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 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.
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
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
Just checking in to see if my favorite movie Ben-Hur is still top of your Heston charts… okaay it’s comfortably at the top of the UMR chart now let’s go to critics chart… [bites fist] noooo beaten to third place by a Greg Peck western and that fat sweaty Orson picture starring a mustachio’d Heston, miscast as a Mexican. Why Bruce why? [bursts into tears]
I’m joshing of course I’m a huge fan of The Big Country and Touch of Evil is a film noir classic. Good to see Planet of the Apes doing well on your charts too. El Cid is another huge favorite of mine.
Chief Brody in Jaws eh? I think Heston would have been great in the role and a good match for Robert Shaw, though now of course I can’t imagine anyone being better than the late great Roy Scheider as Brody.
Good work Bruce. Voted Up!
Just saw that you had updated your Charlton Heston page, so I thought I would comment on it.
Since I last commented on this page, I mentioned in one of his co-star’s pages from The Ten Commandments that I did finally see it this Easter.
I notice that I did not give a film total on Heston – something I did quite often when you started these pages if I had seen less than 15 movies etc.
I have seen 24 movies now. Still have not seen Ben Hur – (Steve Gasps!)
I cannot believe SECRET OF THE INCAS is at number 37. I own every Charlton Heston movie and it is is certainly good enough to be included in the top ten of Chuck’s movies.
Hello Bruce.
Despite today’s Hollywood disowning of him for his conservative views, Charlton Heston was one of the great film stars of the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s. I think he deserved his Oscar for Ben-Hur. I personally think his best performance as an actor was in the title role of “Major Dundee” (1965) which is not a great film but is a film with great moments. Heston was also quite good in “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “Touch of Evil ” (1958), “The War Lord” (1965), “Khartoum” (1966) in which he out performs Laurence Olivier as Olivier himself admitted. I also Love Heston’s Science Fiction Hero bids in “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “The Omega Man” (1971) and “Soylent Green” (1973). Your Charlton Heston Page is one of my favorite pages that you’ve done. Thanks, Bruce.
Hey Lyle…thanks for stopping by my very popular today Heston page. Heston’s one two punch of Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur has to be one greatest combos ever. Harrison Ford’ s Han Jones is the only combo role that pops into my mind that is even close to the success Heston with those two roles. I have not seen The War Lord….but I agree with you about the other Heston movies. His sci-fi trilogy is a fun group of movies to watch….only Solyent Green has not been remade…and I expect any day now to hear they are going to remake that one too. Glad you like my Heston page so much….it is one I revisit often myself.
Hi, I didn’t realise that you had a page on Heston. Of all the movie greats Heston is one I have actually meet. In 1987 he appeared in a play “A Man for all Seasons” in the West end London. After the show a large group of fans waited outside the back of the theatre to get his autograph. He stood for ages graciously signing autographs and talking to people. One of my favourite Heston movies is the Naked Jungle. It starts as a romance. A plantation owner meeting his mail bride but later turning into an incredible tale of ants devouring the land. It was sad to think that he suffered with dementia in his last years.
Hey Chris….one of internet friends is a huge Heston fan too!. That is cool that you had the chance to meet him. Even cooler that he signed all the autographs. I respect actors that seem to be concerned about their fans. I like Bruce Willis….but I think he would probably turn out to be someone that thinks he fans are a pain in the ass. I need to see The Naked Jungle….it is a movie that my mom seems to talk about on a regular basis. Yep it is sad to think the last years of Ben-Hur’s life were saddled with dementia. Thanks for checking out my Heston page.
BRUCE:
1 Just caught up with your Naked Jungle comment. It is a tired but true cliche: Mother Knows Best. Anyone who likes Chuck MUST see The Naked Jungle. Based on a short story ‘Leiningen and the Ants’.it is an edge of the seat action yarn with a nice feel-good romance thrown in for good measure. [Chuck is Christopher Leiningen]
2 It is (according to your figures) the highest grossing of a series of movies that Chuck made for Paramount before Ben Hur and 10 Commandments – Secret of the Incas; Pony Express; The Savage; Arrowhead; and our old friend The Far Horizons. Naked Jungle apart they all did middling to poor business as you have demonstrated Arrowhead and The Naked Jungle are my two favourite Heston films after Ben Hur, El Cid and The Ten Commandments.
3. Anthony Mann who directed Chuck in El Cid explained in an interview why many of Heston’s early films were relatively low grossers: “He’s a BIG man. You can’t put him in a small movie and expect it to succeed.” In fact in 1953 Belfast, where I live, Arrowhead for example was placed on the second half of a double bill with Paramount’s Houdini starring Tony Curtis and his then-wifeJanet Leigh
Hey Robert Roy.
1. Yes Mother Knows Best….but she does not have this movie in her massive VHS collection or her minor DVD collection….so I have still not watched it.
2. Yep it is his 19th biggest hit…and one of his $100 million dollar movies…I need to see….I am shocked that Paramount actually allowed the number to get out there…lol.
3. I would have to agree with Anthony Mann….if you look at his biggest hits….after you take out his big 3….Ben-Commandments Goes To The Circus….the rest of his 1950s movies are not too impressive.
4. Thanks for the mini-review of The Naked Jungle.
5. Changing the subject….Mark left one impressive comment on your Deanna Durbin page….loaded with facts…you might find it interesting.