I watched all 31 Elvis Presley movies so you don't have to.

And it only took me a year.

As summer begins and I busy myself with hibernation and fun, I offer you my unsolicited thoughts on Elvis Presley’s cinematic career.

Because he remains known for his musical career, some people don’t realize that Elvis spent a large part of his adult life making truly abominable movies. He was in the public eye for roughly twenty years of his life, and about ten of those years were spent on Hollywood sets, churning out cheap rom-com after cheap rom-com. Elvis starred in thirty one terrible movies and I watched every single one of them. I wish I could say that I had many epiphanies, but mostly I just had a horrible time.

Here, I’m breaking down each of his films and providing my opinions on everything. These spineless movies are unexpectedly exhausting to talk about at length, as they mostly follow the same formula every time with varying levels of misogyny and racism.

Elvis was a pretty mediocre actor, but he got worse with every movie. To be fair, he was served really terrible scripts and he got addicted to drugs somewhere along the way. It’s impossible to know what his film career would have looked like if he didn’t pause after King Creole to serve time in the army for two years, only to return with a corny patriotic spoof of his life: G.I. Blues.

My massive disclaimer is that I cannot recommend any of these movies. All of these movies are generally very sexist, racist, etc. They did not age well and they are really terrible! Another disclaimer is that a 10/10 Elvis movie rating is approximately the equivalent of a 5/10 for any other movie ever made.

Many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) have opinions about the order to watch every movie in. I considered taking this kind of approach to the Elvis Presley Cinematic Universe (EPCU) by watching everything in the order it was released, but I ultimately realized that the only way to get through it all would be to watch in whatever order I felt like.

I watched these movies with no regard to the chronological order, instead choosing whatever I felt like watching on a given day. I started with Blue Hawaii and ended with Harum Scarum, and I know that I watched most of the “good” ones first, but unfortunately I didn’t keep track of which order I watched in. Perhaps I should’ve gone about this differently, but at a certain point I was in too deep to look back. Here, I’m listing each movie in the order that they were released, even though I didn’t watch them that way.

1. Love Me Tender (1956) 8/10

The first movie Elvis appears in follows the Reno family as Clint (Elvis) stays home to take care of his family’s farm while his brothers fight in the Civil War for the Confederate Army. Unresolved passion and drama ensues when it is revealed that Clint has married his older brother Vance’s girlfriend after believing Vance to have died in the war.

This was not at all what I expected because Elvis isn’t the main character, and spoiler alert he actually dies at the end, which is a nice touch. This is one of only three movies that see Elvis playing a historical figure (the other two are Frankie and Johnny, set in the 1890s, and The Trouble With Girls, set in 1927). It’s dramatic, it’s Western, and the music is good because there isn’t too much of it. “Love Me Tender” is a classic Elvis ballad.

2. Loving You (1957) 5/10

In this movie, Elvis plays a delivery man with an amazing voice who gets discovered by a music publicist and eventually becomes a famous country music star. Loving You also stars Dolores Hart, an actress who also appears alongside Presley in King Creole. She had a successful career as an actress in Hollywood for a few years, but at 24 years old she left Hollywood behind to become a Roman Catholic nun at the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CT. She’s the coolest. This whole movie is just Elvis’s character getting severely taken advantage of. Loving You starts a consistent trope of Elvis movies just spoofing his own career and life story, which always feels eerie in hindsight.

3. Jailhouse Rock (1957) 10/10

Perhaps the most famous of Presley’s movies, this movie follows Vince Everett’s journey to rockstar status after he spent time in jail for accidentally killing a man. He meets a woman, Peggy, who helps him record songs and the two of them eventually start their own label. Vince struggles with fame and he eventually starts making movies too. You see the parallels (minus the murder).

I have no notes. This is the ideal musical. This movie begins another consistent trope in Elvis movies: Elvis brutally injuring men with a single punch to defend a woman he doesn’t know.

4. King Creole (1958) 8/10

This is another classic on the short list of Elvis movies that have maintained some kind of positive legacy. It famously features the song “Trouble.” King Creole is one of several Elvis movies produced by Hal B. Wallis, the producer behind Casablanca. Dolores Hart appears in this movie as well. In King Creole, Elvis plays Danny Fisher, a boy prone to fighting and struggling to graduate high school. He eventually gets offered a job in a club after the owner hears him sing. There is a constant dramatic pull between crime and music, and between two love interests.

The opening scene of this movie is probably one of the best musical numbers of all time.

5. G.I. Blues (1960) 3/10

Another Hal Wallis film. This movie features a truly unforgettable puppet show and some classic military propaganda. Did you know that Bye Bye Birdie is about Elvis? G.I. Blues is essentially accomplishing the same thing as Bye Bye Birdie—just a cheesy retelling of Elvis’s time in the military. I personally hated it.

6. Flaming Star (1960) 2/10

This is one of three “serious” Western movies that Elvis made, alongside Charro! and Love Me Tender. By the time I got to Flaming Star in my journey, any movie where Elvis stayed relatively quiet was winning major points. I wasn’t expecting cold hard murder in an Elvis movie, but this movie had it, so I guess that’s worth mentioning. This movie was super racist, it must be said!

7. Wild in the Country (1961) 3/10

Elvis gets in a fight with his brother and goes on probation, where he meets a nice counselor named Irene and decides that he wants to be a writer. There’s more dubious romance in this movie.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen a movie that starts with Elvis Presley beating up a man to defend a woman’s honor, I’d have a decent amount of nickels. This movie alerted me to yet another recurring trope: multiple young (potentially underage) girls fighting for Elvis’s love while he is fighting for one complicated older woman. A lot of the background characters in these movies are played by Elvis’s friends, members of his “Memphis Mafia.” Their roles often go uncredited. Red West appears in quite a few movies, including Wild in the Country and Viva Las Vegas.

8. Blue Hawaii (1961) 9/10

Elvis plays Chadwick Gates, a “cool guy” recently discharged from the army who goes home to Hawaii and gets a job as a tour guide. The whole movie is basically Elvis trying not to work for the family pineapple business and giving tours of Hawaii to groups of young women.

This was the first Elvis movie I ever watched. It’s a pretty bad movie, but also a cult classic. It features one of his most well known songs, “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

9. Follow That Dream (1962) 8/10

In many ways, Follow That Dream is what Taylor Swift wrote “Florida!!!” about. This movie could either be a 4/10 or an 8/10; it’s hard to decide. I thought the writing of this was kind of clever and I enjoyed it, but. It’s just another movie where Elvis’s character gets taken advantage of, but this time by a seductive social worker.

10. Kid Galahad (1962) 4/10

This is the boxing movie. Elvis’s Rocky. This movie has the same old tropes in a slightly different movie. A notable line: “Don’t call me a meatball, I don’t like it.” I have no idea what was going on in terms of the minutiae of this film, but in spite of it all, I found myself impressed by Elvis’s acting.

11. Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) 6/10

In this movie, fisherman Elvis tries to buy a boat. My thoughts? Too many girls, not enough boat.

12. It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963) 7/10

Elvis’s friend gambles all of his money way, so they head to the Seattle World Fair and try to buy an airplane. He befriends a little girl when her uncle never picks her up from the fair and falls in love with a nurse. He also conducts a plane delivery of valuable smuggled furs in the middle of the night.

I thought this movie was okay, but it was kind of creepy. It also features the song “Cotton Candy Land,” which is forever ruined for me after Baz Luhrmann’s horrifying rendition of it in the Elvis 2022 biopic, using it as Colonel Tom Parker’s haunting theme song instead of a fun lullaby.

13. Fun in Acapulco (1963) 4/10

Ever wonder what it would be like to watch a movie where Elvis plays a lifeguard with a fear of heights due to injuring himself on a high-wire during his career as a circus performer? If so, this might be the movie for you. Besides the cliff diving drama, this movie was so forgettable. Not enough circus stuff. “Bossa Nova Baby” is a great song, though.

14. Kissin’ Cousins (1964) 0/10

It will cause me physical pain to talk about this movie. Yes, somehow it was even worse than you’re imagining.

15. Viva Las Vegas (1964) 5/10

This movie is the first of a few car racing movies that Elvis did. He plays a (musically talented) race car driver trying to get a new car motor to win the Grand Prix in Las Vegas. His racing rival is named Elmo. He ends up staying in Vegas longer than he expected, and meeting a swim instructor (Ann-Margaret). They perform an iconic dance number that holds zero plot significance. In true Vegas fashion, it ends with a rushed wedding at Little Church of the West.

The production on this movie went over budget, leading to Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, massively cutting the budgets on his films going forward (which is why they all look increasingly awful). Contrary to public opinion, I actually think the only good part of this movie was the song, plus the behind-the-scenes drama with Ann-Margaret. Elvis and Ann-Margaret had an affair while filming the movie; at the time, he was dating 17-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu.

16. Roustabout (1964) 6/10

Surprise, surprise: In Roustabout, Elvis plays another singer who loses his job after getting in a fight. Down on his luck, he ends up working at a carnival and ultimately saving the carnival from going bankrupt with his magical voice. His attempted romance with a teenager causes some drama, and there’s a cool motorcycle accident. Roustabout had immaculate fashion and fun summer vibes.

17. Girl Happy (1965) 7/10

This plot was kind of incredible. A rich businessman hires Elvis (who plays yet another singer in this movie) to secretly shadow his daughter on her spring break trip to Florida, in case she tries to get into any trouble. She doesn’t know Elvis is being paid by her father to keep an eye on her. Once she does realize, things spiral out of control and Elvis dresses up as a woman to break a bunch of women out of jail. “Girl Happy” is an insanely catchy song and I really wish it wasn’t.

18. Tickle Me (1965) 7/10

Tickle Me is a “Musical Comedy Western” film featuring Elvis as a bull rider. This movie won Presley a Golden Laurel Award for best male actor in 1966. It’s also the only Elvis movie that didn’t include any original songs in the soundtrack—using only old album tracks. The movie made $5 million at the box office, saving the studio Allied Artists Pictures from bankruptcy.

I didn’t care about this movie at all for the first hour, but then things took a turn. It went from dude ranch plot to Ghostbusters really quick and I was so into it—it was funny. This movie seemed to cover perhaps the last genre that haven’t seen yet from Elvis. The first of its kind, it stands alone in the universe.  It’s so Scooby Doo. It must be said that after watching it, I have no idea why it was called Tickle Me. It’s very possible that I missed a joke somewhere. Like all good Elvis movies, it ends with a very rushed wedding and a song. This movie was written by the same people who wrote film shorts for The Three Stooges, which explains why it was so entertaining.

19. Harum Scarum (1965) 1/10

This movie was a doozy. There were three songs in the first five minutes. Elvis plays an American movie star named Johnny Tyrone who gets kidnapped and roped into an assassination plot. So many unreal lines of dialogue and strange, convoluted plot points in this movie. It still ends in Vegas somehow, against all odds.

20. Frankie and Johnny (1966) 2/10

This was a painful one. The wardrobe was particularly frightening. There was a whole song about how women can’t and shouldn’t live alone. I would watch the broadway version of this, but I have no idea what the plot of this movie was because the only thing that caught my attention was Frankie and Johnny’s absurd stage act. It seems as though the movie is just about Elvis working on a Disney Cruise. The real issue with this movie is that it took me a full hour to pick up on the fact that it was actually set in the 1890s.

21. Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966) 2/10

The only note I wrote about this movie after I watched it was that it was “forgettable.” It follows Elvis as a fired airline pilot trying to make it big in the helicopter charter business.

22. Spinout (1966) 5/10

Nobody saw this one coming: Spinout follows Elvis as the lead singer of a band and a part-time race car driver. Plus, three women are fighting for him.

I actually thought the side characters in this one were somewhat interesting, even though the plot (as usual) was so poorly thought out. I was just happy to not be watching a bad Western at this point in my movie-watching process. Watching this movie caused me to make an unofficial rule that every Elvis movie gets a point taken away if the last 10 minutes are a nonverbal race car driving scene, because I said so.

23. Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) 4/10

This was the last movie that Hal Wallis produced with Presley. The soundtrack for it was the worst selling record that Presley ever released for RCA Victor. Presley plays Ted Jackson, a man who is both a deep-sea diver and a nightclub singer. A treasure hunt for a fortune on a sunken ship begins, and the plot gets extremely convoluted from there.

I was so confused the entire time I watched this, but it’s on the verge of high art if you squint.

24. Double Trouble (1967) 1/10

Though released after Easy Come, Easy Go, this movie was actually filmed first. Presley, who plays yet another American singer, gets caught up with criminals in Europe and followed by a young heiress who is also being followed by a mysterious murderer.

The vibes are seriously off in this movie. Elvis has crazy eyes. Why did he sing “Old Macdonald” in a movie about an assassination attempt and an underage marriage? You just can’t make this stuff up.

25. Clambake (1967) 7/10

This is basically Barbie’s Princess and the Pauper for men. Elvis is the heir to a big oil fortune, but he switches lives with a water-ski instructor for fun because he wants to see if anyone can love him for him, not his money.

I would love to go to a clambake. The movie had a rushed ending as usual, but the plot was fun and Elvis apologizing for being rich was hilarious.

26. Stay Away, Joe (1968) 1/10

I’d like to include the actual movie description here, word for word: “Half-breed rodeo champ returns to the reservation to help his people prove they can be responsible cattlemen and finds the bull forwarded to them for breeding has been slaughtered to celebrate his homecoming.” Yeah, it was awful.

How many times can we try and fail to make the next great Western? In a valiant effort, Elvis tries to answer this question with Stay Away, Joe. The only redeeming part of the Western genre of the EPCU seems to be that they generally involve a lot less singing. It was so low budget it hurt to watch. Every fight scene was badly dubbed over and Elvis’s stunt double was so hilariously visible.

27. Speedway (1968) 3/10

This movie is relatively well known because it’s the movie that Elvis did with Nancy Sinatra. For the most part, it’s just another race car movie with some fun music. Sinatra plays an IRS agent trying to get Presley’s character to pay off his enormous debt accrued from being “too generous,” but she ends up falling in love with him and they both sing a bunch of songs about it. Way too much race car driving, but Nancy has great style.

Speedway was originally going to be made with Sonny & Cher, but ended up with Presley and Sinatra instead. Overall, the movie was as bizarre as ever but made even stranger by the creepy predator undertones of Elvis’s character’s best friend and the whole tax evasion plot line. There was a whole song full of kick lines and singing about Uncle Sam at the IRS office.

28. Live a Little, Love a Little (1968) 5/10

This is Elvis’s Hannah Montana. He plays Greg Nolan, a photographer working two full time jobs: one at a spoof of Playboy and the other for an advertising firm. He runs back and forth between jobs, trying not to be caught just like Miley Stewart. While this is happening, Greg meets the eccentric Bernice, a woman who lies about her identity to everyone and eventually drugs him, leading to him getting fired and evicted from his apartment. Somehow after all of this, Greg realizes he has fallen in love with her,

Honestly, I can’t remember why I gave this movie a 5/10. The most notable part of it is that it features the song “A Little Less Conversation.” If I tried really hard to justify it, I would say it has some Eve Babitz, “manic pixie dream girl” energy. It feels very much like 1968 Los Angeles. Ultimately, I had to read a plot synopsis on Wikipedia while I was watching it.

29. Charro! (1969) 3/10

Yet another sad attempt at a serious Western. This time, Elvis has a beard. It’s described as a “rare, strictly-dramatic role.” The intro song is good, and there was very dreamy and creepy background music. It was just…not great. None of them are! Elvis gets kidnapped and jumped.

30. The Trouble With Girls (1969) 2/10

This movie is based on the novel Chautauqua by Day Keene and Dwight Vincent Babcock. It’s set in 1927 and follows a traveling Chautauqua company in Iowa. What is Chautauqua, you ask? It’s an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in the early 20th century. In the movie, Elvis plays the new manager of the Chautauqua company, Walter Hale. He spends the whole movie union busting and being greedy while the town gets involved with a murder scandal.

The thing that baffled me most about this movie was that I had no idea why it was called The Trouble With Girls. Elvis gave absolutely zero effort to the acting in this movie—he kind of just lurked in the background. I enjoyed the random murder plot, though. The camera work in this movie made me sick to my stomach. It felt like I was on a rollercoaster, and I truly can’t imagine watching this in theaters.

31. Change of Habit (1969) 7/10

At last, the final Elvis Presley movie. This movie is what I imagine would happen if everyone in The Sound of Music was American and it was 1969. The story follows three nuns sent to a city to work at a clinic undercover. Elvis plays the doctor in the clinic and Mary Tyler Moore plays the nun that falls in love with him. The nuns face a number of conflicts as they attempt to reconcile their religious life with the realities and injustices of the city they work in.

I appreciated that this genuinely tried to be a movie. The plot was pretty interesting, even though a lot of it has not aged well. Mary Tyler Moore played a compelling character. Elvis’s hair was criminally bad. The ending was rushed and cheesy as usual. Overall, not nearly as bad as many of the other movies, but an interesting one to end on.

In addition to the thirty one films he acted in, I also watched his two concert films—Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis on Tour—as well as his 1968 NBC Comeback Special and the famous Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite set. I would happily recommend any and all of these options before I recommend one of his feature films.

I’m not exactly sure why I watched all of these movies. I guess it’s because he’s back in the spotlight with the Baz Luhrmann biopic and Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla. He’s being talked about again, specifically in the film industry and specifically amongst a younger generation, which is a bit unusual. Ultimately, I’m a fan of any sector of pop culture with enough obscure lore to sink my teeth into for a few months (or a year).

In Priscilla Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me, the contents of which inspired Sofia Coppola’s movie, she made it clear that Elvis hated most of the movies he was in. He despised cheesy musicals and wanted to be a serious actor, citing Marlon Brando as an inspiration. Colonel Tom Parker convinced him to keep making movies because they provided a steady stream of income, despite the fact that all they did was damage his reputation as a serious musician. There would never be another Jailhouse Rock or King Creole.

The movies that Elvis starred in are a large and fascinating part of his career. They were not something he was ever proud of, but they took up half of his life in the spotlight. They manage to fly under the radar for a lot of the world, but they remain cult classics for a smaller chunk of the remaining fans. It’s exactly the kind of car crash that I can’t look away from.