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.
Sorry to read that William Goldman died. He wrote several of my favourite movies including All the President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Marathon Man. RIP Mr. Goldman.
Hey Flora. Wow three plus years since the last Goldman comment….and it was your comment too. I am right there with you….sad sad news. But what a legacy he left behind. Three of his movies are in my Top 100 personal favorite movies. All The President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Princess Bride is one of our house’s favorite movies…Katie and Sam love that movie. RIP Mr. Goldman.
Hi, Bruce.
I will return to your list of catch-up classic already done artists in a couple days when I look at Joan Crawford’s career-but:
In deciding which artist to discuss next, I thought I’d go back to your list of Newest created pages next and screenwriter William Goldman has written a lot of films I have seen, especially Robert Redford movies. I have seen all of their 5 films together.
I’ll list rankings first:
The highest ranking film I have seen is #1: All the President’s Men.
The lowest ranking film I have seen is #25: Heat.
The highest ranking film I have *not* seen is #7: The General’s Daughter.
Thus overall:
I have seen all of his top 5 films.
I have seen 7 of his top 10.
I have seen 9 of his top 15
I have seen 12 of his top 20
I have seen 13 overall.
My favourite films of his are:
All the President’s Men
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Marathon Man
Harper
On my to-see list, I am interested in seeing older titles from the 1960s: Masquerade and No Way to Treat A Lady.
Despite the stars involved, one title I have not seen that has never interested me is The Princess Pride. I think if I were going to watch it I would have at 11 years old to see it with nostalgia. It’s not my genre of film really though I keep hearing people younger than I am speak of it fondly.
Cheers
Flora Breen Robison
Hey Flora….lets see….first the tally count….I sit in 1st with 19….Steve is 2nd with 14 and you are in 3rd with 13 movies watched. I think that your % of movies watched goes down the further you go down the rankings is a pretty good indicator that my ranking has SOME merits.
I have seen and enjoyed 4 of the 5 Redford/Goldman movies….The Hot Rock has escaped me so far. I enjoyed the Great Waldo Pepper on the 2nd viewing much more that the first viewing. Looking at your favorites….I think the one that surprises the most in Marathon Man….although I recently just re-watched that one and did not find it as intense as I did years ago….I was amazed that dentist scene was so short….in my mind that scene was a lot longer.
You gotta see The Princess Bride…..if only to have a reference point….this is the new Wizard of Oz…..yes some parts are silly…..but the movie is filled with memorable characters and some very memorable lines…..plus Cary Elwes is pretty much playing an Errol Flynn role. Thanks for checking out my only screenplay writer page…..and I look forward to your thoughts on Joan Crawford. Hope you had an awesome weekend.
I answered both Joan’s page and your new one on Charles Chaplin.
As for Marathon Man surprising you, well, I am a fan of Laurence Olivier.
Flora Breen Robison
Thank you Flora….I just read your Chaplin comment….on the way to your Joan Crawford comment.
I didn’t care for the Princess Bride.
Hey Dan…..sorry that you did not enjoy Princess Bride. I have watched Princess Bride with all of my kids except the current 6 year old. It is a nice story for kids. I am not sure how much I would enjoy the movie if I did not have so many kids…lol. Thanks for your mini review on The Princess Bride.
Hi
If script writers are the Cinderella of the movie world, then William Goldman has been to the ball and back many times. He has giv
Sorry, posted by mistake.
He has given us an incredible body of work. One of my favourite movies is the Marathon Man. Every time I think of The Dentist, I think of Lawrence Olivier drilling into Dustin Hoffman’s mouth.
Hey Chris. For some reason I have always been interested in the career of William Goldman. Probably because I like Butch and Sundance so much. I am right there with you about the dentist and Marathon Man. I actually rewatched that movie a few months ago…the dentist scene was not nearly as disturbing this time around. Thanks for checking out one of my latest pages….I actually wrote 3 pages in 3 days….a record for me.
I’m glad you chose William Goldman as your first writer page! The Princess Bride is still one of my favorite movies.
Hey Katie…..I thought of you numerous times when writing this page….glad that I am the one that introduced you to the Princess Bride. Helping to expand your movie knowledge is one of my favorite parts of helping raise you….even during your difficult teenage years….lol.