# The 32 Best James Stewart Movies

> Screwball comedies, Hitchcock nightmares and dusty frontier westerns all carry the same drawl here. Some made him a legend; others are the quiet gems classic-film fans keep recommending.

*By YPB Team · Published November 3, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-32-best-james-stewart-movies*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **It's a Wonderful Life** — score 1000/1000
   Frank Capra's 1946 fantasy drama in which Stewart plays George Bailey, a role that earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
2. **Vertigo** — score 918/1000
   Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller with Stewart as Scottie Ferguson, voted the greatest film ever made in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll.
3. **Shenandoah** — score 745/1000
   Andrew V. McLaglen's 1965 Civil War drama with Stewart as a Virginia farmer trying to keep his family out of the war.
4. **The Flight of the Phoenix** — score 635/1000
   Robert Aldrich's 1965 survival drama in which Stewart plays the pilot of a cargo plane that crashes in the Sahara.
5. **The Naked Spur** — score 635/1000
   Anthony Mann's 1953 western with Stewart as a bounty hunter, whose screenplay received an Academy Award nomination.
6. **Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation** — score 586/1000
   Henry Koster's 1962 family comedy with Maureen O'Hara that won Stewart the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival.
7. **The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance** — score 532/1000
   John Ford's 1962 western starring Stewart as lawyer Ransom Stoddard alongside John Wayne and Lee Marvin.
8. **Two Rode Together** — score 532/1000
   John Ford's 1961 western pairing Stewart, as a cynical marshal, with Richard Widmark.
9. **Destry Rides Again** — score 532/1000
   George Marshall's 1939 comic western in which Stewart plays a gun-shy deputy opposite Marlene Dietrich.
10. **The Shootist** — score 469/1000
   Don Siegel's 1976 western, John Wayne's final film, in which Stewart plays the doctor who diagnoses Wayne's dying gunfighter.
11. **The Stratton Story** — score 469/1000
   Sam Wood's 1949 biopic of pitcher Monty Stratton, who returned to baseball after losing a leg; it won the Oscar for Best Story.
12. **Mr. Smith Goes to Washington** — score 469/1000
   Frank Capra's 1939 political drama that brought Stewart his first Best Actor Oscar nomination as idealistic senator Jefferson Smith.
13. **The Spirit of St. Louis** — score 469/1000
   Billy Wilder's 1957 biopic in which Stewart plays Charles Lindbergh on his 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic.
14. **The Glenn Miller Story** — score 469/1000
   Anthony Mann's 1954 biopic of the big-band leader, with June Allyson as his wife; it won the Oscar for Best Sound Recording.
15. **The Man from Laramie** — score 397/1000
   The 1955 CinemaScope western that closed Stewart's run of five westerns with Anthony Mann.
16. **The Shop Around the Corner** — score 397/1000
   Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 romantic comedy set in a Budapest shop, co-starring Margaret Sullavan and later remade as You've Got Mail.
17. **The Greatest Show on Earth** — score 397/1000
   Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 circus drama, winner of the Best Picture Oscar, in which Stewart plays a clown who never removes his makeup.
18. **The Philadelphia Story** — score 313/1000
   George Cukor's 1940 comedy with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, for which Stewart won his only competitive Academy Award.
19. **Harvey** — score 313/1000
   Henry Koster's 1950 comedy in which Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, whose best friend is an invisible giant rabbit, earning an Oscar nomination.
20. **Broken Arrow** — score 313/1000
   Delmer Daves's 1950 western with Stewart as Tom Jeffords, who negotiates peace with the Apache leader Cochise.
21. **The Mortal Storm** — score 313/1000
   Frank Borzage's 1940 anti-Nazi drama co-starring Margaret Sullavan, set in a German family torn apart by Hitler's rise.
22. **Anatomy of a Murder** — score 313/1000
   Otto Preminger's 1959 courtroom drama with a Duke Ellington score, in which Stewart's defence lawyer Paul Biegler earned an Oscar nomination.
23. **Rope** — score 313/1000
   Hitchcock's 1948 crime thriller, his first in Technicolor, staged to look like a handful of continuous long takes.
24. **Bend of the River** — score 313/1000
   Anthony Mann's 1952 western in which Stewart leads a wagon train of settlers into Oregon.
25. **The Far Country** — score 313/1000
   Anthony Mann's 1954 western in which Stewart plays a cattleman driving his herd to the Klondike gold fields.
26. **Call Northside 777** — score 313/1000
   Henry Hathaway's 1948 docu-style film noir in which Stewart plays a Chicago reporter reopening a murder conviction.
27. **Bell, Book and Candle** — score 313/1000
   Richard Quine's 1958 romantic comedy in which Stewart falls for a witch played by Kim Novak, his Vertigo co-star that year.
28. **Rear Window** — score 213/1000
   Hitchcock's 1954 thriller in which Stewart plays a wheelchair-bound photographer spying on his neighbours, opposite Grace Kelly.
29. **Winchester '73** — score 213/1000
   The 1950 western that began Stewart's run of five westerns with director Anthony Mann, following a stolen prize rifle.
30. **How the West Was Won** — score 213/1000
   The 1962 Cinerama western epic, filmed by three directors, in which Stewart plays mountain man Linus Rawlings.
31. **The Man Who Knew Too Much** — score 0/1000
   Hitchcock's 1956 remake of his own 1934 film, pairing Stewart with Doris Day, whose song Que Sera, Sera won an Oscar.
32. **You Can't Take It with You** — score 0/1000
   Frank Capra's 1938 screwball comedy, the first of Stewart's films with Capra, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Tags: movies, actors, classic, hollywood, james stewart