. Starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Vincent Price.
Davis would have likely joined actresses such as Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench on the list of actresses Oscar nominated for playing Queen Elizabeth I but in an embarrassment of riches she had another performance that year in “Dark Victory” that got her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Davis is in splendid and in grand form as the British monarch.
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14. DEATH ON THE NILE (1978)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: John Guillermin. Writer: Anthony Shaffer. Starring Peter Ustinov, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury.
After the huge success of the 1974 version of “Murder on the Orient Express” this Agatha Christie novel was also adapted for the big screen with grand locations and an extremely talented all-star cast. Davis plays (no surprise here) a crotchety wealthy woman traveling on the pleasure cruise where murders are happening. Davis’ interactions with her flighty nurse played by Maggie Smith are pure onscreen gold.
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13. THE CORN IS GREEN (1945)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/First National/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Irving Rapper. Writers: Casey Robinson, Frank Cavett. Starring Mildred Dunnock, Nigel Bruce, Rhys Williams.
“The Corn is Green” based on the Emlyn Williams play of the same name stars Davis as an idealistic school teacher who seeks to bring education to an impoverished Welsh coal mining town. It is interesting to note that Katharine Hepburn who is often considered Davis’ rival in terms of who was the greatest actress of this era would make a television movie version of the same play thirty years later in 1979 and was nominated for an Emmy in Davis’ old role. She would lose that Emmy however to…..Bette Davis in “Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter.”
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12. THE STAR (1952)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/REX/Shutterstock Director: Stuart Heisler. Writers: Dale Eunson, Katherine Albert. Starring Sterling Hayden, Natalie Wood, Warner Anderson.
Davis final three Oscar nominations all came for playing actresses. The other two we will get to further on down this list. The least known film of those three nominees is this one simply titled “The Star.” In a case of life imitating art Davis plays an aging Oscar winning actress hoping she still can reignite her film career. Interestingly Davis competed for the Oscar with her future nemesis Joan Crawford although both would lose to Shirley Booth for “Come Back Little Sheba.”
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11. THE LITTLE FOXES (1941)
Image Credit: George Hurrell/RKO/Samuel Goldwyn/REX/Shutterstock Director: William Wyler. Writer: Lillian Hellman. Starring Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Patricia Collinge.
Lillian Hellman’s acclaimed play provides a terrific meaty role for its lead actress in that of Regina Hubbard Giddens. Set in among an affluent Southern family Regina’s brothers are the sole heirs to her father’s estate and she must rely on her sickly husband for financial support. The play has been produced five times on Broadway with a virtual who’s who of actresses taking the leading role: Tallulah Bankhead, Anne Bancroft, Elizabeth Taylor, Stockard Channing and Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternating in the most recent production. The film adaptation received nine Oscar nominations in all the major categories but went home empty handed. Davis would lose to Joan Fontaine in “Suspicion.”
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10. DANGEROUS (1935)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Alfred E. Green. Writer: Laird Doyle. Starring Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth.
Davis won her first Best Actress Oscar for this film but it is widely thought to have been a makeup prize for her not even being nominated the year before for her breakout role in “Of Human Bondage.” The film casts Davis as a tempestuous actress who has fallen on hard times after a promising start. She finds a chance at love with an architect who admires her but when he sees her true colors, he becomes disillusioned with her.
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9. HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Robert Aldrich. Writers: Henry Farrell, Lukas Heller. Starring Olivia de Haviland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead.
After the surprise acclaimed success of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were slated to reunite in this similarly themed gothic macabre film. As documented on the recent TV series “Feud: Bette and Joan” Crawford departed shortly into filming and was replaced with Olivia de Haviland. The film casts Davis as another reclusive woman hiding out in a large mansion as in the first film and once again living in torment over secrets from the past.
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8. MR. SKEFFINGTON (1944)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director: Vincent Sherman. Writers: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein. Starring Claude Rains, Walter Abel, George Coulouris.
Davis received her seventh Oscar nomination and one of her more frequent and favorite co-stars Claude Rains received one of his four Supporting Actor nominations (without ever winning one) for this story of a society woman who enters into a loveless a marriage to save her beloved brother from criminal charges. Davis and Rains would lose their Oscar bids to Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight” and Barry Fitzgerald in “Going My Way” respectively.
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7. JEZEBEL (1938)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/First National/REX/Shutterstock Director: William Wyler. Writers: Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel, John Huston. Starring Henry Fonda, George Brent, Fay Bainter.
Three years after her first Best Actress Oscar Davis would once again take home the prize this time for her role as a conceited southern belle whose antics drive away her fiancée whom she tries to win back. Fay Bainter would take the Supporting Actress prize making this one of the rare times the same film took both female acting awards. Davis’ two wins so early in the Academy history would later create a strange situation for her Oscar-wise. She had been awarded twice which was about the maximum most people were awarded back then yet her best work and most remembered films were still to come.
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6. THE LETTER (1940)
Image Credit: George Hurrell/Warner Bros/REX/Shutterstock Director: William Wyler. Writers: W. Somerset Maugham, Howard Koch. Starring Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Gale Sondergaard.
Seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Director and Actress went to this film about a woman who shoots a man to death and claims self-defense. Set in South-East Asia the film is notable for many reasons but one of them being the fact that Davis so bravely takes on the role of a not very likeable woman. While other actresses did and still do worry a great deal about their image Davis always seemed to take delight in playing less than likeable characters. Davis would lose this Oscar to Ginger Rogers for “Kitty Foyle.”
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5. DARK VICTORY (1939)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/REX/Shutterstock Director: Edmund Goulding. Writer: Casey Robinson. Starring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan.
1939 is often cited as one of if not the greatest years in the history of filmmaking. “Gone with the Wind” swept the Oscars winning 8 awards including Best Picture and Best Actress for Vivian Leigh. Among the films it beat where “The Wizard of Oz,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Wuthering Heights” and Davis’ film “Dark Victory.” In the film Davis plays a care free young socialite who must face the fact that she has a terminal brain tumor. The film is notable today in that it features future President of the United States Ronald Reagan in a supporting role.
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4. OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934)
Image Credit: Courtesy of RKO Radio Pictures Director: John Cromwell. Writers: Lester Cohen, W. Somerset Maugham. Starring Leslie Howard, Frances Dee, Alan Hale.
Davis began her film career in 1931 and appeared in roughly 20 films before she found her breakthrough role three years later in this adaptation of the acclaimed novel. The film revolves around the story of a young man who falls in love with a crass loudmouthed waitress and the two descend into a destructive relationship. Davis received superlative reviews for the film with Life Magazine calling the performance “probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress.” It was a huge shock when Davis wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar for the film and for the only time in its history the Academy allowed people to cast write in votes on the final ballot. The write in campaign didn’t work though and the Best Actress award went to Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night.” (Ironically Davis had been offered that role also but her studio refused to let her out of her contract to take it on.)
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3. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE (1962)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/REX/Shutterstock Director: Robert Aldrich. Writer: Lukas Heller. Starring Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Wesley Addy.
The pairing of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on this film would become the stuff of legend. The tremendous clashes in personality and ego would rise to the level that the two would be played by Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon in the recent acclaimed mini-series. Davis plays a former child star who lives reclusively with her handicapped sister played by Crawford. The resentment between the two has degenerated to the point where Davis spends most of her days tormenting her sister while also hoping for her big career comeback. When Davis earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the film and Crawford didn’t Crawford bizarrely volunteered to accept the award for the actresses who weren’t present at the ceremony. Anne Bancroft won the award for “The Miracle Worker” so Crawford was able to take the stage and accept the Oscar for her causing Davis great grief as she saw her much coveted third Oscar be carried off by her greatest enemy.
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2. NOW, VOYAGER (1942)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/REX/Shutterstock Director: Irving Rapper. Writer: Casey Robinson. Starring Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper.
“Now, Voyager” remains one of Davis’ most beloved films and her character of Charlotte Vale is still an inspiration for many to this day. (Carrie Fisher famously named her autobiographical lead character in “Postcards from the Edge” Suzanne Vale and cast Mary Wickes one of “Now, Voyager”’s remaining living cast members in the role of her grandmother.) The film was quite ahead of its time in how it shows the benefits that psychiatry can have in a person’s life. Davis plays a shy, middle aged spinster who lives under her mother’s dominating finger. Mocked by her relatives and virtually friendless she proceeds to have a mental breakdown. This lands her in a psychiatric facility run by Claude Rains as the wise Dr. Jaquith. Here Davis learns to stand up for herself and tolerate her meddlesome mother’s domineering nature. Davis’ test of her new-found confidence comes when she takes a trip on a pleasure cruise where she finds love but more importantly realizes that she isn’t the loser she has thought she was all her life. (On a personal note watching this film on the top deck of a cruise ship under the stars during the 2016 TCM Classic Film Cruise was about as thrilling a movie experience as this writer has ever had.) Davis and Gladys Cooper as her mother were both Oscar nominated but lost Lead and Supporting Actress to the stars of “Mrs. Miniver” Greer Garson and Teresa Wright.
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1. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm.
“All About Eve” is as close to perfect that a movie can get. The story of a legendary Broadway actress who befriends a young woman she thinks is just a star struck girl only to find out she is a conniving manipulative amoral woman trying to build her own career won six Oscars including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay. Davis likely would have received her third Best Actress award for the film but co-star Anne Baxter was also placed in lead actress so their competition as well as the presence of Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard” resulted in a surprise win for Judy Holliday in “Born Yesterday” (a rare comic performance to win Best Actress.)
