Want to know the best Zero Mostel movies? How about the worst Zero Mostel movies? Curious about Zero Mostel box office grosses or which Zero Mostel movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Zero Mostel 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.
Zero Mostel (1915-1977) was an American actor. Mostel is best known for his stage role in Fiddler on the Roof, and his film roles in The Producers (1967) and The Front (1975). His IMDb page shows 35 acting credits between 1943 and 1978. This page will rank Zero Mostel movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles and shorts were not included in the rankings.
Zero Mostel Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Zero Mostel 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 Zero Mostel movies by his co-stars
- Sort Zero Mostel movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort Zero Mostel movies by domestic yearly box office rank
- Sort Zero Mostel 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 Zero Mostel movie received.
- Sort Zero Mostel 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 Zero Mostel
1. Samuel Joel Mostel was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1915. According to his brother, Bill Mostel, their mother coined the nickname “Zero”, noting that if he continued to do poorly at school, he would amount to a zero.
2. Zero Mostel won three Tony® Awards: as Best Actor (Dramatic) in1961 for Rhinoceros, and as Best Actor (Musical) in 1963 for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and in 1965 for Fiddler on the Roof. He was also nominated in 1974 as Best Actor (Dramatic) for Ulysses in Nighttown.
3. Zero Mostel drank so much coffee that he was once hospitalized for caffeine poisoning.
4. Zero Mostel was one of the “12” blacklisted by the House of Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. His testimony in front of the committee won him admiration in the blacklisted community, and in addition to not naming names, he also confronted the committee on ideological matters, something that was rarely done.
5. Zero Mostel is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1979.
Check out Zero Mostel’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
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I have seen just 3 Zero Mostel movies (1) The Enforcer with Bogie (2) 1951’s Sirocco also with Humph but not listed above (3) Watership Down
Zero was billed reasonably high up in the supporting cast list for Sirocco [meaning “strong wind”]. It was made by Bogie’s own production company Santana and he castigated it as “a stinker which we had to do.” He didn’t say why his company had to do it.
On top of his rather sparse film career Wikipedia credits Zero with 9 TV performances from 1948-1979 and a relatively prolific 18 stage productions from 1942-76. Celebrity net Worth site suggests that he left behind a net worth of $18 million which the US Bureau of Labor Stats says is equivalent to about $75 million today.
I admire Zero for his stance against blacklisting. That took a lot of courage in the witch-hunting Hollywood of those days. Sometimes certain performers surprise you by being more heroic in real life than some of the big screen heroes display off-screen.
Another example is Robert Vaughn who took a public stand against the Vietnam war when it still had a lot of support in America and was not yet unpopular. Myrna Loy also openly opposed the Nazi regime of Hitler when many Hollywood big fish were keeping their heads down on the issue.
I feel that it is very appropriate that we should have a comment from Joel here. HE was initially a rock singer and then a nightclub entertainer who it would seem had little success in either career which is why film criticism got him; so I suppose you could say that regarding contributions to entertainment we have in Mostel’s case one zero writing about another Zero
Sirocco is listed at number 12 on the list
Hey Flora….thanks for sharing this information Sirocco….a Bogart movie that I have not seen.
Hey Bob
1. Thanks for checking out our latest UMR page.
2. Tally counts…10 for Flora and 3s for you and me.
3. As Flora mentioned in her second comment….Sirocco has a place on the table….it does not have a trailer page…but it is on the table.
4. As always…thanks for sharing more information on his career…..that is a pretty nice nestegg for him….especially since he got blackballed for so many years.
5. I am right there with you…I appreciate him and his stance on the blacklist.
6. I did not know that about Robert Vaughn.
7. Funny comment about Joel…..one day you will drink the kool-aid…lol.
Good stuff.
Thanks for the feedback. Apologies for not noticing Sirocco in the stats table – even geniuses have their off days! I HAD though gone to the trouble of checking the movie out on your Bogie page as I was interested in what you had awarded it – 45% review rating and just $68 million gross thereby confirming Bogie’s own verdict that the movie was a “stinker”.
Although a poor -indeed bleak – movie Sirocco has always stood out in my mind down the years***. That’s because we used to have a large engineering firm here in Belfast called Sorocco [slightly different spelling] and I was once offered a job by them but took up an alternative offer from the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Lucky choice because Sorocco has now been closed many years ago whereas today I have a healthy Civil Service pension. Ah sliding doors!
At least my quip about The Master and Zero was just a joke that I couldn’t resist [I am always trying to get you and Steve to lighten up] and my “zero” comment was factually somewhat hyperbolic because Joel was quite successful as a musical composer and a stage producer; and as I have told you before I quite like his critiques of opera performances and recordings. Joel himself on the other hand was deadly serious – and indeed I thought actually quite unnecessarily malicious – in the things he said about the poor ole Mumbler and to a lesser extent The Duke.
*** See also Part 2
Hey Bob….well….we all make mistakes. As for the Joel and Zero joke…the good news is…we are getting near the end of that odyssey of doing every subject in the book. Some of the lesser stars like Kristy McNichol, I plan on doing the page and just putting them on the Site Index….as I realize there are probably not many people waiting for a page on an actress that only made a few movies…and those were so long ago. Good stuff as always.
ADDITIONAL TRIVIA
Interesting story on Diane Lane’s page about Nights in Rodanthe being filmed near you. In the sitcom Frasier the latter has a co- worker [called Noel Shempsky] who is a Star Trek and Captain Kirk fanatic and has to be served a restraining order to stop him ‘stalking’ William Shatner.
It is strikes me that if instead of Diane and Gere Mr and Mrs Gimme More had been in ‘Rodanthe’ further restraining orders would have been issued to protect Team Gimme More from “the locals” !
Ah you idolaters! My father and his brother were once out walking in the woods near London when a two-bit British B movie actor [George Coulouris] was passing in close proximity and my father got almost down on his knees grovelling and telling the guy how wonderful he was and repeatedly calling him “Sir”. Dad’s brother later told me he had never been so embarrassed in his life!
I have seen 10 Zero Mostel movies.
The HIGHEST rated movie I have seen is Du Barry Was a Lady.
The highest rated movie I have NOT seen is Mr. Belvedere Rings The Bell.
The LOWEST rated movie I have seen is The Great Bank Robbery.
Favourite Zero Mostel Movies:
The Producers
Panic in the Streets
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
The Enforcer
Other Zero Mostel Movies I Have Seen:
Du Barry Was a Lady
Watership Down
The Hot Rock
Sirocco
The Angel Levine
The Great Bank Robbery
Hey Flora….thanks for sharing your thoughts on Zero Mostel. I have only seen 3 of his movies….but I have seen the first two you listed. I have seen The Producers (which I do not find as funny as everybody else does), Panic In The Streets and Watership Down. I have always wanted to see The Hot Rock…maybe one day I will good stuff as always.
Zero Mostel was never on the Oracle of Bacon Top 1000 Center of the Hollywood Universe list. At one time his son Josh was on the list. These are the actors on the 2020 Top 1000 he appeared with.
8 JOHN HURT Watership Down (1978)
30 PETER O’TOOLE Great Catherine (1968)
41 DONALD PLEASENCE Journey Into Fear (1975)
58 ELI WALLACH The Angel Levine (1970)
60 MICHAEL HORDERN A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
60 MICHAEL HORDERN Watership Down (1978)
70 JOSS ACKLAND Watership Down (1978)
96 JACK PALANCE Panic in the Streets (1950)
115 IAN MCSHANE Journey Into Fear (1975)
127 DENHOLM ELLIOTT Watership Down (1978)
158 SHELLEY WINTERS Journey Into Fear (1975)
175 GEORGE SEGAL The Hot Rock (1972)
184 HARRY ANDREWS Watership Down (1978)
207 JEFF COREY Sirocco (1951)
216 JEANNE MOREAU Great Catherine (1968)
230 WOODY ALLEN The Front (1976)
313 AVA GARDNER Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
322 ROBERT REDFORD The Hot Rock (1972)
333 DANNY AIELLO The Front (1976)
360 NIGEL HAWTHORNE Watership Down (1978)
392 KAREN BLACK Rhinoceros (1974)
444 MICHAEL MURPHY The Front (1976)
484 SAM WATERSTON Journey Into Fear (1975)
502 RICHARD WIDMARK Panic in the Streets (1950)
509 AKIM TAMIROFF Great Catherine (1968)
509 AKIM TAMIROFF The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
549 VINCENT PRICE Journey Into Fear (1975)
596 ROY KINNEAR A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
596 ROY KINNEAR Watership Down (1978)
658 JOSEF SOMMER The Front (1976)
661 JACK HAWKINS Great Catherine (1968)
702 PAUL DOOLEY Fore Play (1975)
716 KENNETH GRIFFITH Great Catherine (1968)
751 RALPH RICHARDSON Watership Down (1978)
Zero appeared with 5 Oscar winners, twice with Bogie in 1951.
ESTELLE PARSONS FOREPLAY (1975)
HUMPHREY BOGART Sirocco (1951)
HUMPHREY BOGART The Enforcer (1951)
JACK PALANCE Panic in the Streets (1950)
KATY JURADO Once Upon a Scoundrel (1974)
SHELLEY WINTERS Journey Into Fear (1975)
Hey Dan. Good information as always. Interesting that his son was on the Oracle list and not the father. Not many multiple co-stars on the first list……and only 5 on the Oscar list. Still….being on a list with Humphrey Bogart is pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing this information.
Great UMR page by the master.
Mike
Thank you Mike.
“Critic Pauline Kael called Mostel, “the one-man obstacle course that has broken the back of every movie director.” It’s true that Mostel had a larger-than-life quality that sometimes swamped the camera. However, he also had the talent and intelligence to adapt to any medium, and it’s regrettable he was denied the opportunity to the screen version of “Fiddler on the Roof”. He died in 1977, just as his movie career was at last gaining impetus.”
Rating the Movie Stars 4 Star Zero Mostel Performances
1950’s Panic in the Streets
1952’s The Model and the Marriage Broker
1967’s The Producers
1976’s The Front
Another Joel subject gets completed….about 65 to go.