Charlton Heston Movies

Want to know the best Charlton Heston movies?  How about the worst Charlton Heston movies?  Curious about Charlton Heston’s box office grosses or which Charlton Heston movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Charlton Heston movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Charlton Heston (October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) is known for his heroic roles in films such as 1961’s El Cid, 1956’s The Ten Commandments, 1968’s Planet of the Apes and 1959’s Ben-Hur, for which he won the Oscar® for Best Actor. At one point, Heston had starred in three of the top eight movies of all-time. Those movies were Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur and The Greatest Show on Earth. Heston remained a leading man from 1950 until the early 1980s. After that he started appearing in supporting roles in such movies as True Lies, Any Given Sunday and Tombstone.

His IMDb page shows 131 acting credits from 1941-2010. This page will rank Charlton Heston 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.

Charlton Heston in 1959's Ben-Hur
Charlton Heston in 1959’s Ben-Hur

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

Charlton Heston 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 Charlton Heston movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Charlton Heston movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort Charlton Heston movies by yearly box office rank
  • Sort Charlton Heston 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 Charlton Heston movie received.
  • Sort Charlton Heston 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.
Charlton Heston in 1968's Planet of the Apes
Charlton Heston in 1968’s Planet of the Apes

Possibly Interesting Facts About Charlton Heston

1. Charlton Heston was born John Charles Carter….Charlton’s name comes from his mom’s maiden name, Charlton, and his stepfather’s last name, Heston.

2. Charlton Heston turned down the role of “Police Chief Brody” in Jaws. Other movies he turned down over the years….John Wayne’s The Alamo, A Man For All Seasons, The Wild Bunch, The Omen, Deliverance and Stalag 17

3. Charlton Heston only received one Oscar® nomination in his acting career but he made it count as won the Oscar® for Ben-Hur…..luckily Burt Lancaster turned down the role.

4. Charlton Heston had two parts in The Ten Commandments……Moses and he provided the voice of God……years later he was hired by the F.B.I during the April 1993 Waco stand-off with cult leader David Koresh, to play the voice of God while communicating with him. However the plan was never used.

5. Charlton Heston played President Andrew Jackson twice in two separate unrelated films: The President’s Lady in 1953 and The Buccaneer in 1958.

6. Charlton Heston was also known for his political activism. In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. He was also president of the NRA from 1998 to 2003.

7. Charlton Heston was married to Lydia Clarke from 1944 until his death in 2008…they had two children.

8. In his 1985 autobiography “In The Arena” Charlton Heston wrote that 1972’s The Call of the Wild was easily his worst film, and hoped the public would never have to watch the film.

9. His line “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” from Planet of the Apes, is ranked by the American Film Institute as the 66th best movie quote of all-time.

10.  Two links from SteveLensman are highly recommended.  One is all about Ben-Hur and the other about all Charlton Heston movies.  Charlton Heston Movies

Steve’s Charlton Heston You Tube Video

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

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162 thoughts on “Charlton Heston Movies

  1. I REALLY LIKED CHARLETON HESTON AND THOUGHT HIS MOVIES WERE VERY GOOD. I HAVE THE NAKED JUNGLE ON A VCR TAPE AND HAVE WATCHED IT MANY TIMES. HE WAS A GREAT ACTOR…ENJOYED READING THIS HUB COGERSON. YOU COME UP WITH SOME INTERESTING FACTS THAT ARE ENJOYABLE TO READ. HAPPY 4TH OF JULY…

    1. Hey BERN1960….thanks for stopping by….I will have to check out The Naked Jungle….when I was doing the research for this page, I kept seeing that movie title pop up over and over….and in the 5 comments posted 40% of the comments mention the movie…..seems like I should watch it as well….it sounds like it is time to replace that VHS tape with a DVD…..enjoy your holiday as well.

  2. He was a big fellow who made a big impact, a real movie star in every sense. I loved Ben Hur, Earthquake, Fifty Five Days At Peking and many more. He really was larger than life and as usual you have paid him a great compliment. Cheers

    1. Thanks for stopping by attemptedhumour….when I was doing this hub I realized that I had not watched many of his older movies….I will have to check out 55 Days at Peking…and I agree 100% Charlton Heston was indeed larger than life.

  3. Am epic page on one of my favourite actors, cheers Cogerson.

    And it’s good to see my favourite movie at the top of one of your moviescores. 🙂

    As a lad I was a big fan of Heston because he played such larger than life characters, with conviction. To me he was Judah Ben-Hur, Moses, El Cid, Gordon of Khartoum, the last man on Earth. I believed it.

    For a brief time back in the 70’s The Omega Man was my no.1 favourite, I watched it over and over. 36th on your movie score, oh well. 🙂

    “Damn them all to hell!” Planet of the Apes is one of the all time great sci-fi films and his character Taylor is pretty iconic.

    Touch of Evil, Orson Welles, great film. And The Naked Jungle was an enjoyable slice of jungle action involving millions of killer ants.

    Chuck started making enemies later in life as president of the NRA but I’ll always remember him parting the Red Sea, shooting dead albino mutants and winning that chariot race. 🙂

    1. Thanks for the compliment Steve, I am glad you like your suggested hub. Ben-Hur is easily his best film according to Movie Score, I found it interesting that the Oscar people only nominated him one time in his whole career

      Khartoum is one that I have not seen, I will have to check that out as well as The Naked Jungle. Sorry Omega Man did not do better on the Movie Score chart….but it is a cult classic. It is a shame that he was such an easy target in his later years…..what Michael Moore did to him in a documentary was just mean, and when I got off the Moore bandwagon after seeing that….thanks always for your comments.

  4. I love Touch of Evil. Too bad Welles died before its original editing as he wanted it was restored. That is easily my favourite Heston film, even though it was an example of a white man playing a Mexican instead of the role going to a Latino. I have seen all of his Planet of the apes films with Roddy Mcdowell. they are not my favourite, though, and I don’t watch them often. I don’t see there was any reason to redo the franchise.

    Another favourite is The Big Country opposite my favourite Peck.

    I’m not really big on religious epics, so I don’t count his most famous of his films aamong my personal favourites.

    I prefer his dramas. I love Julius Ceasar. I must confess that I haven’t seen much of his late career as I rarely watch current films unless they have been nominated for awards. The only one I’ve seen is Tombstone.

    1. Hey Flora, you will not believe how I discovered Touch of Evil….I had heard of the movie but had never watched it….but after seeing Chilli Palmer(John Travolta) watch the movie in Get Shorty…..I gave it a try…..awesome movie….Heston is awesome Welles is awesome….now it is one of my favorites as well…I recently saw The Big Country and Peck and Heston make a good team on screen….it took them weeks to film their big fight scene. As for why more Planet of the Apes…..one reason…big dollars….I think almost every version has returned the producers some serious money….as always I appreciate your comments.

  5. What a prolific performer he was. Everyone of his films seems to stick in your mind. One of the great actors of the 20th century. Peter

    1. Hey Peter, thanks for stopping by and checking out my Chuck hub, I agree some of his movies are ones that stick to your mind…especially his movies from the 1950s….Moses and Ben-Hur is a pretty impressive combo for any actor.

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