The 25 Best Humphrey Bogart Movies

Bogart played a district attorney who makes a deal with crime boss’ henchman to put the mob kingpin in jail. But when the informer dies, the DA has to re-examine the evidence to try and nail the big shot.

Rotten Tomatoes critics lauded the film for its fast-moving pace.

Bogart and George Raft play brothers who are delivery-truck drivers aspiring to own their own business. While working for another business, the company owner’s wife (Ida Lupino) falls in love with Raft. She kills her husband (Alan Hale) to be wtih Raft who rejects her and she tries to pin the murder on Raft.

Fernando F. Croce of CinePassion called the film a “ripping view of toilers and hustlers still half-stuck in the Depression.”

Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Bogart plays a film director desperate to find a star for his next movie. He thinks he’s found her in Spain – a beautiful peasant girl (Ava Gardner) dancing in a nightclub.

Critic Emanuel Levy said “Mankiewicz’s bitter-sweet satire of Hollywood is extremely well acted by Bogart (witty), Ava Gardner (gorgeous), and Edmond O’Brien, who won the Supporting Oscar.”

In “The Desperate Hours,” three escaped prisoners (Humphrey Bogart, Dewey Martin, Robert Middleton) hole up in a suburban house and take the family prisoner while waiting for an accomplice to bring them cash. While they wait, the homeowner (Frederic March) tries to figure out how to get out of the dangerous situation.

Critic Dennis Schwartz said “an aged fiftysomething Humphrey Bogart is in his element as the snarling desperate fugitive.”

“All Through the Night” stars Bogart as a gambler who stumbles onto a nest of Nazis in his neighborhood. Variety said “Bogart, as a retired mobster turned big-time gambler, is easy to take.” Dennis Schwartz called the movie a “patriotic Runyonesque spy spoof.”

The film features character actors from the 1940s such as Frank McHugh, Peter Lorre, William Demarest, and Conrad Veidt; future successful comics Jackie Gleason and Phil Silvers; and Oscar-nominated actresses Judith Anderson and Jane Darwell.

Bogart plays a gangster who returns to his old neighborhood where his mother rejects him, his former girlfriend has become a prostitute, and a childhood friend is trying to escape the slums to realize his dream of becoming an architect.

David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews said the movie was “worth a look, especially for fans of Bogart By this point in his career, Bogart had firmly established himself as the quintessential American mobster.

“High Sierra” is one of four Bogart collaborations with director Raoul Walsh on this list. The plot revolves around a mobster Big Mac (Donald MacBride) looking to make one last heist before he retires. He frees a gang member Roy Earle (Bogart) from prison to help him do the job. But plans go sideways and Earle is chased by the police into the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Critic Emanuel Levy said “Raoul Walsh’s well-directed crime noir marks a turning point in the career of Bogart, who became a movie star in 1941.”

Bogart is paired with Bette Davis in this film about a nightclub hostess whose mobster boss kills someone at the club and then accidentally kills her innocent sister. It’s up to Bogart, a district attorney, to convince her to testify, even though she is marked for murder.

Critic Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress called “Marked Woman” a “hard hitting Warner Bros. gangland drama with a dream cast.”

Bogart returned to screen with Bette Davis in “Dark Victory.” Davis plays a frivolous socialite who is diagnosed with a brain tumor and Bogart is a stable master who is secretly in love with her.

The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus hailed the melodrama as a tour de force for Davis.

“Dark Passage” was one of four films in which Bogart appeared with his real-life wife, Lauren Bacall. Bogart plays an escaped con wrongly imprisoned for murdering his wife. He gets plastic surgery and crosses paths with Bacall, who allows him to stay in her apartment while he tries to prove his innocence.

Nathanael Hood of The Retro Set said “even though the Bogart and Bacall relationship is put on the back-burner here, it’s as sizzling as the romances in their first two movies

Bogart played desperate criminal Duke Mantee who holds a writer (Leslie Howard) and a waitress with dreams of being an artist (Bette Davis) hostage in an Arizona diner. Howard insisted that Bogart be cast as the cold-blooded Mantee, a role he had played on the stage.

This movie made Bogart a star and Howard and Bogart became friends until Howard’s tragic death in 1943. Bogart and Lauren Bacall later named their daughter Leslie Howard Bogart.

“The Harder They Fall” finds Bogart as a down-and-out newspaperman who takes a job with a corrupt boxing promoter to tout one of his new fighters, a man with limited pugilistic skills. Critic Emanuel Levy said “in this noir sports melodrama, which is his final screen role, Bogart gives a powerful performance.”

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including the third and last for Bogart. He plays the commander of a U.S. Navy ship during World War II whose erratic behavior suggests mental instability. He is relieved of duty by an executive officer (Van Johnson) and an ensign (Robert Francis), prompting their court martial. The film, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk, is famous for the scene in which Bogart’s character testifies.

Phil Villarreal of Arizona Daily Star opined that “Bogart shines brightest, finding strength in weakness.”

Bogart turned to romantic comedy in “Sabrina,” co-written and directed by Billy WIlder, about two brothers (Bogart and William Holden) working for the family business who both fall in love with the daughter of the family’s chauffeur, played by Audrey Hepburn, a beguiling beauty just returned from Paris.

Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy said “it’s Bogart’s atypical portrayal that stands out.”

“Sahara” is a war movie set in the Libyan desert where an American tank crew led by Bogart becomes separated from its unit, picks up Allied stragglers, and tries to survive as food and water run low. Despite moments of propaganda, Zoltan Korda’s direction was lauded for its realistic depiction of desert warfare.

Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid said “Bogey’s presence lends a hard-boiled nature to the picture.”

Bogart won his only Academy Award as a gin-soaked steamer captain in World War I Africa who helps an English missionary (Katharine Hepburn) destroy a German gunboat. All the while they quarrel and eventually fall in love. The movie was based on a C.S.Forester novel.

The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus said the movie was “perfectly cast, smartly written, and beautifully filmed. ‘The African Queen’ remains thrilling, funny, and effortlessly absorbing.”

“Key Largo” was the last of four films Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together. Bogart plays a war veteran who visits a friend’s hotel only to find that gangsters led by Edward G. Robinson have taken it over and await an accomplice carrying money as a hurricane bears down on them.

Mike Massie of Gone With The Twins said “the real stars of the film are mind games and manipulation, sharply brought to life by the restrained verbal feuding between Bogart and Robinson.

Bogart and Lauren Bacall made the first of their four films together – before they were married – and they lit up the screen in this adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel. Bogart plays an American expat fishing boat captain in Vichy France who is persuaded by a hotel owner and a young American woman (Bacall) to bring two French Resistance fighters to Martinique.

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus says ” ‘To Have and Have Not’ benefits from several levels of fine-tuned chemistry – all of which ignite on screen.” Bacall’s famous line to Bogart – “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow” – is one of American Film Institute’s top 100 movie quotes.

“The Big Sleep” is another Bogart and Bacall pairing directed and produced by Howard Hawks and is one of the greatest film noirs ever made. Bogart plays private detective Sam Spade, hired by a wealthy family to straighten out debts run up by an irresponsible family member. Things get more complicated as murders start happening.

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus says “A perfect match of screenplay, director, and leading man, ‘The Big Sleep’ stands as a towering achievement in film noir whose grim vitality remains undimmed.”

“In a Lonely Place” is about a screenwriter (Bogart) developing a romantic relationship with a neighbor that becomes complicated when police question him about the murder of a woman. The neighbor (Gloria Grahame) stands by him, but his behavior becomes increasingly erratic, causing her to consider the possibility that he is in fact a murderer.

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian said “Humphrey Bogart’s world-weariness and romanticism take on something brutal and misogynist in this 1950 noir masterpiece.”

“The Roaring Twenties” represents the apex of the Warner Bros. gangster films. Bogart and James Cagney have returned from World War I with big ambitions, but find that good jobs are scarce. They turn to bootlegging and their empire grows. But the two hoods ran afoul of each other, resulting in the shooting deaths of both of them.

Richard Brody of the New Yorker said “(Raoul) Walsh unfolds the practical details of bootleggers’ nocturnal maneuvers with quiet comedic flair alongside harrowing violence.”

“Angels with Dirty Faces” is one of three films Bogart appeared with James Cagney, who plays the gangster archetype Rocky Sullivan. As in “The Roaring Twenties,” both are mobsters here, and as in that film, Bogart plays the more vicious of the two. In this film, Bogart’s character Jim Frazier wants to kill Cagney’s childhood friend Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien) who has become a priest. But Sullivan kills Frazier, triggering a shootout.

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus said the film depicted “a touching battle for a community’s soul.”

“The Maltese Falcon” is one of the first film noirs, and some movie historians think it is the best. Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus said it was “a showcase for Humphrey Bogart at his finest.”

Co-written by Dashiell Hammett (author of the novel on which it is based) and John Huston, who directed, Bogart plays private detective Sam Spade, a man who becomes entangled in a web of intrigue and murder that involves procuring a legendary bejeweled statue of a falcon. The film’s famous closing scene shows Spade holding the statue saying “the stuff dreams are made of.”

Director John Huston’s meditation on greed and desperation won him and his father, actor Walter Huston, Academy Awards. The movie also is famous for Bogart’s performance as a man consumed by paranoia and avarice. “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” follows luckless wanderers Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt) who meet veteran prospector, Howard (Walter Huston), in Mexico and go to the Sierra Madre Mountains to find gold.

Critic Roger Ebert said “Bogart fearlessly makes Fred C. Dobbs into a pathetic, frightened, selfish man – so sick we would be tempted to pity him, if he were not so undeserving of pity.”

“Casablanca” is one of the greatest, most beloved, most quoted – and misquoted – movies of all time. A story of patriotism trumping cynicism, it was shown to film audiences during the darkest days of World War II. In case you don’t remember the plot, Rick Blaine (Bogart), a jaded American expat running a café in Vichy-controlled Casablanca, Morocco, must choose between his love for a woman, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), and his moral duty to help her and her husband, Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), escape from Casablanca to continue the fight against Nazi Germany.

“Casablanca” was ranked second to “Citizen Kane” as the greatest American movie in 1998 by the American Film Institute, and Bogart’s Rick Blaine was named as AFI’s fourth-greatest film hero.