Want to know the best Tony Curtis movies? How about the worst Tony Curtis movies? Curious about Tony Curtis box office grosses or which Tony Curtis movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Tony Curtis 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.
Tony Curtis (1925-2010) was an Oscar®-nominated American actor whose career spanned over 7 decades. His IMDb page shows 128 acting credits from 1949-2008. This page will rank 61 Tony Curtis movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings. This page was requested many moons ago by Dan and many other people.
Tony Curtis Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Tony Curtis 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 Tony Curtis movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Tony Curtis movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Tony Curtis movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Tony Curtis 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 Tony Curtis movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Tony Curtis movie won.
- Sort Tony Curtis 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.
Ten Possibly Interesting Facts About Tony Curtis
1. Bernard Schwartz was born in the Bronx, New York in 1925.
2. How Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis? The first name was from the novel Anthony Adverse and “Curtis” was from Kurtz. a surname in his mother’s family. In Curtis’ first film roles, he was credited as “Anthony Curtis”….which was quickly shortened to “Tony Curtis”.
3. Tony Curtis joined the United States Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He joined the Pacific submarine force after he was inspired by Cary Grant in Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power in Crash Dive. Curtis witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from his ship’s (USS Proteus) signal bridge about a mile away.
4. After World War 2 ended, Tony Curtis attended City College of New York and studied acting at The New School. His contemporaries included Elaine Stritch, Harry Belafonte, Walter Matthau, Beatrice Arthur, and Rod Steiger.
5. Tony Curtis was quickly discovered by talent agent Joyce Selznick (niece of David O. Selznick). He arrived in Hollywood at the age of 23.
6. Tony Curtis was voted as a Top 25 Box Office star 5 times on Quigley Publications’ annual poll: 1954 (23rd), 1959 (18th), 1960 (6th), 1961 (9th) and 1962 (18th).
7. Tony Curtis broke a Hollywood taboo in the 1950s by insisting that an African-American actor, Sidney Poitier, have co-starring billing next to him in the movie 1958’s The Defiant Ones.
8. Tony Curtis was married six times…..he had six children. One of his children is Jamie Lee Curtis.
9. Tony Curtis’ favorite actor was Cary Grant. His favorite movie was Grant’s Gunga Din.
10. Tony Curtis was buried with some of his favorite possessions – a Stetson hat, an Armani scarf, driving gloves, an iPhone and a copy of his favorite novel, Anthony Adverse.
Check out Tony Curtis’ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Steve’s Updated Tony Curtis Video
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Editor’s note: Calculating adjusted is not an exact science. Most of our calculations are based on solid sources that we have collected over the years. A few of his early 1950s low budget movies required us to use biographies, movie books, articles and other sources that do not provide the best statistics. So please keep that in mind when you are looking at the grosses of some of his low budget B movies.
Tony Curtis, is the # 48 most connected actor of the 1950’s.
Ah, the tv series, “The Persuaders”, where Curtis had top billing over Roger Moore.
Just plain awful. If one had to rate Curtis, well, you wouldn’t want to. Glad he had his movie moments. Roger Moore’s, “The Saint”, was sterling; how difficult watching Curtis try to position himself against Moore. In many scenes, one would think Curtis was coming on to Moore. Not good. So we move on to his better moments.
my first comment on tony Curtis UMR page. march 2017 I was just starting commenting, mostly requests.
I saw 20 including top 9 . 10s and favorites: Winchester 73, some like it hot. 9s not favorites: rosemarys baby, sweet smell of success, defiant ones, operation petticoat. no hidden gems. over 5,000,000,000 in adj dom BO. with 18 crossing the 100,000,000 mark.
Cogerson, I love the alphabetized menu. big time saver.
Bruce once commented that it was amazing how often reference to a particular major star evoked stories about his/her connections with other big stars and indeed throughout his life and career Curtis rubbed shoulders with many of Hollywood greatest Legends–on sets and in his movies the likes Sinatra, Olivier, Kirk Douglas, Monroe and Lancaster.
Also Tony claimed to have shared lodgings with Brando in their early days in Hollywood, though he refused to reveal what went on there saying cryptically that such revelations would annoy Marlon! Tony’s party piece was apparently imitations of Cary Grant who was Tony’s personal idol among movie stars
CURTIS VIDEO PART 2 – Best posters in my view are The Square Jungle [released over here on a double bill with Audie’s biographical To Hell and Back] the very raunchy Insignificance, first one for Capt Newman co-starring my Greg, Six Bridges to Cross [which I remember seeing the day I left primary school] 2 stunners for Trapeze ,The Boston Strangler [reckoned by many to be Tony’s finest acting role] The Defiant Ones and the foreign language ones for The Vikings, Spartacus and The Great Race. In the latter Tony was 1st billed on some posters but Lemmon got top billing in others, on screen and in cast lists.
Part 2 best STILLS in my estimation (1) Houdini – released over here on a double bill with Chuck’s western Arrowhead, which means I virtually lived in the cinemas when that double feature was doing the rounds! (2) Tony with Burt and La Lollo (3) Tony in Boston Strangler (4) (5) and (6) Tony with in turn Kirk, Sidney Poitier and Burt (7 ) Monroe’s 2 “girl” companions in Some Like It Hot and (8) Tony apparently clowning around with Kirk and Simmons on the set of Spartacus.
Super 98% rated fun for me this overall video and you and another guy who would I’m sure love to do Cary Grant imitations at parties –maybe he already does! – agree on 5 of Tony’s Top 6 best reviewed movies. You go for The Vikings as your No 6 whereas Bruce includes in his 6 [at No 4] Winchester 73 and relegates The Vikings to his 12th best reviewed movie. I wouldn’t object to either choice except that Curtis had little more than a walk-on part in my Jimmy’s western, Tony being overshadowed by even Rock’s Young Bull in the movie
In the late forties and early fifties Tony Curtis’ filmography is comprised largely of programmers – ie movies that share double bills. Tony was elevated to major stardom in prestige solo-bill movies and blockbusters when in 1956 Burt Lancaster’s company co-starred Tony and Burt in Trapeze and then in Sweet Smell of Success the following year. Asked what it was like working with the dynamic and pro-active Lancaster Tony replied “It was like being near a furnace.”
CURTIS VIDEO PART ONE Best POSTERS The Manitou, The Purple Mask, Johnny Dark, Forbidden [The theme music is You Belong to Me one of my all-time favourite songs] The Prince who was a Thief, Mr Corey [“Nobody loved Mr Corey Mr Corey more tha he loved himself.”] Raunchy one for “Not with my Wife, and the foreign language ones for Son of Ali Baba, So This is Paris [which I saw on a double bill with Audie’s B western Destry] Kansas Raiders [with Tony wrongly billed above my Audie] and The Black Shield of Falworth.
The latter and The Purple The Purple Mask are my two fave Curtis 1950s actioners and Black Shield is long in my memory also because it was released on a double bill over here with The Yellow Mountain a western starring Lex Barker just recently “retired” as Tarzan because of advancing years and whom Universal was trying to promote as a B western star. In a Dan-like “ships that pass in the night” coincidence Universal was also trying at that time trying to make a B western star out of Jock Mahoney a future Tarzan in waiting.
Great STILLS in my book are (1) 2 of Hollywood’s fifties “golden couple” Janet and Tony (2) with I think? Lori Nelson in The All American – aka The Winning Way (3) Tony Out in The Rawhide Years, one of his few westerns (4) (5) and (6) all 3 with Piper Laurie – 2 of their movies together she described as sand and t**s flicks! which made lucrative profits for Universal and (7) Curtis with Charlie Bronson.
After them filming together Curtis said in an interview that because he didn’t cut much ice in the States at that time many people didn’t realize how massive Charlie was overseas. Bruce’s Bronson table shows that overall Bronson’s US grosses were abysmal and I have thus been sorry that Bruce wasn’t able to pick up any of Charlie’s foreign grosses to give us a wider box office profile of ”old Stone Face” Continued—-
In Part one of my Curtis post I referred to Bronson’s “abysmal” US box office grosses.
I meant there Charlie’s stand-alone movies when he became an action star in his own right. Bronson before that made many movies in which he was just a supporting actor and which made big money in America and beyond, the US part of which Bruce’s table faithfully records.
Sorry for any confusion created on my part.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, info, trivia, comment, quotes, evaluation, analysis, appraisal and comparison, always appreciated.
Happy you enjoyed my Tony Curtis Picture Gallery.
“Yonda lies da castle of my fadda!” I can never remember which film that immortal line is from.
Charles Bronson is considered one of the major box office stars of the 1970s but you wouldn’t know this looking at the US grosses of his films. Looks like he was more of an overseas superstar. Even the Roger Moore Bonds did much better in Europe and presumably Asia than they did in America.
Not sure who that girl is with Curtis in the photo from All American, I assumed it was Mamie Van Doren but it might be Lori Nelson. Both are curvy, blonde and pretty.
Five Tony Curtis films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources –
Some Like it Hot
Spartacus
Sweet Smell of Success
Defiant Ones ,The
Vikings ,The
Three more scored 9 out of 10 – Operation Petticoat, The Last Tycoon and Insignificance. Two more scored 8 – The Great Race and The Boston Strangler.
Tops at IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Bruce’s critics chart is Some Like it Hot followed by Sweet Smell of Success. I have Spartacus at no.2.
Tony on Cary Grant – “The greatest movie actor of all time.”
Tony on Brando – “He was an interesting man, different, a genius in the way he thought.”
“I became great friends with all my co-stars. With Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Jack Lemmon and Cary Grant . . . Cary Grant . . . Cary Grant. He could have picked anyone, but he allowed me the privilege to be in the movie with him. Jesus. To be in a movie with Cary Grant. Meeting him was the best thing that ever happened to me. He was the reason why I wanted to get into the movies–and that is all I ever wanted.”
Tony on Some Like it Hot – “It’s one of the most outstanding movies I’ve made. It was a very complicated role. I played a straight man, I played a comic, I played a woman, I played a saxophone player, I played a millionaire, I played a little bit of Cary Grant as well. When the picture was over, Billy Wilder ran the picture for Cary, and said, ‘Well, how did you like Tony’s impression?’ and Cary said ‘I don’t talk like that!'”
“They are all dead now, all my Hollywood friends. Sometimes I feel so lonely. Actors today achieve nothing nor do they have any glamour. They seem more interested in adopting babies than films. All the films are terrible too”
HI STEVE
Thanks for the, customary from you, comprehensive response to my Curtis posts.
Many have searched through the Curtis costume dramas trying to find the movie in which Tony uttered the fabled “Yonda lies da castle of my foddah.” [with Black Shield of Falworth, Prince Who was a Thief and Son of Ali Baba being mostly “The Usual Suspects”] but their search was always in vain because apparently he never said it any more seemingly than Cag specifically said “You dirty rat.”
The nearest utterance to it is reportedly in the 1952 The Prince Who was a Thief when Tony said to Princess Azura played by Piper Laurie “This is my father’s castle and yonder lies the valley of the sun.” and allegedly he did not anywhere near speak in the thick Bronx accent suggested.
The misrepresentation was unfortunate from Curtis’ viewpoint because I read that he blamed the apparent myth along with the anti-Semitism that he alludes to in your opening video quote on the fact that he never got Oscar love.
However he should have borne in mind that it is the way of the world to practice the advice given in The Man Who Shot liberty Valance “When the legend’s more exciting than the truth go with the legend!”
I mean look at the “fake news” boys [including some on this site!] who put it about that MB toes not speak with clear diction, though that myth did not stop HIM from becoming a double Oscar-winner.
I should add for the record that I personally always found Bernie’s distinctive accent very pleasant to listen to
Anyway I look forward to your next offering [Jessica Lange possibly? And I have now got to the position where only Tony Quinn and Audie are in my holiday-generated backlog of Lensman videos requiring scrutiny and posts.
Bob, yep Bruce beat me to Lange, these things happen. She won’t be up tomorrow, probably end of the week.
No more expanded videos, for now at least.
Only Quinn and Murphy left in the backlog? Nice work amigo.
Good feedback, conversation between Bob and Steve here. Lots of information to read….thanks for sharing these thoughts.