Paul Muni Movies

Want to know the best Paul Muni movies?  How about the worst Paul Muni movies?  Curious about Paul Muni box office grosses or which Paul Muni movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Paul Muni 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.

Paul Muni (1895-1967) was an Austria-Hungarian born American Oscar® winning actor. His IMDb page shows 29 acting credits from 1929-1962. This page ranks 22 Paul Muni movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  His six television appearances and his one cameo were not included in the rankings.

Drivel Part:  Recent I did a “Who Is The Next Marlon Brando?” page….and in that page I suggested that Daniel Day-Lewis was the New Paul Muni.  Well after writting that page…it occurred to me that maybe we should do a Paul Muni page….plus it is a requested page….so now we have a Paul Muni page.

Paul Muni (sitting) in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

Paul Muni (sitting) in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

Paul Muni Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Paul Muni 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 Paul Muni movies by co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Paul Muni movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Paul Muni movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)  *** If domestic and worldwide totals are the same then worldwide is unknown.
  • Sort Paul Muni movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Paul Muni movie received.
  • Sort Paul Muni 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.

paul-muni-scarface-2

Paul Muni in 1932’s Scarface

Possibly Interesting Facts About Paul Muni

1. Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund was born in Lemberg…which is now known as Lviv, Ukraine.  He immigrated to the United States when he was 7.

2. Frederich Weisenfruend was highly skilled in using makeup techniques.  At the age of 12 he played an 80-year old on stage….he did the makeup!

3. Growing up, Frederich’s nickname was “Moony”.  When he signed a movie contract with Fox in 1929, his name was simplified and anglicized to Paul Muni

4. Paul Muni received an Best Actor Oscar® nomination for his very first movie (1929’s The Valiant) and his very last movie (1959’s The Last Angry Man).  Only Muni and James Dean can make that claim!

5. Paul Muni is one of only six actors to receive an Oscar® nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance. The other five actors are: Orson Welles, Lawrence Tibbett, Alan Arkin, James Dean and Montgomery Clift.

6. Paul Muni received 6 Best Actor Oscar® nominations…or 1 for every 3.66 movies he made.  For comparison: Meryl Streep has one acting Oscar® nominations for every 2.84 movies made.  Bruce Willis is 0 for 60 movies.

7. Paul Muni won the Best Actor Oscar® for 1937’s The Life of Emile Zola.

8. Paul Muni was only married once and did not have any children.  Off screen he was a very shy person.

9.  Paul Muni on acting: “A writer can write in an attic, or on top of a bus. Or with a sharp stick in some wet cement. To act, an actor has to have words. A stage. a camera turning. I can’t go into the middle of Times Square, stop traffic and start acting.”

10. Check out Paul Muni‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

29 thoughts on “Paul Muni Movies

    1. Hey Flora….thanks for sharing this information on Paul Muni and being the TCM Star of the Month….a great chance to watch some of the hard to find Muni movies. Good stuff.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.