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.
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“Life is not fair, it’s just fairer than death….” that line really resonated with me this morning as I watched The Princess Bride. A sad loss, prayers to his family.
Hey Brian….I did not remember that Princess Bride line at all……but it is a great Goldman line for sure…and sadly very timely on this sad day. Thanks for stopping by.
“I never knew the old Vienna before the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. I really knew it in the classic days of the black market.” [Voice over in the opening of 1949’s The 3rd Man]
Similarly I never much cared for William Goldman’s greatest blockbusters like Butch Cassidy, Bridge Too Far and All the President’s Men [though the subject matter of the latter appealed to me in real life].
Instead my favourite Goldman films are some that are probably among his less celebrated projects to one degree or another – Misery, Harper, Masquerade and The General Daughter. The latter holds particularly nostalgic memories for me as I saw it during my one visit to the States in 1999.
The Princess Bride also has a certain nostalgic appeal for me as I was obliged to watch it with my son on several occasions when he was growing up! One of the stars was Andre the Giant a French wrestler whose matches my son closely followed on TV in the American wrestling series Wrestlemania.
Andre’s death at 46 in Jan 1993 was both premature and ironic, the irony arising from the fact that he died in his sleep from a heart attack in a Paris hotel room and yet was in Paris to attend his father’s funeral and had just buried his father.
It’s good that this site can be used for its viewers to pay their respect to Greats like Goldman and some nice ones have already been posted. A resume update today suggests that on his death yesterday his net worth was $15 million.
Hey….wow we really differ on his top movies like Bridge, President’s and Butch…each of those is on my all-time favorite movies list. Actually I think this is one of the widest differences we have had when it comes to individual movies. I know we differ on Joel, Loy and Brando some times..but rarely on movies. Good quote and good movie memories. Sounds like a return trip to the United States is overdo…as it will be 20y years in 2019. Good feedback on Princess Bride, Andre the Giant and your son. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Mr. Goldman.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the feedback.
Some well known literary critic whose name escapes me once said “If people don’t disagree among themselves about it then it ain’t ART !”. By that token Joel must have reviewed some of the most artistic movies ever produced!”
Reading through his book at the moment and I’l come back to you in due course on one or two points. To console myself I am using the yardstick that 2 stars from Joel equated to 4 stars from most other critics so I am therefore able to convince myself that Bud DID give many performances that were masterpieces !!
Anyway thanks again for your generosity in sending me the Hirsch/Audie books and I am continually dipping into the latter one as well as questions about Murphy’s career and life occur to me when I think of his movies.
I’m just about to watch my recording from TV of Sir M’s Harry Brown so maybe tomorrow I’ll probably want to say something to you on that subject too. Meanwhile take care.
So many of those Butch alumni leaving us. Rest In Peace.
Hey SteinHoF16…..very sad and very true…Redford might be getting really lonely….RIP Mr. Goldman
He famously said “Nobody knows anything” but I think many knew how awesome Bill Goldman was.
Hey TCM Fan…love how you used his very famous quote to give him tribute. Gone but not forgotten. SAD DAY and SAD WEEK.
Stan Lee And William Goldman. A terrible start to the holiday season.
Hey Billy….I agree 100%. Rough week indeed. Roy Clark of Hee Haw fame passed away too. Hopefully that was the third and last one for awhile. RIP.