William Holden Movies

William Holden in 1969's The Wild Bunch
William Holden in 1969’s The Wild Bunch

Want to know the best William Holden movies?  How about the worst William Holden movies?  Curious about William Holden’s box office grosses or which William Holden movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which William Holden 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.

This William Holden page comes from a suggestion from fellow movie watcher mckbirdbks, as well as lots of Holden support from more movie lovers Steve Lensman, Flora Breen Robison and BERN1960 (whose every comment lately has been…”still waiting on that William Holden page”). So without any further delay…here is a movie page on the one… the only…. William Holden.

William Holden (1918-1981) was an Oscar® winning actor who appeared in motion pictures from 1939 to 1981. After appearing in two uncredited parts, Holden got his big break in 1939’s Golden Boy. Golden Boy was not a huge hit, but people became aware of William Holden the actor. For the next 10 years, he appeared in numerous movies, but it is safe to say his career was disappointing. That changed when Holden appeared in 1950’s Sunset Boulevard. He received his first Oscar® nomination for that role and it started a 10 year run for Holden that was filled with classic blockbuster movies. He won an Oscar® for 1953’s Stalag 17, appeared in the box office hits….1954’s Sabrina, 1954’s The Bridges of Toko-Ri, and 1955’s Picnic. He also helped Grace Kelly win her Oscar® for 1954’s The Country Girl and was the lead actor in 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai…which won the Oscar® for Best Picture.

From 1962 to 1981, Holden would appear in almost one movie a year. During this time period only three movies really stand out….1969’s The Wild Bunch, 1974’s The Towering Inferno and 1976’s Network….for which Holden would receive his final Oscar® nomination. William Holden passed away in November 1981 from injuries from a fall and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean. And finally…… one of my father’s favorite movies was The Bridge on the River Kwai….so I am sure he would be happy to see that it finished ranked number one of all of Holden’s movies according to Cogerson Movie Score.

His IMDb page shows 77 acting credits from 1938-1981. This page will rank 66 William Holden movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, cameos and his uncredited or bit roles were not included in the rankings.

What a cast! Bogart, Hepburn and William Holden in 1954's Sabrina
What a cast! Bogart, Hepburn and William Holden in 1954’s Sabrina

William Holden Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

William Holden 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 Holden movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort William Holden movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort William Holden movies by yearly box office rank
  • Sort William Holden movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort William Holden movies by how many Oscar® nominations and Oscar® wins each movie won received
  • Sort William Holden 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.
 
William Holden in his Oscar® winning performance in 1953's Stalag 17
William Holden in his Oscar® winning performance in 1953’s Stalag 17

Possibly Interesting Facts About William Holden

1. William Holden was Ronald Reagan’s best man, when Reagan married Nancy Davis in 1952. Holden also did the honors for lifelong friend, Glenn Ford, when Ford married Cynthia Hayward in 1977.

2. According to the book, Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden by Bob Thomas, William Holden and Audrey Hepburn considered getting married while filming the 1954’s Sabrina. Hepburn ended the relationship when she found out Holden could no longer have children. When Hepburn and Holden were filming 1964’s Paris When It Sizzles, Holden tried to rekindle the relationship. At one point, Holden climbed a tree outside Hepburn’s hotel window looking for a kiss from her. After the kiss, Holden promptly fell out of the tree and crashed landed on a parked car.

3. William Holden appeared on Quigley Publishing’s Top Ten Money Making Stars list six times between 1954-1961. In 1956 he appeared as the number one Top Money Making Star.

4. William Holden received 3 Oscar® nominations for acting. He won the Oscar® for 1953’s Stalag 17. His other two nominations were for 1950’s Sunset Boulevard and 1976’s Network. He never received a Golden Globe® nomination.

5. He was so grateful to Barbara Stanwyck for her insistence on casting him in 1939’s Golden Boy, that he sent her flowers every year on the anniversary of the first day of the filming. He was also grateful to Montgomery Clift for turning down the lead role in Sunset Boulevard. After Clift turned the role down, the role went to Holden. Sunset Boulevard is considered the turning point in Holden’s 40 year career.

6. Has one of the shortest acceptance speeches in the history of the Oscars®. When his named was called as Best Actor for Stalag 17, Holden walked to the podium, said “Thank you” and left the stage.

7. Entertainment Weekly voted William Holden as the 63rd Greatest Movie Star. Holden also finished 25th in the American Film Institute’s Greatest Screen Legends poll.

8. William Holden was married one time in his life. Holden married Ardis Ankerson in 1941. They divorced in 1971. William Holden had three children….sons Peter and Scott and daughter, Virginia. Virginia was Ankerson’s daughter from her first marriage. Holden legally adopted her.

9. Roles William Holden turned down or was seriously considered for: Strangers on a Train, North By Northwest, The Guns of Navarone, The Omen, The Americanization of Emily, Mister Roberts and The Trouble With Harry.

10. Check out William Holden’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Steve’s William Holden You Tube Video

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

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109 thoughts on “William Holden Movies”

  1. Hey Bruce thanks for commenting on my William Holden video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2lj1aiUFN8 – you mentioned that we didn’t do a Holden tally on our first comments way back on hubpages, so here goes – 17 out of 66, wow a lot less than I expected, disappointing. And it’s not like he was making films I wasn’t interested in.

    Notable movies I’ve missed include – The Country Girl, Picnic, Our Town, Executive Suite, The Moon is Blue and Love is a Many Splendored Thing.

    My favorite Holden films are – River Kwai, Stalag 17, Wild Bunch, Network, Sunset Boulevard, Damien Omen II and The Towering Inferno.

    River Kwai tops the UMR chart and that’s no.1 on my video, Sunset Boulevard tops the critics chart and that’s no.2 on my top 30. So we have similar results, except I managed to squeeze Omen II into my top 30, it didn’t even make your top 50, give the devil his due Bruce. 😉

    Checking out my first post I see I was trying to get Flora to watch Damien Omen II, her reply “I am not interested and do not want to *ever* see Damien: The Omen Part II. I’d rather watch The Wild Bunch and that is not my kind of western.” 🙂

    Reply

    2. HI STEVE:

      1 I was very interested in your Holden post as Bill was one of my idols in the fifties and I still like watching his movies. You seem to have missed quite a few of his very best films and of the ones you mention Executive Suite in particular is a cracker.

      2 Golden Holden had what I call a bookends career as a top star. During the 40s he made lots of films but was not considered a major box office draw. In the 50s he could do no wrong and churned out hit after hit and became a big favourite in the Quigley Top 10 Box Office Stars.

      3 The World of Suzie Wong in 1960 effectively ended his VERY top star days but ts success gave him a final Quigley entry in 1961 and after that he was at the other end of the book case where he again made many films but most of them were flops, with 14 of them grossing under 50 mil in Bruce’s table, and though Network was a sizeable hit and the Towering Inferno a massive one he was billed second in Network and third in Towering Inferno after McQueen/Newman. In fact he applied for top billing in Towering Inferno but Fox refused him. With Paul and Steve fighting like rats in a sack over top billing all that the company would have needed was a third star entering the fray !!

      4 I’ enjoyed your worldwide grosses video and propose watching the Holden one later so thanks for leaving the link. And here I’m gonna slip in a plug of my own!! Did you know that Holden and the Duke were friends and used to go to the horse racing together?. TV caught them sitting beside each other in a state of great excitement !

      Best wishes BOB

      Reply

      1. Thanks Bob, I did not know Bill Holden was friends with the Duke. But I did read recently that Holden hated Bogart and Sabrina was not a friendly shoot.

        I will try and catch up on some of those missed movies from the Golden Boy.

        Reply

        1. STEVE

          1 I understand that the bad blood between Bogie and Golden Holden was over political differences and that it would have come to blows had not Bogie got off side. Despite his screen tough guy image the joke was that Bogie could not have hit the deck !

          2 Golden Holden apparently got on very well with Sir Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins when they were making Bridge on River Kwai and at one point the three of them walked into a local town together to watch a fire works celebration.

          3 Anyway good to hear from someone else who likes one of my old idols.

          Reply

      2. Good stuff Bob. Holden was also the best man for Ronald Reagan’s last marriage. I think Fox was right to refuse Holden for top billing…Newman and McQueen had the box office juice back then….and Holden was just a supporting character in that one….though he was a much bigger reason for the success of Network. 🙂

        Reply

        1. 1 Agreed Bruce as Greats like Holden will always bring something extra to a movie; but what I was trying to do was draw a distinction between the period 1953-1960/61 when Holden was riding up in the clouds at the box office and the 70s when as you point out Newman/McQueen ruled the roost.

          2 I think those two would have seen it as a two horse race and it would never have entered their minds that Golden would have been a contender for the top spot and both would surely have jumped ship if Golden’s request had been granted.

          3 Sometimes those billing disputes would degenerate into farce as in the case of the Brando/Loren one in relation to A Countess from Hong Kong. A radio newscast in 1967 said that the pair were locked into a bitter feud on the billing issue but when both were contacted they denied all knowledge of the matter and blamed the situation on over-zealous agents, Maybe Sandra Bullock’s agents were operating in those days too!

          4 That other Italian actress, spitfire Anna Magnani, was not as reticent as Loren because when she did The Fugitive Kind with Brando in 1960 she launched an open tirade about how “He will not let me have first billing even in my native Italy!” and apparently then burst into tears. Bud would not comment.

          5 Back to Golden to say that it surprised me that he was not given higher than last place in the AFI Top 25 Male Legends list and now I learn from you that Entertainment Weekly listed him a distant 63rd in its Greats pecking order. Perhaps though he thought that the greatest honour of all was to be Ronnie’s best man !! which I never knew about before.

          Reply

          1. Hey Bob.
            1. I think McQueen would have never eve agreed to it….but maybe Newman would have…..as he said….”The fire was the real star”.
            2. You would think…with Brando being right in the middle of his 1960s drought…he would have been happy to make a movie with Charlie Chaplin…no matter the billing.
            3. In 1960 Brando was the King….with everything going well for him…..as his Bounty….was looking good…..Oscars, box office success….so I can see him being billed higher than Magnani. However when his Bounty hit the 1960s iceberg…seems Brando would have gotten a little more relaxed when it came to billing.
            4. If you think about…with AFI putting him 25th…..there must have been some serious consideration to leave him off the list completely. I would who was in the conversation for that last spot? Ronald Colman, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn?
            As always…thanks for the input.

    3. Hey Steve….glad people are finding your new William Holden page….thanks for the tally count….only 17….I think I have you beat…..let’s see…I am at 25….26 if I include When Time Ran Out….which I am sure I have seen but remember very little of the movie….probably need a refresher on that little known disaster movie. River Kwai….is one of the greats….and a Top 10 UMR movie….out of 27000 movies. Yeah I am not thinking Flora is going to see Omen II…..but she did finally see The Wild Bunch….though she did not really enjoy that one. Thanks for tally count and the return visit.

      Reply

  2. Last night I re-watched Stalag 17 on TCM as it aired and I wrote a review of it on letterboxd. I love this film.

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora…very cool. I will check out your review the next time I go on….I am about 20 reviews behind on Letterboxd.com. Including reviewing The Night and The City….which I finally watched for the first time from beginning to end…..it starred some guy named Widmark.

      Reply

  3. Hi, Bruce.

    Saw that you had updated this page on William Holden.

    With the new rankings, the highest ranking film I have not seen is still Dear Ruth.

    However, I have now indeed seen The Wild Bunch (yeah!).

    I have seen 36 of his films now.

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora…thanks for checking out the updated page. Slowly but surely I am getting them updated. Even though you strongly disliked The Wild Bunch…is it not good to say you have seen it? Seems I have been watching Holden movies on a regularly bases since doing this first page back at Hub Pages. So roughly 5 years ago you were at 26 to my 13….with Steve failing to give a tally count. My tally is now at 24….so though I am still trailing…I have actually done slightly better than you in the last five years. Proud day….lol.

      Reply

      1. Yes it is good that I have seen it. The Wild Bunch is a great film. I agree. One of the best – but I still would rather watch Bridge on the River Kwai.

        Reply

        1. You and my father would have made the same decision….River Kwai over Wild Bunch any day of the week.

          Reply

  4. Being a WH fan since I was a teen (no im not telling you when) I really appreciate this new (well to me ) WH page….My first introduction, if you can call it that, to WH was the movie A Many Splendoured Thing….I doubt no female came out of thet movie show with non red eyes from crying!!!!! Since then I have seen dozens of movies he starred in always admiring his acting ability in so many different situations and how he drew his audience into the situations he was in…..Amittedly he was in his movie prime in his young years….Escape from Fort Bravo,Sunset Boulavade, Born Yesterday, Blue Moon, the latter really setting up his popularity as a star and showing his commediene side too. I notice here not a mention of another of his latter movies…..The Counterfeit Traitor, to my view a very underrated movie. He showed his real emotional acting skills in this movie but reviews belittled his performance I feel. I dont care about his rankings in movies….i dont care about how many millions of $’s he made…to me thats irrelevant….It was his screen persona that attracted me…well, that and his devasting good looks…and his acting that seemed to come straight from the heart. I am a dedicated fan on the William Holden tribute page as well but that comes with the territory!!

    Reply

    1. Hey Juliet….thanks for a great comment. Glad you were able to find this page. I feel confident that this is the best source for William Holden movies on the entire internet. I am sure you are right about Love Is A Many Splendored Thing….especially when they see a tree on a hill. His 5 or 6 year run from 1950 to 1956 is one of the best of all time. Box office smashes….Oscar winning performances….and Best Picture Oscar winning movies. I will have to check out The Counterfeit Traitor. I have seen 17 of the Top 25 on this page…but that one has escaped me so far. It is now on my “must watch” list. Thanks for stopping by and commenting….it is greatly appreciated.

      Reply

      1. would be interested in what you think of the movie The Counterfeit Traitor….you know it is based on factual events……well mostly!

        Reply

        1. I have seen The Counterfeit Traitor.

          First – I have only seen the “filtered” ending of The Key. I think “Illicit” is the word you are looking for.

          Back to T.C.T.:

          I know what you mean by based partly/mostly on factual events but not totally. There are plenty of war movies set during various wars in history where the phrase you use is what you mean. There are some movies which have been changed slightly for movie reasons etc. but the storyline is basically truthful.

          I loved this movie. It was heartbreaking. I love WWII movies because that was my grandparents’ generation. The sacrifice that Holden is willing to make is wonderful and sad. Very truthful.

          Reply

    2. I totally agree with you about Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.

      You will love this website.

      Reply

      1. thanks Flora…im sure I will…..
        another underrated movie of Wh is The Key……have you seen it?

        Reply

        1. Yes, I have seen it – within the last year for the first time. It was absolutely wonderful.

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          1. Yes wasnt it…..did you know two endings were made for it…the one Ive got on dvd is when WH rushes to the train station but Stella has already left…the other was an ending where WH did catch the train where Stella was but because of censorship back then it was never released…something to do with the fact that the charcter that WH played and stella were in an illicit (is that the word?) relationship so the ending wasnt allowed to be a happy one!!Crazy… Ild have loved to have seen a sequel to that movie….Do view The Counterfeit Traitor too if you havent already…it is a very tense story with pathos. WH and Lili Palmer play off each other well…there is one particular scene in it where WH really shows his emotional acting skills………needless to say i cried!!!

  5. His oscar acceptance speech was so short because he was told they were out of time. The following year when he presented for best actress, His opening remarks were “As I was going to say last year” and was cut off again.

    Reply

    2. Hey Ingrid…..imagine how quick the Oscar show would be if all of the speeches were only “Thank you”….maybe I would not have to stay up until midnight to see which movie gets the big prize. Thanks for the information that you shared.

      Reply

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