30 Greatest Charlton Heston Movies Ranked Worst To Best - Looper

A landmark science fiction adventure that revolutionized the genre, "The Planet of the Apes" didn't just wow audiences with impressive special effects, but it also boasted a high-concept story. Charlton Heston stars in the film as astronaut George Taylor, who leads a mission supposedly to a far-off planetoid, only to land on a strange world where primates rule, and humans are treated like cattle. After his fellow crew become victims of the apes, Taylor becomes a human science experiment to a pair of curious monkey scientists, Cornelius and Zira, who theorize that their own kind may have ironically evolved from man.

Now, Taylor must convince them that he's not like the men on his planet and lead a revolt to topple the ape aggressors who treat humans like slaves. Pure allegory, the film was co-written by "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, who adapted the French novel by Pierre Boulle, adding a jaw-dropping twist that audiences could never have seen coming and which still reverberates through pop culture today. 

An all-time classic, it was followed by four sequels, a short-lived television spin-off, and two rebooted films, the second of which begat its own multi-film franchise. Easily the most famous in Heston's catalog, "Planet of the Apes" features some of the most memorable moments and indelible dialogue ever seen in sci-fi cinema.