Want to know the best John Williams movies? How about the worst John Williams movies? Curious about John Williams box office grosses or which John Williams movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which John Williams movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
John Williams (1932-) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning over six decades, Williams has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, including Jaws, the Star Wars series, Superman, the Indiana Jones series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and the first three Harry Potter films. Williams has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for the majority of his feature films.
His IMDb page shows 146 composing credits from 1956 to 2018. This page will rank 105 John Williams movies. Movies will be ranked from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts and documentaries were not included in the rankings. Since it is his music that has made him famous…we figured we should include a You Tube video that can be listened to while you check out his massive and incredible movie career.
John Williams 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 John Williams movies by co-stars of his movies
- Sort John Williams movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort John Williams movies by yearly domestic box office rank or trivia
- Sort John Williams 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 John Williams movie received.
- Sort John Williams 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 John Williams Table
- Fifty-three John Williams movie crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 50.96% of his movies listed. Star Wars (1977) is his biggest box office hit.
- An average John Williams movie grosses $214.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 75 of John Williams’s movies are rated as good movies…or 72.11% of his movies. Schindler’s List (1993) is his highest rated movie while Daddy-O (1958) is his lowest rated movie.
- Fifty-six John Williams movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 53.84% of his movies.
- Twenty-two John Williams movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 21.55% of his movies.
- An good Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 60.00. 75 John Williams movie scored higher that average….or 72.11% of his movies. Schindler’s List (1993) got the the highest UMR Score while Stanley & Iris (1990) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About John Williams
1. John Towner Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in Floral Park, New York.
2. John Williams has received 50 Oscar® nominations in his career….he has won 5 Oscars®.
3. John Williams has composed the music for all but two of Steven Spielberg‘s feature films: Those movies were 2015’s Bridge of Spies and 1985’s The Color Purple.
4. John Williams composed the music for Alfred Hitchcock’s last film….1975’s Family Plot.
5. John Williams was the conductor of the Boston Pops for 12 years.
6. In 2005, John Williams’ scores for 1977’s Star Wars, 1975’s Jaws and 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial were respectively ranked #1, #6, and #14 on the AFI’s list of the Top 25 Film Scores in the past 100 years.
7. John Williams was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts on February 25, 2010 at the White House in Washington D.C. for his services and contributions to music.
8. John Williams has been married two times. He has three children.
9. John Williams career movie totals: When looking at adjusted domestic box office grosses, his movies have grossed $22.36 BILLION. They have received 213 Oscar® nominations…..winning 44 Oscars®.
10. When looking at Box Office Mojo’s Top 200 Adjusted All-Time Box Office Hits list…John Williams has 18 movies in their Top 100….and 4 of their Top 11 movies…..just incredible.
Check out John Williams‘s career compared to other UMR subjects. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
This page was a request from Steve Lensman. Steve has a wonderful page on my favorite John Willliams movie….1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Follow this link to get there.
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
When I worked at BMI from 1995 to 2010 John Williams was the biggest composer we licensed music for. The late Jerry Goldsmith was # 2. Even though we represented other musical greats like Danny Elfman, John Barry and the like our #3 composer was Patrick Williams. Bet you can’t name anything he composed for (tons of made for TV films). Also we would represent strange people that composed a lot. Michael Bacon (Kevin’s brother) did tons of National Geographic Programs, Don Grady from My Three Sons did a lot of work for TV as did one hit wonders of the 70’s like Jay Ferguson and Walter Murphy. 3 members of the forgotten group Oingo Boingo (“Weird Science”) became prolific film composers (Elfman, Steve Bartek and Richard Gibbs).
Hey Dan…..that is very cool behind the scenes stuff from BMI. I have of course heard of Jerry Goldsmith…..but you are 100% correct no idea who Patrick Williams is. Danny Elfman would make a good page too….his music for the Tim Burton movies is very unique. I actually not only remember Oingo Boingo….but I used to have a couple of his cassettes. Those cassettes like 99.9% ever made are now in Cassette Heaven…..right next to the 8 Tracks and the VHS/Beta tapes….lol.
Did not know Kevin Bacon’s brother was a composer….very cool stuff. Thanks for sharing a very interesting comment….it is greatly appreciated.
I know lots of these movies! At least, lots of the post 1980s ones….great movies need great composers!! Do Hans Zimmer next!
Thanks Katie….good point. Hans Zimmer would be a good one. When looking for Williams videos I found this You Tube video…you might like it…..though it does not have nearly the same impact….lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Tpx9uajOw
John Williams, one of the greatest film composers ever, gets his own special movie page!
Looking at the stats and facts section, so many impressive achievements, 50 Oscar nominations! “…his movies have grossed $22.36 BILLION. They have received 213 Oscar® nominations…..winning 44 Oscars®.” Wow!
There are 38 movies from the 104 listed I haven’t seen, which takes my tally up to 66 watched.
According to my datafiles I have 28 John Williams soundtracks on LP and CD. One of the first soundtrack LPs I ever bought was Jaws. February 1976 it cost me for £3. 40 years ago! I feel old. 🙂
Favorites include – the Star Wars saga, Indiana Jones, Superman the Movie, Dracula, The Towering Inferno, The Witches of Eastwick, ET, Jurassic Park, Jaws and Close Encounters.
Schindler’s List tops the UMR and critics charts, the film that finally won Spielberg an Oscar, it’s not a favorite of mine I have it on DVD but I rarely watch it. I didn’t buy the soundtrack to that one. Too depressing.
As much as I like John Williams I’m not a big fan of his ‘serious’ scores. And they all seem to sound alike to me.
Williams has scored some of the most famous and most recognizable film themes of all time. Music I can never get bored listening to, but I have to confess that he isn’t my no.1 favorite composer, or even my no.2…
…my favorite film composer [cue drum roll] has always been Jerry Goldsmith followed by Hitchcock favorite Bernard Herrmann, but Williams isn’t far behind. (I have well over 100 Goldsmith soundtracks in my collection). Maybe one day you can do a similar page on Goldsmith and Herrmann.
Cheers Bruce, and thanks for the link too! Voted Up.
Hey Steve.
1. Glad you checked out your requested John Williams page. Originally I was going to only do his 50 Oscar nominated movies….but when I realized his 50 nominations came from 47 movies….I decided to include all of his movies.
2. Tally count…..me 75…you 66 and Flora 39.
3. I imagine that LP of Jaws might actually be worth a little….especially since it is now over 40 years old….you are not the only one feeling old….lol.
4. Schlinder’s List is a great movie….but not one begging to be rewatched….I have seen it once….not thinking I will see it again…anytime soon.
5. So Goldsmith and Herrmann top Williams in your book….they are both awesome….but I do not think they can come close to the box office success that Williams has experienced.
6. I imagine your vault of movies and LPs/CDs has to be huge!
7. Another tally count….I have seen 24 of these movies in theaters.
Thanks for the comment.
Hi, Bruce.
Great page on a composer.
I have seen 39 of his films so far. Most of the films I have seen are not the famous/franchise ones.
However, regardless of whether or not I have seen the films, I still know the scores outside of the films – most famous example of this is Jaws.
How wonderful that Williams scored Hitch’s final movie.
Hey Flora.
1. Yep now we have a composer on the website…to go with our one costume designer (Edith Head) and our one writer (William Goldman).
2. Tally count….Steve…66….you 39….and me…counting…75….I was on roll….for awhile…but once I reached the 1970s….my missed movies really went up.
3. Not thinking many people are not aware of Jaws’ music…it is always in my head when I go to the beach…lol.
4. I figured you would like the Hitch trivia.
As always thanks for stopping by and sharing your movie knowledge.
The man is a genius. All of his scores are wonderful. I have always felt Empire of the Sun and War of the Worlds were under aprreciated gems for sure. Impressive page on a impressive man.
Hey Genius….I would have to agree with you. I saw a John Williams Movie Concert once…and the conductor told the audience that he thought his music from Empire of the Sun was his best….I will have to really pay attention to the music the next time I watch War of the Worlds. Thanks for commenting.