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.
Unfortunately the cultural genius that is Joel Hirschhorn didn’t get onto the lists below, but he probably should have done. For that reason, and as with his sharp eye for top talent and his unbiased personality, he undoubtedly, in his own day,
he would have spotted as Greats most of the names that are on the lists. Maybe indeed all but one name. Therefore it was appropriate that copies of the lists should be placed on his Cogerson page. Placed with the talented kindred spirits that the all-seeing Joel himself is so to speak.
Had Joel been included on any of the lists, the most relevant would probably have been the Variety one with Elvis. That’s because Joel as a young man was a rock singer in nightclubs and he sounded like Elvis as much as he could.
Actually, if I’m honest I can’t remember whether Elvis adopted Joel’s voice or vice versa. But the point is: did Joel sound as GOOD as Elvis? Let’s put us this way: he was as good at singing Elvis type music as he was in providing valuable critiques of movies and their stars.
Need I say any more?
In 1999 Time magazine compiled a list of the 100 people regarded as the “most important individuals of the 20th century”. It mostly considered of inventors, politicians (like FDR and JFK), industrialists, painters, writers, and assorted intellectuals. Albert Einstein topped it.
The overall list was split up into 5 sections of 20 and the following are Time’s pick of the “20 Greatest Artists and Entertainers”. 5 on the list have been connected with the cinema as MAJOR STARS and are shown in bold letters below.
TIME MAGAZINE: 20 MOST INFLUENTIAL ENTERTAINERS OF LAST CENTURY: IN BOLD LETTERS ARE PERFORMERS MOST ASSOCIATED WITH THE CINEMA
Louis Armstrong
LLUCILLE BALL – Most Influential TV comedienne
The Beatles
MARLON BRANDO – Most Influential Movie Star
Coco Chanel
CHARLIE CHAPLIN – Most Influential Silent Era Comedian
Lee Corbusier
Bob Dylan
T S Eliot
Aretha Franklin
Martha Graham
Jim Henson
James Joyce
Pablo Picasso
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Bart Simpson
FRANK SINATRA – Most Influential Singer
STEVEN SPIELBERG – Most Influential Moviemaker
Igor Stravinski
Ophra Winfrey
MARILYN MONROE (as most influential sex symbol) is the 6th VIP film star to be in the Time 100, but she is in the 20 Heroes and Icons section.
Show business newspaper Variety also produced its own (Top 10) list of the Greatest entertainers of the 20th century. Here they are in alphabetical order and some of those on the Time 100 lists are also on the Variety list.
Louis Armstrong**
Lucille Ball**
The Beatles**
Humphrey Bogart
Marlon Brando**
Charlie Chaplin**
James Dean
Mickey Mouse
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra**
**On the Time 100 list as well
LIST 1 AFI’s 20 GREATEST MALE ACTORS OF ALL TIME (As distinct from Legends)
Most movie buffs will be familiar with AFI’s famous 25 Male Legends list which ranked the legends in relation to their all-round status as stars and which was period-confined to careers that began before or in 1950.
What possibly many movie buffs don’t know is that AFI created a supplementary list of its perceived 20 greatest male film performers set against the specific criterion of acting ability,
with other measures of cinematic greatness such as box office success not relevant to inclusion or ranking positions.
For some reason AFI never created or at least didn’t publish, a list of greatest screen actresses based purely on acting ability to supplement its 25 Greatest female legends list, which like the male Legends list measured overall star status of actresses whose careers began before or in 1950.
Anyway here goes with AFI’s 20 male ACTING greats in ranked orders; and you will see that it is not period bound but is all-time.
1/Marlon Brando*
2/Laurence Olivier
3/Robert DeNiro
4/James Stewart
5/Alec Guinness
6/Humphrey Bogart
7/Gregory Peck.
8/Jack Nicholson
9/Henry Fonda
10/Spencer Tracy
11/Charles Chaplin*
12/Gary Cooper
13/James Cagney
14/Al Pacino
15/Cary Grant
16/Sidney Poitier
17/Paul Newman
18/George C Scott
19/Burt Lancaster
20/Anthony Hopkins
In 1999 Time magazine compiled a list of the 100 people regarded as the “most important individuals of the 20th century”. It mostly considered of inventors, politicians (like FDR and JFK), industrialists, painters, writers, and assorted intellectuals. Albert Einstein topped it.
The two actors asterisked above were part of the only 4 movie performers included in the list. The other two were Sinatra (but as a singer only) and Monroe (the only actress listed and who is on the AFI 25 female Legends list.
On the Time list Sinatra was ranked 16th of 100; Chaplin 37; Brando 39; and Monroe 75. The Beatles were No 80. Surprisingly Elvis didn’t make the cut and the originators later apologised for that.
The 50 Greatest Cinema Persons of all Time
Included are those persons considered for one reason or another to have made the most significant contributions in bringing originality to film making and taking it progressively forward.
They are ranked in order of perceived greatness. Performers asterisked are also on the celebrated AFI 50 male and female Legends Lists
1/Marlon Brando *
2/Robert DeNiro
3/Al Pacino
4/Martin Scorsese (Dir)
5/Katherine Hepburn *
6/Steven Spielberg (Dir)
7/Dustin Hoffman
8/Elizabeth Taylor *
9/Bruce Lee
10/Marilyn Monroe *
11/Jack Nicholson
12/Gene Hackman
13/Steve McQueen
14/James Dean *
15/Richard Burton
16/Robert Mitchum *
17/Federico Fellini (Dir)
18/Walt Disney (Prod)
19/Ingrid Bergman *
20/Jack Lemmon
21/Clint Eastwood (Dir, Act)
22/Johnny Depp
23/Alec Guinness
24/Bette Davis *
25/Spencer Tracy *
26/Denzel Washington
27/John Wayne *
28/Judy Garland *
29/George Clooney (Prod, act)
30/Woody Allen (Prod, act.
31/S Kubrick (Dir, Prod)
32/Harrison Ford
33/Vivien Leigh *
34/James Stewart *
35/Alfred Hitchcock (Dir, Prod)
36/Julia Robert
37/Akira Kurosawa (Dir)
38/Robert Redford
39/Julie Andrews
40/Sean Connery
41/Ingmar Bergman (Dir)
42/Billy Wilder (Dir)
43/Humphrey Bogart *
44/Meryl Streep
45/Orson Welles (Prod, Act) *
46/Grace Kelly *
47/Paul Newman
48/David Lean (Fir, Prod)
49/Audrey Hepburn *
50/Michael Caine
THE 25 GREATEST MALE MOVIE PERFORMANCES IN HISTORY
Selections were made on the basis of the perceived skill, impact and lasting popularity of performance. Comments justifying each performance have been offered. The rankings are given in reverse order.
Most Entries;
Marlon Brando – 3
Daniel Day Lewis – 2
All others in the 25 – 1 each
25/BILL MURRAY-Lost in Translation. Comic genius practiced with restraint
24/LAURENCE OLIVIER- Marathon Man. A great portrayal of the worst form of Villain. Many regarded Olivier as a stage actor and therefore not among the first rank of screen actors. This on e proved them wrong.
23/F MURRAY ABRAHAM-Amadeus (ie Mozart). One of the great historical performances.
22/GREGORY PECK-To Kill a Mockingbird. The ultimate courtroom hero with less theatrics and sheer character. Tailor-made for Greg regarded by many as the template for the screen “good guy” as indeed that was the perception of his real life persona so that at one stage he was considered an outstanding character witness (for Sinatra) in a real court.
21/EDWARD NORTON-American History X. The best dramatic performance of the 1990s which soon had Norton sharing star billing with DeNiro and Brando (in 2001’s The Score).
20/FOREST WHITAKER-The Last King of Scotland (ie Butcher Idi Amin). Whitaker, always an interesting performer, here was in his masterpiece.
19/MARLON BRANDO-A Streetcar Named Desire. This is THE role that changed screen acting forever and forms a large part of the mammoth historical influence with which Brando is credited.
18/GENE HACKMAN-The Conversation. Brutish tough guy Hackman from The French Connection gave also many ‘intellectual’ performances. This is his masterpiece. Tom Cruise would not let Gene have equal billing to Tom on the posters for 1993’s The Firm so rather than suffer the indignity, Gene withdrew his own name altogether and it appears on only the screen, admittedly equal 2nd to Cruise. Man an actor would kill to have his own name associated with Gene’s
17/HEATH LEDGER- The Dark Knight (aka Batman). This performance (of the Joker) was one of absolute genius that turned the film from a good to a great one. Jack Nicholson’s Joker in 1989’s Batman was highly entertaining as well but having been overshadowed in the acting stakes by Heath, poor ole Jack has had to make do with coming out tops as an earner. He got $90 million for his Joker outing because of profits participation, which is equivalent to about $230 million in today’s money. So “if you have tears” for Jack “prepare to shed them now” as Shakespeare’s Antony would say!
16/PETER FINCH-Network. Finch had to shine through a great cast that included stalwarts William Holden and Faye Dunaway. Jimmy Stewart turned down the Finch role because of the swearing in the film. This shamed William Holden into going onto TV and apologised for sharing a bedroom scene in the movie with Faye. Holden is of course one of the Hollywood Greats form the Classic Era of movies (listed in AFI’s Top 50 Greatest Screen Legends). In those days of stricter censorship even the Greats were not allowed to go to bed with each other on screen! The minor Danny DeVito 1991 film “Other People’s Money” was notable for the one Legend in the movie, Greg Peck, being the only performer not to swear!
15/SEAN PENN-I Am Sam. Madonna’s old beau creates a character we hate empathising with – but still do!
14/DANIEL DAY LEWIS-Let there Be Blood. The best performance of the 2000’s. Despite his greatness Daniel made few films and used to disappear for long stretches between movies. Where he got to was always a mystery until a journalist was travelling the south of Ireland one summer and, for shoe repairs, stopped at a small cobbler’s shop in a virtually deserted village. It was owned by Daniel’s uncle and in a corner was Daniel totally absorbed in repairing shoes. Apparently he found that simple enterprise a therapeutic means of escaping the Hollywood ‘rat-race’!
13/MARLON BRANDO – Last Tango in Paris. This performance is a must see for any acting maniac and is a fine demonstration of why for many modern performers such as Nicholson, Richard Dreyfus, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand Brando is THE actor. “The best performance EVER by a male actor” wrote Alexander Walker, famed Film critic of the London Evening Standard.
12/ALEC GUINNESS-Bridge on the River Kwai. He brilliantly underplays a character who is steadfast, strong and absolutely masculine. In all probability Sean Connery and Michael Caine are the two British actors who have been most commercially successful in America. However it is likely that Alec Guinness runs them a good third. He was given a % of the Star Wars gross for his performance of Obe wan Kenobi which earned him $5 million at the time, worth around $28 million today. He said in an interview that the first thing he did when he got the cheque was “Take my friend Johnny Mills to dinner!”
11/AL PACINO- Scent of a Woman. As a blind man Pacino doesn’t blink once throughout the entirety of this lengthy film. The Master’s greatest work.
10/DUSTIN HOFFMAN-Rain Man. He seizes the occasion to provide a wonderful performance of an autistic man. The Prince of Players as a portrayer of screen misfits. Remember too his Ratso in Midnight Cowboy?
9/GEORGE C SCOTT-His gravelly voice and sheer presence make this the greatest ever casting decision. “I admired Dean. I admired Brando -Christ HE was Dean’s idol. But towering above them all – George! Martin Sheen in a 1979 interview with Rolling Stone.
8/DENIS HOPPER-Blue Velvet. All the mannerisms of this freak character are inch perfect.
7/ANTHONY HOPKINS-Silence of the Lambs. The lasting image of the 1990s is Hannibal Lecter. “I’m having an old friend for dinner tonight!” Hopkins performance as Hannibal takes up just 16 minutes of screen time and he is therefore one of just a dozen performers to get an Oscar for less than 20 mins on screen. The shortest Oscar winning performance is Hermione Baddeley for Room at the Top (1959). She earned a supporting Best Actress award for jus 2 mins 20 secs screen time.
6/JACK NICHOLSON-One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s hard to stand your when your supporting cast is a bunch of lunatics. But Nicholson achieves the best of his many masterpieces.
5/TOM HANKS-The greatest thing that Hanks does is to keep the audiences so much into a far-fetched character. He is considered a politically-motivated performer in the roles he chooses, such as the 2017’s The Post with Meryl Streep. In fact a few years ago a deranged character, David DePape, turned up at the house of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker in the Congressional House of Representatives. He was proposing to punish Nancy for her politics but as she was away from home DePape instead attacked her 83 year old husband with a hammer and he had to undergo emergency skull surgery. A diary that the police took from DePape’s possession indicated that the next 2 victims on his list would have been the president’s son, Hunter Biden – and Tom Hanks.
4/PETER SELLERS-Dr Strangelove-Sellers plays 3 different characters so well that if 3 different actors had played them with the same skill all 3 would have had to be on this list.
3/DANUEL DAY LEWIS- My Left Foot. This masterpiece is Day Lewis’ maverick performance.
2/ROBERT De NIRO-Raging Bull. This performance from the screen’s greatest LIVING actor show what method acting is all about.
1/MARLON BRANDO-The Godfather. Say what you will this is by far the most famous and easily the most impactful performance ever. Small spoiler. Brando’s utterance of The famous line “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” which is 2nd to only “frankly – I don’t give a damn” from Gone with the Wind on AFI’s list of 100 best quotes from movies was first spoken by John Wayne in a long-forgotten cowboy B movie in the 1930s. Nevertheless that two of the most powerful actors ever to appear in movies could each speak it decades apart only adds to its magic and shows that as a pungent quote it has, as the saying goes, legs