Want to know the best Joel Hirschhorn movies? How about the worst Joel Hirschhorn movies? Curious about Joel Hirschhorn box office grosses or which Joel Hirschhorn movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joel Hirschhorn 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.
Joel Hirschhorn (1937-2005) was a two-time Oscar® winning American singer, composer and writer. Hirschhorn’s songs sold more than 90 million records. Various artists including Elvis Presley, recorded his songs…and Hollywood is still using his work in current movies. His IMDb page shows over 80 credits from 1966-2017. This page will rank Joel Hirschhorn movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.
Drivel Part 1: Why a Joel Hirschhorn UMR page? Well….his book….Rating the Movie Stars…is one of the most influential books on this website. Published in 1983, it is a book I have been referencing for almost 40 years. In that book, Hirschhorn, rated every movie that a movie star appeared in during their career. Sometime in 2010, for the millionth time I was looking at his book when I wondered; had he updated his ratings lately? A quick internet check provided the sad news that Mr. Hirchhorn had passed away in 2005. About a month later, I thought I could update the ratings….tunrs out those were the first baby steps of UMR.
Drivel Part 2: This page is from a request from Bob. Bob has been requesting a Joel Hirschhorn page for almost 2 years now. Constantly filling up our request page…with Hirschhorn requests….day after day. Well Bob….finally your Hirsch page is here….hope it was worth the wait…lol.
Joel Hirschhorn Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Joel Hirschhorn movie won.
- Sort Joel Hirschhorn 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 Joel Hirschhorn Table
- Five Joel Hirschhorn movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 22.72% of his movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
- An average Joel Hirschhorn movie grosses $91.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 14 Joel Hirschhorn movies are rated as good movies…or 46.80% of his movies. The Ice Storm (1997) is his highest rated movie while The Fat Spy (1969) was his lowest rated movie.
- Three Joel Hirschhorn movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 13.63% of his movies.
- Two Joel Hirschhorn movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.09% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 8 Joel Hirschhorn movies scored higher than that average….or 36.36% of his movies. The Towering Inferno (1974) got the the highest UMR Score while The Fat Spy (1969) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Joel Hirschhorn
1. Joel Hirschhorn was born in Bronx, New York in 1937.
2. After graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts, he became a regular performer on New York’s nightclub circuit, both as a solo singer and as a member of the rock & roll band, The Highlighters.
3. During the mid-1960s, Hirschhorn branched out into writing film soundtracks. The results were horrible. 1969’s The Fat Spy is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
4. Joel Hirschhorn’s The Fat Spy (1969) is the 11th worst movie in our UMR 36,000 plus movie database.
5. Joel Hirschhorn worked with songwriting partner Al Kasha from the 1960s until the late 1990s.
6. Joel Hirschhorn (and Al Kasha) were nominated for four Oscars® and four Golden Globes®. They won Oscars® for 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure and 1974’s The Towering Inferno. They received two Oscar® nominations for 1977’s Pete’s Dragon.
7. Joel Hirschhorn and Al Kasha also worked together on Broadway musicals, receiving Tony Award® for Best Original Score nominations for both Copperfield and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
8. Joel Hirschhorn the book author. Besides his book RatingThe Movie Stars, Hirschhorn also wrote 2001’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting.
9. *Joel Hirschhorn’s Bette Davis story: “Star quality is difficult to define, but my personal definition was formed after a lunch with Bette Davis. At the time (1972), Davis was to appear in the musical “Copperfield,” which I had co-written with Al Kasha. Al and I went to the Bel Air Hotel to play the score for her. She was a petite, almost delicated woman, but there was nothing timid about her direct gaze, and authoritative speaking voice. We need a piano and the empty dining room didn’t have one, so she told a work-man, “We must have a piano immediately.” She wasn’t rude, but her firmness brooked no argument. The piano materialized in seconds. She applauded after we performed the songs, and I modestly ventured that “We had a lot of help from Dickens.” She responded, “Yes, but look what you did with him!” Her conviction made me feel we were on par with Dickens, that he was lucky to have us as collaborators! She had wit, intelligence, force, charm, vulerability – but most of all, a highly charge belief in herself, in her ability to dominate. The performer who has this belief and this assured, takeover quality can make film vehicles timeless.”
10. Check out Joel Hirschhorn’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.
*Bette Davis story comes from Hirschhorn’s Rating The Movie Stars book.
Joel shows up at about 45 seconds.
Robert the Great: HIS FAVE MOVIES AND STARS
NEW TO THE INTERNET 3 AUG 2025
Robert De Niro is one of today’s most revered actors of all time, his name always appearing on any Top 10 list -and usually near the very top- of the cinema’s greatest ever actors and actresses.
One such list, compiled by the word’s perceived greatest directors internationally, included De Niro with the likes of movie acting Royalty such as Charlie Chaplin. Olivier, Brando, Spencer Tracy, Daniel Day Lewis, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant.
Robert has made well over an astonishing 100 movies [103 of them are listed on his page on this site-Ultimate Movie Rankings] and his earnings from those movies have provided him with a net worth of an estimated $500 million – ie half a billion$ – according to Celebrity Net Worth internet site.
Anyway, we know that De Niro himself is exceptionally well-thought of in acting circles; but does Robert himself have any particular favourites? In a recent interview he listed his own 7 most appreciated stars as the following extract from the internet report illustrates:
Robert De Niro’s 7 favourite actors:
1. Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront, The Godfather)
2. Montgomery Clift (A Place in the Sun, From Here to Eternity)
3. James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden)
4. Greta Garbo (Camille, Grand Hotel)
5. Albert Finney (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Tom Jones)
6. Richard Harris (This Sporting Life, Gladiator)
7. Kim Stanley (The Goddess, Seance on a Wet Afternoon)
De Niro’s all-time 3 favourite films are: East of Eden and Rebel without a Cause both starring Dean and both released in 1955; and On the Waterfront starring Brando in 1954.
De Niro amplified in the interview that he considered Brando, Clift and Dean the chief pioneers of what has become the main style of American acting today and has been the main influence on his own techniques. But do we know, though what any one of that three thought of ROBERT?
Dean died 10 years before De Niro emerged on the screen and Robert’s recorded debut (an uncredited cameo in “Three Rooms in Manhattan” released Nov 1965) actually all but overlapped with Clift’s death in July 1966 so neither Dean nor Clift had the opportunity to assess De Niro.
Brando was though a different kettle of fish. He socialised with De Niro occasionally and in Brando’s very last cinematic released movie (the 2001 gangster/heist film The Score) the couple teamed up.
Indeed in that movie Marlon uttered to De Niro what was arguably Marlon’s final memorable line in a film but which we can’t repeat here.
And in that scene Marlon had no delusions about who was sitting at the table acting opposite him: “He’s simply the best. The one who stands out among the others. In fact he’s so good that he personally probably doesn’t realise just how good he is!” said Marlon of Robert.
According to co-star Edward Norton the two Giants took over the direction of The Score themselves and sidelined official director (Frank Oz). To send Oz a message that his services were no longer required Marlon reported to him on set one morning – naked! Edward said “I kept out of it and let the two veterans get on with it. At that career stage they certainly knew more than I did!”
So it came to pass that at the very end of his own career Marlon was confronted on screen by not just one of his greatest fans among actors but arguably Brando’s own replacement. Indeed in Godfather Two (1974),
De Niro played as a young man Don Vito Corleone, the elder version of whom Brando played in Godfather One (1972). For that joint effort the pair made Hollywood history: the only two actors to win Oscars for the same character, but in 2 different movies. Brando’s Vito got Leading; whilst Robert as the young Don got supporting.
Hey Bob. Thanks for the detailed information on Bob De Niro and Marlon Brando. It seems like ages since I have read you talking about Brando. Good stories from the set of The Score. I like Bob’s Top 7….some legends and some surprises…can you say Kim Hunter? Good stuff as always….hope all is good in your next of the woods.