Want to know the best William Goldman movies? How about the worst William Goldman movies? Curious about William Goldman box office grosses or which William Goldman movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which William Goldman movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
When I think about my favorite movies of all time, I find it amazing that William Goldman was involved in many of those movies. William Goldman (1931-2018) has been described as one of the late twentieth century’s most popular storytellers. Not familiar with the name William Goldman? Well let me list some of my favorite movies: 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1976’s All The President’s Men, 1977’s A Bridge Too Far, 1987’s The Princess Bride and 1990’s Misery. William Goldman wrote the screenplay for all of these movies. Over the last eight years I have written about actors, actresses, directors and different genres of movies. This is my first movie page to look at the career of a writer…..so starting with one of the best…..here is my William Goldman movie page.
William Goldman’s IMDb page shows 31 writing credits from 1963-2015. This page will rank 25 William Goldman movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. His television roles, cameos, shorts, and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.
William Goldman Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
William Goldman 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 William Goldman movies by the stars of his movies.
- Sort William Goldman movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort William Goldman movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort William Goldman 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 William Goldman movie received.
- Sort William Goldman 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 William Goldman Table
- Ten William Goldman movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 40.00% of his movies listed. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) is his biggest hit.
- An average William Goldman movie earned $119.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 15 of William Goldman movies are rated as good movies…or 60.00 % of his movies. The Princess Bride (1987) is his highest rated movie while The Chamber (1996) is his lowest rated movie.
- Eight William Goldman movies have been nominated for at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…or 32.00 of his movies
- Four William Goldman movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 16.00% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 13 William Goldman movies scored higher that average….or 52.00% of his movies. All the President’s Men (1976) got the the highest UMR Score while Heat (1986) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About William Goldman
1. William Goldman was born in Chicago, Illinois.
2. William Goldman is the younger brother of James Goldman. James Goldman won an Oscar® for his screenplay for 1968’s The Lion in Winter.
3. William Goldman was nominated and won two Oscars®. He won Best Screenplay Oscars® for 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 1976’s All The President’s Men.
4. William Goldman and James Goldman used to share an apartment in New York with a third person. The third person was composer John Kander. John Kander has 251 IMDb credits and has two Oscar® nominations.
5. William Goldman was married to Ilene Jones from 1961 until their divorce in 1991. They have two daughters.
6. William Goldman has written many non-fiction books. The three books I seem to re-read on a regular basis are: 1983’s Adventures in the Screen Trade 2000’s Which Lie Did I Tell? and 2001’s The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood?. All of these books are very informative and very interesting.
7. William Goldman has many famous quotes about Hollywood. My favorite two: “Nobody knows anything” and “Understand this: all the sleaze you’ve heard about Hollywood? All the illiterate scumbags who scuttle down the corridors of power? They are there, all right, and worse than you can imagine”.
8. William Goldman turned down the opportunity to write the screenplays for 1972’s The Godfather and 1978’s Superman.
9. Robert Redford starred in 20% of William Goldman’s movies. Redford starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hot Rock, The Great Waldo Pepper, All The President’s Men and A Bridge Too Far.
10. Check out William Goldman‘s career compared to current and classic movie personnel. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid is one enjoyable movie. How is that movie already 46 years old. I did not realize he worked with Robert Redford so much. This is a wonderful wonderful site. Glad a friend sent me a link.
Hey JCPLaner….Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of my all time favorite movies. I used to watch it once a year. After Newman passed away….I stayed away from the movie…..but ended that boycott a few months ago and rewatched it. Redford and Goldman made 5 movies together….that is a pretty good percentage of the Goldman movies. Glad your friend sent you a link.
WOW – that is certainly interesting about a writer for screenplays for movies. He wrote a lot of scripts for so many good movies. Thanks so much for an interesting site. I have seen quite a lot of the movies mentioned above. I, for one, do not think too much about who wrote the screenplay when watching a movie but someone has to do it. THANKS AGAIN.
Hey BERN1960……yep he is the man behind the words. Pretty sure dad was pretty aware of William Goldman. A Bridge Too Far was one of dad’s favorites.. Glad you liked my latest site…..maybe we will do a composer soon.
I like it. Your Top 5 and my Top 5 are almost the same with the exception of I would put in Marathon Man and take out Misery. Though Misery would make My Top 6.
Hey TigerReally…..glad our Top 5 are so close….quality movies no matter how you look at it…thanks for checking out my Goldman movie page.
I love the rumor that Goldman secretly wrote the screenplay for Good Will Hunting. No matter how many times he denies it the rumor just keeps growing and growing. Big fan here too. My favourite Goldman quote is “Actors are worthless yet they are essential” or something close to that.
Hey How do you like them apples…..I had to separate the words….and then I got your Good Will Hunting reference. I agree his Good Will Hunting rumor does not seem to die….apparently Affleck and Damon showed him the script….after Rob Reiner had looked at….Goldman agreed with Reiner’s ideas about the movie. But I guess people could not believe that Ben and Matt could write such a great screenplay without some serious help.
Good to see writers get some attention instead of the usual actors and directors, Bruce. Maybe in the future you can include a film composer or two, John Williams for instance. I’ve read Goldman’s book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, ages ago. The first time I noticed his name was on a paperback to A Bridge Too Far back in the 70’s. I’ve seen 14 of the 25 films you’ve listed. I enjoyed Butch Cassidy but I would pick Bridge Too Far as my favorite of the films he wrote. Princess Bride was fun but I rarely watch it these days. Watched Marathon Man again a few weeks ago, still an effective thriller. He wrote Dreamcatcher? Oh dear. To be fair Stephen King wrote the novel and I own the film on DVD, some creepy scenes but it was not a success. Voted Up.
Hey Steve. His books on movie making are pretty interesting…especially since he takes the gloves when talking about. I have 19 of the 25 movies listed….glad to see we agree about A Bridge Too Far. I watch that movie almost every year. Goldman has a pretty interesting DVD commentary too. Yeah Dreamcatcher did not relive the glory of his other Stephen King novel he wrote a screenplay for….Misery. I have added Mr. John Williams to my brand new request page….I wonder how many movies he has made? I know all the Williams/Spielberg movies are in my database. As always thanks for stopping by.