Henry Fonda
Photoplayd Industry Rating
Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancee in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl 1930s. This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films. In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948). After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1957 he starred as Juror No.8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also co-producer, won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor. Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at its time of release, but now regarded as one of the best westerns of all time. He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, but also often played important military figures, such as a Colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony. He died from heart disease a few months later.
Known for
Credits
12 Angry Men (1957)
as Juror 8
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
as Frank
Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
as Frank Broderick
The Longest Day (1962)
as Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Midway (1976)
as Adm. Chester W. Nimitz
How the West Was Won (1962)
as Jethro Stuart
My Name Is Nobody (1973)
as Jack Beauregard
War and Peace (1956)
as Pierre Bezukhov
The Boston Strangler (1968)
as John S. Bottomly
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
as Tom Joad
On Golden Pond (1981)
as Norman Thayer Jr.
My Darling Clementine (1946)
as Wyatt Earp
Fort Apache (1948)
as Lt. Col. Owen Thursday
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
as Lt Col Kiley
Fail Safe (1964)
as The President
The Swarm (1978)
as Dr. Krim
The Wrong Man (1956)
as Manny Balestrero
Mister Roberts (1955)
as Lieutenant Roberts
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
as Frank Beardsley
Warlock (1959)
as Clay Blaisedell
In Harm's Way (1965)
as CINCPAC II
Advise & Consent (1962)
as Robert Leffingwell
Meteor (1979)
as The President
Fedora (1978)
as President of the Academy
The Lady Eve (1941)
as Charles Pike
Jezebel (1938)
as Preston Dillard
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
as Abraham Lincoln
The Return of Frank James (1940)
as Frank James
Daisy Kenyon (1947)
as Peter Lapham
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
as Gilbert Martin
Firecreek (1968)
as Bob Larkin
The Rounders (1965)
as Marion 'Howdy' Lewis
The Tin Star (1957)
as Morgan Hickman
Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)
as Henry Stamper
There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
as Woodward W. Lopeman
Madigan (1968)
as Commissioner Anthony X. Russell
Jesse James (1939)
as Frank James
Rollercoaster (1977)
as Simon Davenport
Too Late the Hero (1970)
as Capt. John G Nolan
You Only Live Once (1937)
as Eddie Taylor
The Biggest Battle (1978)
as Generale Foster
The Best Man (1964)
as William Russell
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
as Gil Carter
La Classe américaine (1993)
as Hugues (archive footage)
Spencer's Mountain (1963)
as Clay Spencer
The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)
as Harley Sullivan
Directed by John Ford (1971)
Actor
The Last Four Days (1974)
as Kardinal Schuster
The Long Night (1947)
as Joe Adams
Tentacles (1977)
as Mr. Whitehead
A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966)
as Meredith
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
as George
Gideon's Trumpet (1980)
as Clarence Earl Gideon
The Fugitive (1947)
as A Fugitive
The Battle of Midway (1942)
as Narrator (voice)
City on Fire (1979)
as Fire Chief Risley
Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
as Mayor Will Blue
Barbara Stanwyck: Straight Down the Line (1997)
as Self (archive footage)
The Serpent (1973)
as Alan Davies
John Ford: The Man Who Invented America (2019)
as Self - Actor (archive footage)
The Dirty Game (1965)
as Dimitri Koulov
Slim (1937)
as Slim Kincaid
Pictura (1951)
as Narrator (segment "Grant Wood") (voice)
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (2013)
as Self (archive footage)
That Certain Woman (1937)
as Jack V. Merrick, Jr.
Rings on Her Fingers (1942)
as John Wheeler
Wanda Nevada (1979)
as Old Prospector
The Big Street (1942)
as Little Pinks
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936)
as Dave Tolliver
The Sensational Shocking Wonderful Wacky 70's (1980)
as Self (archive footage)
The Fabulous Fifties (1960)
as Narrator (segment "Fifties Dead Sequence") (voice)
The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
as Peter Ames
Spawn of the North (1938)
as Jim Kimmerlee
Stage Struck (1958)
as Lewis Easton
Let Us Live (1939)
as "Brick" Tennant
Spanish Western (2015)
as Self (archive footage)
Stranger on the Run (1967)
as Ben Chamberlain
Way Down East (1935)
as David Bartlett
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
as Thomas Watson
Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still (1974)
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Red Pony (1973)
as Carl Tiflin
The Alpha Caper (1973)
as Mark Forbes
Hollywood: The Selznick Years (1961)
as Self - Narrator
The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935)
as Dan Harrow
Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire (1991)
as Self (archive footage)
You Belong to Me (1941)
as Peter Kirk
The Moon's Our Home (1936)
as Anthony Amberton / John Smith
Collision Course: Truman vs. MacArthur (1976)
as Gen. Douglas MacArthur
I Met My Love Again (1938)
as Ives Towner
Lillian Russell (1940)
as Alexander Moore
Citizen Jane Fonda (2020)
Actor
The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind (1988)
as Self (archive footage)
Henry Fonda for President (2025)
as Self (archive footage)
Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker (1991)
Actor
I'm a Fool (1977)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
On Our Merry Way (1948)
as Lank Solsky
Henry Fonda: Hollywood's Quiet Hero (1997)
as Self (archive footage)
'Fail-Safe' and the Cold War (2020)
as Self (archive footage)
Jigsaw (1949)
as Nightclub Waiter (uncredited)
Immortal Sergeant (1943)
as Corporal Colin Spence
Jay Sebring… Cutting to the Truth (2020)
as Self(archive footage)
The Petrified Forest (1955)
as Alan Squier
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Making '12 Angry Men' (2008)
as Self (archive footage)
Paul's Case (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Spendthrift (1936)
as Townsend Middleton
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Great Smokey Roadblock (1978)
as Elegant John
The Man Who Understood Women (1959)
as Willie Bauche
Breakdowns of 1938 (1938)
as Self (archive footage)
The Displaced Person (1977)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Male Animal (1942)
as Tommy Turner
The Magnificent Dope (1942)
as Thadeus Winship 'Tad' Page
Going Hollywood: The '30s (1984)
as (archive footage)
An Opera of Violence (2003)
as Self - Actor (archive footage)
Benjy (1951)
as Narrator (voice)
The American West of John Ford (1971)
as Self - Narrator
Sacco and Vanzetti (2006)
as Prof. Tommy Turner (archive footage)
Fonda on Fonda (1992)
as Self (archive footage)
The Oldest Living Graduate (1980)
as Col. J.C. Kincaid
A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978)
as Self
I Dream Too Much (1935)
as Johnny Street
Let Poland Be Poland (1982)
as Self
The Golden Honeymoon (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults (1999)
as (archive footage)
Chad Hanna (1940)
as Chad Hanna
The Fondas: A Cinematic Dynasty (2023)
as Self - Actor (archive footage)
Ash Wednesday (1973)
as Mark Sawyer
Home to Stay (1978)
as Grandpa George
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To (1990)
as (archive footage)
Wings of the Morning (1937)
as Kerry Gilfallen
The Blue Hotel (1977)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Wild Geese Calling (1941)
as John Murdock
Blockade (1938)
as Marco
Summer Solstice (1981)
as Joshua
Inside 'the Swarm' (1978)
as Self
President Kennedy's Birthday Salute (1962)
as Self
An Impression of John Steinbeck: Writer (1969)
as John Steinbeck (voice)
Soldier's Home (1977)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Music School (1974)
as Narrator (voice)
The Man Who Loved Bears (1979)
as Self
The Wages of Sin (2003)
as Self (archive footage)
The Sky Is Gray (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Greatest Man in the World (1981)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Parker Adderson, Philosopher (1974)
as Narrator (Voice)
Pat Paulsen for President (1968)
as Narrator (voice)
Henry James' The Jolly Corner (1975)
as Narrator
John Ford & Monument Valley (2013)
as Self (archive footage)
Something to Do with Death (2003)
as Self (archive footage)
Guilt Trip: Hitchcock and 'The Wrong Man' (2004)
as Self (archive footage)
A Space to Grow (1968)
as Narrator
The Really Big Family (1966)
as Self - Narrator
Barn Burning (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
The Making of Midway (2001)
as Self
To Save a Soldier (1966)
as Narrator (voice)
Clarence Darrow (1974)
as Clarence Darrow
Rappaccini's Daughter (1980)
as Self - Series Host (uncredited)
Underground Doctors (1977)
as Self - Host
Born to Buck (1966)
as Narrator
Parkinson: Meet Henry Fonda (1975)
as Self
Hollywood: The Fabulous Era (1962)
as Narrator / Host
Jezebel: Legend of the South (2006)
as Self (archive footage)
Hollywood: The Great Stars (1963)
as Self - Host
The Real Miss America (1952)
as Narrator (voice)
It's Everybody's War (1942)
as Narrator
Loving Against Time: the Making of On Golden Pond (—)
as archive footage