Want to know the best Fred Astaire movies? How about the worst Fred Astaire movies? Curious about Fred Astaire box office grosses or which Fred Astaire movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Fred Astaire movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
A little while ago, I got the idea that I needed to have a page for the Top 25 Classic Actors and the Top 25 Classic Actresses according to the American Film Institute. A quick check of my existing pages found I had already done movie pages on 19 of the actors and 10 of the actresses. So now that I have 21 pages to write, I figure I should get started with the 5th highest rated actor, Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska. Fred Astaire’s first dance partner was his older sister Adele. They became a very popular vaudeville dance act when Fred Astaire was only 7 years old. By 1917 the brother and sister dancing act was already appearing on Broadway. In 1932 Adele retired from dancing and Fred moved to Hollywood to appear in movies. In 1933 he appeared in Flying Down To Rio. Astaire got 5th billing in the movie and his dance partner in the movie, Ginger Rogers got 4th billing. Reviewers singled out their dancing and the pair would be matched up 9 more times in their career.
The Rogers-Astaire team owned the box office for the rest of the 1930s. The pinnacle of their collarboration was 1935’s Top Hat which has some of the best dancing ever filmed for motion pictures. Fred Astaire had many successes without Ginger Rogers, as he appeared in the box office hits, Holiday Inn, Blue Skies, Easter Parade, and The Towering Inferno. His last movie was 1981’s Ghost Story which was almost 50 years after his screen debut.
His IMDb page shows 50 acting credits from 1933-1981. This page will rank 39 Fred Astaire movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, cameos and some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system were not included in the rankings.
Fred Astaire Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Fred Astaire Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Fred Astaire movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Fred Astaire movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Fred Astaire movie won.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
- ### If worldwide box office is the same as domestic box office…then worldwide grosses were not available.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Fred Astaire Table
- Twenty-nine Fred Astaire movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 74.35% of his movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Fred Astaire movie grosses $147.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 32 Fred Astaire movies are rated as good movies…or 82.05% of his movies. Top Hat (1935) is his highest rated movie while The Amazing Dobermans (1976) is his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty-four Fred Astaire movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 61.53% of his movies.
- Five Fred Astaire movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 15.15% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 33 Fred Astaire movies scored higher that average….or 84.16% of his movies. Top Hat (1935) got the the highest UMR Score while The Amazing Dobermans (1976) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Fred Astaire
1. Fred Astaire survived a disastrous screen test. According to Astaire the result of the screen test was “He can’t act…his is going bald…also dances”. Others claim it said “Can’t act, can’t sing, going bald, can dance a little”….either way not a good screen test.
2. Between 1933 and 1939 Fred Astaire starred with Ginger Rogers in 9 movies. They would appear in their 10th and final film in 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway. Their screen partnership is one of the greatest of all-time.
3. Fred Astaire was married twice in his life. He married Phyllis Potter in 1933 and they were married until 1954 when she passed away after a battle with cancer. Fred Astaire had three kids with Potter: step son Peter, son Fred Jr. and daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie. In 1980 he married Robyn Smith.
4. Fred Astaire received one Oscar® nomination for acting in his career. He was nominated but did not win Best Supporting Actor for 1974’s The Towering Inferno. He was given an Honorary Oscar® in 1950 “For unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures”.
5. Fred Astaire received more love from the Golden Globe® voters as he received 5 Golden Globe® nominations. Those five movie were: The Towering Inferno, Finian’s Rainbow, The Pleasure of His Company, On The Beach and Three Little Words.
6. Fred Astaire became good friends with legendary music composer George Gershwin back in 1916 many years before they both would become famous.
7. Fred Astaire retired from movies after making 1946’s Blue Skies. He unretired as his fan support talked him back into making more movies….he returned in 1948 to replace an injured Gene Kelly in Easter Parade.
8. Fred Astaire insisted on a stationary camera rather than a moving camera to film dance numbers..it was a rule he stuck to over the years…always saying…..”Either I dance or the camera dances”.
9. Two famous roles Fred Astaire turned down…..the lead role in Yankee Doodle Dandy and the part of Bert on Mary Poppins.
10. Check out Fred Astaire‘ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
AFI’s Top 25 Screen Legend Actors….with links to my movie pages on the Screen Legend
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
James Conaty appeared in 11 films with Fred.
Hey Dan. Thanks for the information on James Conaty and her most frequent co-stars. I admit, I am not aware of James Conaty at all. Good stuff.
James Conaty appeared in 11 pictures with Fred.
Hey Dan…..thanks for the thoughts on James Conaty and Fred Astaire.
At least I knew who he was…
Seen: 0/39 or 0%
Fav Top 10: N/A
UMR Snub (Too High or Too Low): N/A
Guilty Pleasure: N/A
I have failed as a father….if you have not seen a single Fred Astaire movie. Well…you have seen parts of a Fred Astaire movie. Michael Clarke Duncan’s character in The Green Mile watches Top Hat…..the song and dance of Cheek To Cheek makes him cry…so you have seen part of a Fred Astaire movie. Stay safe.
Hey Dan….are these quick hits of trivia an effort to get me to notice the BryRog57 comments? Confused in Chesapeake….but then again that happens alot….lol.
In your interesting facts Number 7, you say that Fred Astaire came back to movies to replace an injured Fred Astaire in Easter Parade. That should read an injured “GENE KELLY.”
Happy Birthday to Fred Astaire. I have seen 33 of his movies.
MY top 5 Favourites:
Top Hat
The Band Wagon
Royal Wedding
Swing Time
Easter Parade
Hey Flora
1. Yep….interesting fact #7 did not make much sense……but I fixed that error……as Gene Kelly is now part of that fact.
2. Thanks for re-visiting one of our oldest pages……granted it has had lots of updates over the years.
3. 33….mmmm…my current tally is 21…..that number is much higher….than when I wrote this page on HubPages. I will have to dig through the comments and see where I was in 2011….I am thinking it was 3 or 4 movies.
4. I have seen and enjoyed all of your favorites….as always…thanks for the feedback.
Hey Flora….I found my comment….it was either from late 2011 or early 2012. It was even worse than I remembered….when it comes to a tally count.
“Hey Steve….Flora takes the crown again….but it was close….27 to 25…both of your totals put me to shame…my one and only Astaire movie I have seen is The Towering Inferno. Gene Kelly gave Astaire lots of great compliments over the years. Which Gene Kelly will be getting a hub soon.
So you would recommend The Band Wagon? I am sure this hub will motivate me to watch more of his movies..the last time I wrote a hub with so little personal movie watching experience was Barbara Stanwyck….which at the time my movie tally was 2…it now stands at 8…so I am sure Fred’s numbers will go up soon.
So I will ask the same question of you that I asked Flora…how do my Movie Score numbers look to you? As always your contributions are greatly appreciated.”
yea Flora, I am going to see all your favorites. I saw 7 but only one of Floras favorites, top hat is awesome, I love to laugh.
Hey Bob. Lots of good Astaire movies for you to discover.
Happy Heavenly Birthday to the Greatest?
Right there with you Harvey….Happy Birthday to one of the screen’s all-time greats…..Mr. Fred Astaire.