best marilyn monroe biography movies

15 Best Marilyn Monroe Movies to Stream Now

Just in time for the new biopic chronicling the icon's life.

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Now more than ever, there has been a keen interest in Monroe's legacy, with several actresses portraying her on screen and a new biopic called Blonde starring Ana de Armas coming to Netflix on September 28 . Just in time for the upcoming film, we rounded up 15 of Monroe's best films and how to watch them online.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

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In one of her earliest roles, Monroe plays a young mistress to a crooked lawyer in this noir heist film about a $1 million jewel robbery in a mid-western city.

All About Eve (1950)

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Shortly after The Asphalt Jungle , a then young and unknown Monroe landed herself another small gig in this hit movie starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. It tells the story of an aspiring actress who pushes her way into a Broadway star's inner circle.

As Young As You Feel (1951)

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Monroe has a small appearance as a foxy secretary in this small-budget 1951 comedy about a 65-year-old printer who devises an elaborate scheme to avoid forced retirement.

Clash by Night (1952)

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Monroe's first major leading role in this film noir drama was overshadowed when her infamous nude calendar photos surfaced publicly. Nevertheless, it makes the list of one of her most remembered parts: She plays a supporting actress in this Barbara Stanwyck-led movie about an embittered love triangle.

Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

For one of her first serious leading roles, the then-rising star plays a disturbed babysitter who looks after a child at a hotel, where she encounters a cynical pilot (Richar Widmark). Shortly after meeting, it doesn't take long for him to realize Monroe's character shouldn't be taking care of the kid.

Monkey Business (1952)

Monroe shares the screen with Carey Grant and Ginger Rogers in this classic comedy about a chemist whose life gets turned upside down when his chimp discovers the fountain of youth.

Niagara (1953)

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Monroe's sex symbol star power takes center stage in the 1953 thriller set in Niagara Falls, where marital issues come to the surface for a honeymooning couple.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

In perhaps her most iconic flick, Monroe stars alongside Jane Russell as a man-hungry showgirl who boards a cruise ship to Paris and gets tangled up with millionaires, a private detective, and other shenanigans.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Monroe shares the screen with fellow Hollywood darlings Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable in this comedy about three women who set out to find, you guessed it, eligible bachelors who are millionaires to marry, only to find true love along the way.

There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

This 1954 musical chronicles the careers of a vaudeville act husband-and-wife duo played by Ethel Merman and Dan Daily, and their three performer children. When their son (Donald O'Connor) falls in love with a hatcheck girl, played by none other than Monroe, the family begins to fall apart.

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seven Year Itch tells the story of a married man who becomes infatuated and smitten with his blonde bombshell neighbor.

Bus Stop (1956)

Monroe shows off her impressive acting chops in this rom-com drama, where she plays a saloon singer who becomes the romantic object of a naive yet stubborn cowboy's affections.

The Prince and the Show Girl (1957)

In this 1957 drama, the plot centers on an American showgirl (Monroe) who becomes entangled in international intrigue after a Prince Regent of a foreign country (Laurence Olivier) tries to seduce her.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Monroe's role in this laugh-out-loud flick, which revolves around two male musicians who disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band, earned her a Golden Globe Award.

The Misfits (1961)

Monroe moved away from her typecast role of a dumb blonde in what would become her and Clark Gable's last released film. Written by Monroe’s then-husband, Arthur Miller, the western drama follows a newly divorced woman (Monroe) who falls in love with an old-school cowboy (Gable) and gets mixed up in his world of misfits.

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Marilyn Monroe movies: 15 greatest films ranked worst to best

• Zach Laws , Chris Beachum
• May 24, 2024 2:52PM

Marilyn Monroe ‘s star burned brightly and briefly before her untimely death in 1962 at age 36. Yet she managed to enter the pop culture lexicon with just a handful of films, becoming Hollywood’s most memorable sex symbol. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1926, Monroe started off as a model before moving into acting with a series of bit parts, most notably in “All About Eve” and “The Asphalt Jungle,” both released in 1950. She became a leading lady with a trio of 1953 titles: the noir “Niagara,” the musical “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and the romantic comedy “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

She became iconic thanks to Billy Wilder ‘s “The Seven Year Itch” (1955), in which she played a young woman tantalizing her married neighbor ( Tom Ewell ). Her image was forever burned into our memories thanks to the scene where she stands over a subway grate and a passing train blows her billowing white dress upwards.

Tired of being cast as the blonde bombshell, Monroe decided to take classes from Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio. She stretched herself in the cinematic adaptation of William Inge ‘s play “Bus Stop” (1956), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Comedy/Musical Actress. Three years later, she won that category for Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” (1959), which cast her as a sultry singer who runs into two crossdressing musicians ( Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis ) evading the mob. Despite her box office prowess and Globes success, Monroe never earned an Oscar nomination, and sadly, the Academy never got a chance to recognize her.

Monroe’s bubbly onscreen persona masked a troubled offscreen life marked by depression, drug addition, and rocky marriages, including to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller . After appearing in John Huston ‘s moody 1961 drama “The Misfits” (written by Miller), she died from a drug overdose that was ruled a probable suicide.

Tour our photo gallery of Monroe’s 15 greatest films, including the titles listed above, as well as “Clash by Night,” “River of No Return,” “The Prince and the Showgirl” and more.

15. THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954)

Directed by Walter Lang. Screenplay by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, story by Lamar Trotti. Starring Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Marilyn Monroe, Dan Dailey, Johnnie Ray, Mitzi Gaynor.

Monroe was well on her way to becoming a major star by the time she took a supporting role in this high-gloss musical comedy. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” casts Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey as a husband and wife song-and-dance team who, along with their three kids (Donald O’Connor, Johnnie Ray, Mitzi Gaynor), are known as the The Five Donahues. When O’Connor falls in love with a gorgeous hat-check girl (Monroe), the family starts to fall apart. It’s not hard to understand why to boy would fall for Marilyn, especially when she croons some of her numbers, including the steamy “Heat Wave.” An Oscar nominee for its writing, costumes, and music.

14. THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL (1957)

Directed by Laurence Olivier. Screenplay by Terence Rattigan, based on his play ‘The Sleeping Prince.’ Starring Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Richard Wattis.

“The Prince and the Showgirl” found a second life with the biographical drama “My Week with Marilyn” (2011), which depicts the relationship Monroe (played by Michelle Williams) sparked with a young assistant (Eddie Redmayne) during the filming of Laurence Olivier’s lavish romance. The film itself is a pretty typical Cinderella tale about an American showgirl (Monroe) who is seduced by the Prince Regent of a foreign country (Olivier), causing international intrigue. While there’s not much originality here, there’s an undeniable chemistry between the two leads that crackles whenever they’re onscreen together. Monroe competed at the BAFTAs for the role, but was overlooked at the Academy.

13. CLASH BY NIGHT (1952)

Directed by Fritz Lang. Screenplay by Alfred Hayes, based on the play by Clifford Odets. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, Keith Andes, Silvio Minciotti, J. Carrol Naish.

Although she was fourth billed, Monroe had her juiciest supporting role yet in this hard-edged noir from German master Fritz Lang. Based on the play by Clifford Odets, “Clash by Night” centers on a cynical city woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who returns to her hometown, a fishing village in Monterey, CA. She starts dating a sweet-natured, working class fisherman (Paul Douglas), but an equally bitter projectionist (Robert Ryan) seduces her. Monroe costars as Peggy, the long-suffering girlfriend of Stanwyck’s abusive brother, Joe (Keith Anders). In a handful of scenes, the young ingenue holds her own against the film’s veteran cast.

12. MONKEY BUSINESS (1952)

Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and I.A.L. Diamond, story by Harry Siegel. Starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Hugh Marlowe, Henri Letondal, Robert Cornthwaite, Larry Keating, Douglas Spencer, Esther Dale, George Winslow.

“Monkey Business” was Howard Hawks’s attempt to recapture the madcap madness of his classic “Bringing Up Baby,” with Cary Grant once again playing a befuddled professor dealing with professional and romantic mishaps. While it can’t hold a candle to that screwball masterpiece, it’s still uproariously funny and wonderfully entertaining in its own right. Grant plays Dr. Barnaby Fulton, a chemist whose lab chimp discovers a youth potion, causing complications for himself, his wife (Ginger Rogers), his secretary (Monroe), and his boss (Charles Coburn). Listen up for Hawks’s voice off-camera during the opening credits.

11. RIVER OF NO RETURN (1954)

Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Frank Fenton, story by Louis Lantz. Starring Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Tommy Rettig, Rory Calhoun, Douglas Spencer, Murvyn Vye.

“River of No Return” is a typically odd, glossy melodrama from Otto Preminger, that most flamboyant of envelope-pushing filmmakers. Set in the American Northwest during the gold rush, it centers on a farmer (Robert Mitchum) who rescues a gambler (Rory Calhoun) and his saloon girl wife (Monroe) from a leaky raft. To return the favor, Calhoun steals Mitchum’s only rifle and horse and leaves his bride behind. With Indians on the warpath, Mitchum, Monroe, and his young son (Tommy Rettig) set sail down the treacherous river to safety. The gorgeous Cinemascope cinematography beautifully captures the landscape, providing Monroe with a giant landscape on which to appear gorgeous.

10. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950)

Directed by John Huston. Screenplay by Ben Maddow and John Huston, based on the novel by W.R. Burnett. Starring Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Anthony Caruso, Marilyn Monroe.

John Huston’s noir classic provided Monroe with her big breakout role, which, coupled with “All About Eve” that same year, turned her into a bonafide movie star. “The Asphalt Jungle” centers on an aging criminal (Sam Jaffe) who decides to pull off one more heist with the help of a seedy lawyer (Louis Calhern) and three other felons (Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Anthony Caruso). Monroe steals the show with a brief appearance as the lawyer’s sexy mistress. Huston shoots in a gritty naturalism that influenced countless crime movies to come. The film earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Jaffe), and Best Screenplay (Huston and Ben Maddow).

9. DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker. Screenplay by Daniel Taradash, based on the novel ‘Mischief’ by Charlotte Armstrong. Starring Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, Donna Corcoran, Jeanne Cagney, Lurene Tuttle, Elisha Cook Jr., Jim Backus, Verna Felton, Willis Bouchey, Don Beddoe.

“Don’t Bother to Knock” would be yet another largely forgotten noir cheapie were it not for Monroe’s electrifying performance as a deeply disturbed woman given the absolute worst job imaginable. She plays Nell Forbes, a suicidal babysitter recently released from a mental institution. When a jet pilot (Richard Widmark) who’s reeling from a recent breakup falls in love with her, he soon realizes that she might be a little unstable. Though the melodramatic material could provide an invitation for overacting, Monroe makes Nell more sad than scary, breaking our hearts while causing us to bite our fingernails. Notable for being Anne Bancroft’s film debut.

8. NIAGARA (1953)

Directed by Henry Hathaway. Written by Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen, and Walter Reisch. Starring Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter, Dennis O’Dea, Don Wilson, Lurene Tuttle, Russell Collins, Will Wright.

This pitch-black film noir helped put Monroe on the map, although it’s antithetical to everything she’d become famous for thereafter. It casts her as a dissatisfied housewife vacationing with her husband, a traumatized war veteran (Joseph Cotten), in Niagara Falls. A newlywed couple (Jean Peters and Max Showalter) staying nearby become entangled in Monroe’s plot to have Cotten murdered. The blonde bombshell proves a perfect femme fatale with her smoldering sexuality tinged with a hint of virtuous innocence, which, when twisted just the right way, makes for an alluring bad girl.

7. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the short story ‘The Wisdom of Eve’ by Mary Orr. Starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, Gregory Ratoff, Marilyn Monroe.

With “All About Eve” and “The Asphalt Jungle” earlier that same year, Marilyn Monroe gained the notice of movie audiences everywhere. Although she has only a brief role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Oscar-winning diva fest, you can’t take your eyes off of her, and she almost manages to steal the show from Bette Davis (and that’s saying something). The film centers on up-and-coming actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), who ingratiates herself into the inner circle of aging Broadway star Margo Channing (Davis), hoping to climb her way to the top. Monroe shows up at a party thrown in Margo’s home as the date of acid-tongued drama critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), and when he encourages her to cozy up with a prominent producer (Gregory Ratoff), she famously remarks, “Why do they always looks like unhappy rabbits?” The film earned a record 14 Oscar nominations (tied later by “Titanic” and “La La Land”), winning six prizes including Best Picture.

6. HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953)

Directed by Jean Negulesco. Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, based on the plays ‘The Greeks Had a Word for It’ by Zoe Akins and ‘Loco’ by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, William Powell.

Need tips on how to land a sugar daddy? Look no further than Jean Negulesco’s splashy romantic comedy about three gold diggers (Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable) looking for their perfect millionaire match. Yet wouldn’t you know it, they actually find true love along the way. While Bacall and Grable shine brightly in their respective roles, all eyes are on Monroe as blonde bombshell Pola Debevoise. Interestingly enough, this was the first film shot using CinemaScope, making it both frothy and epic. (Though it was the first one shot using the technology, the Biblical epic “The Robe” beat it to screens earlier in 1953.)

5. BUS STOP (1956)

Directed by Joshua Logan. Screenplay by George Axelrod and William Inge, based on the play by Inge. Starring Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, Arthur O’Connell, Betty Field, Eileen Heckart.

After years of musicals and light comedies, Monroe proved herself a capable dramatic actress with this adaptation of William Inge’s Broadway play. In a lot of ways, her performance is better than the film itself, which casts her as a saloon singer who catches the eye of a naive rodeo performer (Don Murray). He pursues her relentlessly, trying to force her to marry him and live on his ranch in Montana. Director Joshua Logan never fully delves into the obsessive and unhealthy behavior driving Murray’s character, causing this once-taboo story to feel terribly dated. But Monroe shows she was more than just a sexpot in a role that brought her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Comedy/Musical Actress (she was snubbed at the Oscars).

4. GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953)

Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Charles Lederer, based on the stage musical by Anita Loos and Joseph Fields. Starring Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, Taylor Holmes.

There’s perhaps no more tantalizing duo than Monroe and Jane Russell, paired together in Howard Hawks’s delightful adaptation of Anita Loos’s Broadway classic. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” centers on two showgirls who set sail for Paris, where Monroe is scheduled to marry a young millionaire (Tommy Noonan). On the way, they encounter a private detective (Elliott Reid) hired to investigate whether or not she’s just another gold digger. Russell, meanwhile, finds herself flirting with a wealthy diamond merchant (Charles Coburn). Perhaps best known for Monroe’s signature number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” in which she breathily explains why it’s important to find a man of means.

3. THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955)

Directed by Billy Wilder. Screenplay by George Axelrod and Billy Wilder, based on the play by Axelrod. Starring Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Sonny Tufts, Robert Strauss.

Billy Wilder’s “The Seven Year Itch” might not be a great movie, but it did provide Monroe with the image that would come to define her: as a subway passes underground, the gust from the sidewalk gate blows her white dress upward, creating an iconic bombshell sex symbol for the ages. A heavily-censored version of George Axelrod’s hit play, the film centers on a faithful husband (Tom Ewell) whose eye starts to wander towards his smoking hot upstairs neighbor (Monroe) when his wife and kids are out of town. Wilder makes up for what he can’t explicitly say with innuendo, allowing Monroe to help fill in the gaps in our dirty minds. The role brought her a BAFTA nomination, though the Academy ignored her.

2. THE MISFITS (1961)

Directed by John Huston. Written by Arthur Miller. Starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach.

John Huston’s “The Misfits” occupies a sad place in cinema history due to the fate of its three stars: Clark Gable died before it’s release, Monroe shortly thereafter, while Montgomery Clift would make only three more movies before his own untimely demise in 1966. Written by Monroe’s then-husband, Arthur Miller, it revolves around a beautiful divorcee (Monroe) in love with a past-his-prime cowboy (Gable) who, along with his partners (Clift and Eli Wallach), grinds up “misfit” horses into dog food. A flop in its time, the film has found a second life as a minor masterpiece, thanks in large part to its tragic significance. Monroe is particularly good in a role that cast her against type, playing a wounded woman who seeks solace in other deeply damaged people. It’s especially hard to watch given her own life’s story, which perhaps gave her something to draw on for the performance.

1. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

Directed by Billy Wilder. Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan. Starring Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, George Raft, Joe E. Brown, Pat O’Brien.

Monroe was never more tantalizing than she was in “Some Like It Hot,” which provided her with the perfect role for her unique charm and charisma. The film has a premise of almost Olympian silliness that’s executed with wit, sex, and style by Billy Wilder. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis star as Chicago musicians who have to go on the run after witnessing a mob hit. Desperate to not draw attention to themselves, they decide to don dresses and join an all-women’s band, led by the alluring Sugar Kane (Monroe). While Curtis tries to romance Monroe by also playing a Cary Grant lookalike, Lemmon finds himself being chased by a wealthy bachelor (Joe E. Brown), leading to one of the all-time greatest final lines (“Well, nobody’s perfect” says Brown when he finds out his beloved is actually a man). Monroe won the Golden Globe as Best Comedy/Musical Actress, but was ignored at the Oscars, despite the film earning nine nominations including Best Director and Best Actor (Lemmon).

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Every Marilyn Monroe Movie, Ranked

This list was originally published in 2017. We have republished it with Blonde in theaters .

Hollywood has been creating a mythology around blonde bombshells since its beginnings. But no blonde sex symbol has had a deeper and more long-lasting impact on film and American culture than Marilyn Monroe. You probably had an image of Monroe in your mind long before you ever saw her on film. The dumb blonde. The white-hot sex symbol. The foolish girl-woman. The picture of mid-century femininity — wasp-waisted, platinum blonde, and buxom. The tragic victim. These warring images have lasted long after Monroe’s death in 1962 at 36 years old, and they’re easy to twist into caricature. She’s been flattened onto dorm-room posters, mugs, T-shirts, artist renderings. She’s been linked to falsely attributed quotes, conspiracy theories, and lurid rumors. But Monroe was more complex than her legacy suggests, as both an actress and a woman. This ranking of Monroe’s 29 films — based on her performance in each — gives a sense of what a supremely talented comedian and dramatic actress she was, with a keen understanding of the camera that few actors can replicate.

29. The Fireball (1950)

One important aspect of classic Hollywood’s studio system, which was in its twilight as Monroe rose to stardom, is the sheer breadth of work actors were forced to do by the demanding contracts their studios locked them into. A lot of stars, even the greatest among them, have a lot of minor appearances in forgettable work, particularly at the very beginning of their careers. That’s why it isn’t surprising just how many middling to outright-bad films Monroe appeared very briefly in. The Fireball, starring an exceedingly over-the-top and loudmouth Mickey Rooney as a hot-shot competitive roller-skater, is one of the best examples of this. Monroe appears in two scenes, and not even her natural charm makes it worth watching. Monroe diehards shouldn’t waste their time tracking this down.

28. Love Happy (1949)

Love Happy is generally (and rightly, I might add) considered the weakest of the Marx Brothers films . Monroe has a tiny walk-on role — she isn’t onscreen long enough to leave much of an impression beyond her beauty. Years later when asked about Monroe, Groucho Marx said of her audition , “The whole room revolved when she walked.”

27. Right Cross (1950)

Another small, uncredited role for Monroe, this time in a film directed by John Sturges, starring Dick Powell and Ricardo Montalban. Monroe appears for less than a minute as a woman Powell ditches on a date to deal with more pressing matters. It’s such a small role, it doesn’t give her enough time to make an impression. This is one of those roles that’s more notable for offering a glimpse of an unpolished version of Monroe than anything else.

26. A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950)

Calling Monroe’s role in this ridiculous, chintzy Western small is an understatement. She has one line (“Mhm, honey”) and a song-dance number as part of a traveling group. It’s cute, she looks good, and that’s the extent of its impact. But the song-dance number is adorable enough that this performance edges out her other blink-and-you-miss-it appearances on this list.

25. Dangerous Years (1947)

Monroe’s first released movie, in which she plays a bit part as a waitress in a restaurant in this emotionally convoluted drama. She’s spunky and fun to watch, but the role doesn’t exactly showcase any of the “It” factor that signaled to audiences they were witnessing a star in the making. Still, it is fascinating as a study of Monroe’s evolution from the fresh-faced, downright adorable girl in Dangerous Years to the pillow-lipped blonde vixen she’d establish herself as later.

24. Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948)

Filmed before Dangerous Years but released after, Monroe’s part is inconsequential, so much so that her role is uncredited. The only reason why this film leaves a mark is that it’s a way to see Monroe when she still used her natural voice.

23. Let’s Make It Legal (1951)

“Honey, your father’s been so divine with me that sometimes even I feel like calling him daddy!” is an actual line Monroe says in her supporting role as gold-digger Joyce Mannering to the fully grown daughter of Hugh (Macdonald Carey). There’s some interesting talent involved in the film, namely Claudette Colbert and Monroe herself. But the film is definitely below their pay grade. Monroe does her best with the material, and it’s a bigger part than her previous bit roles. That said, I’m not sure it’s worth sitting through.

22. Let’s Make Love (1960)

There’s no way around it: Let’s Make Love is a mess. The film’s t roubled production history is evident onscreen. It’s a shame, since putting together director George Cukor (known for films like The Women and A Star is Born ) and Monroe should have been a good pairing, considering how adept he was at charting and respecting the emotional realities of women. Cukor is unenthusiastic about the material, Yves Montand is gravely miscast, the script (which apparently had uncredited help from Monroe’s then-husband Arthur Miller) definitely doesn’t help. To make matters worse, it’s clear Monroe is unengaged in her character — she’s a bit listless, lacking the typical incandescent energy that can easily pull your focus, making this one of the most miscalculated starring roles of her career.

21. Home Town Story (1951)

Home Town Story is another forgettable, early film that Monroe barely figures into. But she actually makes an impression in her few scenes, giving her secretary character a sharp wit and simmering annoyance whenever men look her way.

20. As Young As You Feel (1951)

Yes, Monroe plays another supporting role in this film as a not-so-bright secretary who gets caught up in the machinations of others. But her expert comedic timing is on display here. I’m particularly fond of a moment when she sticks her tongue out in innocent annoyance at her boss in one scene. Filmmakers may have underestimated Monroe’s abilities, and her films may have carried a somewhat condescending tone toward her characters, but she brought more to her work than it often deserved.

19. Love Nest (1951)

Watching Monroe’s career develop, it’s easy to get the distinct feeling that she was the right actress, at the right time, at the wrong studio. Fox obviously realized they had an actress on their hands with that elusive “It” factor, but they didn’t know what to do with it at all. That’s abundantly clear with Love Nest . Monroe plays Roberta “Bobbie” Stevens, an old war buddy of writer Jim Scott (William Lundigan), whose well-meaning but slightly insipid wife grows increasingly jealous now that Bobbie is back in his life. Love Nest falls into a not-so-small category of films in Monroe’s career where she is defined by being an object of lust for men and jealousy for women. It’s a testament to Monroe’s skills that she never becomes a punch line and elevates every scene she appears in, despite the obvious aim of the filmmakers.

18. We’re Not Married! (1952)

We’re Not Married! is one of those weird classic Hollywood films that makes me wonder about the attitudes and practices of those behind the scenes. Weird isn’t quite the right word, at least when it comes to the segment Monroe appears in in this anthology film about five couples who find out they actually aren’t legally married and the (theoretically) hilarious comedy that ensues. Monroe plays a beauty queen who wins the Mrs. Mississippi pageant, while her husband is pissed that he has to handle domestic duties and take care of their child. Of course, he takes every opportunity to undermine her career, relishing each moment with a disturbing smile. To make matters worse, the filmmakers are thoroughly on his side. Sure, there’s a happy ending eventually, but it’s such a strangely bitter story. Monroe’s actually quite good — luminescent, open — but she’s fighting against a story that doesn’t respect her. Noticing a trend? It’s a problem that snakes through far too much of Monroe’s work.

17. O. Henry’s Full House (1952)

O. Henry’s Full House is an anthology film curiously narrated by and featuring author John Steinbeck. Monroe plays a prostitute/streetwalker in scenes against the great Charles Laughton. She lends the role a surprising weight and even uses her natural voice, not the breathy and babyish tone she eventually became known for.

16. Ladies of the Chorus (1948)

Monroe doesn’t have a lot of range as a singer, but her voice is so distinctive and brims with such personality, you can’t help but warm to it. Her role as Peggy Martin, a burlesque chorus girl who works with her mother, was Monroe’s first major part. It allowed her to sing, dance, and hint at how much wattage could be packed into her smile. She’s a pure confection and dramatically less curated than she’d come to be. It’s definitely a fun, worthwhile performance to track down. Despite her success in the role, Monroe’s contract with Columbia wasn’t renewed, but of course far greater success was to come.

15. There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954)

There’s No Business Like Show Business typifies a kind of glitzy mid-century comedy-musical that no longer gets made. It’s an ensemble through and through, including heavyweights like Donald O’Connor, who considered this his best work. Monroe understandably balked at having to place her enchanting but not technically proficient skills as a singer-dancer against such legends of the field. Still, there’s something compelling about Monroe that immediately draws your eye. By this point, she had firmly established the baby-voiced, platinum sexpot image that has come to define her image. Monroe is great in the role, bringing a particular blend of sexiness and innocence that is downright spellbinding.

14. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Monroe has, you guessed it, another minor supporting role in this 1950 noir directed by John Huston, as the mistress to Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern). In other hands, this role would be forgettable, but Monroe grants the character a twinge of vulnerability underneath the more obvious sex appeal, making the character distinct enough to stand against men like Sterling Hayden, who have meatier material.

13. Clash by Night (1952)

Marilyn Monroe has a minor supporting role — although definitely not as fleeting as her early work — in this blistering 1952 domestic noir directed by Fritz Lang. But she makes the most of her scenes, often wrestling the focus away from her more established co-stars whenever she appears. The film revolves around the story of Mae Doyle (Barbara Stanwyck), a former femme fatale of sorts who returns to her fishing-village hometown, becoming embroiled in lust and loss thanks to two very different men who enter her life. Monroe plays the girlfriend of Mae’s younger brother. There is crackling energy in the few scenes Monroe shares with Stanwyck, demonstrating how dramatically different these women are. Monroe’s performance in the film blends the wounded and sweet naïveté qualities that have become her hallmark. In just a few scenes, she leaves her mark.

12. All About Eve (1950)

At this point on the list, you’re probably wondering how exactly Marilyn Monroe became the classic Hollywood actress who remains most iconic and famous to modern audiences. Was it just the tragic circumstances of her death? Was it that her beauty is so evocative of a time and place that she’s become synonymous with 1950s Hollywood? Definitely not. Monroe was in fact a talented actress, even if she didn’t have faith in her own abilities. She also featured in outright classics that not only represent the height of Hollywood filmmaking, but are some of the most wondrous stories ever told in film. Case in point: All About Eve. The film charts how a young theater upstart (Anne Baxter) insinuates herself into the life of her older idol (Bette Davis) in order to usurp her. Monroe plays Claudia Caswell, a young actress taken under the wing of George Sanders’s devious critic. Her true talents lie not in acting on the stage, but how she acts in real life. This is the earliest and most dynamic example of a specific archetype Monroe perfected: the dumb blonde who is smarter than she first appears. Come for the deliciously sharp bon mots, stay for the actresses, including Monroe.

11. Monkey Business (1952)

The premise of Monkey Business is fantastical to the point of being ludicrous. Cary Grant plays a chemist who figures out an elixir for youth that makes anyone who drinks it start acting like a daffy adolescent. Once it gets into the water cooler at work, things get weird. It’s obvious director Howard Hawks isn’t too keen on the material, but the scenes between Grant and Monroe sing. She’s hilarious, electric, and quick-witted. It’s a shame that she isn’t the lead here, since her work easily trumps Ginger Rogers’s, who is granted the more important role.

10. The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The first time writer-director Billy Wilder worked with Marilyn Monroe, he created one of the indelible images of her career that has gone on to be the stuff of legend. Walking out of the theater with Tom Ewell’s Richard Sherman — an executive whose imagination hits overdrive when his family leaves town — Monroe stops atop the subway grates, letting her iconic, cream-colored dress billow around her. She seems utterly naive about her own sexual charge or how Richard leers at her. While the behind-the-scenes images of the shooting of this moment have rightfully become the stuff of legend, the film is exceedingly bitter. She’s not so much a character but an object, to the point where she has no name and is referred to as “The Girl” in the credits. Wilder is often considered cynical, but outside of this film, I’ve usually found him rather realistic and honest about the human condition. Monroe is good though. She’s a ray of sunshine cutting through the fog of the film. She’s bubbly, gorgeous, and captivating. The Seven Year Itch tries to turn Monroe into a punch line, but fails thanks to the strength of her presence, comedic timing, and supernova-bright charisma. In doing so, Monroe reveals herself to not only understand the particulars of comedy in film, but to be a comedic genius.

9. River of No Return (1954)

The behind-the-scenes turmoil of River of No Return — director Otto Preminger’s issues with Monroe’s acting coach, Robert Mitchum’s drinking, Monroe almost drowning — are all more engaging than the story that ends up onscreen. The film is the picture of politically troubling but visually tantalizing Westerns the 1950s excelled at — its narrative is undercut by immense racism and sexism. But Monroe is a wonder. She also has a great musical number I find irresistible, “File My Claim.” Warm and utterly beguiling, she communicates many emotions — yearning, a touching loneliness, joy, lust — with a single glance.

8. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

There’s something to be said about a film so overcome with color, New York City iconography, smart editing, and great cast chemistry that you can rewatch it countless times and still feel like you’re watching it anew. How to Marry a Millionaire is not Monroe’s best comedy, but it’s one I find myself revisiting very often. The way Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and Monroe play off each other as three best friends trying to manipulate their way into a marriage of riches is exceedingly fun to watch. The film crackles with energy, wit, and heightened humor, which Monroe excels at. Even better, Monroe’s gold digger isn’t condescended to. Her bubbly effervescence and surprising timidity are treated as utterly adorable qualities that the film plays into.

7. The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)

Years after this film’s tumultuous production, director-producer-star Laurence Olivier said that his co-star was a troubled girl who probably should have stuck to being a model instead of acting. To Olivier, Hollywood dimmed the natural charm Monroe had on camera, making her more fearful than expressive. Olivier may not be wrong about how Monroe was affected by Hollywood’s machinery, but film would be far poorer without her presence. Director Billy Wilder (who worked with Monroe on The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot ) once said that Monroe had “flesh impact”: an exceedingly rare quality in which she had “flesh which photographs like flesh. You feel you can reach out and touch it.” That is on full display here. She’s open, vulnerable, and utterly delightful in a way that is hard not to fall in love with. There’s something oddly tangible about Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl and, despite the period trappings, rather modern too.

6. Bus Stop (1956)

Monroe had a strange, nearly antagonistic relationship with the camera and the male gaze. Few actors seem to have such an understanding of the camera on a primal level. But Monroe deeply doubted her abilities and intelligence, leading her to take a break from acting in the mid-’50s in order to sharpen her skills at the Actor’s Studio with Lee Strasberg (a.k.a. the architect of American method acting) and his wife, Paula, as her acting coach. I have complicated thoughts about this dynamic, but I’ll stick to discussing the results of their tutelage in Bus Stop. In the film , Monroe stretches her skills, speaking with a Southern twang, wearing exceedingly pale makeup to comment on the nocturnal life of the untalented chanteuse she plays, and fleshing out a complex emotional landscape. There is something haunting about her character. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t examine how the male lead, a socially inept cowboy (Don Murray), is an obsessive stalker rather than a potential romance. In more capable hands this could have been a cutting film, meta-textually even, commenting on how Monroe herself was treated in Hollywood because of her brand of beauty. Instead, her singular performance, which is one of the best of her career, communicates the emotional possibilities the filmmakers couldn’t imagine.

5. Niagara (1953)

I’ve always felt that Monroe should have done more noirs. Her screen presence naturally blends a vulnerability, sexual charge, and, at times, melancholy that makes her a natural marriage between the more blistering femme fatales and morally upright good girls of the genre. As Rose Loomis, the selfish wife stepping out on her controlling husband, played by Joseph Cotten, Monroe is a marvel. The way she moves expresses intense longing, desire, and a flash of loneliness, which together communicate the reasons why Rose acts the way she does. Niagara also demonstrates how Monroe’s sexiness always had texture to it. In gorgeous Technicolor, the contradictions of Monroe’s screen presence and what made her a great star are on full display. She seduces as much as she draws away from the world.

4. Don’t Bother to Knock (1952)

Whenever I hear someone disparage Monroe as an actress, I point them in the direction of her seldom-spoken-of but evocative performance in the 1952 noir Don’t Bother to Knock. Monroe plays a mentally ill babysitter caring for the daughter of guests at a New York hotel where all the action takes place. She perfectly renders the emotional unraveling of a woman with seemingly no allies, whose depression tips into suicidal impulses. There is a startling mix of tenderness, luminescent charisma, and fragility that defines Monroe’s performance in Don’t Bother to Knock. Each time I watch it, I feel like I find something new to admire about her work. The film itself doesn’t live up to her performance, but she has a gravitas here that she seldom got to express elsewhere, an avenue I wish she had the opportunity to travel more in her career.

3. The Misfits (1961)

For many actors whose onscreen work has become the stuff of legend, you can point to a type, a specific skill set, or a style they cleverly excelled at. For me, Monroe is evocative more of a mood and a time than just the dumb blonde sexpot she’s become known for. Through this lens, her startling, heartfelt, gorgeous work in The Misfits, the last film before her death, feels strangely like an elegy for the “dumb blonde” she never truly was, and the Hollywood she existed within. The film was directed by John Huston and written by Monroe’s then-husband Arthur Miller. It centers on Monroe as a recent divorcée who spends time with an aging cowboy (Clark Gable in his final film) and his friend (Montgomery Clift). Monroe’s work with the other actors creates a portrait of the ways people yearn. It’s powerful work. The photography Eve Arnold shot on set , along with the film itself, captures what draws me to Monroe, and why this performance shows how much more she had to offer — she explores and brings to life the cloying weight of loneliness the way few actors can.

2. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Some Like It Hot is one of the few films I’d call perfect. It’s firing on all cylinders — sharp direction, expert cinematography, crackling cast chemistry. I have seen the film so many times I’ve lost track, and each time I discover something new to love, especially when it comes to Monroe’s performance as Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, a ukulele player and singer who gets swept up with two men pretending to be women (played with comedic ingenuity by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) in order to hide out from a mob boss whose hit they witnessed back in Chicago. The 1929 setting makes this an obvious riff on the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Who knew murder could bring such hilarity?

Some Like It Hot has everything I love about Monroe, and film itself, really — it spotlights her entrancing charisma, sensuality, melancholic undertow, and beguiling physicality, which is an unparalleled concoction of sensuality and nervous vulnerability. The blonde bombshells to come in her wake often mimicked the sexuality part, heightening it to ridiculous levels, but missed these other attributes that made Monroe feel startlingly real, not just a studio product to be packaged and sold.

1. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

No one can watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and still make the claim that Monroe’s draw was only photographic. If she’d stuck to being a model, she wouldn’t be half the legend she is today. That’s because the gravitational pull of her charisma is most evident when she’s in motion, like the song-dance numbers “Two Girls From Little Rock” and the iconic “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” As Truman Capote once wrote of Monroe, “What she has […] could never surface on the stage. It’s so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera.” Howard Hawks creates a film that sparkles with energy and brims with hilarity. It follows Lorelei Lee (Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell), two best friends and American showgirls whose lives go haywire when Lorelei’s potential future father-in-law hires a detective to track her, believing her to be an unrepentant gold digger. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are a study in contrasts that perfectly complement each other. Russell is the cynical, sharp-tongued half. Monroe is bubbly, passionate, and utterly obsessed with diamonds. Her grace, comedic timing, and kinetic chemistry with Russell make this her best and most delightful performance. While her legend may not reckon with her skill, all you have to do is fire up this film to witness firsthand what it means to be truly starstruck.

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Marilyn Monroe's 10 best movies, ranked according to critics

• Born on June 1, 1926, Marilyn Monroe is remembered as the original "blonde bombshell" of Hollywood.
• We've ranked her 10 best movies, according to critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes .
• Some of her most famous films, including "The Misfits" and "Some Like It Hot," made the top 10.

The 1953 movie "Niagara" is Monroe's 10th best film, according to critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%

Summary: Polly (Jean Peters) and Ray Cutler (Casey Adams) arrive at their Niagara Falls cottage expecting a peaceful honeymoon. However, when they arrive, they find that another couple, Rose (Marilyn Monroe) and George Loomis (Joseph Cotten), have not yet checked out. Shenanigans ensue between the two couples as Polly discovers Rose is having an affair and murderous obsessions rise.

Critic review: "Around the scenic splendor of Niagara Falls, Charles Brackett has produced and co-scripted a gripping murder melodrama that is loaded with sex and suspense," wrote the staff of The Hollywood Reporter .

In the comedy "How to Marry a Millionaire," which was released in 1953, Monroe plays a model looking to marry rich.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 84%

Summary: Three New York models, Schatze Page (Lauren Bacall), Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable), and Pola Debevoise (Marilyn Monroe), rent a glamorous city apartment with the hope of attracting some millionaire suitors. However, most of their love interests turn out to be deceitful in one way or another. In the end, each of the girls finds what they are truly looking for: love.

Critic review: "Classic Hollywood legends sparkle; premise doesn't hold up," wrote Andrea Beach of Common Sense Media.

"The Seven Year Itch," which came out in 1955, is best known for its iconic skirt scene.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%

Summary: After Tom Ewell's wife and children depart the city for the summer, he meets his beautiful — and tempting — new neighbor, played by Marilyn Monroe. The two experience a flirtation as the summer goes on, but Ewell's guilt and paranoia combined with Monroe's innocence and naivete about his intentions prevent a love affair from ever happening.

Critic review:  "Very dated and not consistently funny but famous for the iconic Marilyn air-vent shot and a close to the under-wire smuttiness," wrote David Parkinson of Empire .

In 1952's "Monkey Business," Monroe stars opposite Cary Grant, who plays a scientist developing a "fountain of youth" drug.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%

Summary: Dr. Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) is searching for the "fountain of youth," without much luck. However, when a lab monkey dumps the formula into the lab's water supply, mischief ensues. When Fulton accidentally drinks the formula, he initiates an afternoon of fun with his boss' secretary, Lois (Marilyn Monroe). Before long, everyone has gotten a taste of the "fountain of youth," with hilarious consequences.

Critic review:  "A summit of comic invention," wrote Richard Brody of the New Yorker .

In 1959's "Some Like It Hot," Monroe plays Sugar, the lead singer of a jazz band who has no idea her newest bandmate is also her love interest.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

Summary: Two musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) witness a Mafia murder. In order to get out of Chicago, the two devise a plan to disguise themselves as women, join an all-female jazz band, and board a train headed straight to Florida. On the way, they meet Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), the band's lead singer, who Joe falls in love with and attempts to impress by pretending he's a millionaire.

Critic review:  "Some Like It Hot is another supersonic, breakneck, belly-laugh comedy that should be a block-busting bonanza at the box office," wrote Jack Moffitt of The Hollywood Reporter .

Monroe's last completed movie was 1961's "The Misfits," which was written by her then-husband Arthur Miller.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%

Summary: The film tells the story of a recently divorced, former stripper (Marilyn Monroe) who begins a relationship with a cowboy-turned-gambler (Clark Gable) and World War II veteran named Guido Racanelli (Eli Wallach). Both men soon become infatuated with her. After meeting ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift), the foursome starts up a business capturing wild horses. 

Critic review:  "Gable has never done anything better on the screen, nor has Miss Monroe. Gable's acting is vibrant and lusty, hers true to the character as written by Miller," wrote Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News .

In "The Asphalt Jungle" from 1950, Monroe has a small role as the niece of a lawyer planning a jewelry heist.

Summary: Criminal Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider, lawyer Emmerich (Louis Calhern), and safecracker named Louie Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso) are among those who concoct a plan to steal $1 million worth of jewels, a plan which goes off successfully at first. However, the jewel heist goes awry after a nightguard shoots and kills Ciavelli. Soon, the group turns on each other. Marilyn Monroe's part as Emmerich's sexy "niece" is small, but the film makes her an undeniable star regardless. 

Critic review: "An early masterclass in the art of the caper movie, John Huston's 1950 thriller stands up wonderfully well, even if we've got used to far more convoluted scheming by movie robbers in the intervening period," wrote Andrew Pulver of the Guardian.

In 1953's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Monroe plays a showgirl who's being spied on by her future father-in-law.

Ok Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Summary: Showgirl Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) is engaged to wealthy Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan), much to the disapproval of Gus' father, who believes she is only after his money. When Lorelai and her costar Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) set sail on a cruise ship, Lorelai tries to set her friend up with a "suitable" — wealthy — match. Meanwhile, Esmond Sr. has hired a private detective to keep an eye on Lorelai and report any actions that would disqualify her from marrying Gus.

Critic review:  "My initial hunch was correct: the film is mostly about two women chasing men. But it's complex and hilarious, and not hilarious at the expense of the film's two female leads," wrote Samantha Mann for BUST .

Monroe played an actress in 1950's "All About Eve" — one of her earliest roles.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%

Summary:  "All About Eve" may have a scene or two featuring Marilyn Monroe as a recent college graduate, but this film primarily tells the story of aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) and Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis). After Channing makes the naive-seeming Eve her personal assistant, she soon finds that Harrington isn't so naive after all, and has orchestrated a plan to surpass Channing as the biggest star in town.

Critic review:  "So breathtakingly sharp and tense a story of the theater could hardly be so vital without some fragments of truth In its background," wrote Helen Bower of the Detroit Free Press .

Monroe's best movie, according to critics, is the 1952 thriller "Don't Bother to Knock."

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe), a beautiful but depressed young woman, takes a babysitting job at a fancy hotel after being released from a psychiatric facility. Nell begins a relationship with a hotel guest named Jed Towers (Richard Widmark). However, after the child that Nell is supposed to be watching catches them, Nell is sent over the deep end. Jed must then attempt to prevent Nell from killing both herself and the child.

Critic review:  "Takes what could have been a lurid plot and turns it into a wickedly plotted thriller that remains an overlooked high point in Monroe's storied career," wrote Matthew Lucas for From The Front Row .

• Main content

• Shocking Details About Her Death
• Men & Women She Loved
• Her Best Kept Beauty Secrets
• Marilyn Monroe's Very Best Movies
• Fun Facts Every Fan Should Know
• Quotes Attributed to Marilyn
• Famous Interviews
• Great Movies About Marilyn Monroe

• United Artists
• 20th Century Fox

The 17 Marilyn Monroe Movies That Prove She Was A Great Actress

Vote up the movies that best showcase Marilyn Monroe's cinematic talents.

Marilyn Monroe is perhaps the most recognizable figure in cinematic history. With platinum blonde hair and red-lipped allure, she's become an enduring emblem of American pop culture, Old Hollywood glamour, and universal sex appeal. Popularly known for her ditzy blonde bombshell roles, she starred in films throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, singing glittering odes to diamonds, and squealing with delight with her white dress fluttering above her knees in a subway breeze, seemingly unaware of her dizzying effect on men.

At the heart of her undeniable beauty and mystique was a woman who longed to be taken seriously as an actress. Completing 29 films in her tragically short lifetime, she illuminated the silver screen with a number of incomparable performances that showcased the talent behind her glamour-imbued persona. From comedic classics like Some Like It Hot , to more obscure film noirs like Niagara, these Marilyn Monroe movies prove she was more than an icon, but a truly gifted actress.

Some Like It Hot

Character:  Sugar Kane

What It’s About:  Monroe sizzles on the silver screen in Billy Wilder’s cross-dressing comedy classic. When two male musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) witness the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, they masquerade as women and join an all-female band to flee from mobsters in hot pursuit. Navigating panty hose, persistent male suitors, and affections for the band’s sweet singer, Sugar (Monroe), they embark on a high-heeled escapade full of hysterical twists and turns.  

How She Steals The Silver Screen:  Monroe won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk - the sweet, emotionally-scarred singer and ukulele strummer in an all-female traveling band. Her grand entrance is a famously lingering shot focusing on her voluptuous rear-end as she hurries to catch a train, which Jack Lemmon’s character describes as “just like Jell-O on springs.” Though she’s no stranger to playing the hot blonde, there is a depth to her character that stands out against her usual dim-witted, gold-digging roles. Behind her signature breathy voice and wide-eyed aspirations of marrying a millionaire, is a woman who just wants to be loved.

• Actors : Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Pat O'Brien
• Released : 1959
• Directed by : Billy Wilder
• # 658 of 769 on The Most Rewatchable Movies
• # 65 of 713 on The All-Time Greatest Comedy Films
• # 128 of 642 on The 600+ Funniest Movies Of All Time

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Character:  Lorelei Lee

What It's About: In Howard Hawks's dazzling musical comedy, a diamond-digging blonde, Lorelei Lee (Monroe) and her brazen brunette gal pal, Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) embark on a transatlantic cruise. Following Lorelei's recent engagement to a gawky millionaire, Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan), Esmond's father hires a private detective to make sure she's not cruising for new beaus on the ship. Thus a diamond-studded string of shenanigans ensues.

How She Steals The Silver Screen: Gentleman Prefer Blondes was Monroe's first starring role in a comedy, cementing her image as a millionaire-mining dumb blonde. However, it's clear there's more to her character than meets the eye when Lorelei proclaims: “I can be smart when it’s important. But most men don’t like it.” 

Her shimmering song-and-dance number, “Diamond's Are A Girl's Best Friend,” is one of her most legendary - and repeatedly recreated - scenes, and her onscreen chemistry with Russell is dynamic. Showcasing expert comedic timing and feather-soft allure, Monroe sparkles more brilliantly than a Tiffany's diamond. 

• Actors : Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan
• Released : 1953
• Directed by : Howard Hawks
• # 70 of 205 on Musical Movies With The Best Songs
• # 287 of 474 on The 470+ Best Chick Flicks Ever
• # 27 of 68 on The Most Rewatchable Movie Musicals

Character:  Rose Loomis

What It's About: Newlyweds Polly (Jean Peters) and Ray Cutler (Max Showalter) are honeymooning at Niagara Falls when they meet their motel neighbors, Rose (Monroe) and George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) - a brooding couple whose marital bliss has dearly departed. When Polly witnesses Rose having an affair, she gets swept up in the scheming seductress's plot to murder her husband.  

How She Steals The Silver Screen: Monroe is luminous as Rose Loomis - the sultry siren with a thirst for lust and murder. The film was released the same year as Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, and Monroe's portrayal of the femme fatale in Niagara is often overshadowed by her stereotypical dumb blonde roles in the other two films. Channeling cold and calculating as effortlessly as hot and simple-minded, Monroe shows her range. It's a shame she wasn't offered more roles like this.

• Actors : Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter, Denis O'Dea
• Directed by : Henry Hathaway

How to Marry a Millionaire

Character:  Pola Debevoise

What It's About: The screwball comedy stars Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable as three unwed models on the prowl to find rich husbands. Renting a penthouse in Manhattan, they set out on a mission to find their million-dollar men. Finding romance in unexpected - and unwealthy - places - they must decide which has more value: love or money.

How She Steals The Silver Screen: In what is perhaps her ditziest role, Monroe is charming as Pola Debevoise - the sweet, near-sighted model who refuses to wear her glasses in front of potential male suitors, because “Men aren't attentive to women who wear glasses.” The hilarity that ensues consists of Monroe blindly bumping into walls, and mistaking a man's eye patch for a black eye. With or without her cat eye glasses, Monroe is breathtaking, giving a performance that brings the wit in dim-wit into clear focus.

• Actors : Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, David Wayne, Cameron Mitchell
• Directed by : Jean Negulesco
• # 5 of 30 on The Best Movies About Gold Diggers
• # 153 of 329 on The 200+ Best Romantic Comedies Of All Time
• # 7 of 38 on The Best '50s Romantic Comedies

The Seven Year Itch

Character:  The Girl

What It's About: When Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) finds himself unsupervised for the summer while his family is away on holiday, his voluptuous blonde upstairs neighbor (Monroe) catches his wandering eye. Seven years married, he scratches his middle-aged itch by fantasizing about being a suave bachelor and sweeping her off her feet. In reality, his efforts aren't so suave.

How She Steals The Silver Screen: Known simply as “The Girl,” Monroe's character is a personification of the male fantasy. She's beautiful, bubbly, and charmingly oblivious to her own sexual magnetism. A brief scene in which she stands on a subway grate, giggling playfully as a breeze blows the skirt of her white halter dress up past her knees, became the quintessential Marilyn Monroe image, and one of the most iconic shots in cinematic history. 

• Actors : Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes, Sonny Tufts, Victor Moore
• Released : 1955
• # 382 of 642 on The 600+ Funniest Movies Of All Time
• # 29 of 56 on The Best Movies About Having A Midlife Crisis
• # 53 of 166 on The Best Intelligent Comedies Of All Time

The Misfits

Character:  Roslyn Taber

What It's About: When traveling to Reno for a quickie divorce, Roslyn Taber (Monroe) meets a widowed mechanic, Guido (Eli Wallach) and an aging cowboy, Gay Langland (Clark Gable). The pair take her to Guido's half-built house in the desert to forget her troubles, and she falls in love with Gay. Joined by rodeo-bound Perc Howland (Montgomery Clift), Roslyn is horrified when she learns the three men hunt wild horses for a living. 

How She Steals The Show: The Misfits was the swan song for both Monroe and her silver screen idol, Clark Gable - who died just ten days after filming . Shining brilliantly in a role that her then-husband, Arthur Miller, wrote specifically for her, Monroe showcases her talents as a dramatic actress. Far from her typical fluffy comedic roles, Monroe's final completed performance mirrors her tragic life offscreen. 

In the film's most hauntingly poignant scene, Gable's character muses that Roslyn is “the saddest girl he's ever met” - to which she achingly replies, “You're the first man who's ever told me that. Usually I'm told how happy I am.”

• Actors : Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach
• Released : 1961
• Directed by : John Huston
• Dig Deeper... Dramatic Stories That Prove The Misfits Live Up To Their Name
• # 188 of 289 on The 250+ Best Western Movies Of All Time
• # 60 of 167 on The Greatest '60s Movies, Ranked

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8 performances that will change the way you think about Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn movies that are better than ‘Blonde’

Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Six decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains a subject of fascination among cineastes, fashionistas and general celebrity junkies worldwide. As an actor, though, the former Norma Jeane Mortenson still doesn’t get the respect she deserves – and Blonde , the recent Netflix biopic starring Ana de Armas, really only exacerbated the idea that she was little more than a tragic Hollywood sex symbol. Indeed, her struggles are part of her story. But she was also an endearing, preternaturally charismatic screen presence who was just beginning to refine her ability when her life came to a sudden end.

Monroe appeared in 29 completed films, working with such acclaimed directors as Billy Wilder, John Huston and Howard Hawks. In lesser roles, Monroe was used simply as eye candy, or the stereotypical ‘dumb blonde’. But within her filmography are several performances that show what she was truly capable of. Here are eight roles that will convince any sceptic that Monroe’s talent went more than skin deep. 

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Best Marilyn Monroe movies & performances

1.  the misfits (1961).

• Action and adventure

John Huston’s western is a real heartbreaker, both on and off screen. It represents her final on-screen role, as well as that of co-star Clark Gable – it was one of Montgomery Clift’s last, too – and the set was a troubled, hard-boozing place from which Monroe would absent herself for two weeks in rehab. It’s a film full of wounded, lonely souls, too, who find communion breaking horses on the salt flats of Nevada. Monroe’s then-husband, Arthur Miller, penned a screenplay that gifted her the role of jaded divorcée Roslyn Tabor, a beautiful, complex woman who becomes a blank canvas for troubled men to project their hopes onto. Maybe it’s self-knowledge you can see in a character whose emotional wounds are almost visible. It’s the deepest, strongest turn of her career. It also leaves you reflecting on what she might have gone on to achieve.

2.  Some Like It Hot (1959)

For all the efforts to retroactively paint Marilyn Monroe as a purely tragic figure, her signature film role is also her silliest. In Billy Wilder’s Hays Code-skirting (ahem) cross-dressing comedy, Monroe plays Sugar ‘Kane’ Kowalczy, a ukulele-strumming frontwoman of the all-female orchestra providing cover for Jack Lemmon and Jack Curtis, donning full drag in order to hide out from the mob after witnessing the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Even in today’s more gender-sensitive times, the movie remains undeniably charming, owing much to the juxtaposition of Monroe’s ne plus ultra sultriness with her co-stars’ flailing imitation of femininity. Monroe reportedly struggled mightily with her lines, but it hardly comes across on screen – she won a Golden Globe for her performance, the highest acting honour of her career.

3.  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

As flirty and fun as any musical committed to the screen, Howard Hawks’ comedy of excess has Monroe knocking it out of the park as material girl Lorelei Lee, who travels to France with her less money-centric pal Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) to marry wealthy fiancé Gus. When she delivers a jazzy ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in an electric pink ball gown, it could just be the perfect four minutes of cinema. If there was a downside to this cinematic joyride, it’s that it reinforced lazy perceptions of her as a ‘dumb blonde’ on-screen. 

4.  Niagara (1953)

Monroe broke through in the later heyday of Hollywood noirs, and while she never got the kind of plum roles Gloria Graham, Gene Tierney and Barbara Stanwyck were blessed with, she did give pretty good femme fatale in Henry Hathaway’s overheated thriller. She plays Rose Loomis, unhappy wife to a traumatised Korean war veteran (Joseph Cotten), whose idea of a romantic getaway to Niagara Falls involves bloody murder. The film – and its costume department – leans in hard on Monroe’s sex appeal, but she brings satisfying grit to the role of scheming wife. Niagara lives on most vividly via Andy Warhol’s famous ​​’Marilyn Diptych’, which uses a single publicity shot of Monroe promoting the film.

5.  The Seven Year Itch (1955)

‘She had the greatest sensitivity of any actor that I’d seen’, said Monroe’s acting mentor, Lee Stasberg, who’d often compare her with Brando. Not a lot of that sensitivity is called on in this fluffy romcom which has her showing off her comedy chops in a role so archetypal, the character is literally called ‘The Girl’. Made under the constraints of the Hays Code, the romance itself is about as sexy as a cold kipper, but the coquettish Monroe is a lightning bolt of radiance – as captured in that famous blowy-dress shot above a subway vent. Ultimately, though, the vent was the only thing airer than the movie that even its director, Billy Wilder, dismissed as ‘a nothing picture’

6.  Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

A hotel-set psychodrama that has Marilyn Monroe in the ‘psycho’ role as a troubled babysitter who lures Richard Widmark’s airline pilot on the rocks with her feminine wiles. Yep, it’s that movie – although the actress fleshes out this portrayal of mental illness effectively to bring extra shades to the role, drawing on her experiences with her own schizophrenic mother.

7.  The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

One of two memorable collaborations with John Huston, Monroe appears in this moody noir in a small but distinctive role as the luminous young moll to Louis Calhern’s clammy lawyer-turned-robber. It’s an early showcase of her ability to embody a rare kind of freighted innocence (she’s sweet, but she’s trouble), and it manifests here as a necessary shard of light to briefly pierce the enveloping gloom of Huston’s fast-souring heist flick. 

8.  All About Eve (1950)

Another breakout supporting role in a film that turned out to be an all-time great, Monroe (and her agent) hit her stride early as Broadway ingénue Claudia Casswell, who finds herself caught in a crossfire of catty put downs at a party put on by Bette Davis’s Margo Channing. It’s tempting to think that the young Monroe must have felt a lot like her character, suffering imposter syndrome among the cast of established greats, but she brings poise and balance to this classic scene. Wearing all white among the black ties and dresses, she’s an obvious outsider who has zero chance of breaking into this jaded, jealous clique.

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12 Stars Who’ve Dared To Play Marilyn Monroe

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The 10 Best documentaries about Marilyn Monroe

Aug 4, 2023 | Best Of , Celebrities

Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century. She was a movie star, a muse, and a passionate advocate for justice. Her story has been told many times over in films, books, and even documentaries. If you’re looking to learn more about this remarkable woman, here’s our list of the best documentaries about Marilyn Monroe.

1. Marilyn Monroe: A Story With No End

If there was ever a life that is equally as iconic as it is mysterious, it’s the one lived by Marilyn Monroe. From her humble beginnings in Los Angeles to becoming the world’s most famous blonde bombshell, she has been an enduring symbol of beauty and celebrity throughout the years. Despite living such a short life, Marilyn left behind a legacy that continues to fascinate and inspire people to this day. Marilyn was born in the summer of 1926; her early years were a struggle between poverty and travesty, culminating in her being placed in foster homes at age eleven. These events only seemed to strengthen Marilyn’s spirit, as she rose above her destitute upbringing and worked hard to become one of the most beloved entertainers of her time.

2. What made Marilyn Monroe so beautiful? Beauty analysis of the 20th century’s greatest movie star

Marilyn Monroe was truly an icon of beauty. She captivated audiences with her striking features and charismatic allure. Norma Jeane Mortenson, who took on the iconic name Marilyn Monroe, had a life story that will soon be depicted in the biopic Blonde. Her roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot have stood the test of time as some of her most memorable performances. Beyond her acting career, Marilyn’s captivating beauty was undeniable. From her signature platinum blonde hair to her sultry curves, she had a look that was distinctly her own. Even today, fashion icons like Kim Kardashian can be seen paying homage to Monroe with their own versions of the classic style.

3. Marilyn Monroe Documentary

Marilyn Monroe’s life was full of obstacles and heartbreak, from the lack of parental guidance to the inability to find love in her various marriages. The turbulent path that led her to Hollywood fame was dotted with attractive men but her tragic story only ended in a desperate search for answers. The numerous foster homes she had lived in, along with her difficult experience at the orphanage , left her longing for her father’s embrace and wishing for an understanding love she could never find. Her life was further complicated by her association with the American president, a decision which eventually led to her downfall.

4. 55 Marilyn Monroe’s looks from her 7 most famous movies

Marilyn Monroe’s timeless beauty has enchanted the public for decades. From her classic platinum blonde hair to her iconic curves, it’s no surprise that the starlet is still considered a fashion icon today. Here are 55 of Marilyn’s most memorable looks from seven of her most notable films. From All About Eve (1950) came a hypnotic black-and-white scene of Marilyn in a beaded gown, looking like a glamour queen as she sashayed down the staircase. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) her flamboyant pink dress and feathered headdress made for an unforgettable performance. For The Seven Year Itch (1955) there was her iconic white pleated dress, billowing in the wind. Marilyn made an entrance as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959) wearing a tight-fitting silk top and full skirt combo that left everyone speechless. For Let’s Make Love (1960) she brought out her inner bombshell, sporting a glitzy sequin dress with a plunging neckline. In The Misfits (1961) she was a vision in an angelic white wedding dress, her blonde hair cascading down her shoulders. Last but not least, we have Niagara (1953), where Marilyn looked absolutely stunning in a bright red halter neck frock.

5. Behind The Glamour: Marilyn Monroe’s Tragic Life Story

Marilyn Monroe has left an indelible mark on modern pop culture. From her iconic blonde hair to those unforgettable curves, she is immortalized in movies, TV shows and public discourse around the world. Her star power remains strong even after her untimely death in 1962. Even now, there are countless tributes to this cultural icon from fans of all generations. People still quote her iconic lines, recreate her classic poses and dress in homage to her style. She is truly an icon whose memory lives on forever.

6. The Seriously Tragic Life Of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe has become an iconic figure in pop culture, remembered for her blonde bombshell characters that made her the face of the ’50s and ’60s sexual revolution. However, behind the glamour and success of stardom lies a troubled life filled with personal struggles, media scrutiny and scandal. Elton John and Bernie Taupin paid tribute to this Hollywood actress in 1973 with the song “Candle In The Wind”. This track speaks of fame, youth and a life cut short before its prime. It has been close to 60 years since Marilyn Monroe’s death, yet her impact lives on as an eternal reminder of what could have been and an example that reminds us all of the fragility and beauty of life. She serves as an inspiration for anyone who has felt overwhelmed by the harsh realities of life.

7. History’s Mysteries – The Death Of Marilyn Monroe

One of the biggest mysteries to ever come out of Hollywood’s golden age is without a doubt, the death of Marilyn Monroe. She was known as an iconic glamour symbol and starlet who had millions of fans all around the world. But on August 5th, 1962, she was found dead in her home, and what happened on that fateful day has remained a mystery ever since. While the official cause of death was determined to be an overdose of barbiturates, there have been many theories and rumors that suggest foul play or a larger conspiracy. Some believe she was murdered by someone in her inner circle who had a motive for wanting her gone, while others argue that she was killed as part of some kind of political plot. There have even been rumors that the FBI or CIA were somehow involved in her death. The truth may never be known, and as time passes, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that we’ll ever know what really happened to Marilyn Monroe on that fateful day. But one thing is for sure: she will always remain an iconic figure whose memory will live on forever. From her iconic films to her captivating beauty, Marilyn Monroe will always remain an enigma that will forever be shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

8. Marilyn Monroe: The Iconic Blonde

Marilyn Monroe, who we all know and love as Norma Jean Mortenson, is a figure that has transcended generations. Her beauty and charm have aspired people around the world for decades since her first leading role in Some Like It Hot, The Prince and the Showgirl, Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Netflix recently made a film dedicated to her life, aptly titled Blonde and brilliantly acted by Ana de Armas . However, Monroe’s life was anything but the fairytale romance of her classic films. Her mother rarely showed any affection while her father abandoned his family early on.

9. Unsolved Mysteries- Marilyn Monroe Conspiracy Theory Documentary

Marilyn Monroe was a Hollywood icon- her beauty, talent and charisma seemed to have no bounds. Yet behind the glamorous facade lies a dark mystery that has never been fully solved. This documentary investigates the possibility that her untimely death was not an accidental overdose, but a planned murder. With exclusive access to witnesses and experts, this film unravels the clues and examines shocking evidence to get to the truth. From stories of missing documents and secret agents, to claims of a powerful conspiracy- this is one fascinating story that needs to be heard. Featuring interviews with journalists, authors and witnesses who knew Marilyn personally, as well as archival footage from her life in Hollywood, this is a gripping exploration of her death. Uncover the secrets that have been kept hidden for so long, and find out what really happened to the world’s most beloved starlet. Was Marilyn Monroe really murdered? Watch this documentary and decide for yourself.

Read On – Our Latest Top Documentaries Lists

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What did Marilyn Monroe accomplish?

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Marilyn Monroe

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In their first runs, Monroe’s 23 movies grossed a total of more than $200 million, and her fame surpassed that of any other entertainer of her time. She overcame her early image as a dumb and seductive blonde , winning critical acclaim as a serious actress for  Some Like It Hot  (1959).

What was Marilyn Monroe’s childhood like?

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles and later took her mother’s surname, Baker. Her mother was frequently confined in an asylum , and Norma Jeane was reared by 12 successive sets of foster parents and, for a time, in an orphanage.

In June 1962 Monroe was fired from the film Something’s Got to Give because of her frequent absences. Although she was later rehired, work never resumed. After several months as a virtual recluse, Monroe died from an overdose of sleeping pills in her Los Angeles home. Her death was ruled a “probable suicide.”

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Marilyn Monroe (born June 1, 1926, Los Angeles , California , U.S.—died August 5, 1962, Los Angeles) was an American actress who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful films during the 1950s, and is considered a pop culture icon.

Norma Jeane Mortenson later took her mother’s name, Baker. Her mother was frequently confined in an asylum, and Norma Jeane was reared by 12 successive sets of foster parents and, for a time, in an orphanage. In 1942 she married a fellow worker in an aircraft factory, but they divorced soon after World War II . She became a popular photographer’s model and in 1946 signed a short-term contract with Twentieth Century-Fox , taking as her screen name Marilyn Monroe. After a few brief appearances in movies made by the Fox and Columbia studios, she was again unemployed, and she returned to modeling for photographers. Her nude photograph on a calendar brought her a role in the film Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! (1948), which was followed by other minor roles.

In 1950 Monroe played a small uncredited role in The Asphalt Jungle that reaped a mountain of fan mail. An appearance in All About Eve (1950) won her another contract from Fox and much recognition. In a succession of movies, including Let’s Make It Legal (1951), Love Nest (1951), Clash by Night (1952), and Niagara (1953), she advanced to star billing on the strength of her studio-fostered image as a “love goddess.” With performances in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), her fame grew steadily and spread throughout the world, and she became the object of unprecedented popular adulation . In 1954 she married baseball star Joe DiMaggio , and the attendant publicity was enormous. With the end of their marriage less than a year later she began to grow discontented with her career.

Monroe studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio in New York City , and in The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Bus Stop (1956) she began to emerge as a talented comedian. In 1956 she married playwright Arthur Miller and briefly retired from moviemaking, although she costarred with Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won critical acclaim for the first time as a serious actress for Some Like It Hot (1959). Her last film, the drama The Misfits (1961), was written by Miller specifically for Monroe, though their marriage disintegrated during production; they divorced in 1961.

In 1962 Monroe began filming the comedy Something’s Got to Give . However, she was frequently absent from the set because of illnesses, and in May she traveled to New York City to attend a gala where she famously sang “Happy Birthday” to Pres. John F. Kennedy , with whom she was allegedly having an affair. In June Monroe was fired from the film. Although she was later rehired, work never resumed. After several months as a virtual recluse, Monroe died from an overdose of sleeping pills (barbiturates) in her Los Angeles home. Her death was ruled a “probable suicide,” and this finding was supported by the actress’s history of drug use and previous suicide attempts. However, some believed that she had been killed after threatening to reveal her relationship with the Kennedy brothers—she was also rumoured to have had an affair with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy —or that she had information linking the two men to organized crime . Although there was insufficient evidence to support these claims, conspiracy theories persisted.

In their first runs, Monroe’s 23 movies grossed a total of more than $200 million, and her fame surpassed that of any other entertainer of her time. Her early image as a dumb and seductive blonde gave way in later years to the tragic figure of a sensitive and insecure woman unable to escape the pressures of Hollywood. Her vulnerability and sensuousness combined with her needless death eventually raised her to the status of an American cultural icon.

Marilyn Monroe Filmography

1. Dangerous Years

2. The Shocking Miss Pilgrim

3. Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!

4. Green Grass of Wyoming

5. Ladies of the Chorus

6. Love Happy

7. A Ticket to Tomahawk

8. The Asphalt Jungle

9. Right Cross

10. The Fireball

11. All About Eve

12. Home Town Story

13. As Young as You Feel

14. Love Nest

15. Let's Make It Legal

16. Clash by Night

17. We're Not Married!

18. Don't Bother to Knock

19. O. Henry's Full House

20. Monkey Business

21. Niagara

22. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

23. How to Marry a Millionaire

24. River of No Return

25. There's No Business Like Show Business

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Marilyn Monroe

Actor Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world’s biggest and most enduring sex symbols.

Who Was Marilyn Monroe?

quick facts.

FULL NAME: Norma Jeane Baker BORN: June 1, 1926 DIED: August 5, 1962 BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California SPOUSES: James Dougherty (1942-1946), Joe DiMaggio  (1954), and Arthur Miller  (1956-1961) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini

Early Life and Education

Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles. Monroe was named Norma Jeane Mortenson at birth (later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker). Growing up, Monroe spent much of her time in foster care and in an orphanage.

In 1937, a family friend and her husband, Grace and Doc Goddard, took care of Monroe for a few years. The Goddards were paid $25 weekly by Monroe's mother to raise her.

The couple was deeply religious and followed fundamentalist doctrines; among other prohibited activities, Monroe was not allowed to go to the movies. But when Doc's job was transferred to the East Coast, the couple could not afford to bring Monroe with them.

At seven years old, Monroe returned to a life in foster homes, where she endured sexual assault on several occasions; she later said that she had been raped when she was 11 years old. She dropped out of high school by age 15.

Monroe had a way out through marriage, and she wed her boyfriend and merchant marine Jimmy Dougherty in 1942, at the age of 16.

Monroe never knew her father. She once thought Clark Gable to be her father — a story repeated often enough for a version of it to gain some currency. However, there's no evidence that Gable ever met or knew Monroe's mother, Gladys, who developed psychiatric problems and was eventually placed in a mental institution.

As an adult, Monroe would maintain that one of her earliest memories was of her mother trying to smother her in her crib with a pillow. Monroe had a half-sister, to whom she was not close; they met only a half-dozen times.

Career in Acting

Monroe dreamt of becoming an actress like Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. When her husband was sent to the South Pacific, she began working in a munitions factory in Van Nuys, California. It was there that she was first discovered by a photographer.

By the time Dougherty returned in 1946, Monroe had a successful career as a model. That year, she signed her first movie contract. With the contract came a new name and image; she began calling herself "Marilyn Monroe" and dyed her hair blonde.

At first, Monroe wasn't initially considered to be star acting material. Her acting career didn't really take off until a few years later. With her breathy voice and hourglass figure, she would soon become one of Hollywood's most famous actresses. She proved her skill by winning various honors and attracting large audiences to her films.

Monroe became a much-admired international star despite chronic insecurities regarding her acting abilities. She suffered from pre-performance anxiety that sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary tardiness on film sets, which was so extreme that it often infuriated her co-stars and crew.

"She would be the greatest if she ran like a watch," director Billy Wilder once said of her. "I have an aunt Minnie who's very punctual, but who would pay to see Aunt Minnie?"

Throughout her career, Monroe was signed and released from several contracts with film studios.

In the mid-1950s Monroe grew tired of bubbly, dumb blonde roles and moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio.

By the early 1960s, however, Monroe's professional and personal life seemed to be in turmoil following unsuccessful relationships. Her last two films, Let's Make Love (1960) and The Misfits (1961), were box office disappointments.

During her career, Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Monroe's most notable films include:

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Monroe's small part in John Huston's crime drama  The Asphalt Jungle  (1950) was her first movie to garner her a lot of attention.

All About Eve (1950)

In 1950, Monroe impressed audiences and critics alike with her performance as Claudia Caswell in  All About Eve , starring  Bette Davis .

Niagara (1953)

In 1953, Monroe delivered a star-making turn in  Niagara , as a young married woman out to kill her husband with help from her lover.

Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)

The emerging sex symbol was paired with another bombshell,  Jane Russell , for the hit musical comedy  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . In the film, two showgirls travel to Paris and are pursued by a private detective, hired by the father of Monroe's fiancé, along with many other admirers.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1954)

Monroe continued to find success in a string of light comedic fares, such as  How to Marry a Millionaire,  with Betty Grable and  Lauren Bacall . The three women set out to find millionaires to marry in the film, but they find true love instead.

There’s No Business Like Show Business  (1954)

In 1954, Monroe starred alongside Ethel Merman and Donald O'Connor in another romantic comedy,  There's No Business Like Show Business , about a couple whose marriage starts to unravel when the husband (O'Connor) meets a hat-check girl (Monroe).

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Monroe again played the other woman in the 1955 film  The Seven-Year Itch , about a faithful husband who's tempted to cheat when his family goes away for the summer.

Bus Stop (1956)

Following her stint in New York at Strasberg's acting school, Monroe returned to the screen in the dramatic comedy  Bus Stop  (1956). She received mostly praise for her performance as a saloon singer kidnapped by a rancher who has fallen in love with her.

The Prince and the Showgirl  (1957)

In 1957, Monroe starred in  The Prince and the Showgirl  with  Laurence Olivier , who also directed and produced the film. She often didn't show up for filming and her erratic behavior on set created a tense relationship with her co-stars, the crew and Olivier.

The film received mixed reviews and was a box office hit in Britain, but not as popular in the United States. The troubled production was the backdrop for the 2011 film  My Week with Marilyn , starring  Michelle Williams  as Monroe.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

In 1959, Monroe returned to familiar territory with the wildly popular comedy  Some Like It Hot , with Jack Lemmon and  Tony Curtis . She played Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, a singer who hopes to marry a millionaire in this humorous film, in which Lemmon and Curtis pretend to be women. The men, on the run from the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, hide out with an all-girl orchestra featuring Monroe.

Monroe's work on the film earned her the honor of Best Actress in a Comedy at the 1959 Golden Globe Awards.

The Misfits (1961)

The Misfits  was Monroe's last completed film. Set in Nevada, this adventure drama reunited Monroe with Huston ( The Asphalt Jungle ); Monroe starred opposite Gable and  Montgomery Clift . In the film, Monroe falls for Gable's cowboy but battles him over the fate of some wild mustangs.

Something’s Got to Give (1962)

In 1962, Monroe was dismissed from  Something's Got to Give  — co-starring  Dean Martin  — for missing so many days of filming. According to an article in  The New York Times , the actress claimed that the absences were due to illness. Martin declined to make the film without her, so the studio shelved the picture.

Spouses and Lovers

Monroe had three husbands in her lifetime: James Dougherty (1942-1946); Joe DiMaggio (1954) and Arthur Miller (1956-1961). She is also remembered for her romantic relationships with Marlon Brando , Frank Sinatra , Yves Montand and director Elia Kazan .

On June 19, 1942, 16-year-old Monroe wed Dougherty, a 20-year-old merchant marine. Dougherty lived next door to a friend of Monroe's mother; he suggested he could marry Monroe so she wouldn't be sent to an orphanage or another foster home. When they wed, Monroe had just turned 16 and the couple had been dating for just a few months. After Monroe's career began to take off, she sought a quickie divorce in September 1946.

“I never knew Marilyn Monroe, and I don’t claim to have any insights to her to this day. I knew and loved Norma Jean,” Dougherty later said.

In 1954, Monroe was married to baseball great DiMaggio for nine months. Following her death, DiMaggio famously had red roses delivered to her crypt for the next 20 years.

Monroe's longest marriage was with playwright Miller . They first met in 1950 at a party and later began exchanging letters. They met again when Monroe moved to New York in 1955, and they began an affair while she was still married to DiMaggio. They married on June 29, 1956.

Right away, the couple began having problems. Monroe experienced two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. After Miller and Monroe had begun working together on what would have been her last film, The Misfits, they divorced on January 20, 1961.

Marilyn Monroe and JFK

There have also been rumors that Monroe was involved with President John F. Kennedy and/or his brother Robert Kennedy around the time of her death.

On May 19, 1962, Monroe made her now-famous performance at John F. Kennedy 's birthday celebration, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”  Moments later, President Kennedy appeared on stage, saying, "I can now retire from politics after having had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way."

Monroe died at her Los Angeles home on August 5, 1962, at only 36 years old. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was found by her bed.

There has been some speculation over the years that she may have been murdered, but the cause of her death was officially ruled as a drug overdose.

Monroe was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress, in what was known as a "Cadillac casket"—the most high-end casket available, made of heavy-gauge solid bronze and lined with champagne-colored silk.

Strasberg delivered a eulogy before a small group of friends and family. Hugh Hefner bought the crypt directly next to Monroe's.

Monroe did not own a house until the last year of her life and had surprisingly few possessions. One that she prized was an autographed photo of Albert Einstein , which included an inscription: "To Marilyn, with respect and love and thanks."

Monroe has been imitated over the years by a number of celebrities, including Madonna , Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani .

In 2011, several rare photos of Monroe were published in a book of photographs by famed photographer Sam Shaw.

In 2017, another book of little-seen treasures made it to shelves in The Essential Marilyn Monroe , with Joshua Greene retouching old photos taken by his dad, Milton Greene, in the 1950s.

• Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.
• I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.
• A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
• Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a $1,000 for a kiss and 50¢ for your soul.
• If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein.

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Marilyn Monroe is not only one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, but one of the biggest icons in cinematic history; while some of her films live up to her legendary status, others prove how much of a star she was through their relative mediocrity. Born as Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, Marilyn Monroe went on to become the most definitive sex symbol in perhaps the entire history of Hollywood. After her death at the tragically young age of 36 in 1962, Monroe became an everlasting icon of pop culture, immortalized in not only her own filmography but also in artwork such as Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych . Artists and filmmakers, to this day, still explore the icon that was Marilyn Monroe, with a recent example being Andrew Dominick's incredibly divisive Blonde , which depicts a fictionalized version of her career with an outstanding performance from Ana De Armas as Monroe.

Marilyn Monroe's talents as an actor are often, unfortunately, eclipsed by the blonde bombshell image she typified. Her greatest performances showcase just how talented she was as a performer, with a surprisingly large range as an actor. Throughout her career, she shined in comedies and musicals, where her sex appeal was often exaggerated for comedic effect, but Marilyn Monroe also excelled in more dramatic roles in the few thrillers and film noirs she appeared in. Not all of her films are as legendary as she is, however. Marilyn Monroe was a product of her time and thus often had to languish in low-budget B movies , especially towards the start of her career, while under contract to various studios. With that being said, here are all of Marilyn Monroe's 29 movies, ranked from worst to best:

Related: How Old Marilyn Monroe Was When She Died

Home Town Story (1951)

Marilyn Monroe barely makes an appearance in this thoroughly dull B movie about a failed Senator who comes home to take over the local newspaper. Monroe plays a secretary at the paper with only a couple of scenes in the entire film. Unfortunately for Home Town Story , Monroe is by far the most engaging part of the movie. The rest of the film’s story is also just a bizarre piece of pro-corporation grandstanding. Home Town Story is by far the most skippable film in Marilyn Monroe’s filmography.

Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948)

While the title Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! may be memorable, Marilyn Monroe's appearance in the film is anything but. In a truly blink-and-you'll-miss-it manner, Marilyn Monroe briefly walks behind star June Haver as their characters leave a church. Marilyn Monroe manages to get a single line in as her character leaves the frame, greeting June Haver's character.

Right Cross (1950)

Marilyn Monroe makes her final uncredited appearance in this boxing drama from The Great Escape director John Sturges and co-starring Khan himself, Ricardo Montalban. Monroe plays model Dusty Ledoux, who has a date during the film with star Dick Powell. Unfortunately for Monroe and viewers alike, the date lasts less than a minute before Powell is called away so she does not get to make much of an impression on the audience.

The Fireball (1950)

Marilyn Monroe has a very small supporting role in the Mickey Rooney starring roller derby movie, The Fireball . There are very few reasons to attempt to track down this obscure film. One of which is to see a truly offbeat lead performance from a 30-year-old Mickey Rooney trying to play a teenager. The other is to hear Marilyn Monroe use a more natural voice than the breathy, girly one she is known for.

Related: Blonde: Who Really Was Marilyn Monroe's Father?

Dangerous Years (1947)

Dangerous Years has Marilyn Monroe’s first credited role, as a waitress called Evie at the roadside restaurant, The Gopher Hole. Monroe’s scenes are over early in the film and the rest of Dangerous Years ’ runtime is dedicated to the trial of gang leader Danny Jones, who is accused of murdering teacher Jeff Carter. Dangerous Years is a relatively average 1940s B movie that, while it is not bad, is not really worth watching aside from seeing a young Marilyn Monroe.

Love Happy (1949)

Love Happy's issues largely center around the great Groucho Marx . Unlike the Marx Brothers' better, earlier work, such as Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera , Groucho, Harpo, and Chico never share the screen together as a trio. Groucho Marx, unfortunately, has little more than a cameo appearance that’s almost literally phoned in. However, one of his brief scenes includes him interacting with a blonde bombshell played by Marilyn Monroe. Her brief scene is one of the funniest in the film as Monroe and Groucho Marx play off each other hilariously.

A Ticket To Tomahawk (1950)

For such a scant amount of screen time, Marilyn Monroe does get the opportunity to (briefly) show off her performance skills in A Ticket To Tomahawk . She, alongside several other actresses, performs a fun little dance number. While she is onscreen, Marilyn Monroe steals the spotlight as the dancer in the yellow dress with her signature blonde hair . It's hardly the meatiest of the roles Marilyn Monroe ever had, but it's among the best of the B movies she did early in her career.

We’re Not Married (1952)

We're Not Married is an anthology comedy centered around five different couples who learn, due to unforeseen circumstances, that their marriages have become technically null and void. Marilyn Monroe stars alongside David Wayne as Annabel and Jeff Norris, the second couple of the film. Annabel Norris is the winner of the Mrs. Mississippi beauty pageant, which seems like an easy excuse to put Marilyn Monroe in a swimsuit for a scene. Marilyn Monroe doesn't have much to do in the film, save for walking on stage in the pageants, as her segment largely focuses on a bitter David Wayne.

Related: Did Marilyn Monroe Have Kids? Fact-Checking Blonde's Pregnancy Stories

Let’s Make It Legal (1951)

Let's Make It Legal was co-written by comedy legend I.A.L Diamond, whose other work, including Monkey Business, which has Cary Grant co-starring alongside Monroe, and Some Like It Hot , places much higher on this list. Unfortunately, Let's Make It Legal does not match the quality of those other two Diamond-Monroe collaborations, even if Monroe has a slightly larger role here than most of her work before this movie. Monroe has some awkward lines here about calling men "daddy" and it feels as if Blonde filmmaker Andrew Dominick took these lines and ran with them by having his Marilyn call all of her husbands "daddy" as well. The comedy in Let's Make It Legal has not particularly aged well and, as such, is only really worth watching for Monroe completionists.

As Young As You Feel (1951)

As Young As You Feel is a fine, if slight, comedy about an old man who impersonates the boss of a motor company in an attempt to avoid forced retirement. It once again sidelines Marilyn Monroe into a small role as a secretary. Unlike some of her earliest roles, she does get a chance to display some of her comedic talents, especially when she sticks her tongue out at her boss, behind his back.

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)

Marilyn Monroe has a brief appearance as a streetwalker, opposite Charles Laughton, in the anthology comedy O. Henry's Full House . She plays off his advances well, even using her natural voice rather than her typical sensuous, breathy tone. Upon realizing her occupation, Laughton awkwardly, in a typically British manner, gifts her his final possession, a cane, and calls her a lady. Monroe's shock at his use of the term is heartbreaking in its earnestness.

Love Nest (1951)

Love Nest is a comedy about a man called Jim Scott who discovers that his wife, Connie, has invested their money in a rundown apartment building after he returns to New York from Paris. This black-and-white comedy co-stars Marilyn Monroe as an old army buddy of Jim's, Bobbie, who moves into the building's empty apartment. Troubles begin when Connie discovers that Bobbie is a woman. Love Nest is a fine, if dated, comedy filled with misunderstandings and Hays Code-approved innuendos. Monroe is fun in her role as WAC-turned-model Bobbie, though she is really only there for Connie to get jealous. It's hardly the best comedy that Marilyn Monroe was in, but it's far from the worst.

Related: Ana De Armas' Marilyn Monroe Accent Backlash In Blonde Is Absurd

Let’s Make Love (1960)

Marilyn Monroe shines during the musical sequences in her penultimate performance as actress Amanda Dell in Let's Make Love . However, much of the rest of the film makes it clear that Let's Make Love was little more than a contractual obligation for Monroe. She is clearly uninterested in most of the material she's given, although her aforementioned musical numbers are still great. The best aspects of the film are the cameos from Gene Kelly and Bing Crosby, playing themselves. Public controversies that occurred during the production of Let's Make Love, namely her highly-publicized affair with co-star Yves Montaud, meant that Marilyn Monroe lost out on the role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's , despite author Truman Capote lobbying for her to play the role.

Ladies Of The Chorus (1948)

Marilyn Monroe makes a confident and fun debut as a lead performer in this charming, if slight, B movie. Monroe’s role as a young Burlesque performer in Ladies of the Chorus set the precedent for many of her future roles in other movies. That’s not particularly surprising, as she completely owns the screen whenever she’s performing onstage in Ladies of the Chorus . The rest of the movie just does not quite live up to the few song-and-dance sequences but Ladies of the Chorus never outstays its welcome, at only 61 minutes long. It’s by far the best of Marilyn Monroe’s early B movies .

River of No Return (1954)

River of No Return is the most straight-laced western that Marilyn Monroe ever made; A Ticket To Tomahawk was explicitly comedic, and Monroe is barely in it. The picture has quite the outstanding cast and crew, with Robert Mitchum playing the male lead opposite Monroe and the legendary director of Anatomy of a Murder , Otto Preminger, at the helm. However, River of No Return only lives up to that promise of quality in its gorgeous Cinemascope photography. Preminger truly captures vast American vistas in a way only John Ford did before him. However, the rest of the film does not live up to that level of quality due to the film's dull, episodic plotting and an abundance of sexism and racism. The depictions of Native Americans as violent savages are among the worst that the Western genre has to offer. Robert Mitchum's character also nearly sexually assaults Marilyn Monroe's . These aspects leave a sour aftertaste that overshadows the rest of River of No Return .

There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Marilyn Monroe numbers among the impressive ensemble cast of the musical comedy There's No Business Like Show Business . It's an extravagant picture, filled to the brim with musical numbers and lavish CinemaScope photography. There's No Business Like Show Business typifies the kind of spectacle that many '50s movies possessed, in an attempt to compete with the rising popularity of television. However, it does allow the spectacle to take priority over characterization and plot, with much of the film seeming to exist as an excuse for lavish musical numbers. While Monroe is good in There's No Business Like Show Business , she's a wonderful performer, after all, it's Singin' In The Rain's Donald O'Connor who steals the show.

Related: Every Brian De Palma Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Billy Wilder, the director of The Seven Year Itch , created the most iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in her entire film career: the shot of her white dress being blown up by a subway grate. While this image might be the most memorable of Monroe, it is an exemplar of the problem with The Seven Year Itch : Marilyn Monroe's character is treated like an object rather than a person. She isn't even given the dignity of a name, Monroe is only credited as playing 'The Girl'. However, Monroe's excellent performance does try to lift the character above mere objectification; she has an extraordinary monologue toward the end, done in one take, explaining why she likes the shy but imaginative executive Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell). Unfortunately, these moments in The Seven Year Itch are rare and much of the film's jokes have aged poorly, especially compared to many of Billy Wilder's other comedies.

The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)

The story of The Prince and the Showgirl brings to mind old-school romantic comedies like My Fair Lady and Pygmalion with a lower-class woman introduced to high society. Monroe plays the titular showgirl, Elsie Marina, while the highly-respected Shakespearian actor Laurence Olivier plays the Prince, on top of helming the picture as director. The Prince and the Showgirl features truly opulent production design and rich Technicolor cinematography from famed DoP Jack Cardiff but suffered from production issues stemming from conflicts between Monroe and Olivier. Nevertheless, Monroe is charming to watch as she struggles to wrap her head around the strange rituals and glamour of regency. In comparison, Olivier comes across as rather hammy, perhaps due to him originating the role onstage, complete with a monocle and outrageous Germanic accent.

Bus Stop (1956)

Bus Stop represents a shift in Marilyn Monroe’s career ; it is the first movie she made after attending the Actors Studio, as well as the first movie she made as a producer. Bus Stop is at its best when it’s a showcase of Marilyn Monroe’s acting abilities and performance skills. Monroe uses an Ozark accent and abandons her usual glamorous costumes and make-up so that her portrayal of the character Cherie is more authentic than any performance she’s given before. Marilyn Monroe also successfully completes the surprisingly difficult tasks of purposefully singing and dancing badly to make Cherie more real than her usual roles.

Unfortunately, Bus Stop suffers whenever focus is taken away from Monroe, which it frequently is. Monroe’s love interest, a socially-inept cowboy by the name of Beauregard Decker (Don Murray), is incredibly annoying as a character, and many of his sexist rants and antics have aged poorly, dragging much of Bus Stop down as well. The Academy Awards made one of the worst decisions in their history when they decided to give a Best Supporting Actor nomination to Murray over Monroe.

Related: Every Nicolas Cage Movie Ranked Worst To Best

Clash By Night (1952)

Clash By Night unites Marilyn Monroe with the renowned director Fritz Lang and the legendary classic Hollywood actress Barbara Stanwyck for a domestic drama dripping with film noir sensibilities. It also was the first time that Marilyn Monroe's name appeared before the title on a major motion picture. As a woman working in an industrial fish processing factory, Marilyn Monroe is far from the glitz and glamour that would go on to define her career, but she does get to show off more of her acting range in an atypical dramatic role. Production on Clash By Night, however, became difficult when the now-famous nude photos of Monroe came to light, causing the set to be flooded with press and paparazzi. Despite these troubles, Marilyn Monroe delivers one of the most natural performances of her career.

Monkey Business (1952)

Before Monkey Business , Cary Grant and director Howard Hawks had previously collaborated on several screwball comedies, including the legendary Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday . The introduction of Marilyn Monroe to their formula in Monkey Business should have resulted in another classic of the subgenre, but a preposterous premise and, relatively, uninterested directing from Hawks ends up with a film that is merely alright. Cary Grant is charming as usual, and his chemistry with Monroe is positively electric. It's just a shame that she has a relatively small role. However, in that time she does get to take part in some fantastic gags involving stockings, roller skates, and Ginger Rogers threatening to pull her blonde hair out from the roots. Monkey Business isn't the best Cary Grant movie , but it's still a fun time.

Don't Bother To Knock (1952)

Don't Bother To Knock , helmed by future Hammer horror director Roy Ward Baker, features an unusually dark turn from Marilyn Monroe as a psychologically disturbed babysitter. Set entirely within a New York City hotel, Don't Bother To Knock has an incredibly claustrophobic atmosphere that feels like a dry run for many of Baker's future horror films, like Quatermass and the Pit . Don't Bother To Knock makes interesting use of Monroe's public image as a naive and innocent girl by initially playing it straight, before subverting it when the film reveals the true depth of Marilyn Monroe's character's troubled personality . The best scene of the film sees Monroe's disturbed and self-destructive character, Nell, almost push the little girl she's looking after out of their hotel room window. Don't Bother To Knock displays just how much range Marilyn Monroe had as an actor with a role that's such a dark departure from her usual fare.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Although Marilyn Monroe only has a small supporting role as the mistress of lawyer-turned-fixer Alonzo Emmerich, she is a highlight in an already fantastic heist film. Her best scene occurs near the end when the cops terrorize her into admitting that she had previously provided a false alibi for Emmerich by threatening to send her to jail. It's a gripping scene that is anchored by an incredibly vulnerable performance from Monroe that transforms what could have been a one-note character into someone with more depth. The film around her is also fantastic with brilliant direction from John Huston , inspired by Italian Neo-Realism. The Asphalt Jungle 's heist sequence would go on to inspire plenty of crime films across the 1950s trying to best it.

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How To Marry A Millionaire (1953)

How To Marry A Millionaire may not be the best of Marilyn Monroe's comedies, but it is one of the most fun. The film has a light and breezy tone, some of the most gorgeous and colorful CinemaScope photography around, and three fantastic central performances from Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe sparkles with some hilarious physical comedy as a woman with astigmatism, who refuses to wear glasses, and thus spends much of the film bumping into things. Her energy is incredibly well-complimented by Bacall's wit and wisecracks. The plot, concerning three women attempting to woo millionaires, is fun to watch and ripe for great jokes.

All About Eve (1950)

Marilyn Monroe has a role in the Best Picture-winning All About Eve that mirrors her public persona perfectly. While she only has a small part in the film, she steals her scenes as a young actress that initially seems like a typical 'dumb blonde', only to reveal herself as far more clever and ambitious than she first appears. It's a fitting supporting role in a film about a protégé who inserts herself into the life of an aging star, with massive consequences. Unfortunately, Marilyn Monroe had some issues behind the scenes of All About Eve , that would go on to plague the rest of her film career. One of her scenes took ten takes to shoot, due to Monroe forgetting her lines because she was nervous in the presence of the legendary actress, Bette Davis. This caused tensions to arise between Monroe and the famously volatile Bette Davis , who eventually snapped at the young actress.

Niagara (1953)

Given the upbeat and playful roles that Marilyn Monroe is typically known for, it’s surprising that her star-making performance was as a femme fatale in a Hitchcockian thriller. However, Monroe proves in Niagara that she is absolutely deserving of her first top billing in a big feature film; her performance as the duplicitous yet vulnerable Rose Loomis is utterly spellbinding. Monroe’s brilliant breakthrough is supported by some of the most gorgeous three-strip Technicolor cinematography the genre has to offer. Niagara Falls could only look better in real life.

The Misfits (1961)

The Misfits is a fitting title for a film plagued by so many production issues. Stars Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift suffered from health issues stemming from alcohol and other drugs, necessitating a doctor to be on call 24 hours a day during production. Their co-star Clark Gable died less than two weeks after the filming of The Misfits wrapped and the director, John Huston, also had a gambling problem during filming. Monroe’s marriage to the film’s writer, Arthur Miller, also collapsed while filming. Finally, The Misfits was the last completed movie in both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe’s careers.

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The Misfits ' production issues reflect the troubled characters that inhabit the story. The Misfits is about a group of outcasts, including a recent divorcee, an aging cowboy, an injured bull rider, and a war veteran that come together in a desperate bid to find freedom out in the desert, only for it to slip away due to unforeseen consequences and misunderstandings. Marilyn Monroe gives perhaps her most mature performance in the film, and her sex appeal is used by John Huston to make a comment on the men surrounding her rather than as mere objectification of her body. Monroe had a project lined up after The Misfits , the George Cukor film Something's Got To Give, but unfortunately, it was never completed due to her untimely death in 1962. The Misfits has a tragic, yet hopeful, tone that feels incredibly fitting as the swansong for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has perhaps the best scene in any Marilyn Monroe movie with the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" sequence. She doesn't just own the screen in her iconic, gorgeous pink dress and sparkling diamond necklace, but also with her cheeky delivery and expressive dance moves, that feel like the prototype for voguing. If there's any one single scene that should serve as an introduction to Marilyn Monroe, it's not the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch , it's, in fact, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend". It's no wonder that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" sequence has been immortalized by parodies and homages, such as in Birds of Prey ; the scene is an encapsulation of Marilyn Monroe's entire screen persona.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes proves that Marilyn Monroe's strengths do not just lie in her looks, but also in her talents and charm as a performer. Anytime she's onscreen, it's impossible to look at anything else. Even Jane Russell, who is a brilliant performer in her own right , cannot hold a candle to Monroe here. Marilyn Monroe is not just an image, but a performer and actress with boundless charisma and energy in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . If The Misfits represents Monroe at her dramatic best, then Gentlemen Prefer Blondes shows her at her best as a performer.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Some Like It Hot , the second collaboration between Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder, makes up for the disappointment that is The Seven Year Itch as it's the perfect showcase for Monroe's impeccable comedic talents. Starring alongside legendary comedians like Tony Curtis, father of scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis , and Jack Lemmon, who spend much of the film in drag, could threaten to eclipse any other actor, but Marilyn Monroe truly displays her best comedic skills as singer, and ukulele player, Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk. Not only is she not overshadowed by Lemmon and Curtis, but she's also arguably even funnier in her delivery of Some Like It Hot 's constant barrage of hilarious jokes and wit. Tony Curtis does get to show off his fantastic impression of Monroe's Monkey Business co-star Cary Grant when he impersonates the heir to the Shell Oil fortune. The chemistry he has with Monroe in these scenes is similarly charming to that movie as well.

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Some Like It Hot is not only one of the greatest comedies in Hollywood history, but it was also one of the final nails in the coffin of the Hays Code , a set of censorship guidelines enforced by the MPAA between 1934 and 1968. Some Like It Hot severely weakened the authority of the code as it was released without its approval, due to its LGBTQ+ characters and themes, and became a box office smash anyway. In Some Like It Hot , Marilyn Monroe not only delivered her finest comedic performance but also helped to do away with archaic and problematic censorship laws.

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On this day in history, August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe is found dead in Los Angeles

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Iconic Hollywood movie star Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home at age 36 on this day in history , August 5, 1962.

The actress was discovered face down and lying nude on her bed holding a telephone in one hand, according to History.com.

Scattered throughout her room were empty pill bottles; the medication reportedly was prescribed to treat her depression , the same source recounted.

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A brief investigation after her death resulted in conclusions by the Los Angeles police that Monroe’s cause of death was suicide.

The report said Monroe’s death was "caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide," according to multiple sources.

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The coroner's report also provided more insight into Monroe’s mental state at the time.

"Miss Monroe had suffered from psychiatric disturbance for a long time ... Mood changes were abrupt and unpredictable," Newsweek reported.

"Among symptoms of disorganization, sleep disturbance was prominent, for which she had been taking sedative drugs for many years."

The same report continued: "Miss Monroe had often expressed wishes to give up, to withdraw, and even to die. On more than one occasion in the past, she had made a suicide attempt, using sedative drugs," Newsweek also recounted.

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"On these occasions, she had called for help and had been rescued. It is our opinion that the same pattern was repeated on the evening of Aug. 4 except for the rescue."

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926, Monroe spent much of her early years in foster care and in an orphanage, according to Biography.com.

At age 16, she married a fellow worker in an aircraft factory.

They divorced only a few years later.

She took up modeling in 1944 — and in 1946 she signed a brief contract with 20th Century Fox.

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She took the screen name Marilyn Monroe and famously posed nude for a calendar in 1949, the source also said.

Monroe’s career starting gaining momentum in the early 1950s, with performances in the films "Love Nest" (1951), "Monkey Business" (1952) and "Niagara" (1953), according to Biography.com.

Her next ensemble of films — "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953), "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953) and "There’s No Business Like Show Business" (1954) — showcased Monroe’s sex-symbol image and voluptuous likeness .

Alternatively, her role in "The Seven Year Itch" (1955) highlighted Monroe’s comedic ability.

The film featured the pop-culture classic scene in which she stands over a subway grating and has her white skirt billowing up by the wind created from a passing train, according to multiple sources.

While she was enjoying success on the big screen, Monroe married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in 1954.

Their love story was short-lived, though.

They divorced nine months later, according to MLB.com.

In 1956, Monroe tried her luck at marriage a third time and wed playwright Arthur Miller.

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A few years later, in 1959, Monroe appeared in the hit comedy "Some Like in Hot."

Its plot involved Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), who witness a mob hit and flee town in drag to join an all-female band headed to Miami.

The group’s singer, Sugar Kane, played by Monroe, leads them through escapades in the film.

"'Some Like It Hot' is as deliriously funny and fresh today as it was when it first knocked audiences out decades ago," said the Criterion Collection.

In 1961, Monroe ended her marriage to Miller.

"The union would come to be plagued by an assortment of strains, which perhaps began when Monroe discovered a notebook in which Miller had scribbled his misgivings about having married her," noted Life.com.

Tormented by repeated miscarriages and other issues, Monroe turned to barbiturates, the same source said.

Monroe’s final film was "The Misfits" (1961), written by Miller and co-starring Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable (it would also be Gable’s final appearance on screen), noted History.com.

Then, in June 1962, 20th Century Fox dismissed Monroe because of extended absences from the set of "Something’s Got to Give," the same source also indicated.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, NOV. 22, 1963, JOHN F. KENNEDY, 35TH PRESIDENT, IS ASSASSINATED

Just weeks later, on Aug. 5, 1962, Monroe was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates in her home in Brentwood, California, multiple sources noted.

"Monroe is presumed to have passed away on August 4, 1962, in the late hours of the evening; however, Monroe’s official time of death was 3:50 a.m. on August 5, 1962," according to People.com.

Although her death was ruled a suicide, conspiracy theories still circulate regarding the circumstances of her passing.

The most notable among those rumors is that the cause of her death were somehow covered up by the Kennedy brothers (then- U.S. president John F. Kennedy , and his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy) with whom she was allegedly having affairs, according to Harper’s Bazaar.

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"So prevalent were these theories that the investigation into her death was reopened in 1982, though no fresh conclusion was reached," the same source said.

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Monroe’s short and tragic life has been referenced repeatedly in American pop culture, as she was the inspiration for Elton John ’s song "Candle in the Wind," which first appeared on his 1973 album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," according to the Los Angeles Times.

In the decades since her death, Monroe has been the subject of documentaries, films, books and TV miniseries, all chronicling the short life of the actress, said Variety.

Original article source: On this day in history, August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe is found dead in Los Angeles

Liz Taylor speaks from beyond the grave in 'Lost Tapes' documentary

One of Hollywood's most fascinating movie stars narrates her own remarkable life story in HBO's "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes."

It's not artificial intelligence recreating the unmistakably clear voice of British-born superstar Elizabeth Taylor. Instead, the documentary directed by Nanette Burstein relies primarily on 40 hours of "lost" interviews conducted with the 32-year-old actress throughout 1964 − a year that marked the end of Taylor's scandalous fourth marriage to Eddie Fisher and the beginning of her furious fifth marriage to Richard Burton.

Combined with rare home movies and photographs from the Elizabeth Taylor Estate, "Lost Tapes" is a spellbinding look at the movie star during the height of her fame (Taylor died 47 years later, at age 79 in 2011).

"She was just in a different moment," says Burstein. "I felt good about using these tapes because the estate wanted her story to be told from beyond the grave. At the time, Elizabeth Taylor was being overly judged, and that fear factor does not exist anymore."

Here's what to know about "The Lost Tapes" (HBO, 8 p.m. EDT/PDT Saturday, and streaming on Max ).

Why were the Elizabeth Taylor tapes lost and found?

The 40 hours of interviews were recorded by Life magazine writer Richard Meryman, who also conducted Marilyn Monroe's last interview. Meryman was ghost-writing a Taylor biography and the research tapes "were never supposed to be heard by the public," says Burstein. "They sat in his attic for decades." Meryman died in 2015 , and years later, his widow unearthed the tape trove.

There were plentiful cocktails served during the Taylor interviews, as discussed on the tapes.

"Morning interviews or late-night interviews, it didn't matter. There was always alcohol flowing," says Burstein. "There's a little of that discussion in the documentary, but there was so much more of it on the tapes."

Yet Taylor is in total control of the interviews, often telling Meryman he couldn't use the story she had just told for the book − stories now revealed in "The Lost Tapes."

Burstein, too, insisted on filmmaking control. The actress' four grown children "learned a lot about their mother just hearing her inner life" when they saw the finished movie.

Elizabeth Taylor attracted Beatlemania-like crowds − and ever-present paparazzi

"The Lost Tapes" shows startling 1952 footage of Taylor marrying her second husband, Michael Wilding, in London, with police holding back screaming fans.

"It's early on, well before any scandals, when she's not even at the height of her fame," says Burstein. "But it looks like The Beatles just turned up. That was shocking to me."

The paparazzi would later swarm, making Taylor's life miserable.

"Photographers dressed up as priests would come to the door. Photographers would get inside the house dressed up as workmen or plumbers," Taylor says in the tapes. "Paparazzi would climb over the wall, and we'd turn the hose on them."

'I never loved him,' Liz Taylor says of fourth husband Eddie Fisher

Singer and actor Eddie Fisher was best friends with Taylor's third husband, producer Mike Todd, whom she married in 1957 (Fisher's then-wife, Debbie Reynolds, was Taylor's matron of honor). Taylor was devastated when Todd died a year later in a plane crash. "It was the defining tragedy of her life," says Burstein. "She was really in love."

Fisher went from comforting Taylor to marrying the still-grieving star in 1959, three hours after finalizing his divorce with a blindsided Reynolds. Enduring an unrelenting public scandal for the relationship, Taylor says in the tapes that she never loved Fisher.

"I liked him. I felt sorry for him. And I liked talking with him about Mike," says Taylor, taking a swipe at Reynolds for allegedly fanning the sympathetic media coverage. "She put on such an act ... like the whole thing came as a big shock."

Taylor was stung by the public outcry, saying Fisher and Reynolds had a broken marriage.

"The public didn't know of (the couple's) personal unhappiness Mike and I had known about. As far as (the public) were concerned, I broke up a perfectly happy marriage," says Taylor. "There was hostility in people's faces and letters."

Li Taylor met a 'hungover' Richard Burton, thought their love would last forever

On the "Cleopatra" set, Taylor got acquainted with her party-loving Mark Antony co-star Burton.

"I've never seen a gentleman so hungover in my whole life," Taylor says in the tapes. "He was terribly nervous and sweet and shaky. And that just endeared me so to him. My heart went out to him."

Taylor left Fisher for Burton. The star says she and Burton were "bonded together with bands of steel" and that it was obvious that marriage "would still be here 50 years from now."

"At the moment, she's so confident they will be together forever," says Burstein. "That's obviously not how it played out."

The legendary couple divorced in 1974, before marrying again in 1975, which lasted less than a year.

Elizabeth Taylor felt she would have won a 1960 Oscar 'if I'd been a good girl'

Taylor believed the tabloid scandal around Fisher cost her a best actress Oscar in 1960 for "Suddenly, Last Summer."

She had finally reached a place where the industry considered her "an actress and not a movie star," Taylor says. "That was terribly important to me. If I'd been a good girl, I probably would have won."

Taylor would go on to win two Oscars in her career: best actress in 1961 for "BUtterfield 8" and in 1967 for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"