Want to know the best William Wyler movies? How about the worst William Wyler movies? Curious about William Wyler box office grosses or which William Wyler movie picked up the most Oscar nominations? Need to know which William Wyler 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.
A couple of days ago Reddit user smaxwell87 shared our Steven Spielberg movie page on Reddit. Two things happened when the link was shared…first it set a single day record for views for one of our pages…secondly….it raised the question….could any director top Spielberg’s Oscar® numbers? To date Spielberg movies have been nominated for 112 Oscars®….winning 31 times. Lots of directors were mentioned on Reddit as possibilities….but only William Wyler (1902-1981) seemed to be close to Spielberg’s Oscar® numbers. So knowing that William Wyler was already on my request hotline page (request made by Chris and seconded by Flora)…and additionally requested by Reddit user tapomirbowles, we went to work on researching the movie career of William Wyler. So did Wyler give Spielberg a serious challenge? The answer can found on a table at the end of the page.
His IMDb page shows 72 directing credits from 1925-1970. This page will rank 30 William Wyler movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Shorts, documentaries, his silent films of the 1920s and some of his early 1930s movies were not included in the rankings.
William Wyler Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
William Wyler 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 Wyler movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort William Wyler movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort William Wyler movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort William Wyler movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each William Wyler movie received and by many Oscar®
- Sort William Wyler 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.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
Possibly Interesting Facts About William Wyler
1. William Wyler was born in born in Mulhouse, Alsace. Back then Alsace was part of the German empire…just in case you did not know.
2. William Wyler was nominated for a record 12 Best Director Oscars®. He won three times. Only John Ford (4 wins) has more Best Director Oscars®.
3. William Wyler first Best Director Oscar® Nomination was for 1936’s Dodsworth. Counting Dodsworth he only made 24 movies from 1936 to 1970. That is an average of every other movie got Wyler a Best Director nomination….that there is Meryl Streep like numbers.
4. William Wyler directed a Best Picture Oscar® nominated movie for a record 7 consecutive years (1936-1942). Frank Capra has the 2nd longest streak with 4 consecutive years (1936).
5. William Wyler directed 14 performances that went on to win an acting Oscar®….that is also a record. Wyler directed another 17 performances that received acting Oscar® nominations.
6. William Wyler forced Henry Fonda through 40 takes on the set of 1938’s Jezebel,” Wyler’s only direction being “Again” after each repeated take. When Fonda demanded some input on what he was doing wrong, Wyler replied only: “It stinks. Do it again.”
7. According to Charlton Heston, William Wyler approached him early in the shooting of Ben-Hur (1959) and told him that his performance was inadequate. When a dismayed Heston asked him what he should do, “Be better” is all that Wyler could supply.
8. William Wyler nicknames were “Willy” and “99 Take Willie”
9. William Wyler was married twice in his life. His first marriage was to actress Margaret Sullavan from 1934-1936. His second marriage was to Margaret Tallichet from 1938 to his death in 1981. They had 5 children.
10. We have ranked over 23,000 movies at UltimateMovieRankings.com. William Wyler is the only person to have 3 movies with a score of 90 or better. On our Top 250 movies….3 of his movies are in the Top 25. Mrs. Miniver at 23rd, Ben-Hur at 8th and The Best Years of Our Lives in 4th.
Check out William Wyler’s movie career compared to current and classic stars on our Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time page.
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I have watched almost all of Wyler’s movies except his silent films & talkies he made before Counsellor At Law. I have watched many a number of times. His most fun film was his last with Audrey Hepburn, How to steal a Million. Pure delight. Roman Holiday is a sweet romantic film, also with Audrey Hepburn, light hearted. Carrie is a great film, but crushing. Even though it didn’t turn out for his character the way he wanted, Walter Brennan was superb as Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner. All of Mr. Wyler’s movies from Dodsworth on deserve watching, but I would include Counsellor At Law 1933, These Three, 1936(remade as The Children’s Hour, 1961), & exclude his last film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones
Greg, I certainly agree with you that Mr. Wyler was a great director. However, I don’t think everything he did from DODSWORTH on was worth watching. For example, JEZEBEL comes off as being one note and stagy these days. MRS. MINIVER is nothing more than an odd piece of World War 2 propaganda while FUNNY GIRL was a sub par musical biography with a totally over the top performance by Barbra Striesand. Although, I certainly agree with you about Walter Brennan’s performance in THE WESTERNER and his films with Audrey Hepburn were always worth watching. Favorite Wyler movies include THE WESTERNER, THESE THREE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, ROMAN HOLIDAY, FRIENDLY PERSUASION, DEAD END. and HOW TO STEAL A MILLION.
Wow…..first two Bobs, then two Chrises, followed by three Johns and now two Gregs. Good breakdown on William Wyler’s career. Interesting takeson Jezebel, Mrs. Miniver and Funny Girl….while I did not love any of them….I do respect their place in movie history. All three were major Oscar winners…while Mrs. Miniver actually had a small hand in getting England to survive World War II. I have seen all of your favorites…..with How To Steal A Million and The Westerner among my favorites as well. Good feedback.
Thanks for the feedback Greg. Great comment on William Wyler. I actually listened to the commentary for How To Steal A Million. That commentary was by Wyler’s daughter and cast member Eli Wallach. It was not the greatest DVD commentary but does offer some good information. I agree about Carrie….Olivier shines in that one. I have not seen Counsellor At Law or The Liberation of L.B. Jones….I will have to check both of them out. Good stuff!
I like MRS MINIVER the best of his top films. I highly recommend it as it probably isn’t as well known as more recent films such as BEN HUR !!
Hey Sarah….Winston Churchill said that he thought Mrs.Miniver was an important part in England withstanding the German attacks in World War 2….I do not think a movie has ever been that important. Mrs. Miniver in England is still remembered…here in North America I would agree with you that it has been somewhat forgotten. Thanks for the comment.
FAscinating information
Hey Sarah….thanks for the nice words.
Hello Bruce, excellent idea that work on William Wyler. Like Steve, I consider Ben-Hur as one of the greatest films of all time. Yet as Steve I have seen only 10 of his films. My favorites, after Ben-Hur are Best years of our life and the Westerner.
Given your impressive database, can I ask you if you know how I could have access to the full Eddie Mannix Ledger. I find excerpts on the Journal of Radio Film and television but I live in France, so…
Same question for the William Schaeffer Ledger and the C.J Tevlin ledger.
I hope you ‘ll know answer. Thank you in advance.
Hey Laurent….I am sure Steve is glad to know he is not alone when it comes to Ben-Hur. If Wyler had won a Golden Globe for Best Years of Our Lives…then Ben would have dropped to the number 2 spot…..if that had happened I might not ever hear from him again….lol.
10 is 33% of his movies….that is a pretty good %. As for the ledgers….that is my Holy Grail…as I have been looking for those ledgers for years. The ledgers can actually be viewed at USC and UCLA in California. I was in Hollywood about 3 years ago but I did not realize the ledgers were only a few miles away…so I did not go and visit them. Bits and pieces from the ledgers seem to pop up every once in awhile…but then they seem to disappear just as fast. Seems the keepers of the ledgers have no desire for those numbers to be released.
I have probably found about 3,000 ledger numbers from Warners, RKO, MGM and Fox…which helps but is still a pretty small number compared to all of the movies released. I seem to find a small treasure about once a month…my most recent discovery was about 50 Cecil B. DeMille movies from his production company….lots of movies from the mid to late 1920s.
Sorry that I can not give a better answer to your question. But it is a question that I ask myself all the time.
Thanks for your answer. One day maybe … For films of DeMille, I have also found there are about 3 years and I was really happy. My latest find was the monster movies of the 30’s Universal. But I’m still looking desperately 1932’s Invisible Man.
Hey Laurent….I wish I could help you with The Invisible Man….but I have nothing. The search continues. If I come across some information on that movie I will respond back here.
Hi
Thanks for doing my request. Wyler was a great director. I’m surprised that he is forgotten by many today. Considering he won the American Film Institute and all those nominations as Best Director. I think his forte was adapting plays and books onto film. And bringing the best out of performers.
His three movies with Davis were fantastic, although rumour is that they were more than friendly. I would say my favourite Wyler movie is The Big Country. Burl Ives stole the show. I also liked The Best Years of our Lives. A fantastic cast and poor Myrna Loy didn’t even get a nomination. Audrey Hepburn was just enchanting in Roman Holiday. I recently watched Doddsworth for the first time and I was really surprised at how good it has stood the test of time.
There’s no doubt he has left an incredible body of work, not least Ben Hur. The actor Stephen Boyd was from my neck of the woods, his brother owned a grocery store where I lived. I didn’t realise he had been married to Margaret Sullivan, one of the most gifted actresses of Hollywood, who sadly never reached her full potential.
He seemed to have a great relationship with producer Samuel Goldwyn.
Anyway thanks for the page.
Hey Chris. Glad you found your requested William Wyler movie page. I agree it is strange that Wyler never gets mentioned when Great Directors come up. Good to see that another person is in the Big Country band wagon. My Blu-Ray of that movie is awesome to watch. I like to convert it to 3D and watch it with breath taking depth. I just watched Dodsworth recently as well. I did not like it as much as you did. http://letterboxd.com/cogerson/film/dodsworth/ hell you can read my actual review of that one.
That is cool about Stephen Boyd and his brother. In my area Mark “Hulk” Ruffalo went to high school around here. Speaking of Margaret Sullavan she was born in my area….all the way back in 1909. Wyler did indeed have a great relationship with Goldwyn….and they made many classic movies together. As always thanks for stopping by and talking movies….my next classic performer will be Mr. Walter Matthau….I am about 85% done finding all the movie stats on his movie career.