Cary Grant’s 5 Best Film Roles: ‘Notorious,’ ‘The Philadelphia Story’ and More

There are few careers in film as prolific and storied as the late Cary Grant’s.

Before his death in 1986, Grant was a prominent voice in Hollywood, pioneering entertainment titles as early as the 1920s. With more than 70 film roles to his name — not to mention a slew of theater and radio performances — it can be hard to narrow down his most iconic.

However, in looking at his filmography, five tend to stand out. Scroll down to take a trip down memory lane.

North by Northwest

Grant worked several times with the acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock. However, perhaps his best collaboration is North by Northwest, a spy thriller in which a case of mistaken identity sees a normal man played by Grant running for his life in an adventurous romp that takes him all the way to the United Nations.

Notorious

The star worked with Hitchcock again in another spy thriller that the latter directed about US Government operatives infiltrating a group of German emigres hiding out in Rio de Janeiro after World War II. However, the real emotional crux of this movie is the love triangle between Grant’s T.R. Devlin, Ingrid Bergman’s Alicia Huberman and Claude Rains’ Alex Sebastian.

The Philadelphia Story

Grant holds his own against an all-star cast in this 1940s romantic comedy alongside Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart and Ruth Hussey. When a spoiled rich woman from a Philadelphia Main Line socialite family falls for the wrong man, it triggers a series of events and even a wedding that sees her falling for even more wrong men.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Grant flexed his comedy chops once again in this screwball dark comedy crime film based on a long-running and very famous Broadway show. Grant leads the film as a young man whose murderous aunts and delusional younger brother not only threaten the new life he’s building with a new bride, but the lives of unsuspecting men who may cross his family’s path.

His Girl Friday

In another romantic comedy about a newspaper editor who is going to lose his ace reporter, who just so happens to be his ex-wife, Grant shows his romantic work again. When she announces she’s marrying another man, he suggests they tackle one more story together in an effort to win her back. What ensues is a hilarious romp complete with romance and even murder.