Want to know the best Rod Steiger movies? How about the worst Rod Steiger movies? Curious about Rod Steiger box office grosses or which Rod Steiger movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Rod Steiger 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.
Rod Steiger (1925-2002) was an Oscar® winning American actor. Steiger was noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. He is also associated with “method acting”. His IMDb page shows 148 acting credits. This page will rank 44 Rod Steiger movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. His many television appearances, his international and movies never released in theaters were not included in the rankings.
Drivel part of the page: This website is currently in the process of updating all of our pages from static to dynamic pages. That update is pretty much taking all of our spare time. That being said…we felt it was important to keep new material coming….so we looked at our recent requests….and saw that Bob had requested this page.
Rod Steiger 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 Rod Steiger movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Rod Steiger movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Rod Steiger movies by yearly domestic box office rank (based on movies in our database for the year the movie was made)
- Sort Rod Steiger 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 Rod Steiger movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Rod Steiger movie won.
- Sort Rod Steiger 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.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Rod Steiger Table
- Ten Rod Steiger movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 22.72% of his movies listed. Doctor Zhivago (1965) was easily his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Rod Steiger movie grosses $91.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 25 of Rod Steiger movies are rated as good movies…or 56.81% of his movies. On The Waterfront (1954) is his highest rated movie while The Specialist (1994) was his lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Rod Steiger movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 25.00% of his movies.
- Five Rod Steiger movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 11.36% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 16 Rod Steiger movies scored higher than that average….or 37.50% of his movies. On The Waterfront (1954) got the the highest UMR Score while The Naked Face (1984) got the lowest UMR Score.
Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Rod Steiger
1. Rodney Stephen Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York in 1925. Both of his parents were vaudevillians.
2. Rod Steiger dropped out of high school at age 16 and joined the Navy. He saw action during World War 2 in the Pacific on a destroyer.
3. After the war, Rod Steiger began his acting career with television roles in 1947, and went on to garner critical acclaim for his portrayal of the main character in the teleplay, Marty (1953). Ernest Borgnine would win the Best Actor Oscar® for playing Marty when it reached theaters in 1955.
4. Behind the scenes trivia – Most of the solo shots of Steiger during the famous taxicab scene in 1954’s On the Waterfront were done after Marlon Brando had left for the day. Brando had it in his contract that he could finish shooting before the normal quitting time so that he could make his daily session with his psychiatrist. Steiger was deeply hurt and annoyed at Brando’s rudeness and lack of courtesy to a fellow actor, as it was customary, in a two-shot, for an actor in close-up to be fed his lines by the other actor or for the other actor to just be there so the first actor would have him him or her to play to. Steiger used his negative emotions to enhance his performance, and though he paid tribute to Brando as a great actor, he personally loathed him thereafter. Director Elia Kazan stood in for Brando in the back of the cab so Steiger would have someone to emote to.
5. Rod Steiger was offered the title role in 1970’s Patton, but refused the role, saying, “I’m not going to glorify war.” The role was then given to George C. Scott, who won the Oscar® for the role. Steiger calls this refusal his “dumbest career move”.
6. Rod Steiger’s favorite all-time movies was 1937’s The Good Earth starring Paul Muni.
7. Rod Steiger was married five times…..he had two children.
8. Rod Steiger was asked by director Norman Jewison to chew gum when playing the part of Gillespie in In The Heat of the Night. He resisted at first but then grew to love the idea,and eventually went through 263 packs of gum during the shooting of the film.
9. Rod Steiger received one of his three Oscar® nominations for 1965’s The Pawnbroker. If you ever watch The Pawnbroker…..keep a look out for a very young Morgan Freeman in his film debut.
10. Check out Rod Steiger’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
And last but not least…check out Steve Lensman’s Rod Steiger You Tube Video.
Academy Award®, Tony® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Thanks Bruce, only a partial absence as I still make sure to check out your new pages regularly, like the 1953 and Robert Wagner pages, which I found entertaining. I also like the updates and new box office rankings, which seem more on the mark than the old Variety ones. Ah, but it is a busy time for me, not much time for long comments at the moment!
Hey Phil….good to hear from you. Glad you liked our 1953 and Robert Wagner pages…..I am glad to see you like us using the UMR box office rankings….at this point we have more movies than Variety does….plus they are in the correct year. Appreciate you taking the time to comment when your schedule is so busy….trust me….I know actually what you mean….this webpage update has been very time consuming….my job that actually helps pay the bills keeps getting in the way….lol.
Thanks for your understanding! By the way, since we’re still on the Rod Steiger page, I keep forgetting to ask if you could find any box information on the British 1961 film, The Mark, in which Steiger co-stars with Stuart Whitman in the lead. It’s quite a critically acclaimed film, and Whitman received a nomination as best actor for his portrayal of tormented sex criminal, a daring subject for the time.
HI PHIL
1 Agree with you about The Mark which was brave for its time being about a child molester and Whitman was terrific, which was ironic in a way because I gather that Burton was 1st choice for the role.
2 Another irony was that as you say Stuart was nominated for Best Actor Oscar but lost out to Maximillian Schell for Judgement at Nuremburg and Max was the brother of Maria Schell who was Whitman’s leading lady in The Mark.
PHIL
Please excuse my spelling mistakes in Judgement at Nuremberg
Hey Bob….I will have to double down on my efforts to get The Mark included on this page….after reading your comments and seeing some of the subject matter….I am seeing why it did not earn much at the box office.
That is some good movie trivia….about brother Schell, sister Schell and Stuart Whitman.
Hey Phil…..sorry to say….I got nothing for The Mark….but I did look……about the only thing I can say is that it did not earn much in North America…..but I will keep looking.
Thanks Bruce, I figured The Mark would have made at least some impact in North America given Whitman’s Oscar Nomination and strong critical reviews, but you’re probably right that box office returns were likely minimal. Even now, it seems almost impossible to purchase a DVD of the film here unless you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars for it!
Hey Bob, thanks for the additional comments on The Mark and piece of movie trivia. Must have put Maria in an awkward position…whether to root for her co-star or her brother? However, as good as Whitman was in The Mark (and he never had another role like this in his career), I think Maximilian Schell was amazing in Judgment at Nuremberg and highly deserved his Oscar. I still shudder when I hear him scream: DID YOU SIT ON HIS LAP??! 😉
Just added Steve’s Rod Steiger You Tube video to this page.
Hey Bruce,
I understand that you are busy reorganizing this site and that you don’t have the time to answer the comments, so I have been very quiet this week. Still trying to learn how to handle this tablet, but I feel that l am doing quite well by now ?
I have seen 16 of the movies in your list, and my absolute favorite is Oklahoma…love Gloria Grahame in that one! Others I like include Cry Terror, On the Waterfront, Teresa and especially The Big Knife…coming to think of it, how about a page on lovely British actress, producer and director Ida Lupino? You said you listed all of Rod’s American movies, but I do not find any information on RKO’s The Unholy Wife, my favorite american movie of british actress Diana Dors. I know it bombed at the box office and wasn’t a critical success either, still I would love to know how bad it all had really been for Diana’s Hollywood debut. If I remember correctly, Rod and Diana were more than just costars at the time, and the scandal along with Diana’s outspokeness in interviews killed her American career right there and then. As always, thank you for doing a page on another classic actor with a prolific and long career ?
Hello lupino,
Diana Dors Is one of my fav actress english with The other Diana Rigg, and you know the first time I saw her it was a French film which is call ” Allez France ” where she just plaid her own part.
And I love the Cover Record of the Beatles with all the English stars and some foreigners like Dietrich, West Groucho…etc.
Very cool to read you again.
See you
Pierre
Hello Pierre,
Good to hear from you again? and nice to hear that you also like Miss Dors. My favorite films of her are Yield into Night and Caroll Reed’s A Kid for two Farthings, but I think that she delivered many great performances after she lost her famous figure and became more or less a supporting or character actress. I remember her in one part of Hammer’s House of Horrors, and she was really frightening ?. Of course I know the famous Beatles Cover! Have a good Night ?
Hey Lupino….gotta admit…I have not even heard of Yield into Night or Caroll Reed’s A Kid for two Farthings. Good to know that Ms. Dors had some good fans. 🙂
Hey Pierre….thanks for sharing this information on Diana Dors. Good stuff.
Hey Lupino….you were so right….just getting this page published was a challenge….and keeping up with the comments was too hard during that update….but now a month later….I have some spare time to catch up on the comments. Hopefully by now you have gotten the hang out of your tablet.
You and I are tied at 16…..with Flora’s18 and Steve’s 21 topping us in our tally contest. Hmmm I will have to check out The Unholy Wife….putting it in my notebook….as I am running out of steam tonight. Good information on that movie and Diana Dors….makes me think it is worth checking out. Good feedback.
Replying to my own post: Bruce, do you have any information on The Unholy Wife? (See my post above).
Just noticed I missed your answer to my original post 🙂 Guess I still have a better grip on my laptop than my tablet lol!
Hey Lupino….no luck what so ever with The Unholy Wife…..not thinking it made much at all. It was one of the last RKO movies…..but it was released by Universal…..thinking many of those last RKO movies barely saw the light of day in theaters. There are now two Steiger movies that I really want to include….the search continues.
Hey Bruce, I have not find much time to comment lately but I wanted to thank you for this Rod Steiger page. You mentioned that Bob requested it but I recall requesting it as well 🙂
Steiger was one of the best character actor and leading man of his generation. He could portray just about any character and nationality, from Al Capone to a despicable Russian businessman in Dr. Zhivago to an orthodox rabbi in The Chosen to a Mexican bandit in Duck You Sucker to a southern cop in In the Heat of the Night to a mad woman killer in No Way to Treat a Lady, etc.
While his role in In the Heat of the Night was perhaps the one he was most recognized for, he was at least as great in the title role of The Pawnbroker, and personally, I found his most entertaining performance to be in Duck You Sucker opposite James Coburn. Although Eli Wallach was disappointed that Sergio Leone had picked Steiger over him in that role, I have to say that Steiger was delightful and managed a better Mexican accent than Wallach did in The Magnificent Seven and The Good the bad and the Ugly.
Hey Phil….your absence has been mixed. In the month since this comment…we have done some major upgrades to this site. Glad you found your requested page on Mr. Steiger. I agree that he was one of the best character actors…his time as a leading man was pretty short…in some ways his carer reminds me of James Coburn. Good points on his versatility. I liked his performanc in No Way To Treat A Lady. Not much of a fan of Duck You Sucker….which is strange because I love all of the other Leone westerns. Thanks for the feedback….it is greatly appreciated.
I have seen 18 Rod Steiger movies.
My favourite Rod Steiger films are:
In The Heat of The Night
Oklahoma!
The Longest Day
On The Waterfront
The Harder They Fall.
Hey Flora….well…you beat me and lose to Steve…..21 to 18 to 16. I have only seen 3 of your Top 5. I have not seen either Oklahoma or The Harder They Fall. I want to see The Harder They Fall….since I am not a musical fan…Oklahoma has been successfully avoided for a very long time…thanks for the feedback.