Want to know the best Robert Stack movies? How about the worst Robert Stack movies? Curious about Robert Stack box office grosses or which Robert Stack movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Robert Stack 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.
Robert Stack (1919-2003) was an Oscar®-nominated American actor. Stack starred in the television series The Untouchables (1959–1963), and was the host for the true crime series Unsolved Mysteries (1987–2002). He was also nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind (1956). His IMDb page shows 96 acting credits from 1939 to 2003. This page will rank Robert Stack movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles, and movies that were not released in North American were not included in the rankings.
Robert Stack Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
Robert Stack 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 any way you want.
- Sort Robert Stack movies by his co-stars
- Sort Robert Stack movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Robert Stack movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Robert Stack 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 Robert Stack movie received.
- Sort Robert Stack movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Robert Stack
1. Charles Langford Modini Stack was born in Los Angeles, California in 1919. His birth first name, selected by his mother, was changed to Robert by his father.
2. Robert Stack spent his early childhood in Adria and Rome, becoming fluent in French and Italian at an early age, and did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles when he was seven.
3. As a child, Robert Stack’s mother introduced him to movie stars like Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy so they could act as surrogate father figures to him. They often took him hunting and fishing.
4. In 1937, Robert Stack was the United States 20-gauge champion skeet marksman, and held the record for more than 350 consecutive hits.
5. Robert Stack’s first film, 1939’s First Love, teamed him with Deanna Durbin. This film was considered controversial at the time as he was the first actor to give Durbin an on-screen kiss. *This fact is for Bob.
6. Robert Stack served as a gunnery officer in the United States Navy for more than three years during World War II. Stack was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, American Campaign Medal, Expert Rifle Ribbon and Expert Pistol Ribbon.
7. Robert Stack never appeared in a film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar®.
8. According to directors Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker in the DVD commentary, when pitching the movie to Robert Stack, they told him to do “Eliot Ness” in reference to Stack’s signature character on The Untouchables (1959). Capt. Kramer’s speeches were specifically written with the intention of hiring Stack and mocking Ness’ “big speeches”. Rather than being offended, Stack understood the joke and took the role.
Check out Robert Stack‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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The Untouchables was one of the greatest TV shows of all time, bringing a touch of film noir to the television medium, and Robert Stack was just perfect as Eliot Ness. On the big screen, Stack was never a major star but he had a long stretch as a leading man, co-star and supporting actor. I’ve seen seen 9 of the movies on the list, plus one not on the list – Conquest of Cochise, an unremarkable B-western. I particularly remember Stack in To Be or Not To Be (my favorite), The High and the Mighty, Written on the Wind, John Paul Jones and Airplane! But Stack’s Eliot Ness surpasses all these roles by far.
Hey Bob…..wow…..this comment was like a punch in the nose….lol. As I was reading your comment and I got to the end….and it started talking about the Master’s most awesome book….I was thinking “Robert Stack is not in his book”…….to looking at the book…..and seeing that yes indeed Robert Stack is in the that book. I am stunned that I missed it. I checked and double checked that….yet somehow I missed him. I am so disappointed in myself. I am sure Joel was looking down at me and shaking his head in disbelief in my carelessness. This of course…has me wondering who else have I forgotten. Then again…it is the first time the great book has been off the book shelf in many months….so I guess it is a good thing….lol.
As for Stack…glad you liked the Deanna trivia. I have not seen Great Day in the Morning…but I will keep my eye out for it. One day I will also check out some of those Perry Mason tv movies. Good stuff as always….and thanks for pointing out the Stack omission.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the feedback – always welcome.
I got to thinking that Joel had gotten so little Cogerson Love of late that it was time that one of Hirsch’s REAL admirers on this site gave him a new plug!
It seemed for a while that Stack was doing the rounds of my favorite TV sleuths. Prior to watching him in a replay of that 1987 Perry Mason Episode I saw him in a re run of Dick Van Dyke’s Diagnosis Murder episode called Open and Shut [1997].
Robert Stack had a pleasing screen personality but it was not an over-powerful one so that as Bruce indicates Robert had to wait for TV’s The Untouchables to make the big-time. Some very important people agree with The Work Horse and me – see for example final paragraph below.
My own fave Stack movie was the western Great Day in the Morning co-starring Virginia Mayo and [as the bad guy] Raymond Burr my own favorite Canuck with of course the exception of Flora and The Work Horse. Coincidently the last time I watched Robert was in support of Raymond in an episode of the Perry Mason series of TV movies: 1987’s The Case of the Sinister Spirit.
It was nice of Bruce to highlight for me Robert giving Deanna her first screen kiss. Obviously that’s a record that no other star can ever take away from him – not even one who is as big as Spencer Tracy thought HE was!
But let’s leave the last word about Robert’s career to The Master on page 349 of his 1983 book Rating the Movie Stars:
“Robert Stack’s clean-cut handsomeness was a handicap early in his career. He looked too perfect to be flesh and blood. Later he became a powerful character actor in The Untouchables on TV.”