James Garner’s Typical Vibe
Signature vibe

Highest-ranked title
Highest-ranked title
James Garner has 24 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 1950s through the 2010s. 2 sit in the Top 1% of all titles we track — including The Great Escape.
Recurring themes

The Last Adventure
1967
Adventure · Drama

He's Just Not That Into You
2009
Comedy · Romance

(500) Days of Summer
2009
Comedy · Drama

Young People Fucking
2007
Comedy · Drama

New York, I Love You
2008
Comedy · Drama

Sanjuro
1962
Drama · Action

Nicholas Nickleby
2002
Adventure · Drama

200 Pounds Beauty
2006
Drama · Comedy

The Great Escape
1963 · Movie · Actor
Top 1%MGM+ · Included

The Ultimate Gift
2007 · Movie · Actor
Top 5%Prime Video · Included

The Children's Hour
1961 · Movie · Actor
Top 10%MGM+ · Included

Support Your Local Sheriff!
1969 · Movie · Actor
Top 25%Prime Video · Included

Fire in the Sky
1993 · Movie · Actor
Top 29%MGM+ · Included

The Rockford Files
1974 · Series · Actor
Top 48%Prime Video · Included

An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to a woman with Alzheimer's. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths.
Dir. Nick Cassavetes · With Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
Dir. John Sturges · With Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough

When his wealthy grandfather finally dies, Jason Stevens fully expects to benefit when it comes to the reading of the will. But instead of a sizable inheritance, Jason receives a test, a series of tasks he must complete before he can get any money.
Dir. Michael O. Sajbel · With Drew Fuller, Abigail Breslin, James Garner

An unruly student at a private all-girls boarding school scandalously accuses the two women who run it of having a romantic relationship.
Dir. William Wyler · With Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.
Dir. Richard Donner · With Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, James Garner

In the old west, a man becomes a Sheriff just for the pay, figuring he can decamp if things get tough.
Dir. Burt Kennedy · With James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan

The most daring drivers in the world have gathered to compete for the 1966 Formula One championship. After a spectacular wreck in the first of a series of races, American wheelman Pete Aron is dropped by his sponsor. Refusing to quit, he joins a Japanese racing team. While juggling his career with a torrid love affair involving an ex-teammate's wife, Pete must also contend with Jean-Pierre Sarti, a French contestant who has previously won two world titles.
Dir. John Frankenheimer · With James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand

A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.
Dir. Blake Edwards · With Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston

After clearing brush for the government, a group of men return to town claiming their friend was abducted. Despite no apparent motive or evidence of foul play, no-one believes their story and his disappearance is treated as murder.
Dir. Rob Lieberman · With D. B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, Craig Sheffer

Three years into their loving marriage, with two infant daughters at home in Los Angeles, Nicholas Arden and Ellen Wagstaff Arden are on a plane that goes down in the South Pacific. Although most passengers manage to survive the incident, Ellen presumably perishes when swept off her lifeboat, her body never recovered. Fast forward five years. Nicholas, wanting to move on with his life, has Ellen declared legally dead. Part of that moving on includes getting remarried, this time to a young woman named Bianca Steele, who, for their honeymoon, he plans to take to the same Monterrey resort where he and Ellen spent their honeymoon. On that very same day, Ellen is dropped off in Los Angeles by the Navy, who rescued her from the South Pacific island where she was stranded for the past five years. She asks the Navy not to publicize her rescue nor notify Nicholas as she wants to do so herself.
Dir. Michael Gordon · With Doris Day, James Garner, Polly Bergen

Frank Corvin, ‘Hawk’ Hawkins, Jerry O'Neill and ‘Tank’ Sullivan were hotdog members of Project Daedalus, the US Air Force's test program for space travel, but their hopes were dashed in 1958 with the formation of NASA and the use of trained chimps. They blackmail their way into orbit when Russia's mysterious ‘Ikon’ communications satellite's orbit begins to degrade and threatens to crash to Earth.
Dir. Clint Eastwood · With Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland

Cranky but likable L.A. PI Jim Rockford pulls no punches (but takes plenty of them). An ex-con sent to the slammer for a crime he didn't commit, Rockford takes on cases others don't want, aided by his tough old man, his lawyer girlfriend and some shady associates from his past.
Dir. Stephen J. Cannell, Roy Huggins · With James Garner, Noah Beery Jr.

Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily, a by-the-book officer, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man, Joe Kelly, falls in love with a Japanese woman, Katsumi, and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.
Dir. Joshua Logan · With Marlon Brando, Patricia Owens, James Garner
Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton-gang in a fight. In revenge Clanton's thugs kill the marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt Earp starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.
Dir. John Sturges · With James Garner, Jason Robards, Robert Ryan

as Shazam (voice) · Voice
Chosen the world’s protector against the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man – pride, envy, greed, hatred, selfishness, laziness and injustice – young Billy Batson accepts his destiny as Captain Marvel. Battling alongside Superman against nefarious Black Adam, Billy soon discovers the challenge super heroes ultimately face: is it revenge or justice?
Dir. Joaquim Dos Santos · With George Newbern, Jerry O'Connell, Arnold Vosloo

A peaceful alien planet faces annihilation, as the homeless remainder of the human race sets its eyes on Terra. Mala, a rebellious Terrian teenager, will do everything she can to stop it.
Dir. Aristomenis Tsirbas · With Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, James Garner

as Commander Lyle Tiberius Rourke (voice) · Voice
Disney+ · Included
A young linguist named Milo Thatch joins an intrepid group of explorers to find the mysterious lost continent of Atlantis.
Dir. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise · With Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, James Garner

They used to run the country. Now they're running for their lives! Two on-the-lam former Presidents of the United States. Framed in a scandal by the current President and pursued by armed agents, the two squabbling political foes plunge into a desperately frantic search for the evidence that will establish their innocence.
Dir. Peter Segal · With Jack Lemmon, James Garner, Dan Aykroyd

In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.
Dir. Callie Khouri · With Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Fionnula Flanagan
In Apache territory, a supply Army column heads for the next fort, an ex-scout searches for the killer of his Native wife, and a housewife abandons her husband to rejoin her Apache lover's tribe.
Dir. Ralph Nelson · With James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bill Travers

Paul and Cate are raising their three children -- Bridget, Kerry and Rory -- which is no easy task. Oldest daughter Bridget is traversing the dating scene. Kerry is cute and smart, but she has a hard time getting in touch with her true feelings because of her lack of self-confidence. The youngest of the three children, and only boy, Rory is beginning to discover one of life's greatest mysteries -- girls.
Dir. Tracy Gamble · With Katey Sagal, Kaley Cuoco, Amy Davidson

A retired detective accepts a simple task, unaware that it will tear open old, forgotten, but deadly wounds.
Dir. Robert Benton · With Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman
Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp team up to solve a murder at the Academy Awards in 1929 Hollywood.
Dir. Blake Edwards · With James Garner, Bruce Willis, Malcolm McDowell

as Pat (voice) · Voice
A bedtime story leads Littlefoot and his grandparents on a journey to a new land, where Littlefoot discovers someone who vanished before he was born: his father! Now Littlefoot must decide between two worlds. Will he leave to be with his friends in the Great Valley, or stay behind and start a new life with his father?
Dir. Charles Grosvenor · With John Ingle, Alec Medlock, Kenneth Mars
Top Collaborators
Directors with 2+ shared titles, ranked by frequency